Reading. Or at least I was. Maybe it's adult ADHD or maybe,
since embarking on what has now become a nearly ten year journey of discovery,
the reading across disciplines of theology, history, anthropology, and others I
find that interconnected tones lead off into reflection.
Still reading "The Age of Reform 1250-1550" and
Ozment is now looking at the life and work of Martin Luther. The consensus of
the scholarship seems to show that Luther's earlier religious life before and
after monastic life were marked by anxiety and neurosis. Of course in the
middle ages the religious method of clergy (which was thrust in lesser measure
to the laity) was marked by a deeply penitential structure; i.e. "paying
your way" toward salvation through structured forms of self-loathing and
penitential, ascetic practices.
From where does this derive? It isn't Ozment's purpose to
answer that question, and it's probably there in the writing if I'd read with
an eye to find it. But it isn't a leap to take this all the way back to the
myth of a garden called Eden.
James Alison writes[1]:
"One of the first fruits of the fall was the knowledge of good and
evil, does it not suggest that that knowledge, at least in its current form, is
inappropriate to us?"
Reflection on this can reveal much about not only Luther's
life and times but our own. There is so much anxiety and neuroses in our
culture and this anxiety seems to be behind much of the hatred and vilification
of "the other". So just how deep do these roots go?
It would be foolish to argue that there is no difference
between good and evil, there is. But it seems we are not supposed to know that
there is! This is surely a complex arrangement. But in the story when it
connects the knowledge of these two states to death is where a larger panorama
opens up. The fact that we know the difference leads to death. Death has two
players, one is the dead, the other is the killer. When we teach others the
difference between good and evil are we in fact instructing them in a
methodology of how they may die or, even more disconcertingly, to kill and be
justified in doing so?
This obviously creates a huge problem. There is also,
biblically, this other connection made throughout. "Sin" = death. So
then we have this: knowledge of good and evil = death; sin = death; knowledge
of good and evil = sin. This is no mere syllogism.
So then in this way "sin" (whatever it is) is not
connected with "evil" in a strict sense but with knowing the
difference between it and "good" and that this leads us, or others, to
death. We, as a species, use this knowledge as a method of justification for
just about every type of evil one could imagine.
Alison continues[2]:
"Any accusatory knowledge of sin has a particular propensity to
blindness about complicity and that only forgiveness enables us to see."
For when you pass judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, practice the very same things. Rom 2:1
In light of this what should we teach others? What should we
relate to our children, our neighbors, our friends, or maybe more importantly,
our enemies if not some sense of moral certitude if our moral certitude is a
part of this pattern of sin and death as told us by the Christian scriptures?
I am assured that Jesus gave plenty of clues for those who
have ears, and eyes to at least begin working this out.
[1] Alison:
"The Joy of Being Wrong, Original Sin through Easter Eyes" pp 263,
Crossroad Publishing Co. New York.
[2] Ibid. pp 265