Monday, November 5, 2018

"Vain Repetitions"

Objection: Why do Catholics pray such prayers as the Rosary when Jesus states: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do: for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking" (Matt 6:9).

Many non-Catholics, when they see the words of our Lord in Matthew 6:9, seem to see only the word "repetitions", and thereby conclude that Jesus is condemning all repetitious prayer. They neglect to notice that Christ deliberately adds an adjective in front of the word "repetitions", i.e., "vain", so as to distinguish it from other types of repetitious prayer. (It should be noted that other translations, like the ESV, will translate it as "empty phrases", or an equivalent, but, again, the adjective is key there as well.) This is important to keep in mind, for nowhere does Christ condemn repetition in and of itself, as would have to be the case to argue against formal prayers like the Rosary. And, in fact, as we shall see later on, in many places of Scripture itself we see examples of "repetitious prayer" presented in a positive light. Unless we wish to say Scripture contradicts itself, we are forced to conclude that repetitious prayer can be legitimate.

However, before showing the positive Scriptural evidence for legitimate repetitious prayer, one should point out the obvious: that it is not only Catholics who use "repetitious" prayer. Everyone does. Of course, there are going to be "set phrases" that people use in any prayer almost. Some of them in common use, like "Dear Heavenly Father" or "in Jesus's name" are so ingrained for some people that they sometimes forget that such phrases are, after all, "repetitions" [1]. Yet would they thereby conclude that Jesus condemns such "repetition" when he states "when ye pray, use not vain repetitions"?

Or again, another obvious example would be hymns. After all, hymns are (at least when the lyrics are addressed to God) simply prayers set to music. Yet they obviously are often repetitious, both within the song itself (such as the refrain), and also by the mere fact that the same hymns are sung more than once. Indeed, over time people may sing the same hymns so often as to have the lyrics memorized. Yet would such constitute "vain repetition" or "empty phrases"?

The answer to those questions is: "Of course not!" That is because repetitions need not be "vain", nor such phrases "empty". And it is only meaningless repetition (as distinct from meaningful repetition) that Christ condemns. Jesus is condemning what the "heathen do". And what was that? As the Zondervan King James Study Bible notes in its commentary on this verse:
[The heathen] used long lists of the names of their gods in their prayers, hoping that by constantly repeating them they would call on the name of the god that could help them. Jesus is not necessarily condemning all long prayers, but meaningless verbiage in praying [emphasis mine].
While, of course, it is possible for any "repetition" to be done in a meaningless fashion (like in singing a hymn without paying attention), that is where the danger lies. It is not the repetition itself that is a problem, but doing it in a meaningless manner (and that danger can affect "spontaneous prayer" as well).

But what if such repetitious prayer is done in a meaningful manner? Then it is perfectly acceptable. For, after all, we see Scripture itself positively portrays repetitious prayer in many places.

The Psalms are perhaps the most obvious example of "repetitious prayer" in Scripture. These prayers were (and still are) prayed over and over again, as indeed they were meant to be (and which the early Christians continued to do; cf Jam 5:13). Even within individual Psalms we see repetition, including "litanies" (for instance, Psalm 136, in which every one of the 26 verses ends with "for his mercy endureth forever").

Moreover, we know that in Heaven itself there is "repetition" that is not "vain". The book of Revelation states concerning "the four beasts":
[....] they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. (Rev 4:8b)
Similarly, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read concerning Jesus that, after finding Peter, James, and John asleep:
[....] he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words. (Mark 14:39)
Finally, to give just one more example, in the very context of Matthew 6:7, we see Jesus warns against "vain repetitions" as a prelude to...giving an example of the right type of repetitious prayer, the "Our Father" prayer, which was meant to be prayed more than just once, obviously.

In short, so long as prayer is done in a meaningful manner, and not just heaping up "empty phrases", then whether it is spontaneous or repetitious, it is pleasing to God, who looks at the heart.

Notes
____________

[1] I'm also reminded of a joke I saw once about a person praying along the lines of "Lord, I just really want to praise you, and I just really want to thank-you, and I just really want to ask you to please remove the words 'just' and 'really' from my prayer vocabulary." (What makes the joke so funny is how accurate it is! I remember when I was a Protestant myself seeing people keep repeating "just" and "really" like that all the time. Of course, I do not blame them for that; complete “spontaneity” is not part of our nature, and “repetitions” well reassert themselves in our prayer anyway.)

Monday, October 8, 2018

Index of Writings

An index of the writings that I have posted on this blog (with a rough categorization)

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

"They're all fundamentalists!"

[Note: In the following piece, I focus on critiquing a very widespread “atheist fundamentalism”, but in so doing of necessity critique Christian fundamentalism, in areas where the two overlap. Given my personal background, I naturally have a deep appreciation for the great good I encountered in the fundamentalism of my childhood. Therefore, I hope any fundamentalist brothers and sisters in Christ who may read this piece realize that while I may disagree with them in the points under critique, and have expressed such below, I also realize the great good that such Christians have done as well, and I am grateful for it.]

The Englishman G.K. Chesterton, writing during the time of Prohibition, paradoxically remarked concerning Americans at that time that (excepting the Catholics) "they're all Puritans", including the "atheists", "anarchists", and "artists". He was, of course, using hyperbole in so saying. That being said, he was still giving expression to a key insight concerning the mood of our country at that time, and his perception of how the Puritanism that had come over with the Mayflower still influenced our nation down to that very age. Indeed, it was so ingrained in our culture, that even most of those who had ceased to believe in any religion at all (or, in fact, considered themselves most opposed to religion) nevertheless viewed all religion through that particular lens. They had difficulty (in practice) of grasping that any other expression was even possible. Thus, in their views on morality, Chesterton went on to say:
The Pagans are Puritans; the enemies of Puritanism are Puritans; they prove it by the way in which they identify the last fads of Puritanism with the first principles of Christianity. The very fact that they think they can defy religion by drinking and smoking shows precisely what is the only religion they have ever found to defy. (Sidelights)
In a similar vein, these days I often feel led to remark that in our country "they're all fundamentalists" due to the atheists I come across. While there are, of course, quite a few exceptions, nevertheless it is almost always the case that whenever I myself see atheists arguing ("evangelizing", so to speak), it is clear that they are simply fundamentalists turned upside down. They might repudiate such an identification, but it is quite evident that they approach religion (or, to speak more strictly, at least Scripture) in the exact same way as a fundamentalist would. As one writer has remarked, "Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist." Let me give an example.

They often think they have scored off religion merely by enchanting the magic word "evolution", as if somehow evolution disproved Christianity or theism or even religion in general! Their reasoning seems to be that evolution is a fact, yet it "contradicts the Bible". Of course, even if such a conflict really existed, that would hardly disprove God's existence, nor would it refute the arguments that have traditionally been given to prove the existence of God. (Hint: those traditional arguments have nothing to do with the Bible, for obvious reasons, and far from evolution refuting such arguments, it could even be seen as mild evidence supporting them. For instance, Aquinas's Fifth Way.) Evolution would (speaking solely for the sake of argument) at most prove the Bible to be in error on that particular point, and nothing else.

But the main point I wish to emphasize at the moment is that only a fundamentalist would even make the assertion that evolution of necessity "contradicts the Bible" in the first place. And that remains so even if the fundamentalist in question happens to be an atheist. For the only way it could even possibly be the case for there to be a "conflict" is if one insisted on approaching the text of Scripture with a flat-footed literalism which one would never insist must be used when approaching any other piece of literature like that. But why would anyone insist on doing that? There is no particular reason to believe that Scripture is attempting to teach science in the texts usually cited as causing such a conflict, and (given the original audience for the Bible), all the reason in the world to believe that it is attempting nothing of the kind.

Of course, it is hardly surprising that, in previous centuries before modern science arose, even among Catholics such texts had often been approached in a more (though not completely) literalistic fashion in the seeming absence of any compelling reasons to do otherwise. (This was the case especially when one only gave a comparatively superficial look at the text instead of doing a closer study). But such views were held only tentatively even then, and most adherents were willing to adjust their interpretation if new evidence arose which would seem to require it. (It is well known that the early and medieval church were especially quite open to reading the Scriptures figuratively- indeed, perhaps to excess!- while nevertheless insisting on the total inerrancy of Scripture.) That is because they knew the purpose of Scripture was not to teach science, but religious truth (in this case, that God is the Creator.) As St. Augustine wrote, writing approximately 1,600 years ago:
In the Gospel we do not read that the Lord said: ‘I send you the Holy Spirit so that He might teach you all about the course of the sun and the moon.’ The Lord wanted to make Christians, not astronomers. You learn at school all the useful things you need to know about nature. (Contra Faustum Manichaeum)
It is only in comparatively recent times that insistence has been placed (chiefly by certain non-Catholics) on the necessity of reading such texts in a remorselessly literal fashion, as if they had to be scientific accounts [1]. There seems to be two main causes for such an insistence.

First, many such groups, usually Protestant if they are Christian, accept a sola scriptura ("Scripture alone") principle that, being cut apart from an authoritative interpreter like the Catholic Church, intrinsically leads to myriads of interpretations of Scripture that conflict with each other. In an understandable effort to try to combat such anarchy (though it does not in fact succeed in reining it in, in my view), fundamentalists tend to insist on taking Scripture in a literalistic manner whenever possible. Thus, a consequence of such a principle would be in insisting on a literalistic reading of the first chapter of Genesis, and concluding that evolution is thereby excluded.

The key point to remember in this case, however, is that such an interpretation is not formed by approaching the text on its own terms, but simply by applying a literalistic principle that itself was born of an accidental historical necessity, i.e., the necessity of attempting to combat the anarchy let loose by their understanding of sola scriptura. However, if one rejects such a principle, and approaches the text on its own terms instead, then it becomes quite evident that there is no reason to believe that Moses was necessarily trying to teach the ancient Hebrews a scientific account of the formation of the universe. (Why would he? To what purpose? Why teach such to a non-scientific people who would have no use for it even assuming the unlikely possibility that they could understand it?) Instead, he was teaching them in a literary form congruent with their culture that God created the universe, including the sun, moon, stars, animals, etc. Recall that these were often worshiped by the neighbors of ancient Israel as gods, but Genesis 1 shows clearly that they themselves are creatures of the only true God, good in themselves and not to be rejected, to be sure, but also not to be worshiped. Rather, one should worship the God who created them.

The second reason why such texts have been approached in a literalistic way is because these days, due to the influence modern science has had on our culture, we are less inclined to think poetically or allegorically. After all, science (to say the least) tends to be written in a more literal, less flowery manner. Of course, I do not mean that we do not write poetry or use allegory these days, but we do such much less, and therefore are less likely to recognize them in an ancient context than other societies would. We wish things more directly stated. (This is especially the case in the United States, being a low-context culture.) Unfortunately, such an approach does not work when trying to interpret a work from a high-context culture, especially an ancient one, such as the original audience for Genesis was. If you try to force such an approach on the text, you will indeed find all kinds of "errors", scientific and otherwise. The same is true if you approach a poem in that way. But in both cases, the errors are not to be found in the text itself, but rather with the interpretation.

As an aside, though, St. Augustine (who himself had a partly metaphorical interpretation of Genesis 1, not some completely literalistic one) made an interesting point in the early fifth century in his The Literal Meaning of Genesis [2]. As he observed, the text of Genesis itself states, not that God "poofed" creatures into existence, but that he used secondary causes. Thus, Genesis 1:24 states "Let the earth bring forth the living creature." Or, again, as St. Augustine put it (book V, chapter 4:11):
It is therefore causally that Scripture has said that earth brought forth the crops and trees, in the sense that it received the power of bringing them forth. In the earth from the beginning, in what I might call the roots of time, God created what was to be in times to come.
It should go without saying that such an interpretation, with its implications for evolution, written around 1,400 years before Darwin was even born, by the greatest and most influential writer of Christian antiquity [3], was not written in an attempt to harmonize the text with modern science (which did not even exist), but because Augustine was trying to take the text on its own terms. One may disagree with his approach, of course, but what it does demonstrate is that it is a myth that there is necessarily a "conflict between the Bible and evolution."

Of course, in order not to get distracted by irrelevant issues, let me assure any Christian fundamentalist brothers and sisters who come across this piece that I do not mean to write this piece as a defense of evolution, much less any particular scientific theory connected with it. I freely admit that science (or rather, in particular, biology) was the subject in school I found the most boring (even though as a good Chestertonian, I recognize the fault for that lies with me, and not the subject in itself, since there is no subject in the world that is boring intrinsically.) Any such theories, true or false, are completely irrelevant to my interest here. And so, in my ignorance of the subject, I would not be able to defend them from any critiques. Nor would I care to. In short, such theories stand or fall on their own merits. If you think them erroneous (as they could be, for all I know or care), that is nevertheless irrelevant.

No, rather, my own interest is with the text of Scripture itself, and what it means. And I believe that the fundamentalist approach is misguided regardless, and needlessly leads to accusations of error in Scripture by people who do accept evolution, rightly or wrongly. Since I believe Scripture to be inerrant in what it asserts, naturally I wish to know what it asserts first. And I do not believe the fundamentalist approach is the correct way to find the answer. (That would still be the case even if theories connected with evolution were to be disproven.)

Which leads me back to the irony I have found, namely, that most atheists I see are, in fact, fundamentalists (though there are exceptions.) I gave just one example, the text of Genesis 1, in which such atheists prove their fundamentalism. But there are many such examples, such as when it comes to chronologies and the age of the earth. The point is that such atheists who would most pour scorn on fundamentalists, are unconscious examples of the very people they mock. Or, in other words, "they're all fundamentalists."

Notes
____________

[1] I realize that when modern accounts of evolution were first proposed a couple centuries ago, even the Catholic Church at that time took a quite cautious approach in how to approach them. That is hardly surprising, considering that they were often tied in association with philosophical assumptions that were erroneous and to be rejected. However, even apart from that factor, it is well known that the Church generally proceeds slowly in all matters of importance, because it "thinks in centuries", as the saying goes. (Such a cautious approach has led writer Mark Shea to refer to the Vatican- in another context- as "the Ents of Rome".) But it is important to note that even then the Church never insisted on a completely literalistic reading of Genesis, either, for such is not part of the Deposit of Faith.

[2] When Catholic sources use the term "literal sense” of Scripture, they are generally referring to a specific way of understanding that term, i.e., the "literal sense" is the sense that the human author intended the text to be understood in, that is, what the “letter” of the text meant to convey, whether that is meant to be interpreted literalistically or metaphorically. Thus, the "literal sense" of the expression "the arm of the Lord" is understood to be a metaphor for God's power. This is to be distinguished from spiritual senses of the text that God Himself has implanted in Scripture, such as St. Paul gives an example of in Galatians (cf. 4:21-31) when he discusses Isaac and Ishmael. Of course, elsewhere in this book I have used the term in the more general sense of being “literalistic” as well.

[3] I mean he was the greatest writer outside the pages of the New Testament, of course. Incidentally, the quotations from his work I quote above were taken from http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2012/04/commentary-on-jerry-oltion.html.