being human |
|
Humanness, being made in the image of God, is like a key which unlocks all the doors in the house of the Christian life. In this article we wish to step back from this organizing principle to view the design of the house as a whole. In other words, we intend to examine the framework within which the Christian life is to be understood. Why is it important to consider this framework? Can we not just get on with considering biblical passages about the Christian life? Why bother with frameworks (biblical or otherwise) and alternative philosophies? These are good questions and deserve an answer. If the framework within which we consider spirituality is unbiblical, the conclusions we come to about the Christian life and how to grow as a Christian are bound to be wrong. Even if we are influenced unwittingly by unbiblical ideas about the nature of reality as a whole, our understanding of spirituality will be distorted. Some things which are right in themselves will assume a place of importance out of all proportion to their value. Other things which the Bible clearly teaches as of central importance will be given little stress or might even be rejected as having no value at all. To the extent that we are affected by other ideas of the nature of reality, our spiritual experience will be impoverished. Without a knowledge of the "floor plan," we might neglect some rooms, while others, though unlocked and entered, might be misused, and still others disregarded altogether. In ignorance we might even spend much of our lives in imaginary rooms. So there is a clear need to consider the biblical framework and the alternative views of reality. All teaching on Christian maturity must conform to the teaching of the Bible and its view of reality. The test has to be applied both with regard to content and emphasis. What is taught must not only be true, but properly emphasized. We will consider three views of reality: the materialistic, As we do so we will consider what effects each has on one's view of the Christian life. It should become very clear that it is essential to have the right plan of the house of reality. |
the materialistic view
We live in a largely materialistic culture, a culture which denies the reality of God's existence. Because it denies the existence of God it allows no possibility of the supernatural working into this world. There can be no relationship with God in the present, though psychological techniques may be used to try to give reality a “religious dimension.” Further, all life is regarded as the result of the chance process of evolution, producing the present array of diverse forms of life from original matter and energy.
Consequently, humans are viewed as an advanced form of animal or as a very complex machine. Each person is regarded as the result of genetic make-up or environmental conditioning or a combination of both. In this view, not only is the supernatural excluded from life, but so is any true human dignity. Our loves, aspirations to heroism, moral judgments, attempts at creativity and even individuality become suspect, having no ultimate value. Because of this view of reality, people seek meaning in the accumulation of material things, in the continual stimulation of the senses and emotions, and in techniques which are supposed to condition them to change.
This materialism has brought about a terrible poverty of human experience in our culture. The old are disregarded because they don't produce sufficiently to make themselves worthwhile units of society. As the spiritual ties which unite families are discarded, the family decays. People increasingly try to find meaning by satisfying their physical and sensual needs. But pleasure and material wealth do not produce happiness or meaning. The stimulation of the senses leads only to the need for greater and greater stimulation till the senses are jaded and unable to appreciate anything. In this vacuum of human experience people look desperately for something that will inject meaning into reality. They turn to experience, to the East, to the occult, to the multitude of new religions and new psychology's which spring up day by day.
What does this have to do with the Christian? The materialistic view has rubbed off on the church. Unhappily, the church often reflects society as a whole. Many Christian marriages are ending in divorce. Many Christian homes are little more than passing points for family members who lead totally separate lives. Many Christians become overburdened with the accumulation of wealth and possessions. Others, saddened by this state of affairs, turn to spiritual experiences to try to restore a spiritual dimension to their lives which, apart from attendance at church, differ so little from the lives of non-Christians. Christians sometimes live as practical atheists, professing belief in Christ but without any real conviction that God exists as a person. Without confidence that God exists, the prayer of believers can become sterile. How can I pray, believing that God will answer my prayers by working into this world, unless I'm sure deep down that God is and that he hears?
The materialistic philosophy of our culture creeps in and impoverishes the Christian life in all sorts of ways. Many have grown up in an environment where any supernatural statement of the Bible was explained away. Even if we do not doubt God's existence, we can become like the deist viewing God as the Creator who is removed from this world. Again prayer seems useless.
The Bible's authority is undermined by our culture in every area, whether natural science, social sciences or history. Unless we are convinced that the attacks on the Bible's authority in these areas are groundless, our spirituality will necessarily be affected.
This impoverishment caused by materialism's influence leads to a confusion about what genuine spirituality is. In the search for “life,” Christians often turn in the same direction society turns and simply reflect its answers. This “turn” can take two basic directions — either to experience or to techniques.
Just as materially motivated people in our materially motivated society turn to "religious" experiences offered by drugs, Eastern religions and the occult, so Christians too become involved in a frantic search for spiritual experiences which will assure them that God is really there and that they have a relationship with him. Often the experiences sought are valid in themselves, but are given disproportionate importance in proving God's existence and verifying the individual's relationship with him.
Some time ago a girl was vigorously advocating speaking in tongues: “If you get tongues then you'll be really sure of God's love. Then you'll know you have the Holy Spirit's power.” A sentence or two later she confessed, “Actually I am about to give up being a Christian. I'm not even sure that God exists or that what the Bible teaches is true.” This is very sad. Tongues, which Paul describes as a genuine gift of the Spirit, had become the only nail on which to hang this girl's faith, and it could not bear the weight.
Materialism also influences Christians to pursue mechanical techniques as the solution to spiritual weakness. Consequently, much teaching on the Christian life is made up of rules that have to be adhered to.
It is said, for example, that the key to Christian family life is having the right authority structure. Or, it is said that the wife must follow certain rules to keep up her husband's interest-she must remain the “fascinating woman.” A list of do's and don'ts show her how. Devotions at a set time each day or reading so many chapters of the Bible a day is said to be the key to a life of prayer. The key to growth is said to be personal evangelism.
Because some churches have been influenced by the moral laxity of our culture and have not practiced biblical discipline, other churches stress discipline and authority so strongly as “the answer” that they give the elders a wider authority over the members' lives than the New Testament suggests. For example, attendance at particular services is made compulsory, people are forbidden to move or marry without the elder's consent, each household must have a particular structure and rules, and so on.
Other proposed techniques concern church health and growth.
“What our church needs is an administrative reorganization. Call in a firm of consultants. It will have to be the best. Christ cannot be given second best.”
That may be and often is one way of trying to deal with the weakness of a particular church. But it certainly will not solve the problems of poverty.
“Our
church must have an outreach program. If only we could get everyone involved in
evangelism, then the church would grow. There's a new method which has been
successful in
“What we must have is small group Bible studies meeting in homes.”
“We need to receive the baptism of the Spirit and speak in tongues, then the church's life can really start.”
“Let's have group therapy, then everyone will get to know each other.”
“What we need is a larger building in a better situation. Then people will be attracted.”
Some of these proposals may have a legitimate place in the life of a church or an individual Christian. Of course there should be evangelism, Bible study and spiritual gifts. But how do they come across? New legalisms are set up; a bondage to structures and rules destroys the Christian's freedom. Human relationships and relationship with God are reduced to mechanical patterns. This is the language and method of behavioristic psychology, not of the New Testament!
Techniques do not make a Christian “spiritual” or solve a church's problems for they do not touch the central issues of the Christian life. Only a firm conviction of the truth of Christianity and our commitment to trust and obey God himself, with our minds renewed by the teaching of his Word, will bring any real or lasting change.
The New Testament writers were wise not to set up little patterns or models of how to pray, how to read the Bible or how to evangelize. Each Christian is a unique individual free to work out a pattern of what is most helpful within the framework of the moral law. We are given principles, not techniques.
In evangelism, for example, we are to state the truth plainly, not hesitating to deal with difficult questions (like judgment and the necessity of repentance) lest we scare someone off. We are to witness because we honor individuals as significant and valuable creatures made in God's image who need to hear the truth. Our words must be accompanied, if not preceded, by a life which exhibits the truth of which we speak, a life characterized by love, forgiveness, forbearance, hospitality and compassion. This sort of principle cannot be replaced by techniques or methods however successful. We should not be peddling the gospel with Madison Avenue methods; we should be simply living and proclaiming the truth. The details of how this is done must be worked out in each local situation by each individual or church within the biblical framework. Humanness, freedom and the possibility of true growth are lost when technique becomes the answer.
the biblical view of reality
In a sense we should not
speak of the Bible's “view” of reality as if it were one alternative among
several. For the Bible claims to be the truth about the
nature of the world in which we live. Its claim to be the truth can be
tested and proved, and is exclusive. All other views of reality must be false.
Biblical teaching on the
nature of reality begins with God himself. He is the all-powerful Creator of the
whole universe and has always existed. Everything else that exists has been
made by him at some time in the past. He has always been the same. He did not
gradually come into being as the universe grew, nor is he an idea in the minds
of men. Rather, all things are dependent on him for their being.
God not only created all
things, but sustains all things in their existence. He did not make the
world and then leave it, like a watch, to carry on by itself. The laws of nature
are in a sense simply descriptions of the way God upholds the universe. He acts
into the universe all the time, not just occasionally like some deus ex machina who now and then
throws a spear into this world.
God is spirit, not
restricted by space and so lives among us, knowing the thoughts and actions of
every human being. There is no escape from his presence. Because his knowledge is
infinite, nothing surprises him. He is sovereign over the course of this world.
He overrules history and some day will bring this age to a conclusion and
inaugurate a new age of righteousness.
God is also personal. There are and always
have been three persons in the Godhead. God is not some vague spiritual realm
or "consciousness," nor is he coextensive with reality, or "all
love" or just "being." Rather, the three persons of the Trinity
have always existed even before the creation of this world. They loved each
other, they communicated with each other. They were morally perfect. They
thought and decided and acted on those decisions to create other purely
spiritual beings, this material world and also man-a physical/spiritual being.
God's own character makes this world a moral world. All things are defined by
reference to his character of perfect goodness and justice.
We need to stress that
it is not mere metaphor to say that the personal God — Father, Son and Holy
Spirit — loves, thinks, communicates, acts, is morally perfect, and creates.
These are not metaphors drawn from our own experience by which we attempt to
describe a God who is ultimately so transcendent that he cannot be described.
They are first true of God himself and therefore are true of us also, as those
who are made in his image. We can be described as moral beings, as loving
beings, only because God is loving and moral. This is
of absolute importance. We are not putting labels on what is really unnamable.
Only because God has these personal characteristics do we, made in God's image,
have them also. (Interestingly, modern thinkers, having rejected a personal
God, are doubtful even about human personality, and so reduce people to
machinery simply because they have no ultimate reference point which is
personal.)
We were made like God
and intended to worship, love and enjoy him. God did not make us to relate to him
with one small part of our lives — the spiritual part. He made us to relate to
him and express his likeness in all of life-body, mind, emotions, will.
Adam and Eve were made
perfect but they chose (and so have we all) to disobey God and to pursue their
own way. The human problem since the Fall has been
a moral one — rebellion. Our problem is not that we are physical (or
mental, emotional or volitional) rather than nonphysical. Nor is it that we are
finite, that is, limited to existence in one place at one time, limited to a
partial knowledge of reality, limited to knowing the present but not the
future. No, there is nothing wrong with humanness as such. Our problem is
sinfulness, lack of moral conformity to God's character in every area of life.
This has brought sorrow into all our experience. The coming of Christ is God's
solution for our sinfulness and its results- pain, confusion, distortion of all
of life, and death.
Christ is the second
person of the Trinity, the Son. He lived forever with the Father and the Spirit
and then at a point in time, in history, was born in
Yet when we examine
Christ's life we see him neither using nor advocating any spiritual techniques.
His spirituality was expressed in his whole life, not in one little part. When
he prayed, he spoke to the Father in ordinary human language. There were no
barriers between him and the Father because he was not tainted with sin. The
only barrier came when he offered himself on the cross as the substitute in our
place, bearing our guilt and punishment. On the cross he experienced physical
death and separation from the Father because he was at that point, in one
sense, a great sinner and consequently had to bear God's wrath. Hence his cry that he was forsaken by the Father. The sins
for which he was punished were not his own but ours. Consequently, as God's
righteous Son, he was raised from the grave to live forevermore with a body as
both God and man.
We have peace with God
and the barriers to a relationship with him are removed if we put our trust in
Jesus Christ alone. If not, we remain condemned before God. Because of Christ's
work, believers are called God's children. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit
and have a love relationship with God. This peace with God is the basis on
which the whole Christian life is built.
In light of all this,
what is our calling as those restored to a relationship with God? Is it to make God
present — to “practice the presence of God?” No. Is it to seek spiritual
experiences to assure us of his love and power in our lives? No. Is it to pray,
to go to church, to study the Bible, to evangelize? No, though it involves
these things. Our calling is the same as Adam's was. It is to serve him with
our whole life, to love him, to enjoy him, to reflect his character. Every area
of our life is to express spirituality, not some special parts of it. Every
area of our life in every day is to express the relationship we have with him.
Because we have a relationship with him through Christ, we can speak to him
simply at any time. We do not have to use any special techniques to make him
present or to feel his presence, or to ensure our prayer is real. We can simply
talk to him as our loving Father.
Already we enjoy the
first fruits of the inheritance Christ has won for us. But we look forward to
the day when we shall see him face to face. When we die, though our bodies
decay in the grave, we go to be with Christ and we await
the day when he will return in power to reign over this earth. If we have died
when he comes, our bodies will be raised; if we are alive at his coming, then
we will be physically changed and perfected. This transformation at Christ's
return is the consummation of our salvation. We will still be finite humans,
but we will be without sin and our bodies will no longer be subject to
sickness, decay or death. Along with us, the whole creation will be transformed
and we shall live in a new earth and heavens, enjoying forever our relationship
with God.
the platonic view
This third view of the
nature of reality has had as detrimental an effect on the church as the
materialistic view. In some ways it is more dangerous because it can be
presented in a way which has a superficial resemblance to the biblical view and
for this reason we treat it last. Because of this resemblance the Platonic
view has influenced the whole history of the church, from the first centuries
until today. Therefore, we will trace its ideas and development in some
detail. It is important to grasp some of the basic ideas of Platonism, as every
Christian meets it disguised in one form or another.
In the Platonic view, reality is made up of two parts-the material realm and the spiritual realm.
The material realm is
the realm of the physical world. It is imperfect, transitory and shadowy. The
spiritual realm is the realm of the “ideas,” that is, the forms which stand
behind the appearances of the material world. The forms or ideas are more real
than the things which exist in this material world. The spiritual realm is the
realm of permanence, of the perfect, of the real. This spiritual realm is not
itself personal, though it may be called divine. The gods may be included in it
as spiritual beings.
To understand how this
view of reality affects one's understanding of
spirituality, let us picture man as another circle, superimposed on the other
two as in Figure 2.
the idea that the
spiritual is superior
to the physical
(According to Platonism) on the one hand,
humans are physical and supplied with senses. With our senses we relate to the
physical world, evaluating sense perceptions with reason. On the other hand, we
each have a spirit. We relate to the spiritual realm through our spirits, not through the senses nor primarily through reason.
Accordingly, in
Platonic thought the spiritual realm is considered superior to the material.
The spirit is housed in a body of clay from which it longs to be released.
Death gives that final release. In this life, however, the aim is to dwell in
the realm of the spirit as far as possible and de- emphasize and devalue the
material realm. So the philosopher and the artist are those who are in
closest contact with the spiritual realm because they are caught up in the
contemplation of the ideas, the divine, the beautiful and the celestial.
The material world is
not regarded as of no importance. However, it has
value only insofar as it acts as a kind of sparkplug to set off the mystical
contemplation of the more real spiritual realm. For example, I see the beauty
of a flower but I don't “stay” with its beauty. Its beauty is imperfect and I
use it only to contemplate the true beauty of the world of the real which
stands behind this world. This world has no value, except as a catalyst. Plato
says,
He who sees this true
beauty is transported with the recollection of true beauty when he sees beauty
here on earth: then, careless of the world below....
We see the beauty of this earth and man —
a kind of ecstasy overtakes us and the soul is renewed.
Plato has established a
spiritual hierarchy. Ordinary people who pursue earthly tasks in the material world
are low in the hierarchy because they are not in such close contact with the
spiritual realm as the philosopher and inspired artist. Those
who have been in contact with the spiritual realm become “careless” of this
world. Notice how easy it would be to read the biblical statements
against worldliness, or earthly passions or the desires of the flesh in a
Platonic way. This would be a mistake.
In his Phaedrus, Plato writes of the ways we gain contact
with the spiritual realm. He outlines the four ways of “divine madness.” By
madness Plato means that the experience comes from the spiritual realm rather
than from or through the mind. The human spirit has direct contact with the
spiritual realm. The mind may evaluate the experiences, but the final authority
is the divine power or madness which possesses the spirit. The four ways are:
prophecy
There is also a
madness which is a divine gift and the source of the chiefest
blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness,
and the prophetesses at
healing madness
This
seems to be a kind of emotional catharsis caused by contact with the spiritual
realm.
Where troubles arise
... there madness has entered ... and by inspired utterances found a way of
deliverance for those who are in need ... and he who has part in this gift and
is truly possessed and duly out of his mind is made whole and exempt from evil,
future as well as present, and has a release from the calamity which was
afflicting him.
artistic inspiration
Plato makes it clear that there is no entry into the temple of the arts by
artistic effort and human creativity.
The sane man
disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.
divine love
The madness of love is
the greatest of heaven's blessings. The man of ideas [the one who
contemplates heavenly beauty and who knows most of divine love] forgets earthly
interests and is rapt in the divine ... the vulgar rebuke him and deem him
mad... they do not see that he is inspired.
In all four of these
ways of relating to the spiritual realm there is an emphasis on the uselessness
of ordinary human experience. In the presence of the spirit the human is
devalued, the mind has no place, creativity is useless, the
earthly is forgotten. The spiritual realm is even called the “demonic” by
Plato. Socrates, in the Phaedrus, hears the voice of
the “demonic” within him telling him what he must not do. This inner voice is
always to be held as a higher authority than his reason. Because it is from the
realm of spirit it must be obeyed.
platonic influence
on christianity
Plato's thought had a
profound effect on the early church's view of spirituality. In the second century
A.D., Justin Martyr had been influenced by Plato before he became a Christian.
After his conversion he carried much of Plato's thinking over into his
teaching. He called Plato a Christian before Christ. Where the Old Testament
was the pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ, so, for Justin
(and later for some of the Greek fathers), Platonic philosophy was
the pedagogue to lead the Greeks to Christ. In the next century, Clement and
others in
Plotinus, a third-century Roman philosopher who was not a Christian, is called the father of Neo- Platonism. He elaborated some of Plato's ideas and developed them much further. He stressed the transcendence of the divine, the importance of meditation and the union of the human spirit with the divine in the life of contemplation.
He
wrote that the way to divine knowledge is
to separate yourself
from your body and very earnestly to put aside the system of sense with its
desires and impulses and every such futility.
There could be no
language about God:
The one is truth
beyond all statement....
The All- Transcending has no name.
We can state what it is not,
while we are silent as to what it is.
Those who are divinely possessed
and inspired have at least knowledge
that they hold some greater thing within them,
though they cannot tell what it is.
This divine encounter
was above reason, the mind and feeling.
At the moment of truth
there is no power whatever to make any affirmation ...
how is this [the divine encounter] to be accomplished? ...
let all else go.
Plotinus' teaching that
religious language is only symbolic was taken up by Dionysius the Areopagite within the Christian church. Dionysius stressed
the transcendence (otherness) and oneness of God rather than God's personalness. For Dionysius language about God was
meaningless. Verbal prayer was for him only a poor substitute for “real”
prayer.
In this connection he is
famous for teaching what is called the via negativa — the “negative way”:
Spiritual growth,
according to Dionysius, does not come through understanding who God is and what
his blessings are. Rather, we must remove all positive statements about God
until we are left with silence — the bare communion of the soul with God.
Lossky, presenting
Dionysius' position, says,
The perfect way, the
only way which is fitting in regard to God, who is of his very nature
unknowable, is the second (the negative way), which leads us finally to total
ignorance. All knowledge has as its object that which is. Now God is beyond all
that exists. In order to approach him it is necessary to deny all that is
inferior to him, that is to say, all that which is. If in seeing God one can
know what one sees, then one has not seen God in himself but something
intelligible, something which is inferior to Him. It is by unknowing that one
may know him who is above every possible object of knowledge. Proceeding by
negatives one ascends from the inferior degrees of being to the highest, by
progressively setting aside all that can be known, in order to draw near to the
Unknown in the darkness of absolute ignorance.
This emphasis on God
being beyond all knowledge is a fundamental characteristic of the mystical
tradition of the church. This way of ignorance can only be pursued by removing
sense and reason, by abandoning not only what is impure but even what is pure.
(Later we will discuss the similar emphasis in some evangelicalism of this
century on self-emptying, on brokenness, on the uselessness of the mind and
doctrine, and on the removing even of what seems good in the self.)
consequences
of platonic thinking
The purpose of these
spiritual exercises [in Platonic-oriented thinking] is union with God. The object is to become
so united with God in the inner being that one passes beyond subjectivity (“I
perceive God”) and beyond objectivity (“God perceives me”). The individual
attempts to reach a point where the Creator/creature distinction is no longer
true or, at least, is no longer perceived.
This kind of union with
God is never the purpose of spiritual life in the Bible. There will always be
the Creator/ creature distinction, even in heaven. When glorified and perfectly
restored to God's likeness, we will still perceive God and ourselves as
different beings (Rev. 15:3-4; 21:1-6; 19:6-8). Consider Paul's statement:
Then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Cor. 13:12
This is of fundamental
importance as we consider what spirituality is. Confusion at this point leads
to Watchman Nee's suggestion [see side bar] that our spirit and
God's spirit become so one that to us they are indistinguishable and undifferentiable. (In fact it is unhelpful for us to ask
whether promptings to righteousness arise from ourselves or from the Holy
Spirit implanting his desires within us. But it is unhelpful because his work
is secret, not because there is a confusion or merging
of his personality and ours.)
The emphasis on the total
otherness of God leads to a devaluation of all language and of knowledge
perceived by the mind. Language is considered to be essentially idolatrous.
There is only one name
by which
the divine nature can be expressed:
the wonder which seizes the soul
when it thinks of God.
Gregory of
Nyssa
We have shown elsewhere
that language is not idolatrous because there is a correlation between God and
man.
The confusion here
arises from forgetting the distinction between true knowledge and exhaustive
knowledge, true language and exhaustive language. In saying we can know
or say certain things about God, we do not claim that we have said everything
about God which can be said, or that we know all that can be known. This is true
not only of our knowledge of God but even of our knowledge of other people or
of the material world. Though incomplete, our knowledge of God is accurate
because he has made himself known to us in the Bible and there described himself for us.
Mystics, forgetting this
distinction between true and exhaustive knowledge and stressing that God is
utterly different from man, devalued language both as a means of talking about
God in theology and as prayer. Notice that neo-orthodox theology is very
similar to the mystical tradition at this point. God is considered to be
completely other, and so is said to be unapproachable by man. Language about
God is thought to be merely an expression of our “encounter” with God, rather
than a true description of him. The Bible itself, it is said, “contains” God's
Word and becomes the Word of God only when God is "encountered" in
it. Christians must always engage Scripture with the mind and never devalue the
mental effort of study with the assertion that Scripture comes alive only when
God's spirit “touches” our spirit as we read.
This devaluation of
language and mental knowledge makes the Christian life ascetic. The mind as well as
everything external is rejected. Sin is said to be “exteriorization,” that is,
to experience oneself as a self is to be in a state of sin. So, there is
to be a continuous exodus from oneself. The goal of the spiritual life is to
attain to a state of impassibility wherein one is affected by nothing in the
external world, or even by any internal passions — a state of quietness beyond
suffering or pleasure.
Here, too, there is
total confusion about the biblical teaching on what is sinful. It is not the
self as such which is a problem, but the sin which affects
every part of the self. The sin, not the self, is to be mortified.
Evangelicals often become confused about asceticism and the self.
In the mystical
tradition, not surprisingly, prayer using words becomes a means to achieve a
state of passionlessness. This verbal prayer is said
to be only the frontier of prayer. When the state of passionlessness
is reached, then begins the wordless, contemplative
prayer in which the heart lays itself open before God in total
silence. A state of ecstasy is the result, but even this is only the
beginning. “The expert,” so it is claimed, moves into a state of constant
experience of the divine reality.
In order to achieve
these states, techniques for prayer are proposed. An example is the Prayer of the Heart — the continual
repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.” Nicephorus wrote of this prayer:
In every man inner
talking is in the breast. For, when our lips are silent, it is in the breast
that we talk and discourse with ourselves, pray and sing psalms, and do other
things. Thus, having banished every thought from this inner talking (for you
can do this if you want to), give it the following short prayer: "Lord,
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me!"- and
force it, instead of all other thought, to have this one constant cry within.
If you continue to do this constantly, with your whole attention, then in time
this will open for you the way to the heart which I have described.
But what about Jesus' warning against prayers of vain repetition (Mt. 6:7)?
The Prayer of the Heart is really no different from the mantra of
Eastern thought. Some Christians use this prayer today, but we
should see that the framework in which the use of this
prayer and other techniques like it arose, has nothing to do with biblical
Christianity. These techniques may certainly produce intense experiences (as
does the use of a mantra), but they are quite unrelated to genuine Christian
prayer.
Emphasis on this sort of
meditation and the mysticism of union with God became, unhappily, a broad
stream in the history of the Christian church. The medieval work The
Cloud of Unknowing betrays in its title the influence of the negative way and
of Dionysius. This stream is still with us and its tributaries continue to flow
through the evangelical church in unexpected places.
The danger of an
uncritical acceptance of this tradition is indicated by some comments of
William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience. James examines at
great length the mystical tradition not only in the Christian church but also
in other religions. He comes to the conclusion that all the mystics from
whatever source, stand in one tradition. Commenting on the devaluation of
language, he points out that if there is nothing to be said, then
contrary to the protestations of some of the theologians, doctrine is
essentially unimportant.
James also comments that
it is odd that evangelicals have abandoned the methodical search for mystical
experience and considers that evangelical Protestantism appears flat compared
with the mystical tradition.
The naked gospel
scheme seems
to offer an almshouse for a palace.
william james
The “naked gospel
scheme” is not an almshouse, however, for the basis of our rejoicing comes not
from the pursuit of ecstasy or the experience of the loss of personality in
God, but from the knowledge that we who deserve eternal punishment and
exclusion from God's presence have been bought back by Christ's death into
fellowship with our Creator.
platonic thinking today
Carl
Gustav Jung, among the most influential of modern thinkers, stands
in the Platonic tradition. His world view is very similar to Plato's. While
acknowledging the existence of a spiritual realm, he certainly does not think
of the Spirit as the personal God of the Bible. For Jung, Christian doctrine is
just one culturally conditioned, verbal expression of the nature of the
spiritual realm. Naturally, then, the way of experiencing and describing this
reality varies from culture to culture. The Hindu describes this “spirit” in
characteristic Hindu terminology; the Muslim in Islamic terms; the Christian in
Christian terms. The spiritual reality behind the words is the same.
We should remember,
therefore, the use of Christian words is no guarantee that the thinking or the
view of reality being offered is biblical. Jung wrote of “God the Father,” “Christ”
and the “Holy Spirit,” but he used these as labels for spiritual experience.
The reality behind the words is a vast spiritual realm, but certainly not the
personal, triune God of the Bible. [see our review of Deepak Chopra]
The views of Plato and
Jung are being equated by some today with the biblical world view. A striking
example is Morton Kelsey.
Kelsey seems to have
come from the rationalistic background of modern liberal theology which he rightly
considers bankrupt because of its failure to deal adequately with the
supernatural element in the Bible. When confronted by phenomena like dreams,
tongues, prophecy and healing, he saw the need to find
a framework which accommodated such experiences. He then explicitly adopted the
world view of Plato and Jung and equated their view with the biblical world
view.
According to Kelsey, the
main human problem is not moral, but is the need to be in contact with the
spiritual realm. His central emphasis is not the atonement of Christ, but
spiritual experiences which, he says, are the means by which one is restored to
contact with the spiritual. Consequently, he stresses tongues, healing,
emotional catharsis, spiritual filling, meditation, prophecy and dreams. The
Spirit brings wholeness primarily in these ways. The extraordinary becomes the
Spirit's usual way.
Kelsey acknowledges that
when one makes excursions into this spiritual realm of the unconscious one is
opening oneself up to evil as well as good and so one needs a spiritual
confessor to guide one through these dangerous waters. This realm (which he
refers to as the Holy Spirit or self) is a place of subconscious forces or
spiritual powers beyond our normal rational experience. A journey into it is
intended to restore a lost dimension to our experience parched by materialism
and thus revitalize our lives. This thinking is very similar to the gnostic theosophies which plagued the early church and is
right in line with the resurgence of interest in religious experience and the
occult which exists in our culture. What is particularly dangerous about
Kelsey's thinking is that it is presented in biblical language.
Nevertheless, this is
not biblical Christianity. The acknowledgment of a spiritual realm and the
use of God’s names to describe it do not mean that a biblical view is present.
The Holy Spirit is not “a spiritual realm,” nor is he the unconscious part of
our psyche, nor the spiritual ground of all human life. He is not a part of any
of these things. The Holy Spirit is a personal being. And we come into a
relationship with him not through extraordinary spiritual experiences, nor
through meditation, nor inward silence, but through believing that Christ died
for our sins. Therefore, spirituality is to be expressed not by the sort of
"divine encounter" which Kelsey, Jung or Plato suggest, but simply by
loving the personal God who made us and redeemed us, and by obeying his commandments.
We stress this because
Kelsey's book Encounter with God already seems to have confused many
true Christians to the point of believing that biblical Christianity is what
Kelsey describes. For instance, one prominent charismatic leader is quoted on
the cover:
Kelsey's book ...
points people to a discoverable reality ... it could have, in the field of
theology, the kind of effect that Copernicus had in the field of astronomy-it
sets forth a whole new scheme of reality. It provides the most thoroughly
worked-out and documented theology for the charismatic which has been done
anywhere. Beyond this it offers a whole new perspective from which to teach the
Christian faith.... I’d love to see it used as a textbook.
Larry
Christenson
I
n the foreword of the
book another charismatic leader writes:
It gives encounter an undergirding of theology.
John L.
Sherrill
Though Encounter with God was considered to be
one of the most important books of 1974 by evangelical leaders in
It is naive to think
that Christ is honored wherever the Holy Spirit is mentioned or “experiences
with the Spirit” are encouraged. The New Testament commands us to test
spiritual claims by biblical doctrine (1 Jn. 4:1-3; Gal. 1:
6-9).
platonists unawares
Morton Kelsey is an
example of one who has deliberately adopted elements of the Platonic world
view. More frequently, someone within the mainstream of orthodox
Christianity is influenced by Platonism without realizing the source, and
genuinely confuses it with biblical teaching. For example, extraordinary
spiritual experiences may be considered ultimate (rather than subordinate) in
the Christian life, or the mind may be devalued.
Watchman Nee provides
several clear examples of this kind of Platonic influence. According to Nee, the
person is composed of three parts: the inner man (the spirit), the outer man
(the soul) and the outermost man (the body). Because they belong to the outer
man, neither the emotions nor the mental thoughts have the same nature as God.
Only the spirit relates to God. Nee seems to say that the spirit of the
Christian and God’s Spirit are fused. The self, or soul, must be broken for the
spirit to be released.
Nee's stress on dependence on God, and on the humility we ought to have as sinners is of great value. But it seems to us that he goes beyond this valuable emphasis when he speaks of the breaking of the soul to release the spirit. He seems to be rejecting not merely the sinful nature but the self, for is not the self constituted by the emotions, the mind, the will — Nee's “outer man”? Consequently he devalues the human.
He says that natural compassion and tenderness are still sinful because they
are only human. These too must be broken to allow the Spirit to do his
work. This breaking of the self he regards as a
particular experience which one must seek to have.
Nee says,
further, that to read the Scriptures with the mind is not enough, even
though we may think we have been helped.
Nee's teaching in these areas
may flow from a misunderstanding of Galatians 2:20: It is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives in me. This, he seems to have taken to mean that the
self must no longer play any part in the spiritual life, the “I” must be
replaced by Christ. This is why he sees all the efforts of the self in attempting
to practice righteousness as sinful. This also explains his view of the
necessity of enlightenment, as over against mental effort, in reading the
Scriptures.
What does Paul mean in
Galatians 2:20? He cannot be taken to mean that the self is or must be replaced,
for he goes on to add in the same verse: The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul's “I” continues to
live — it has not disappeared and should not disappear. Further, the context
indicates that Paul is dealing with the question of justification through
faith alone. In verse 19 he says, I died to the law: Paul is no longer trying to justify
himself or build himself up. Rather, he is “living to God.” His life is now
centered on God and thankfulness to him. Verse 20 simply reiterates the same
point. He is no longer trying to establish his own righteousness before God
or with no help from God. Instead, he sees Christ as the source of his
whole life. Christ's work is now central to his existence.
Paul recognizes that
without Christ he would be “dead” — alienated from God. Only through his faith
in Christ is he alive to God, and therefore truly alive. Christ has brought
light to his mind; where before he was ignorant of the truth, now through
Christ he has wisdom. Where before the need to justify
himself brought rebellion against the law and bondage to sin, now because of
Christ he is free to obey the law and to practice righteousness.
As Paul looks at
himself, he sees that his whole life as a believer is built upon the foundation
of Christ's work. Faith in Christ is the central ingredient of his relationship
with God, of his relationships with others and of his own inward security.
Because of this continual state of dependence on Christ, Paul can make the
startling statement: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Paul is no longer
living autonomously. He knows that his life flows from Christ, his Creator and
Redeemer. But Paul is not making a statement of nonexistence of the self, nor
of self-rejection.
Much of what Watchman
Nee has written is very helpful, particularly his emphasis on faith and the
need to be yielded in all things to God, but his teaching on the self is
unbalanced, unhelpful and contrary to the New Testament's teaching.
physical for eternity
The biblical view of
several areas, particularly the body, the world, spiritual gifts and prayer, is
worth noticing in relation to Platonic thought. The Bible's view of the
body is quite different from the Platonic view. God called his physical
creation very
good. Our
physical nature is part of our structure as human beings. Because our bodies
are made by God they are to be enjoyed. Consider the celebration of sexuality
in the Song of Solomon. We are called to honor God in our bodies (1 Cor.
The great value God
gives to the body is best shown by the physical resurrection. We will be physical
for eternity. The passage which may seem most Platonic, at a superficial
glance, is in fact the very opposite of Platonic thinking (2 Cor. 5:1-5).
Now we know that if the
earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal
house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be
clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be
found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because
we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so
that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us
for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing
what is to come.
In this passage Paul
speaks of his longing to be released from this life and from this body which is
subject to mortality. We long, however, not to be unclothed but to be
clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up
by life. Paul longs not for a less physical experience but for a better
physical experience--one unmarred by sickness and decay.
In fact, Paul adds that
the Holy Spirit is given to us as a guarantee of this physical resurrection. Far from being
unspiritual or having nothing to do with true spirituality, the body is of such
supreme value to God that we are given the Spirit to assure us that we always
will be physical. He puts the same great emphasis on our future physical life
in Romans 8:23 where he equates our adoption with the redemption of our bodies.
Thus asceticism for its own sake has no place in Christianity.
separation of sacred and secular
Platonism, as we have
seen, teaches that as we become absorbed in the spiritual realm “we become
careless of the world below.” Is this what the New Testament means when it
urges us not to love the things of this world?
The “world” in the New
Testament is the sphere of life in which God's lordship is rejected, where the
things of this life become ends in themselves or even are worshiped. The world
in this sense is most certainly to be rejected, but this does not mean that we
are to hate life, culture, nature, sex and other material things.
Everything created by God
is good,
and nothing is to be rejected if it is
received with thanksgiving.
1 Timothy 4:4
Paul even asserts that
the teaching that the material world is not to be enjoyed is a doctrine of demons (v. 1). We have been
created to enjoy God's world in all its richness. Human culture is also to be
enjoyed. Spirituality involves the whole of human life; nothing is nonspiritual. But wherever Platonism has affected Christian
teaching there has been a separation of the sacred and secular. Thus, prayer,
worship, evangelism and “the ministry” are thought to be sacred. All other
activities are secular. The sacred is said to be more spiritual.
Even where a necessary
involvement in everyday tasks is acknowledged to be a Christian duty, the work,
it is said, has to be done only physically. The spirit within
has to be involved in silent communion with God, practicing his presence. This
is similar to the command of the BhagavadGita
to act as if we were not acting, love as if we were not
loving. The necessity of involvement in the world of people and things
is accepted, but the action must be done with the spirit withdrawn into the
secret place of union with God, where the "real" business of life is
said to be carried on.
This mentality subtly
affects Christian thinking in numerous ways. For example, someone might say, “If only
I could be involved in something really spiritual like witnessing rather than
peeling these potatoes.” The New Testament stands absolutely against this
division of life into more and less spiritual sections. Consider Ephesians
5:18. We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit continuously. How is this
to be expressed? In singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; in giving
thanks in all things; and also in thinking of others' needs as we submit to one
another in the ordinary everyday relationships of husband and wife, parent and
child, employer and employee. We are to obey God's Word in all these areas,
living before him in dependence on his Spirit. This is what it means to be
filled with the Spirit.
Paul says elsewhere that
we are to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 3:17).
All we do is to be done under the lordship of Christ--even washing floors.
Everything we do as human beings is spiritually important. There is no sacred
and secular. This does not mean merely that we see practical value in
“secular” tasks like peeling potatoes and washing the floor. It means far more:
God himself delights in them because he has created the realm of the physical.
Therefore, we are to value every part of our lives just as he does. In fact,
spirituality is to be expressed primarily in the ordinary everyday affairs and
relationships of our lives. God will reward his servants both for their work in
everyday tasks (even if in slavery-Col. 3:22-24), and for their work in
proclaiming the gospel (1 Thess.
gifts: no natural/supernatural division
Associated with this
scorn of mundane activities is the devaluation of natural, as over against
supernatural matters. Platonic thinking separates that which is merely human from
that which is spiritual, the mental from the divine. The same kind of division
is made by Christians in the area of gifts: the natural and the supernatural,
the ordinary and the charismatic. But, is this a biblical division?
In the New Testament's
teaching on gifts there is no such division made between the human and the
divine.
Gifts as varied as teaching, prophecy, service, encouraging, contributing to
the needs of others, leadership, showing mercy, speaking with wisdom, speaking
with knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, distinguishing between
spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, apostles, helping others and
administration are all called charismatic in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 and 28-31,
Romans 12:5-8 and 1 Peter 4:10-11. In each of these four passages in the Greek
text the term charisma (literally “grace gift") is used. (Though charisma is not used in Eph. 4:7-11, we might also add
evangelism and pastoring to the list. Marriage
and singleness are also referred to as charismata in 1 Cor.
7.)
It is plain that the
various lists include both “ordinary" and “extraordinary" gifts, but
no division of natural/supernatural or human/divine is indicated. It is wrong
to label particular gifts extraordinary and say these are the really spiritual
ones. That a gift like tongues or healing or working miracles is more obviously
given directly by the Spirit, does not put it on a higher plane. Nor does it
demonstrate that the person who exercises such a gift is more open to the
Spirit or knows a fullness of the Spirit not enjoyed by others who have more
ordinary gifts.
Singling out the
extraordinary gifts is not necessarily expressing greater openness to the
Spirit: it may in fact define the work of the Spirit too narrowly. The Spirit
works into the whole of our lives, in our ordinary human experience as well as
in extraordinary ways. The Spirit was involved in the creation of each of us;
he has been the sovereign Lord over each of our lives; he has given us new life
as believers; he gives us new gifts after we become Christians, either
“ordinary” or “extraordinary.”
Jeremiah, for example,
was prepared from the womb for his calling as a prophet of God. His whole life
contributed to make him God's prophet. This was true also of Paul. When Paul
became a Christian, God added gifts to those he had already given him at birth
which had been developed by his training. All these worked together to make
Paul, the apostle, God's gift to the church. The same is true of each one of
us.
On the other hand, the
“extraordinary” gifts should not be devalued. That would be as mistaken as the
disproportionate value sometimes given to them. We should all desire good gifts
and believe that God will give them to us, ordinary and extraordinary, when his
church needs them. For example, if we are faced with someone who has been into
the occult or the demonic, we should pray for the gift of discernment or that
Satan will be restrained in order that the person may be able to believe, or if
necessary we should exorcise in the name of Christ. God forbid that any of us
should be antisupernaturalists. Let us not become
practical atheists.
At the same time, we
should see that the Spirit works into our whole lives, not just into a
narrow, “spiritual” area. To use one's mind in teaching does not mean that the
result is unspiritual or that no charismatic gift is being exercised. We should
not set the human and the divine in opposition. The Spirit works in dramatic
and obvious gifts, and equally in less obvious and less dramatic gifts.
prayer
As we have seen, in the
Platonic tradition within the church, nonverbal ecstatic prayer was considered
the highest way. Meditation and other techniques were practiced to bring the
soul into a state of realizing God's presence. Prayer was viewed as a way of
experiencing the Spirit's presence within. But what is prayer? Is the
meditation that the Bible speaks of, the meditation of the Prayer of the Heart
that we considered earlier? Is it a method for practicing God's presence?
Occasionally the
psalmist is said to meditate on God's wonderful works or God's character. He
recalls the way God has delivered his people in the past and this gives him
confidence to pray in the present (Ps. 77:12; 143:5). But the word meditation
is principally reserved for the consideration of God's law. Joshua is commanded
to meditate on the book of the law day and night (Josh. 1:8); and it is a
frequent refrain of the psalmist that the righteous man so loves God's law that
he meditates on it continually (Ps. 1:2; 119:15, 23, 48, 78, 148 and others).
The nearest parallel in the New Testament to this idea of meditation is in
Colossians 3:16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
Notice, then, how
different from the meditation of the mystical tradition is the meditation
encouraged by Scripture. It is obviously the opposite of the “negative way”
for it is a meditation rich in content. It is not the emptying of the
mind, but the filling of the mind. The believer meditates on God's Word,
seeking to know both what God has commanded in Scripture and how this is to be
applied.
Biblical meditation is
not intended to make God present. God is present with the believer and therefore
the purpose of prayer in the Scripture is to communicate to God in ordinary
language one's praise, thanksgiving, confession, troubles and requests. Because
God is personal and uses language himself, ordinary human language is a
perfectly good medium for communicating with God. God is not the absolute other.
Language is not valueless to describe God, nor to
speak to him. Sometimes, of course, we may feel so troubled about a particular
issue which faces us or so confused about how to pray in some situation that we
cannot find words to express ourselves. Then the Spirit, who knows the deepest
needs and desires of our hearts, prays for us (Rom.
Further, the reason
for praying is not to experience God or to feel God's presence, nor is prayer
meaningful only when there is such a feeling. The Apostle Paul says simply,
Do not be anxious about
anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present
your requests to God.
Phil. 4:6
So, prayer need not be
complicated, beautifully expressed or extraordinary in any way. Nothing could
be more simple than the model prayer which Jesus
taught his disciples (Mt. 6:9-13; Lk. 11: 2- 4). Even
for the second person of the Trinity, ordinary language was adequate to
communicate his deepest needs and greatest longings to his Father.
This is not to say that
prayer is or should be without emotion. As we pray we ought to be overwhelmed with
thanksgiving for God's love in giving his Son for us; we ought to grow in our
appreciation of God's character. As with our Lord, deep emotion may indeed
accompany our prayers and be the result of them.
And the peace of God,
which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.
Phil. 4:7
The presence of God with
us and his love for us are the factors which encourage us to pray - they are
never the end toward which we pray.
conclusion
Concerning the things we
have just examined, the biblical teaching at each point stands opposed to
Platonism, however diluted. There is simply no warrant in Scripture to
devalue the human or the natural. Materialism is equally to be avoided.
God desires that men and
women be fulfilled in every aspect of their humanness as they grow day by day
into the likeness of himself, enjoying fellowship with the living God.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranald Macauley works at L’Abri Fellowship
in
Jerram Barrs is
resident scholar at the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary in