{"id":34,"date":"2018-01-10T09:50:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/?post_type=chapter&p=34"},"modified":"2018-01-11T17:11:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T22:11:06","slug":"chapter-6-who-should-i-say-that-you-are","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/chapter\/chapter-6-who-should-i-say-that-you-are\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 6: \"Who should I say that you are?\"","rendered":"Chapter 6: “Who should I say that you are?”"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nTo read is to interpret. To interpret is to seek intention. Good readers\u00a0offer consistent readings of texts. Biblical heroes are good readers who read\u00a0Yahweh's intentions. Who is this Yahweh that we read of from the very\u00a0beginning of the text?\r\n\r\n\"In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth...\" is\u00a0the first thing we read. Not only is there a time indicator functioning like \"once\u00a0upon a time\" but also it seems right to call it the time indicator - not once in\u00a0time but at the beginning of time. \"In the beginning of creation\" signals an\u00a0ongoing creation, a continuous creation in time, and not just a creative act of\u00a0instantaneous power inserted and withdrawn.\r\n\r\nIn the Genesis 1 creation story we find authority, brevity, and solemn\u00a0majesty presented in the character of God, the transcendent and creative\u00a0commander of the universe. But already in Genesis 2 we meet a sudden switch\u00a0in form and style. Now the relationship of the characters rather than the\u00a0tabulation of events or commands is primary. Here is a personal God,\u00a0immanent and knowable, instead of transcendent and imperial. The language\u00a0is picturesque and flowing: this God breathes life into dust sculpted man and\u00a0plants a garden, this God responds to the loneliness of Adam and creates Eve,\u00a0this God walks in the garden and talks to his creations. The God who issued\u00a0commands in Genesis 1 speaks only once here and then to himself, \"It is not\u00a0good for man to be alone.\" While in Genesis 1 God appears as a being who\u00a0stands outside of his creation and controls it with his mighty word, in Genesis 2\u00a0the portrait of God is very different. Here his immanence, personal nearness,\u00a0and local involvement on the human scene are basic features. Yahweh is not a\u00a0detached sovereign overlord but a god at hand as a loving master. He is a god\u00a0with whom man has a ready contact. He molds with his hands like a potter; he\u00a0breathes into the mouth of a clay model, he searches through the garden\u00a0for Adam and Eve, he converses.\r\n\r\nThese two differing notions of God have been described as the Priestly\u00a0and the Yahwist conceptions. The priestly account is claimed to run from\u00a0Genesis 1.1 through 2.4a and the Yahwist account from Genesis 2.4b through\u00a04.26. They differ in these ways: while the Priestly account is solemn, repetitive,\u00a0and majestic in style, the Yahwist account is told in story form with an\u00a0evocative and economical use of words which appeals to the imagination\u00a0instead of the intellect. While in the Priestly (P) account God creates things, in\u00a0the Yahwist (J) account he forms them. P has male and female created in the\u00a0likeness of God; J has man and woman formed as living beings from the dust.\u00a0P offers a cosmic perspective of an ordered world with God outside it, and J\u00a0presents an intimate and involved God creating not by order but by hand. In P\u00a0documents the name for God is `Elohim' and in J documents the name for\u00a0God is `Yahweh'.\r\n\r\nQuite different conceptions of god are to be seen in these different\u00a0renditions. Detached or involved, or both? In the final combination of stories\u00a0the answer is both. One set of stories likely arose from the priestly concerns of\u00a0ritual and intellectual justification for a certain conception. \u00a0 The so-called\u00a0Yahwist story teller has differing intentions, is as we say, of the people, and\u00a0tells the story in a more personal way. The difference here could be described\u00a0as the difference between a sermon and a drama. By the time the redactor has\u00a0woven the stories together the result is a more complex god than either P or J\u00a0envisioned. From the very beginning it seems that talking of God was in part a\u00a0matter of projecting self-interest on to the screen. Talking of god is not a\u00a0matter of getting the description accurate but always is a matter of proclaiming\u00a0what is to be described. If two people (or two nations) disagree on the proper\u00a0description of god, they have no place in the physical world to go to check for\u00a0descriptive accuracy - they go instead to texts, they return to their story and not\u00a0to the laboratory.\r\n\r\nThe Hebrew God appears on several occasions in the stories of the Old\u00a0Testament. In one sense these books are the record of the covenant between\u00a0God and his chosen people. He reveals himself to the patriarchs and to Moses\u00a0- appears as himself to the tribal heroes. For example:\r\n
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him\r\n\r\nand said, `I am God Almighty. Live always in my presence and be\r\n\r\nperfect, so that I may set my covenant between myself and you and\r\n\r\nmultiply your descendants.' Abram threw himself down on his face,\r\n\r\nand God spoke with him and said, `I make this covenant, and I\r\n\r\nmake it with you: you shall be the father of a host of nations. Your\r\n\r\nname shall no longer be Abram [that is, High Father], your name\r\n\r\nshall be Abraham [that is, Father of a Multitude], for I make you\r\n\r\nfather of a host of nations. (Gen. 17.1-5)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nLater God appears to Abraham at Mamre in the form of visitors to his\u00a0tent to announce that Sarah will give birth to a son. The Lord also reveals to\u00a0Abraham his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, explaining that he should not\u00a0conceal from Abraham what he intends to do since Abraham is his choice to\u00a0father a great and powerful nation, and knowing of God's intentions will be fur-\u00a0ther proof that Abraham is the chosen one. Later God will also appear to\u00a0Jacob and also rename him. God identifies himself this time as \"the God who\u00a0appeared to you when you were running away from your brother Esau.\" In the\u00a0famous scene in Exodus God once again appears to man, this time to Moses.\u00a0Here, in answer to Moses' question, `If I go to the Israelites and tell them that\u00a0the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name,\u00a0what shall I say?' we hear, `I AM; that is who I am. Tell them that I AM has\u00a0sent you to them.' I AM is who I am; and YHWH is my name. And these\u00a0puzzling words have been written about more than any others in literature .\u00a0Here in the story we have God himself uttering his name, providing us with a\u00a0clue to his nature. What might these words mean?\r\n\r\nNames are of great importance in the Old Testament. Several of the\u00a0heroes of the tribes have name changes when the covenant is renewed. Often\u00a0the name given, as, for example, in Abraham's case, is not only used to refer\u00a0but is also a word with meaning. `Abraham' means `father of a multitude' and\u00a0`Isaac' means `he laughed.' We do not usually think of names as having\u00a0connotations, but as tags to be used to denote or refer to a particular person.\u00a0But here, in addition to referring, these names often carry a meaning that tells\u00a0us something about the character in the story. `Yahweh' (the probable\u00a0pronunciation of the Hebrew consonants YHWH) is the unpronounceable\u00a0name, the name that cannot be said. The name of God is unique in that it is\u00a0one word that cannot be pronounced. The difficulty of talking about God is\u00a0literally in the story - to refer to God is to have to employ a word that cannot\u00a0be pronounced. From the very beginning of the story we see the acknowledged\u00a0difficulty of god-talk, for we are cut off from either referring to him or from\u00a0giving some meaning to his name. The name he gives Moses has neither sense\u00a0nor reference. The story tells us that God is beyond language in the most basic\u00a0of ways: he is going to be impossible to talk about because the word used to\u00a0name him cannot be pronounced, and if it could be pronounced it would have\u00a0no meaning.\r\n\r\nBut this has not stopped people from talking about God, for the\u00a0message of the story is always subject to and object of interpretation from a\u00a0particular point of view. One Catholic writer1 offers a reading of the Old\u00a0Testament passage quite different from mine. He says that there are three\u00a0possibilities of readings from the `I AM that I AM' passage. First, \"I am who I\u00a0am\" is god's affirmation of himself \"to be the Absolutely existent One to whose\u00a0being there is no limit or restriction.\"2 In the Greek version this comes out \"I\u00a0am he who is.\" Father Murray says these meanings are too academic for the\u00a0story and the times. What Moses is really asking, he says, \"was to know not his\u00a0[God's] nature but his role in their community and his mode of action in their\u00a0history.\" Therefore he puts aside this interpretation. A second possibility is \"I\u00a0make to be whatever comes to be.\" He writes:3\r\n
The belief that God is the Maker of All was present among the<\/em>\r\n\r\nIsraelites from the beginning. In fact, in all primitive religions the<\/em>\r\n\r\nbelief prevailed that the god stood at the origin of the world. It<\/em>\r\n\r\nmay, however, be doubted that the original hearing of the divine<\/em>\r\n\r\nname caught this cosmological sense in it. To them, Yahweh was in<\/em>\r\n\r\nthe first instance the God of their fathers, who created the people,<\/em>\r\n\r\nwho was the Lord of the people, the power behind their history.<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nIt is yet a third interpretation which Father Murray finds the correct\u00a0one. This reading he asserts \"yields a more adequate exegetical\u00a0understanding.\" What does it mean to find a reading that \"yields a more\u00a0adequate exegetical understanding?\" It means to consider many readings from\u00a0the point of view of an already established official line and then to select as\u00a0correct that one which promotes the official line. This approach is not to read\u00a0out of the work but to read into the work from a set of preconceptions, and\u00a0one of its problems is obviously that what you read is what you are. Murray's\u00a0reading proceeds like this: \"...in the enigmatic play on words and in the Name\u00a0Yahweh that embodies its sense, Moses and his people heard not the\u00a0affirmation that God is or that he is creator but the promise that he would be\u00a0present with his people.\" I have argued that `Yahweh' is without sense. And in\u00a0this senselessness lies the \"meaning\" of the story. How would we decide who is\u00a0right? Look at the story - or to paraphrase D. H. Lawrence, \"Never trust the\u00a0teller; trust the tale.\" Murray's three readings and my fourth are not\u00a0disagreements about what is there in the story but are disagreements about\u00a0the meaning of the story. By \"meaning\" here I mean the most sensible and\u00a0natural reading of the story as it appears in the complex narrative without\u00a0importing a preconceived scheme of dogmatic interpretation.\r\n\r\nOur first responsibility is to read sensitively and with care what the\u00a0writer has written. It is difficult because we do indeed look through a glass\u00a0darkly - the glass being darkened by the layers of interpretations offered up\u00a0over the centuries, \u00a0 interpretations which have evolved into the official line.\u00a0For example, we talk about god as if she were male. All those Sunday School\u00a0pictures show a male, a sort of larger than life Abraham, with flowing beard\u00a0and human features. But there is powerful imagery in the Bible that offers us\u00a0a female god. A recurring image in the Old Testament is of a god who is like a\u00a0hen, gathering its chicks under its protective wing (\"as an eagle watches over\u00a0its nest,\" Deut. 32.11). Images of birth are used to compare the birth of a new\u00a0nation or of a new idea to childbirth:\r\n\r\n \r\n
Long have I lain still,\r\n\r\nI kept silence and held myself in check;\r\n\r\nnow I will cry like a woman in labour,\r\n\r\nWhimpering, panting and gasping. (Isaiah 42.14)<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe divine feminine4 is also present in the New Testament. Jesus says\u00a0(John 16.21) \"A woman in labour is in pain because her time has come...\" and\u00a0later says of himself that his \"time has come.\" In that story Jesus is bringing\u00a0forth a new way of relating to God, a new idea. The male dominated language\u00a0of the church is found in the official line - the concepts of god in the texts are\u00a0beyond sexist projections. And just where does the meaning of a story reside?\r\n\r\nThree possibilities present themselves for consideration and discussion:\u00a01. intention, 2. text, 3. interpretation. The meaning, argue some, is to be found\u00a0in the intention of the author. If we could only know what the author\u00a0intended then we could know what the story means, or, we could then measure\u00a0the intention against the accomplishment. This approach is seen in the \"let's\u00a0call the author\" approach to literary criticism. \"If anybody knows what's going\u00a0on it's bound to be the author.\" This approach would have us study history,\u00a0psychology, biography and anthropology in order to understand texts. The\u00a0New Critics reminded us that the text itself is important, although they\u00a0emphasized it to the exclusion of all else. Authorial intention, they argued, is\u00a0difficult if not impossible to ascertain, while the artifact itself, the text, is\u00a0present to be studied. Reader response critics point out that meaning resides\u00a0in the mind\/brain of the reader. Everyone has sat in a literature class and\u00a0wondered if there was indeed any answer to the problem of multiple\u00a0interpretation other than the cynical one of giving the teacher what you think\u00a0she wants.\r\n\r\nHere is a record of such a debate centering around a modern and brief\u00a0poem. \"Aren't you just reading that into the poem?\" Very often the English\u00a0teacher cannot prove the validity of his\/her interpretation, try as s\/he might to\u00a0build a logical case: the design s\/he has just traced out in the webwork of a\u00a0poem's connotations and reverberations (perfectly logical in her eyes) begins\u00a0to waver as students fire at him with alternative connections, last year's high\u00a0school teacher's equally logical structure, and antagonistic literary critics\u00a0(\"Well, if you're so hot why haven't you published?\"). As the design melts back\u00a0into a flow of possible meanings, the teacher stammers his\/her appeals to\u00a0justice, then to mercy, but the class has passed sentence: ring-binders snap shut\u00a0like so many hungry alligators, and the students march off to physics where\u00a0issues are clear. The teacher exiles herself to an hour of solitary confinement in\u00a0her office.\r\n\r\nBelow is a record of a similar trial, with some concluding judgements.\u00a0The bone of contention is a poem by Robert Frost:5\r\n\r\n \r\n
Dust of Snow\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe way the crow\r\n\r\nShook down on me\r\n\r\nThe dust of snow\r\n\r\nFrom a hemlock tree\r\n\r\nHas given my heart\r\n\r\nA change of mood\r\n\r\nAnd saved some part\r\n\r\nOf a day I had rued.<\/blockquote>\r\nThe first testimony took place in the classroom of Norbert Artzt, who\u00a0had written the poem on the blackboard, and proceeded to reveal its perfectly\u00a0logical pattern. Here is part of his report (printed in College English,\u00a0April 1971):\r\n
\"What is on the board?\" I ask again.\r\n\r\nSomeone says \"words.\"\r\n\r\nWe have taken the first step. \"What do these words do?\"\r\n\r\n\"They make a statement.\" ...\r\n\r\nI digress. \"Is the statement a complete one?\"...\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe answers come. They are seeing the words.\r\n\r\n\"In what time of year does the thing take place? Is winter a time\r\n\r\nof life and growth? What about snow? What about dust?\"...\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe young man with the long hair is in a frenzy. \"The bird is\r\n\r\nscattering dust on the poet's head. He is burying him. Good grief!\r\n\r\nHe is burying him.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEveryone feels the chill. They are cold now. They are afraid.\r\n\r\nWinter, dust, crow, snow, hemlock tree- the images are coalescing.\r\n\r\nThe deep structure of the poem is emerging in their heads.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSuddenly the momentum stops.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"But why?\" someone asks. \"Why if the man gets a premonition\r\n\r\nof death does his mood change for the better?\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWe move back to \"the way\". I ask how the bird shakes the snow\r\n\r\ndown on the man, why he does it....\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe bird is drying his wings or landing or taking off. The bird is\r\n\r\nindifferent to the man walking beneath him. I ask what this bird's\r\n\r\nindifferent act might mean in the context of the experience. Some-\r\n\r\none suggests that the meaning may lie in the man's feeling about\r\n\r\nwhat has happened. The man recognizes that nature is indifferent\r\n\r\nto the life of any particular man.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI ask again what the thing on the board has said. The long-haired\r\n\r\nboy speaks. He is a genius. He will burn down the White House\r\n\r\nsome day. \"The poet has realized through this experience that\r\n\r\ndeath is inevitable and incalculable. It can come at any time, any\r\n\r\nplace, to anyone. The poet knows he's wasting his time in regret,\r\n\r\nwasting life.\" The boy becomes prophetic; his name is Jeremy. \"The\r\n\r\npoet has had an epiphany. That is why his mood changes.\"\r\n\r\n <\/blockquote>\r\nCounter-testimony came from Laurence Perrine - after reading Artzt's\u00a0report he wrote, in The Explicator, March, 1972:\r\n\r\n \r\n
\"The way\" in which a crow shakes down dust of snow on Frost's\r\n\r\nspeaker is left unspecified, thus permitting several possibilities. I\r\n\r\ncan see them chiefly as four: Beautifully, animatedly, cheerily, and\r\n\r\nhumorously. First the poem presents a scene of visual beauty, black\r\n\r\netched against white, the movement of the scattered snow\r\n\r\ncounterpoint against the immobility of the evergreen tree. Second,\r\n\r\nthe action of the crow presents a bit of life and animation in a\r\n\r\nscene otherwise frozen and without life. Third, the scattering of the\r\n\r\nsnow on the speaker is almost an acknowledgment of his presence,\r\n\r\na \u00a0 greeting, a communication between the two living actors in the\r\n\r\nscene. Fourth, the snow's falling on the speaker suggests a touch of\r\n\r\nhumor, as if the sly crow were playing a practical joke on him. The\r\n\r\nbeauty of the action, its evidence of life, its suggestion of a greeting\r\n\r\n, and the touch of humor in it combines to lighten the mood of the\r\n\r\nspeaker....\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRecounting a very simple incident, Frost strove to give it an\r\n\r\nutter simplicity of form and language. His one sentence poem has\r\n\r\nonly one word with as many as two syllables.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTwo additional points. First, the fact that the crow's action saved\r\n\r\nonly part of a day the speaker \"had rued\" does not imply that his\r\n\r\nsorrow was too pervasive. He may have made a social blunder, for\r\n\r\ninstance, and his wife may have spoken sharply to him; but he is\r\n\r\nhardly mourning his wife's death or the loss of a child.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, the point of the poem lies in the discrepancy between\r\n\r\nthe smallness of the crow's action and the extent of its effect: it is\r\n\r\nthis that tells us most about the sensitivity of the speaker, his\r\n\r\nresponsiveness to beauty and life, and his love of nature.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n <\/blockquote>\r\nTo judge this case, what voice could be more authoritative than Robert\u00a0Frost's? In the film \u00a0 Lover's Quarrel With the World (1963) he\u00a0states:\r\n\r\n \r\n
There's a little poem of mine, an old one. It goes like this. (He\r\n\r\nrecites \"Dust of Snow\".) See now. Let's look at that fair and square.\r\n\r\n(He recites it again, more slowly.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And someone says to\r\n\r\nme,\"Very sinister poem!\" And I said, \"Sinister?\" \"Yes, the crow, the\r\n\r\ncrow is a black bird.\" And I\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 said, \"The crow figures all sorts of\r\n\r\nways, but all right , I don't argue. And what more?\" \"The hemlock\r\n\r\ntree.\" And I said, \"Yes?\" And he said, \"but Socrates, Socrates -\r\n\r\ndeath of Socrates.\" Well you get surprises in this world. I never\r\n\r\nthought of that. I live with hemlock trees, and it's not the weed that\r\n\r\nSocrates drank at all. And it's all wrong with the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tree. I'm partly\r\n\r\njust as much from the city as the country. But I'm a little more\r\n\r\ncountry than city. And I know what a hemlock tree is.\r\n\r\n <\/blockquote>\r\nYet there is a higher appeal. Here is Auden:6\r\n\r\n \r\n
One sign that a book has literary value is that it can be read in a\r\n\r\nnumber of different ways. Vice versa, the proof that pornography\r\n\r\nhas no literary value is that, if one attempts to read it in any other\r\n\r\nway than as a sexual stimulus, to read it, say, as a psychological\r\n\r\ncase-history of the author's sexual fantasies, one is bored to tears.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThough a work of literature can be read in a number of ways, this\r\n\r\nnumber is finite and can be arranged in a hierarchical order; some\r\n\r\nreadings are obviously \"truer\" than others, some obviously false,\r\n\r\nand some like reading a novel backwards,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 absurd. That is why,\r\n\r\nfor a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than\r\n\r\nthe greatest literary masterpiece imaginable for, in relation to its\r\n\r\nreaders, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be\r\n\r\nread in an infinite number of ways.<\/blockquote>\r\nNeed Frost be aware of this hierarchy? In fact, need he be aware of fairly\u00a0basic implications of his poem? We often need others to help us grasp the\u00a0meaning(s) of our own dreams. Often the creative work functions as an \"other\"\u00a0to the one creating it.\r\n\r\nBut in case the issue seems to be resolving or dissolving into valid subjective\u00a0realities, here's a new confrontation, revealed by a broader context. After the\u00a0appearance of Perrine's attack on him, Artzt (author of the first article) wrote\u00a0to Jeremy for moral support. Jeremy was then at a Federal Correction\u00a0Institute for burning draft cards and a draft office. His reply:\r\n
What really craps me out is that guys like you and Mr. P. take these<\/em>\r\n\r\nthings so seriously. Both of you ought to take a long walk in the<\/em>\r\n\r\nsnow.<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhat matters in this world is action. When words turn into action<\/em>\r\n\r\nyou have poetry. When they sit on the page or in the classroom you<\/em>\r\n\r\nhave nothing.<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI'll tell you what you can do for me - you can stop the war. When<\/em>\r\n\r\nthe murders are done with, write me again and tell me what you did<\/em>\r\n\r\nto stop the killing.<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nWhen an eight line poem can stimulate such discussion is it any wonder\u00a0that the stories from the Bible are interpreted in so many different ways?\u00a0Would it help to be able to talk with the author? Where is the authority for a\u00a0reading that is true? Do we look to a priest or a rabbi? Would not that be to\u00a0substitute one reading for another? In a sense the claim of authority for the\u00a0biblical stories, namely that they are written by God, should be taken as\u00a0metaphoric truth. The truth is in the stories - not in the interpretations offered\u00a0by others who add their voices to the stories. Reading the Bible is to read a\u00a0complex narrative, with all the subtlety and complexity that requires, but it is\u00a0not merely to choose to accept someone else's reading on authority. Reading\u00a0any complex text requires that we bring to it everything that we can, effectively,\u00a0all we are: a critical mind, a sensitivity to literary structures, an awareness of\u00a0the time and place from which the text arises, our little knowledge of life itself.\u00a0In reading the Bible, too often, instead of a critical reading based upon\u00a0intention, text, and reaction, we are seduced by the official line, which\u00a0does all of the work for us. Adding the official line to the formula of intention,\u00a0text, and reaction means we are faced with the difficulty of attempting to read\u00a0the intention, text, and reaction of the official line!\r\n\r\nWhat a beautiful thing it is to read the bible stories without the layers\u00a0of interpretive stuff that many of us bring to them from the chapel or the\u00a0synagogue. It is difficult to read these texts with fresh eyes from within our\u00a0culturally imposed official line, but it is the only way to read them.\r\n\r\nAs I write this two armies are facing each other in the Persian Gulf.\u00a0Saddam Hussein has recently invaded and taken Kuwait. George Bush has\u00a0responded with the assistance of the United Nations by moving a\u00a0multi-national force into Saudia Arabia. The self-interest of the nations\u00a0involved is beginning to be hidden under rhetoric about \"holy wars\" and\u00a0\"sacred places\" and \"evil forces\" - rhetoric that tries to make this grab for oil by\u00a0both sides into some kind of religious encounter between two gods: the God of\u00a0Islam and the God of Christianity. Are we to believe that God, any god, is\u00a0concerned about the price of a barrel of oil? The number of religious wars\u00a0fought on this earth is staggering. Millions of people have died in defense of\u00a0some conceptual projection or other. We have fought over subtle matters of\u00a0doctrine, over what shape the temple should have, over what sacrifices are\u00a0appropriate. And in every war each side claims that God is on their side. As\u00a0Lincoln said in the American Civil War: \"They say that God is on their side; we\u00a0say that God is on our side. We could both be wrong, but at most one of us is\u00a0right.\" Belief in god can be a powerful force in the affairs of men and women.\u00a0Such belief can bring us to our knees, can arm us with a sword of fire as we\u00a0march off to war, can bring us fear of the future, can fill our minds with\u00a0expectation, can provide peace and acceptance. One can also believe in ghosts,\u00a0devils, secret powers of the mind, the power of crystals to cure cancer, the\u00a0existence of witches, or the green cheese theory of the moon's construction.\u00a0What is the difference, if any, between a belief in these fantastic notions and a\u00a0belief in a god?\r\n\r\nNothing and everything. On the one hand there is no difference, in the\u00a0sense that there is no evidence for the existence of devils or gods. On the other\u00a0hand there is a difference in the tenacity with which people hold on to the\u00a0belief in god. With many beliefs we are willing to let them go when we are\u00a0provided with sufficient evidence. Strictly speaking, of course, it is impossible\u00a0to hold a false belief. Once I know that a given belief of mine is false I can no\u00a0longer hold it as a belief. If I do, then doing so counts as evidence that I am\u00a0irrational. But just as I cannot know that God exists, I also cannot know that\u00a0God does not exist. `Know' is the key word here. How does it function? We say\u00a0that we know P (a statement) just when we believe that P, we have evidence\u00a0that P, and P is true. In formal dress:\r\n\r\n \r\n
X knows that P is true if and only if:\r\n\r\n1. X believes that P,\r\n\r\n2. X has good evidence that P, and\r\n\r\n3. P is true.<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\nKnowledge then is justified, true belief. Belief is a necessary but not a sufficient\u00a0condition for knowledge, which means that no matter how hard I believe that\u00a0P, P's truth is independent of my belief. It also means that the number of\u00a0believers is also logically independent of the truth of the proposition. The\u00a0strength and the number of believers cannot guarantee the truth of a\u00a0proposition. It may well be that millions of committed persons once believed\u00a0strongly that the earth is flat. But that didn't make it flat. So it is with God.\u00a0Millions of people seem to believe in Allah, and millions of people seem to\u00a0believe in the Christian God. Millions believe in Buddha. Millions believe in no\u00a0god. But we do not believe that this issue will be settled by a world wide vote.\r\n\r\nBesides going to \"sacred\" texts to prove our god's existence, which is\u00a0question begging (\"I know that God exists because it says so in the Bible and\u00a0God wrote the Bible!\"7), how do we proceed?\r\n\r\nOne way is to posit another way of knowing, a way of knowing that is\u00a0not subject to the same rigor as is factual knowledge and its repeated claim for\u00a0verification. Faith is often suggested as way of knowing religious truths which is\u00a0different from the way of knowing other kinds of truths. \"The invisible is\u00a0always visible to faith,\" writes Father Murray,8 and there does seem to be a\u00a0widespread belief that faith is a way of knowing that should be included as a\u00a0third logical category in answer to the question `how do you know that x?' One\u00a0way we know that x is through experience and another is through reason.\u00a0Perhaps a third way is faith. All three answers have been offered as ways of\u00a0knowing about God. Experience, it is argued, offers evidence that God exists.\u00a0Because of the complexity of the created world, in the beauty and design of the\u00a0created product is some evidence that a creator must exist who created the\u00a0whole of it. Nothing as complicated as a human eye or human brain could\u00a0possibly exist unless there were some creator behind the creation, but\u00a0incremental evolution over vast expanses of time would be a counter\u00a0hypothesis that explained the coming into being of things in the world without\u00a0the need for special creation. Design itself is a slippery concept - it is hard to\u00a0say where it resides, in the thing that has it or in the thing that views it. The\u00a0believer seems to \"see\" something else in experience that the non-believer\u00a0cannot \"see.\"\r\n\r\nJohn Wisdom, in a famous paper published in 1944,9 argues that \"the\u00a0existence of God is not an experimental issue in the way it was,\" primarily\u00a0because of \"our better knowledge of why things happen as they do.\" While in\u00a0the past we may have thought of God as a power that pulled the levers of the\u00a0natural order, today, with the advances of science, we are not so apt to believe\u00a0that prayer is the best solution to end a drought or heal a cancer. Wisdom's\u00a0paper, which generated a new interest in the philosophy of religion, offers an\u00a0explanation of how it is that \"an explanatory hypothesis, such as the existence\u00a0of God, may start by being experimental and gradually become something\u00a0quite different.\" He offers a story about two men who return to their long\u00a0neglected garden to find that among the weeds are some of the old plants\u00a0growing strongly. One suggests that a gardener must come and tend them. The\u00a0other says there is no gardener. They experiment by examining the garden very\u00a0carefully, studying other unattended gardens, and asking neighbours if anyone\u00a0is secretly tending the garden. The two discover exactly the same facts, but one\u00a0continues to say \"There is a gardener\" and the other to say \"There is no\u00a0gardener.\" Wisdom says, \"with this difference in what they say about the\u00a0gardener goes a difference in how they feel towards the garden, in spite of the\u00a0fact that neither expects anything of it which the other does not expect.\" One\u00a0man feels one way about the garden and the other feels another way. Is this all\u00a0it means to assert a belief in God?\r\n\r\nPeople who argue about the existence of God and attempt to convince\u00a0others of their position are arguing about something they take to be\u00a0fundamental and important - they do not seem to be talking just about how\u00a0they feel. Each wants to offer some kind of reasons for his\/her belief, or as\u00a0Wisdom puts it, \"The disputants speak as if they are concerned with a matter\u00a0of scientific fact, or of trans-sensual, trans-scientific and metaphysical fact, but\u00a0still of fact and still a matter about which reasons for and against may be\u00a0offered, although no scientific reasons in the sense of field surveys for fossils or\u00a0experiments on delinquents are to the point.\" However, not every dispute that\u00a0we have is one that can be settled by experiment. In mathematics, logic and\u00a0literary interpretation we may offer reasons in support of our beliefs, but be\u00a0unable to offer experimental results that support the interpretation or\u00a0solution. In law cases the same facts may be accepted by both parties and there\u00a0still be a dispute as to what they mean. In these kinds of cases, argues\u00a0Wisdom, \"the solution of the question at issue is a decision, a ruling by the\u00a0judge.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIs \u00a0 belief in God equal with belief in mathematics or logic? \u00a0 Over the\u00a0centuries many have thought so and many attempts have been made to\u00a0provide the deductive argument that would win the day. In the eleventh\u00a0century Saint Anselm offered a brilliant argument based upon a definition of\u00a0God as \"that than which nothing greater can be conceived.\" He argued:\r\n\r\n \r\n
1. By God we understand that than which nothing greater can be\r\n\r\nconceived.\r\n\r\n2. That than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the\r\n\r\nunderstanding alone.\r\n\r\n3. Therefore, there exists both in the understanding and in reality\r\n\r\nsomething than which a greater cannot be thought.\r\n\r\n <\/blockquote>\r\nAnselm's argument is not dependent upon experimentation or\u00a0observation of scientific facts; it is an argument based upon definition. He\u00a0believed he had provided the knock down argument for God's existence. His\u00a0joy of discovery is evident in his comment, \"Thanks be to thee, good Lord,\u00a0thanks be to thee, because I now understand by thy light what I formerly\u00a0believed by thy gift, so that even if I were to refuse to believe in thy existence, I\u00a0could not fail to understand its truth.\"10 Anselm was subject to almost\u00a0immediate criticism on the ground of a parallel argument that seemed to lead\u00a0to absurdity: Lost Island is an island of perfection that I can conceive of in my\u00a0understanding, and it is greater than any other island, therefore it must exist,\u00a0for if it did not then I could conceive of an existing island that would be greater\u00a0than Lost Island because it would exist! But either there is such an island or\u00a0there is not, my conceiving it cannot bring it in to existence.\r\n\r\nAnselm's argument and all other a priori arguments fall victim to\u00a0the Kantian observation that existence is not a predicate. When one says `Bob\u00a0is tall' one uses `tall' to predicate something of Bob. But if Bob is tall then\u00a0`Bob' must already refer to someone who exists. To say `Bob exists' is not only\u00a0odd it is also redundant. Existence is not a matter of logic but a matter of fact.\u00a0Arguments for God's existence which are based upon reason in this way turn\u00a0out to be unsatisfactory - they always seem to be about language but not about\u00a0God.\r\n\r\nWhat then of faith? Is faith a different kind of faculty that some of us\u00a0may enjoy which somehow provides direct access to knowledge? `Faith' is both\u00a0quite an ordinary word and quite an extra-ordinary word. On the one hand it\u00a0functions to describe the epistemic relationship we have with all sorts of things\u00a0we do not understand: `I have faith that my automatic transmission will work,'\u00a0or `I have faith that the Canadian dollar will continue to have some value.' On\u00a0the other hand it is used in this way: `I have faith that God spoke to the\u00a0patriarchs in the desert,' or `Faith tells me that Christ died for my sins.' Are\u00a0these usages the same? Not exactly, for in the first examples we could in\u00a0principle come to know whether the faith was well placed by pursuing study of\u00a0a certain kind. But in the latter examples there is nothing further to study, even\u00a0in principle; faith in those examples is hope. Not all faith is rational.\r\n\r\nBelief in God appears more an aesthetic experience than anything else.\u00a0One either sees the beauty in a painting or one does not. Is the beauty really\u00a0there? Yes and no. As Wisdom says, \"We have eaten of the fruit of a garden\u00a0we can't forget though we were never there, a garden we still look for though\u00a0we can never find it.\"\r\n\r\nGod, like beauty, is to be found in the stories, the works of art, of the\u00a0Bible. When our first son was about four he went to play school one day and\u00a0immediately went over to an easel and stood there holding a brush ready to\u00a0start painting. The teacher came up behind him and said, \"What are you going\u00a0to paint?\" \"God,\" he said. \"And do you know what God looks like?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will when I finish the painting,\" he said as he began to paint.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"
\n

To read is to interpret. To interpret is to seek intention. Good readers\u00a0offer consistent readings of texts. Biblical heroes are good readers who read\u00a0Yahweh’s intentions. Who is this Yahweh that we read of from the very\u00a0beginning of the text?<\/p>\n

“In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth…” is\u00a0the first thing we read. Not only is there a time indicator functioning like “once\u00a0upon a time” but also it seems right to call it the time indicator – not once in\u00a0time but at the beginning of time. “In the beginning of creation” signals an\u00a0ongoing creation, a continuous creation in time, and not just a creative act of\u00a0instantaneous power inserted and withdrawn.<\/p>\n

In the Genesis 1 creation story we find authority, brevity, and solemn\u00a0majesty presented in the character of God, the transcendent and creative\u00a0commander of the universe. But already in Genesis 2 we meet a sudden switch\u00a0in form and style. Now the relationship of the characters rather than the\u00a0tabulation of events or commands is primary. Here is a personal God,\u00a0immanent and knowable, instead of transcendent and imperial. The language\u00a0is picturesque and flowing: this God breathes life into dust sculpted man and\u00a0plants a garden, this God responds to the loneliness of Adam and creates Eve,\u00a0this God walks in the garden and talks to his creations. The God who issued\u00a0commands in Genesis 1 speaks only once here and then to himself, “It is not\u00a0good for man to be alone.” While in Genesis 1 God appears as a being who\u00a0stands outside of his creation and controls it with his mighty word, in Genesis 2\u00a0the portrait of God is very different. Here his immanence, personal nearness,\u00a0and local involvement on the human scene are basic features. Yahweh is not a\u00a0detached sovereign overlord but a god at hand as a loving master. He is a god\u00a0with whom man has a ready contact. He molds with his hands like a potter; he\u00a0breathes into the mouth of a clay model, he searches through the garden\u00a0for Adam and Eve, he converses.<\/p>\n

These two differing notions of God have been described as the Priestly\u00a0and the Yahwist conceptions. The priestly account is claimed to run from\u00a0Genesis 1.1 through 2.4a and the Yahwist account from Genesis 2.4b through\u00a04.26. They differ in these ways: while the Priestly account is solemn, repetitive,\u00a0and majestic in style, the Yahwist account is told in story form with an\u00a0evocative and economical use of words which appeals to the imagination\u00a0instead of the intellect. While in the Priestly (P) account God creates things, in\u00a0the Yahwist (J) account he forms them. P has male and female created in the\u00a0likeness of God; J has man and woman formed as living beings from the dust.\u00a0P offers a cosmic perspective of an ordered world with God outside it, and J\u00a0presents an intimate and involved God creating not by order but by hand. In P\u00a0documents the name for God is `Elohim’ and in J documents the name for\u00a0God is `Yahweh’.<\/p>\n

Quite different conceptions of god are to be seen in these different\u00a0renditions. Detached or involved, or both? In the final combination of stories\u00a0the answer is both. One set of stories likely arose from the priestly concerns of\u00a0ritual and intellectual justification for a certain conception. \u00a0 The so-called\u00a0Yahwist story teller has differing intentions, is as we say, of the people, and\u00a0tells the story in a more personal way. The difference here could be described\u00a0as the difference between a sermon and a drama. By the time the redactor has\u00a0woven the stories together the result is a more complex god than either P or J\u00a0envisioned. From the very beginning it seems that talking of God was in part a\u00a0matter of projecting self-interest on to the screen. Talking of god is not a\u00a0matter of getting the description accurate but always is a matter of proclaiming\u00a0what is to be described. If two people (or two nations) disagree on the proper\u00a0description of god, they have no place in the physical world to go to check for\u00a0descriptive accuracy – they go instead to texts, they return to their story and not\u00a0to the laboratory.<\/p>\n

The Hebrew God appears on several occasions in the stories of the Old\u00a0Testament. In one sense these books are the record of the covenant between\u00a0God and his chosen people. He reveals himself to the patriarchs and to Moses\u00a0– appears as himself to the tribal heroes. For example:<\/p>\n

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him<\/p>\n

and said, `I am God Almighty. Live always in my presence and be<\/p>\n

perfect, so that I may set my covenant between myself and you and<\/p>\n

multiply your descendants.’ Abram threw himself down on his face,<\/p>\n

and God spoke with him and said, `I make this covenant, and I<\/p>\n

make it with you: you shall be the father of a host of nations. Your<\/p>\n

name shall no longer be Abram [that is, High Father], your name<\/p>\n

shall be Abraham [that is, Father of a Multitude], for I make you<\/p>\n

father of a host of nations. (Gen. 17.1-5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Later God appears to Abraham at Mamre in the form of visitors to his\u00a0tent to announce that Sarah will give birth to a son. The Lord also reveals to\u00a0Abraham his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, explaining that he should not\u00a0conceal from Abraham what he intends to do since Abraham is his choice to\u00a0father a great and powerful nation, and knowing of God’s intentions will be fur-\u00a0ther proof that Abraham is the chosen one. Later God will also appear to\u00a0Jacob and also rename him. God identifies himself this time as “the God who\u00a0appeared to you when you were running away from your brother Esau.” In the\u00a0famous scene in Exodus God once again appears to man, this time to Moses.\u00a0Here, in answer to Moses’ question, `If I go to the Israelites and tell them that\u00a0the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name,\u00a0what shall I say?’ we hear, `I AM; that is who I am. Tell them that I AM has\u00a0sent you to them.’ I AM is who I am; and YHWH is my name. And these\u00a0puzzling words have been written about more than any others in literature .\u00a0Here in the story we have God himself uttering his name, providing us with a\u00a0clue to his nature. What might these words mean?<\/p>\n

Names are of great importance in the Old Testament. Several of the\u00a0heroes of the tribes have name changes when the covenant is renewed. Often\u00a0the name given, as, for example, in Abraham’s case, is not only used to refer\u00a0but is also a word with meaning. `Abraham’ means `father of a multitude’ and\u00a0`Isaac’ means `he laughed.’ We do not usually think of names as having\u00a0connotations, but as tags to be used to denote or refer to a particular person.\u00a0But here, in addition to referring, these names often carry a meaning that tells\u00a0us something about the character in the story. `Yahweh’ (the probable\u00a0pronunciation of the Hebrew consonants YHWH) is the unpronounceable\u00a0name, the name that cannot be said. The name of God is unique in that it is\u00a0one word that cannot be pronounced. The difficulty of talking about God is\u00a0literally in the story – to refer to God is to have to employ a word that cannot\u00a0be pronounced. From the very beginning of the story we see the acknowledged\u00a0difficulty of god-talk, for we are cut off from either referring to him or from\u00a0giving some meaning to his name. The name he gives Moses has neither sense\u00a0nor reference. The story tells us that God is beyond language in the most basic\u00a0of ways: he is going to be impossible to talk about because the word used to\u00a0name him cannot be pronounced, and if it could be pronounced it would have\u00a0no meaning.<\/p>\n

But this has not stopped people from talking about God, for the\u00a0message of the story is always subject to and object of interpretation from a\u00a0particular point of view. One Catholic writer1 offers a reading of the Old\u00a0Testament passage quite different from mine. He says that there are three\u00a0possibilities of readings from the `I AM that I AM’ passage. First, “I am who I\u00a0am” is god’s affirmation of himself “to be the Absolutely existent One to whose\u00a0being there is no limit or restriction.”2 In the Greek version this comes out “I\u00a0am he who is.” Father Murray says these meanings are too academic for the\u00a0story and the times. What Moses is really asking, he says, “was to know not his\u00a0[God’s] nature but his role in their community and his mode of action in their\u00a0history.” Therefore he puts aside this interpretation. A second possibility is “I\u00a0make to be whatever comes to be.” He writes:3<\/p>\n

The belief that God is the Maker of All was present among the<\/em><\/p>\n

Israelites from the beginning. In fact, in all primitive religions the<\/em><\/p>\n

belief prevailed that the god stood at the origin of the world. It<\/em><\/p>\n

may, however, be doubted that the original hearing of the divine<\/em><\/p>\n

name caught this cosmological sense in it. To them, Yahweh was in<\/em><\/p>\n

the first instance the God of their fathers, who created the people,<\/em><\/p>\n

who was the Lord of the people, the power behind their history.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is yet a third interpretation which Father Murray finds the correct\u00a0one. This reading he asserts “yields a more adequate exegetical\u00a0understanding.” What does it mean to find a reading that “yields a more\u00a0adequate exegetical understanding?” It means to consider many readings from\u00a0the point of view of an already established official line and then to select as\u00a0correct that one which promotes the official line. This approach is not to read\u00a0out of the work but to read into the work from a set of preconceptions, and\u00a0one of its problems is obviously that what you read is what you are. Murray’s\u00a0reading proceeds like this: “…in the enigmatic play on words and in the Name\u00a0Yahweh that embodies its sense, Moses and his people heard not the\u00a0affirmation that God is or that he is creator but the promise that he would be\u00a0present with his people.” I have argued that `Yahweh’ is without sense. And in\u00a0this senselessness lies the “meaning” of the story. How would we decide who is\u00a0right? Look at the story – or to paraphrase D. H. Lawrence, “Never trust the\u00a0teller; trust the tale.” Murray’s three readings and my fourth are not\u00a0disagreements about what is there in the story but are disagreements about\u00a0the meaning of the story. By “meaning” here I mean the most sensible and\u00a0natural reading of the story as it appears in the complex narrative without\u00a0importing a preconceived scheme of dogmatic interpretation.<\/p>\n

Our first responsibility is to read sensitively and with care what the\u00a0writer has written. It is difficult because we do indeed look through a glass\u00a0darkly – the glass being darkened by the layers of interpretations offered up\u00a0over the centuries, \u00a0 interpretations which have evolved into the official line.\u00a0For example, we talk about god as if she were male. All those Sunday School\u00a0pictures show a male, a sort of larger than life Abraham, with flowing beard\u00a0and human features. But there is powerful imagery in the Bible that offers us\u00a0a female god. A recurring image in the Old Testament is of a god who is like a\u00a0hen, gathering its chicks under its protective wing (“as an eagle watches over\u00a0its nest,” Deut. 32.11). Images of birth are used to compare the birth of a new\u00a0nation or of a new idea to childbirth:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Long have I lain still,<\/p>\n

I kept silence and held myself in check;<\/p>\n

now I will cry like a woman in labour,<\/p>\n

Whimpering, panting and gasping. (Isaiah 42.14)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The divine feminine4 is also present in the New Testament. Jesus says\u00a0(John 16.21) “A woman in labour is in pain because her time has come…” and\u00a0later says of himself that his “time has come.” In that story Jesus is bringing\u00a0forth a new way of relating to God, a new idea. The male dominated language\u00a0of the church is found in the official line – the concepts of god in the texts are\u00a0beyond sexist projections. And just where does the meaning of a story reside?<\/p>\n

Three possibilities present themselves for consideration and discussion:\u00a01. intention, 2. text, 3. interpretation. The meaning, argue some, is to be found\u00a0in the intention of the author. If we could only know what the author\u00a0intended then we could know what the story means, or, we could then measure\u00a0the intention against the accomplishment. This approach is seen in the “let’s\u00a0call the author” approach to literary criticism. “If anybody knows what’s going\u00a0on it’s bound to be the author.” This approach would have us study history,\u00a0psychology, biography and anthropology in order to understand texts. The\u00a0New Critics reminded us that the text itself is important, although they\u00a0emphasized it to the exclusion of all else. Authorial intention, they argued, is\u00a0difficult if not impossible to ascertain, while the artifact itself, the text, is\u00a0present to be studied. Reader response critics point out that meaning resides\u00a0in the mind\/brain of the reader. Everyone has sat in a literature class and\u00a0wondered if there was indeed any answer to the problem of multiple\u00a0interpretation other than the cynical one of giving the teacher what you think\u00a0she wants.<\/p>\n

Here is a record of such a debate centering around a modern and brief\u00a0poem. “Aren’t you just reading that into the poem?” Very often the English\u00a0teacher cannot prove the validity of his\/her interpretation, try as s\/he might to\u00a0build a logical case: the design s\/he has just traced out in the webwork of a\u00a0poem’s connotations and reverberations (perfectly logical in her eyes) begins\u00a0to waver as students fire at him with alternative connections, last year’s high\u00a0school teacher’s equally logical structure, and antagonistic literary critics\u00a0(“Well, if you’re so hot why haven’t you published?”). As the design melts back\u00a0into a flow of possible meanings, the teacher stammers his\/her appeals to\u00a0justice, then to mercy, but the class has passed sentence: ring-binders snap shut\u00a0like so many hungry alligators, and the students march off to physics where\u00a0issues are clear. The teacher exiles herself to an hour of solitary confinement in\u00a0her office.<\/p>\n

Below is a record of a similar trial, with some concluding judgements.\u00a0The bone of contention is a poem by Robert Frost:5<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dust of Snow<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The way the crow<\/p>\n

Shook down on me<\/p>\n

The dust of snow<\/p>\n

From a hemlock tree<\/p>\n

Has given my heart<\/p>\n

A change of mood<\/p>\n

And saved some part<\/p>\n

Of a day I had rued.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first testimony took place in the classroom of Norbert Artzt, who\u00a0had written the poem on the blackboard, and proceeded to reveal its perfectly\u00a0logical pattern. Here is part of his report (printed in College English,\u00a0April 1971):<\/p>\n

“What is on the board?” I ask again.<\/p>\n

Someone says “words.”<\/p>\n

We have taken the first step. “What do these words do?”<\/p>\n

“They make a statement.” …<\/p>\n

I digress. “Is the statement a complete one?”…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The answers come. They are seeing the words.<\/p>\n

“In what time of year does the thing take place? Is winter a time<\/p>\n

of life and growth? What about snow? What about dust?”…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The young man with the long hair is in a frenzy. “The bird is<\/p>\n

scattering dust on the poet’s head. He is burying him. Good grief!<\/p>\n

He is burying him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everyone feels the chill. They are cold now. They are afraid.<\/p>\n

Winter, dust, crow, snow, hemlock tree- the images are coalescing.<\/p>\n

The deep structure of the poem is emerging in their heads.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suddenly the momentum stops.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“But why?” someone asks. “Why if the man gets a premonition<\/p>\n

of death does his mood change for the better?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We move back to “the way”. I ask how the bird shakes the snow<\/p>\n

down on the man, why he does it….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The bird is drying his wings or landing or taking off. The bird is<\/p>\n

indifferent to the man walking beneath him. I ask what this bird’s<\/p>\n

indifferent act might mean in the context of the experience. Some-<\/p>\n

one suggests that the meaning may lie in the man’s feeling about<\/p>\n

what has happened. The man recognizes that nature is indifferent<\/p>\n

to the life of any particular man.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I ask again what the thing on the board has said. The long-haired<\/p>\n

boy speaks. He is a genius. He will burn down the White House<\/p>\n

some day. “The poet has realized through this experience that<\/p>\n

death is inevitable and incalculable. It can come at any time, any<\/p>\n

place, to anyone. The poet knows he’s wasting his time in regret,<\/p>\n

wasting life.” The boy becomes prophetic; his name is Jeremy. “The<\/p>\n

poet has had an epiphany. That is why his mood changes.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Counter-testimony came from Laurence Perrine – after reading Artzt’s\u00a0report he wrote, in The Explicator, March, 1972:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The way” in which a crow shakes down dust of snow on Frost’s<\/p>\n

speaker is left unspecified, thus permitting several possibilities. I<\/p>\n

can see them chiefly as four: Beautifully, animatedly, cheerily, and<\/p>\n

humorously. First the poem presents a scene of visual beauty, black<\/p>\n

etched against white, the movement of the scattered snow<\/p>\n

counterpoint against the immobility of the evergreen tree. Second,<\/p>\n

the action of the crow presents a bit of life and animation in a<\/p>\n

scene otherwise frozen and without life. Third, the scattering of the<\/p>\n

snow on the speaker is almost an acknowledgment of his presence,<\/p>\n

a \u00a0 greeting, a communication between the two living actors in the<\/p>\n

scene. Fourth, the snow’s falling on the speaker suggests a touch of<\/p>\n

humor, as if the sly crow were playing a practical joke on him. The<\/p>\n

beauty of the action, its evidence of life, its suggestion of a greeting<\/p>\n

, and the touch of humor in it combines to lighten the mood of the<\/p>\n

speaker….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recounting a very simple incident, Frost strove to give it an<\/p>\n

utter simplicity of form and language. His one sentence poem has<\/p>\n

only one word with as many as two syllables.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two additional points. First, the fact that the crow’s action saved<\/p>\n

only part of a day the speaker “had rued” does not imply that his<\/p>\n

sorrow was too pervasive. He may have made a social blunder, for<\/p>\n

instance, and his wife may have spoken sharply to him; but he is<\/p>\n

hardly mourning his wife’s death or the loss of a child.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the point of the poem lies in the discrepancy between<\/p>\n

the smallness of the crow’s action and the extent of its effect: it is<\/p>\n

this that tells us most about the sensitivity of the speaker, his<\/p>\n

responsiveness to beauty and life, and his love of nature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To judge this case, what voice could be more authoritative than Robert\u00a0Frost’s? In the film \u00a0 Lover’s Quarrel With the World (1963) he\u00a0states:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s a little poem of mine, an old one. It goes like this. (He<\/p>\n

recites “Dust of Snow”.) See now. Let’s look at that fair and square.<\/p>\n

(He recites it again, more slowly.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And someone says to<\/p>\n

me,”Very sinister poem!” And I said, “Sinister?” “Yes, the crow, the<\/p>\n

crow is a black bird.” And I\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 said, “The crow figures all sorts of<\/p>\n

ways, but all right , I don’t argue. And what more?” “The hemlock<\/p>\n

tree.” And I said, “Yes?” And he said, “but Socrates, Socrates –<\/p>\n

death of Socrates.” Well you get surprises in this world. I never<\/p>\n

thought of that. I live with hemlock trees, and it’s not the weed that<\/p>\n

Socrates drank at all. And it’s all wrong with the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tree. I’m partly<\/p>\n

just as much from the city as the country. But I’m a little more<\/p>\n

country than city. And I know what a hemlock tree is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet there is a higher appeal. Here is Auden:6<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One sign that a book has literary value is that it can be read in a<\/p>\n

number of different ways. Vice versa, the proof that pornography<\/p>\n

has no literary value is that, if one attempts to read it in any other<\/p>\n

way than as a sexual stimulus, to read it, say, as a psychological<\/p>\n

case-history of the author’s sexual fantasies, one is bored to tears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though a work of literature can be read in a number of ways, this<\/p>\n

number is finite and can be arranged in a hierarchical order; some<\/p>\n

readings are obviously “truer” than others, some obviously false,<\/p>\n

and some like reading a novel backwards,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 absurd. That is why,<\/p>\n

for a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than<\/p>\n

the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable for, in relation to its<\/p>\n

readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be<\/p>\n

read in an infinite number of ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Need Frost be aware of this hierarchy? In fact, need he be aware of fairly\u00a0basic implications of his poem? We often need others to help us grasp the\u00a0meaning(s) of our own dreams. Often the creative work functions as an “other”\u00a0to the one creating it.<\/p>\n

But in case the issue seems to be resolving or dissolving into valid subjective\u00a0realities, here’s a new confrontation, revealed by a broader context. After the\u00a0appearance of Perrine’s attack on him, Artzt (author of the first article) wrote\u00a0to Jeremy for moral support. Jeremy was then at a Federal Correction\u00a0Institute for burning draft cards and a draft office. His reply:<\/p>\n

What really craps me out is that guys like you and Mr. P. take these<\/em><\/p>\n

things so seriously. Both of you ought to take a long walk in the<\/em><\/p>\n

snow.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What matters in this world is action. When words turn into action<\/em><\/p>\n

you have poetry. When they sit on the page or in the classroom you<\/em><\/p>\n

have nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’ll tell you what you can do for me – you can stop the war. When<\/em><\/p>\n

the murders are done with, write me again and tell me what you did<\/em><\/p>\n

to stop the killing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

When an eight line poem can stimulate such discussion is it any wonder\u00a0that the stories from the Bible are interpreted in so many different ways?\u00a0Would it help to be able to talk with the author? Where is the authority for a\u00a0reading that is true? Do we look to a priest or a rabbi? Would not that be to\u00a0substitute one reading for another? In a sense the claim of authority for the\u00a0biblical stories, namely that they are written by God, should be taken as\u00a0metaphoric truth. The truth is in the stories – not in the interpretations offered\u00a0by others who add their voices to the stories. Reading the Bible is to read a\u00a0complex narrative, with all the subtlety and complexity that requires, but it is\u00a0not merely to choose to accept someone else’s reading on authority. Reading\u00a0any complex text requires that we bring to it everything that we can, effectively,\u00a0all we are: a critical mind, a sensitivity to literary structures, an awareness of\u00a0the time and place from which the text arises, our little knowledge of life itself.\u00a0In reading the Bible, too often, instead of a critical reading based upon\u00a0intention, text, and reaction, we are seduced by the official line, which\u00a0does all of the work for us. Adding the official line to the formula of intention,\u00a0text, and reaction means we are faced with the difficulty of attempting to read\u00a0the intention, text, and reaction of the official line!<\/p>\n

What a beautiful thing it is to read the bible stories without the layers\u00a0of interpretive stuff that many of us bring to them from the chapel or the\u00a0synagogue. It is difficult to read these texts with fresh eyes from within our\u00a0culturally imposed official line, but it is the only way to read them.<\/p>\n

As I write this two armies are facing each other in the Persian Gulf.\u00a0Saddam Hussein has recently invaded and taken Kuwait. George Bush has\u00a0responded with the assistance of the United Nations by moving a\u00a0multi-national force into Saudia Arabia. The self-interest of the nations\u00a0involved is beginning to be hidden under rhetoric about “holy wars” and\u00a0“sacred places” and “evil forces” – rhetoric that tries to make this grab for oil by\u00a0both sides into some kind of religious encounter between two gods: the God of\u00a0Islam and the God of Christianity. Are we to believe that God, any god, is\u00a0concerned about the price of a barrel of oil? The number of religious wars\u00a0fought on this earth is staggering. Millions of people have died in defense of\u00a0some conceptual projection or other. We have fought over subtle matters of\u00a0doctrine, over what shape the temple should have, over what sacrifices are\u00a0appropriate. And in every war each side claims that God is on their side. As\u00a0Lincoln said in the American Civil War: “They say that God is on their side; we\u00a0say that God is on our side. We could both be wrong, but at most one of us is\u00a0right.” Belief in god can be a powerful force in the affairs of men and women.\u00a0Such belief can bring us to our knees, can arm us with a sword of fire as we\u00a0march off to war, can bring us fear of the future, can fill our minds with\u00a0expectation, can provide peace and acceptance. One can also believe in ghosts,\u00a0devils, secret powers of the mind, the power of crystals to cure cancer, the\u00a0existence of witches, or the green cheese theory of the moon’s construction.\u00a0What is the difference, if any, between a belief in these fantastic notions and a\u00a0belief in a god?<\/p>\n

Nothing and everything. On the one hand there is no difference, in the\u00a0sense that there is no evidence for the existence of devils or gods. On the other\u00a0hand there is a difference in the tenacity with which people hold on to the\u00a0belief in god. With many beliefs we are willing to let them go when we are\u00a0provided with sufficient evidence. Strictly speaking, of course, it is impossible\u00a0to hold a false belief. Once I know that a given belief of mine is false I can no\u00a0longer hold it as a belief. If I do, then doing so counts as evidence that I am\u00a0irrational. But just as I cannot know that God exists, I also cannot know that\u00a0God does not exist. `Know’ is the key word here. How does it function? We say\u00a0that we know P (a statement) just when we believe that P, we have evidence\u00a0that P, and P is true. In formal dress:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

X knows that P is true if and only if:<\/p>\n

1. X believes that P,<\/p>\n

2. X has good evidence that P, and<\/p>\n

3. P is true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Knowledge then is justified, true belief. Belief is a necessary but not a sufficient\u00a0condition for knowledge, which means that no matter how hard I believe that\u00a0P, P’s truth is independent of my belief. It also means that the number of\u00a0believers is also logically independent of the truth of the proposition. The\u00a0strength and the number of believers cannot guarantee the truth of a\u00a0proposition. It may well be that millions of committed persons once believed\u00a0strongly that the earth is flat. But that didn’t make it flat. So it is with God.\u00a0Millions of people seem to believe in Allah, and millions of people seem to\u00a0believe in the Christian God. Millions believe in Buddha. Millions believe in no\u00a0god. But we do not believe that this issue will be settled by a world wide vote.<\/p>\n

Besides going to “sacred” texts to prove our god’s existence, which is\u00a0question begging (“I know that God exists because it says so in the Bible and\u00a0God wrote the Bible!”7), how do we proceed?<\/p>\n

One way is to posit another way of knowing, a way of knowing that is\u00a0not subject to the same rigor as is factual knowledge and its repeated claim for\u00a0verification. Faith is often suggested as way of knowing religious truths which is\u00a0different from the way of knowing other kinds of truths. “The invisible is\u00a0always visible to faith,” writes Father Murray,8 and there does seem to be a\u00a0widespread belief that faith is a way of knowing that should be included as a\u00a0third logical category in answer to the question `how do you know that x?’ One\u00a0way we know that x is through experience and another is through reason.\u00a0Perhaps a third way is faith. All three answers have been offered as ways of\u00a0knowing about God. Experience, it is argued, offers evidence that God exists.\u00a0Because of the complexity of the created world, in the beauty and design of the\u00a0created product is some evidence that a creator must exist who created the\u00a0whole of it. Nothing as complicated as a human eye or human brain could\u00a0possibly exist unless there were some creator behind the creation, but\u00a0incremental evolution over vast expanses of time would be a counter\u00a0hypothesis that explained the coming into being of things in the world without\u00a0the need for special creation. Design itself is a slippery concept – it is hard to\u00a0say where it resides, in the thing that has it or in the thing that views it. The\u00a0believer seems to “see” something else in experience that the non-believer\u00a0cannot “see.”<\/p>\n

John Wisdom, in a famous paper published in 1944,9 argues that “the\u00a0existence of God is not an experimental issue in the way it was,” primarily\u00a0because of “our better knowledge of why things happen as they do.” While in\u00a0the past we may have thought of God as a power that pulled the levers of the\u00a0natural order, today, with the advances of science, we are not so apt to believe\u00a0that prayer is the best solution to end a drought or heal a cancer. Wisdom’s\u00a0paper, which generated a new interest in the philosophy of religion, offers an\u00a0explanation of how it is that “an explanatory hypothesis, such as the existence\u00a0of God, may start by being experimental and gradually become something\u00a0quite different.” He offers a story about two men who return to their long\u00a0neglected garden to find that among the weeds are some of the old plants\u00a0growing strongly. One suggests that a gardener must come and tend them. The\u00a0other says there is no gardener. They experiment by examining the garden very\u00a0carefully, studying other unattended gardens, and asking neighbours if anyone\u00a0is secretly tending the garden. The two discover exactly the same facts, but one\u00a0continues to say “There is a gardener” and the other to say “There is no\u00a0gardener.” Wisdom says, “with this difference in what they say about the\u00a0gardener goes a difference in how they feel towards the garden, in spite of the\u00a0fact that neither expects anything of it which the other does not expect.” One\u00a0man feels one way about the garden and the other feels another way. Is this all\u00a0it means to assert a belief in God?<\/p>\n

People who argue about the existence of God and attempt to convince\u00a0others of their position are arguing about something they take to be\u00a0fundamental and important – they do not seem to be talking just about how\u00a0they feel. Each wants to offer some kind of reasons for his\/her belief, or as\u00a0Wisdom puts it, “The disputants speak as if they are concerned with a matter\u00a0of scientific fact, or of trans-sensual, trans-scientific and metaphysical fact, but\u00a0still of fact and still a matter about which reasons for and against may be\u00a0offered, although no scientific reasons in the sense of field surveys for fossils or\u00a0experiments on delinquents are to the point.” However, not every dispute that\u00a0we have is one that can be settled by experiment. In mathematics, logic and\u00a0literary interpretation we may offer reasons in support of our beliefs, but be\u00a0unable to offer experimental results that support the interpretation or\u00a0solution. In law cases the same facts may be accepted by both parties and there\u00a0still be a dispute as to what they mean. In these kinds of cases, argues\u00a0Wisdom, “the solution of the question at issue is a decision, a ruling by the\u00a0judge.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is \u00a0 belief in God equal with belief in mathematics or logic? \u00a0 Over the\u00a0centuries many have thought so and many attempts have been made to\u00a0provide the deductive argument that would win the day. In the eleventh\u00a0century Saint Anselm offered a brilliant argument based upon a definition of\u00a0God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” He argued:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. By God we understand that than which nothing greater can be<\/p>\n

conceived.<\/p>\n

2. That than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the<\/p>\n

understanding alone.<\/p>\n

3. Therefore, there exists both in the understanding and in reality<\/p>\n

something than which a greater cannot be thought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anselm’s argument is not dependent upon experimentation or\u00a0observation of scientific facts; it is an argument based upon definition. He\u00a0believed he had provided the knock down argument for God’s existence. His\u00a0joy of discovery is evident in his comment, “Thanks be to thee, good Lord,\u00a0thanks be to thee, because I now understand by thy light what I formerly\u00a0believed by thy gift, so that even if I were to refuse to believe in thy existence, I\u00a0could not fail to understand its truth.”10 Anselm was subject to almost\u00a0immediate criticism on the ground of a parallel argument that seemed to lead\u00a0to absurdity: Lost Island is an island of perfection that I can conceive of in my\u00a0understanding, and it is greater than any other island, therefore it must exist,\u00a0for if it did not then I could conceive of an existing island that would be greater\u00a0than Lost Island because it would exist! But either there is such an island or\u00a0there is not, my conceiving it cannot bring it in to existence.<\/p>\n

Anselm’s argument and all other a priori arguments fall victim to\u00a0the Kantian observation that existence is not a predicate. When one says `Bob\u00a0is tall’ one uses `tall’ to predicate something of Bob. But if Bob is tall then\u00a0`Bob’ must already refer to someone who exists. To say `Bob exists’ is not only\u00a0odd it is also redundant. Existence is not a matter of logic but a matter of fact.\u00a0Arguments for God’s existence which are based upon reason in this way turn\u00a0out to be unsatisfactory – they always seem to be about language but not about\u00a0God.<\/p>\n

What then of faith? Is faith a different kind of faculty that some of us\u00a0may enjoy which somehow provides direct access to knowledge? `Faith’ is both\u00a0quite an ordinary word and quite an extra-ordinary word. On the one hand it\u00a0functions to describe the epistemic relationship we have with all sorts of things\u00a0we do not understand: `I have faith that my automatic transmission will work,’\u00a0or `I have faith that the Canadian dollar will continue to have some value.’ On\u00a0the other hand it is used in this way: `I have faith that God spoke to the\u00a0patriarchs in the desert,’ or `Faith tells me that Christ died for my sins.’ Are\u00a0these usages the same? Not exactly, for in the first examples we could in\u00a0principle come to know whether the faith was well placed by pursuing study of\u00a0a certain kind. But in the latter examples there is nothing further to study, even\u00a0in principle; faith in those examples is hope. Not all faith is rational.<\/p>\n

Belief in God appears more an aesthetic experience than anything else.\u00a0One either sees the beauty in a painting or one does not. Is the beauty really\u00a0there? Yes and no. As Wisdom says, “We have eaten of the fruit of a garden\u00a0we can’t forget though we were never there, a garden we still look for though\u00a0we can never find it.”<\/p>\n

God, like beauty, is to be found in the stories, the works of art, of the\u00a0Bible. When our first son was about four he went to play school one day and\u00a0immediately went over to an easel and stood there holding a brush ready to\u00a0start painting. The teacher came up behind him and said, “What are you going\u00a0to paint?” “God,” he said. “And do you know what God looks like?”<\/p>\n

“I will when I finish the painting,” he said as he began to paint.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

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