While I endorse the rest of Mr. Auster’s comments, I should point out that Christianity does not understand truth to be in tension with the things of this world. Christianity understands truth to be in perfect harmony with the things of this world. It is fallen MAN who is in tension with the TRUTH, and thus fallen MAN who is in tension with the things of this world, which aren’t themselves fallen.

Moreover, while it may be true that Muslims see the Koran as the final, perfect, immanent expression of God, I don’t see that as being at odds with the idea of man’s fallen nature. Christians see the Bible as, in some ways, a final, perfect, immanent expression of God as well.

Lastly (working backwards), you say “perhaps the key difference is transcendence.” I think this is obviously true. If by “the transcendent” you mean that which is outside and above man, then yes, the corner of Transcendent and Materialist is a key philosophical intersection. Those who acknowledge the metaphysical hierarchy and order of the universe (the transcendents) interpret the world in a fundamentally different way from those who profess to see nothing at work in it but chance and chaos (the materialists).

Posted by: Bubba on July 7, 2003 09:30 PM
“the things of this world, which aren’t themselves fallen.”

you might want to qualify this a bit.

Posted by: abby on July 7, 2003 09:34 PM
“you might want to qualify this a bit.”

Well, it sounds like you do. What did you have in mind?

Posted by: Bubba on July 7, 2003 10:07 PM
Well, it sounds like you do. What did you have in mind?

it’s probably a non issue, but i wonder if because man’s fallen nature causes the animals etc to be no longer wholely subject to, or subordinate to, him, if there isn’t tension running both ways.

as we move in knowledge from better known by man to better known by nature, i wonder if this lack of subordination does not play a role in our difficulty in coming to know. the insubordination of our flesh does play a role, so why not the insubordination of the animals etc?

in paradise, the animals came to adam and he named the animals, that is he came to know their nature perfectly by scientific knowledge, but with fallen nature, do the animals come to man? that is are the animals wholely subject to man in his coming to know?

this insubordination of the animals is not due their being fallen but due to man’s fallen nature.

by the way, i always appreciate your method of approach, it always goes right to the heart of the matter.

Abby makes a good point here. There is a scriptural passage that states ‘all of creation groans and yearns for the Sons of God to be revealed.’ My understanding is that creation itself was poisoned by the sin of Adam and thus in fell into rebellion against the creator, so that death was brought upon all of the created universe by the original sin. Hence, it ‘yearns and groans’ for redemption - through the true followers of Christ - the new Adam. (Sorry for the paraphrasing, it’s late and I’m turning in.)

carl,

the rebellion, so to speak, is against man because Adam lowered himself to the level of the animals. Adam chose the earthly city, the flesh, over the heavenly city, the spirit. The animals were by nature subject to Adam, but when Adam lowered himself they ceased to be wholey subject to him, because Adam chose to be flesh like them. Also fallen nature corrupted men in such a manner that he no longer knew the animals as is proper to his nature.

St. Augustine does write in the City of God about the Lions laying down with the Lambs, that is that the Lions didn’t eat the lambs, but St. Thomas writes that the Lion’s nature is to eat lamb, and thus they would have.

The passage in Romans 8 to which Carl refers (and perhaps also the “lion lying down with the lamb” which I think is from Isaiah) expresses an enthusiasm on the part of the writer in which he becomes so excited about the workings of God within himself that he begins to think that this same spiritual working is going to transform the very structure of reality, so that a leopard would literally lie down with a kid, and so on.

Which returns us to Bubba’s earlier disagreement with me. I think he is correct in that Christianity says that man is fallen, not that the world is fallen. To say that the world is fallen is gnosticism. And there would seem to be a gnostic implication in the passage from Romans 8 where Paul expects the nature of the physical world to be changed.

AT the same time, I’m not persuaded that I was wrong to say that truth exists in tension with the things of this world, since the most important things in this world are the sinful people in it. What is the parable of the wheat and the tares, if not a statement that, in this life, we are surrounded by sin, our own sins and imperfections and those of others, for example the untrue qualities we perceive in our fellow Christians and our priests, and yet we need to hold on to the truth, despite all the things that seem to challenge it or that get in the way of it or make it hard to believe in. I think this is one sense in which it would be correct to say that truth exists in tension with the things of this world.

Posted by: Bubba on July 7, 2003 09:30 PM
“Christianity understands truth to be in perfect harmony with the things of this world.”

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on July 8, 2003 08:22 AM
“AT the same time, I’m not persuaded that I was wrong to say that truth exists in tension with the things of this world, since the most important things in this world are the sinful people in it.”

bubba and auster appear to using truth in two different senses.
bubba is speaking of truth as an objective good reflecting its creator, while auster appears to be speaking of truth as in coming to know.

do i have that right?

I don’t see a real disagreement, other than how terms are being used.

After Adam sinned, God said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee.” (Gen 3:17-18) There is a ‘tension’ here. ;
-)

The passage in Romans 8 referred to says that, “the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” Dr. Henry Morriss points out that the Greek word for “vanity” carries with it the thought of _decay_. What we might call entropy. It stands in contrast to when God, on the Sixth Day, “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Thus, the curse appears to have extended in a way to the entire material creation, which itself is subject to corruption and decay.

Man’s fallen condition is understood obviously in a much different sense — created in the image God yet not conforming to God’s holy standard because of sin and therefore under condemnation. I think Bubba was just clarifying this distinction.

But it is still the case that since both matters are caused by the same original act of Adam, then they are both positively affected by the redemptive work of ‘the last Adam.’ Col 1:15-20 seems to carry the sense of Christ redeeming the entire creation. Man of course, must make the CHOICE, or pay his penalty himself separated from God. But the creation naturally joins together naturally in worship of its creator,
(Rev 5: 13 — hardly a case for gnosticism.) :-)

Certainly there will eventually be a great change in the material creation. In Hebrews 1 we are reminded of Psalm 102, “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but though remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed…” And at the end of Revelation the Lord Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new.”

I think Mr. Auster’s original point is adequately founded in the Apostle John’s exhortation to, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
(I Jn 2:15)

The relationship of man to the animals as we understand it now appears to have resulted from a Divinely ordained change following the Flood, and not necessarily immediately after the Fall. God told Noah and his sons, “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” (Gen 9 2-3)

This was a change for man, in that previously he was vegetarian — this was also the case for ALL of the animals. (Gen 1:29-30) It apparently was not part of the creation before man fell for man (or animals) to be carnivorous, (or omnivorous.) This is only explicitly permitted to man, and evidently instilled in animals instinctually, after the Flood. The passages in Isaiah referring, it would seem, to the earthly reign of Christ, could simply point to a time when this former, idyllic state will be restored as God originally intended.

Adam fell as a result of disobeying a direct command of God, which contemplates a faculty of conscience and moral choice that I don’t not think the animals, being merely living souls with no spirit, possess. Although fallen man is compared to ‘natural brute beasts’ in his ungodly conduct.

Thanks Joel, for stating so well the point I was attempting to make late last night!