The Sacrifice of Isaac

I have been thinking of the Sacrifice of Isaac, perhaps because it is a muslim holiday that was in the news recently, or perhaps there is something in the story that has resonance for me. Maybe there is a lesson for me there.

The story is told in the 21st Chapter of Genesis, how Abraham heard the voice of God telling him to take Isaac “whom you love” and sacrifice him on the sacred mountain. So Abraham took him to the mountain, built an altar, bound the child, laid him on it, and was stopped by an angel of God literally at the last moment.

The traditional interpretation of this story is that Abraham was so very faithful to God, he held nothing back, not even this child of miraculous birth. Soren Kirkegaarde cites this account to support the principal of (in the words of my old philosophy prof) “the teleological suspension of the ethical.” (A slippery slope if there ever was.)

But there is a mystery here: Why would God tell Abraham to do such a thing? Was God putting Abraham to the test?

There is another interpretation, which I’m told is found in Jewish commentary, which speculates something else entirely, that in fact, God was dealing with Abraham’s reluctance, refusal, resistance, rebellion, even, against God’s design: That Abraham loved Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, more than Isaac, the child of the miraculous birth, and that he wanted Ishmael to be the favored one, not Isaac. He wanted Ishmael to be the one to father innumerable people and be the one through whom all nations would be blessed.

The argument is buttressed by subtle clues in the text: No reason if offered for this strange demand. If one accepts the traditional argument, one might be excused for asking why would God put Abraham to the test? Why would God put Isaac through the terror and trauma of being bound, lain on an altar and feeling a knife held to his neck? The traditional interpretation has the effect of making God a terrorist.
Other hints: This account is placed immediately after the banishment of Hagar. One notes that Abraham was “greatly distressed” when forced by Sarah to banish Hagar “on account of his son” (Ishmael); but when commanded to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering, he meekly complies. So he is anguished about expelling Hagar (because of Ishmael) but the command to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering apparently causes him little or no distress. Yet this is the same man who interceded with God to spare the wicked city of Sodom, the residence of his brother-in-law. If Abraham was distressed at the command to sacrifice Isaac, there is no evidence in the text of that. On the contrary, he went about fulfilling the command with alacrity, setting out the next morning.

So what if Abraham preferred Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, to Isaac, the child of miraculous birth? What if doing do was the most natural thing in the world? What if Ishamel was this golden child full of promise, bright-eyed and gifted, good-natured, amiable, intelligent, physically adept, endearing in every way? What if Ishmael was the ideal son, and what if Isaac was none of that? What if Isaac was physically maladapt, shy, anxious, dull and a bit slow in the head? So what if Abraham preferred Ishamel, and Ishmael was in every way the superior of the two? Just because Isaac was the child of miraculous birth and the receiver of the blessing, it doesn’t mean he was extraordinary. I speculate, but maybe Isaac was a little slow. Was it not three days into the journey before he noticed that Abraham had not brought a lamb to sacrifice? That would suggest he was either slow or so in awe of his father, he was afraid to mention it. If he was in awe of his father and afraid to speak to him, one wonders about their relationship.

In this reading, the phrase “Isaac, whom you love” rings hollow and ironic. In this reading, Abraham is no longer of heroic stature, the man who would hold nothing back from God; he is no better than any of us, an ordinary mortal, foolish, frail, and willful; and God is forced into pursuing his aims with a fantastic indirection. I note there is no criticism of Abraham by God (that would have been withering) only praise: (I have seen some clever managers do something similar to that, stretching far to find words of praise for a mediocre and despised colleague.) So God praises Abraham who has shown himself willing to offer his beloved to God and held nothing back when the truth is, he had rejected Isaac for Ishmael. Seen in this light, those words become a fantastic accommodation of human weakness. So the monument Abraham builds at the end of the story stands in a different light. The inscription “The Lord Has Provided” refers not to the ram, but Isaac. It is Abraham's weary acceptance of God’s design.

The Prayer of St. Ephraem of Edessa

I have been reading (and re-reading) this remarkable book, The Desert Fathers by Helen Waddell. It's a translation from the latin of various documents originally written in greek that recorded the lives and history and sayings of some of the Desert Fathers, the solitaries that fled the crumbling Empire to live as hermits in the Egyptian desert, practicing a strict austerity inconceivable to the modern sensibility.

The Desert Fathers invented cenobitic monasticism, the practice of monks living under a common rule and purse and under the direction of an abbot. From the experience and writings of these monks, St. Benedict in the west and St. Basil in the east formulated their monastic rules.

This is the conclusion to St Ephraem's The Life of St. Mary the Harlot and is taken from Helen Waddell’s The Desert Fathers, pp 201-202. While I could never claim to be in the same league as St. Ephraem, I find his lament resonant. [The brackets are mine.]

Sorrow on me, beloved, for these [saints] fell on sleep [died], and with all confidence have gone their ways to God: whose minds were never set upon the business of earth, but on the sole love of God. And I unapt and reluctant in my will abide, and behold winter hath come upon me, and the infinite tempest hath found me naked and spoiled and with no perfecting of good in me.

I marvel at myself, beloved, how I daily default, and daily do repent: I build up for an hour and an hour overthrows what I have builded. At evening I say, “Tomorrow I shall repent”: but when morning comes, joyous I waste the day. Again at evening I say, “I shall keep vigil all night, and I shall entreat the Lord with tears, to have mercy on my sins”: but when night has come, I am full of sleep. Behold, those who received their talent along with me strive day and night to trade with it, that they may win the word of praise, and rule over ten cities: but I in my sloth hid mine in the earth, and my Lord makes haste to come; and behold my heart trembles and I weep the days of my negligence and know not what excuse to bring.

Have mercy upon me, Thou that alone art without sin, and save me, who alone art pitiful and kind: for beside Thee, the Father most blessed, and Thine only begotten Son who was made flesh for us, and the Holy Ghost who giveth life to all things, I know no other, and believe in no other. And now be mindful of me, Lover of men, and lead me out of the prison-house of my sins, for both are in Thy hand, O Lord, the time of that Thou didst will me to come into this world, and the time that Thou shalt bid me go out from it elsewhere. Remember me that an without defence, and save me a sinner: and may Thy grace, that was in this world my aid, my refuge and my glory, gather me under its wings in that great and terrible day. For Thou knowest, Thou who dost try the hearts and reins, that I did shun much of evil and the byways of shame, the vanity of the impertinent and the defence of heresy. And this not of myself, but of Thy grace and wherewith my mind was lit. Wherefore, holy Lord, I beseech Thee, bring me into Thy kingdom and deign to bless me with all that have found grace before Thee, for with Thee is magnificence, adoration and honour, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Eartha Kitt--Santa Baby

I have an earbug. It's Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby

My Belated EFM Assignment

Here is what I wrote for EFM Year 4 Chapter 5. I apologize if it's rather (shall we say) discursive.


Our chapter is entitled “Revolution in Philosophy”, but I would invite you to consider it (call it a thought experiment) as another phase in the development (or perhaps devolution) of Western Christianity. I emphasize 'western' lest we forget that in Eastern Europe, Greece, the Balkans and the Levant, millions of orthodox were experiencing something very different. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Holy Catholic Church entered a new era of persecution.

In the west something very different was going on. In that benighted age following the collapse of the western empire, the Bishop of Rome laid claim to the mantle of Constantine, the tattered rags of empire to which his successors continue to cling.

We know, of course, that the “donation of Constantine” was a (pious?) fraud. No matter. There was a power vacuum and the papacy tried to enter it, being the only entity around with much historical continuity. While I think one likes to imagine that imaginary monolith we call “THE CHURCH” entering into a phase of cultural and religious and political and military domination in the west, I suspect that life in present day Italy or France during the sixth, seventh and 8th centuries was much more chaotic, (In the words of Hobbes, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short") and that domination more tenuous and much less heroic than our romantic imaginations would prefer. There had to be a reason that hundreds of thousands of people in those times would have found monasticism an attractive lifestyle option.

Never-the-less, I'll accept it as a given. I'll 'stipulate' (as the attorneys say) that following the fall of Rome THE CHURCH enters into the vacuum to become the dominant force or power in the West.

If one accepts that view of history (and I admit, it might be fallacious) then history can be read as a sequence of events in which THE CHURCH or Christianity, or the Roman Catholic Church or the Papacy as proxy for all the preceding, is eclipsed successively in one sphere of life—cultural, religious, political and military—after another.

Politically and militarily, the Papacy (and by proxy THE CHURCH) is eclipsed as warring tribes of franks and goths coalesce into nation-states and ultimately European empires in which the pope again becomes an appendage (or prisoner) of an Emperor. So we have caeceropapism all over again. From 800 ad (the Coronation of Charlemagne) to 1870 (the Unification of Italy) That imaginary edifice, THE CHURCH (or it's proxy, the Papacy) suffers death by a thousand cuts. So the church is eclipsed politically and militarily by the rise of nation-states and empires and the reformation (one forgets the reformation had political as well as religious origins!); in the life of the mind, the Church is eclipsed by the development of Universities then fragmented by schisms which the new scholarship made possible. The formost thinkers are no longer monks, bishops or priests, They were increasingly nominal Christians, if they were Christians as all. Religiously the church is eclipsed by the rise of secular philosophy, and an unfortunate competition with the developing sciences (astronomy, geology, biology.) Economically the church is eclipsed by the rise of mercantile states (Venice, Hamburg, England) Empires (Various) and the Industrial Revolution.

Thus, our current chapter, “Revolution in Philosophy, is another turn in the road of the decline and fall of western Christianity.

Now, of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, I know little of Descartes and less of anybody else. That fine upstanding Methodist-affiliated university where I attended had a combined department of philosophy and religion, a total of about six people of whom it was said that the the philosophy professors were all atheists and the religion professors were all defrocked methodist clergy. I do not know that the religion professors were in fact defrocked clergy, perhaps it would be more accurate (but no less kind) to characterize them as failed clergy. All of them, regardless of their religious beliefs held in common certain things: a lack of academic distinction; a compensating inflated view of themselves, and a reverence for the game of Golf, of which the department head (one of those failed ministers) served as the university golf coach.

So I took the minimum number of electives I was required to take in that department and fled it forever. Not until after I had completed my electives did the department hire a religion professor who had the intellectual distiction the department otherwise lacked. He was a Jesuit priest, and he proved his bonafides by delivering to the Methodist chapel one sunday a high-octane sermon which nobody, I repeat nobody—except myself—understood.

I would point out that the reverend doctor had to shorten his remarks because the service planners had used up all the time allotted to the service and the Roman Catholics were beginning to arrive in the narthex even as he mounted the steps to the pulpit. They did this regularly. I'm sure that even if the Catholics had agreed to start their mass a half hour later, it would have made no difference. They would still have arrived to find the methodists playing church.

Attendance on a typical sunday at Neu Chapel, University of Evansville:

Methodist Chapel 10 am. 25 people.

Catholic Mass 12 noon: 300 people.


In honor of my former friends at the Methodist Chapel, I propose we have a special Methodist Prayer Service . Here is the order of service:

Organ Prelude
Carrying in of the Sacred Fire (tapers flaring!) accompanied by dramatic music.
Opening Hymn
Opening Prayer
Musical Offering
Psalm (optional)
First Reading (Bible optional)
Liturgical dance
Second Reading (bible optional)
musical offering
Prayers (get up, form circle, hold hands)
pass the plate (hymn or liturgical dance)
Sermon
Hymn
Carrying out of the Sacred Fire (relight tapers from altar lights, extinquish candles and exit tapers flaring accompanied by dramatic music)
Organ Postlude.

Perhaps I omit something. Done properly, it should take about two hours not counting the sermon.



I find it interesting that Descartes utilized doubt as a tool of inquiry. Doubt can be a tool of inquiry, it can also be corrosive. I wonder if Descartes realized were doubt might lead. Doubt about the nature of the physical world is one thing. Doubt applied to religion leads where it may—to agnosticism and atheism. Maybe I just don't get Descartes. I've never been enthused about him.

Perhaps by nature I'm just a Baconian nominalist. I think that stands to reason.

Now here's the question: When Whitney Houston sang

“My love is your love
And your love is my love”

Is that a monad, per Liebniz?

As I said above, I know practically nothing about philosophy. Perhaps soon some quiet winter I will pull the books from the Five Foot Shelf and spend some evenings reading the selected writings of Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke and Hume and appreciate them in a way I never was able to do so before now—as our heritage, as the history of the development of human thought. I never, before now, thought of that as something I would like to do.

Tears

Summer is gone and I haven't made any money. And all my attempts to improve my situation have been blocked. I am in tears over my situation. I sit an listen to teary music. Perhaps this is what the psalmist means when he wrote, "You have given us tears to drink and the bread of tears to eat."

Excursion to Staten Island

On Sunday July 12 Maria organized an excusion to Staten Island. So James, Amanda, Maria and YMOS visted St. Andrew's-in-the-Swamp on Staten Island where we were partakers of a well-executed and proper and holy mass and heard an excellent sermon by Fr. Michael Delaney. We had an excellent lunch at King's Buffet, and toured the Tibetan Museum where we saw some interesting things (Buddha, a monkey, this peculiar purple clover.

Tigger Eating Altar Flowers from St. Andrews

The Altar flowers from St. Andrews were given to Amanda (they give them away to visitors?) but since she and James were going to see the Staten Island Yankees play and didn't want to be carrying them around all day, she gave them to me. (Why not Maria?)

The flowers sat in the hot car all the rest of the day until 9 pm when I finally got home and put them in a heavy container that would be relatively resistant to cat-tipping.

Tigger did not seem inclined to try to tip the container, but did think that statice (or is it baby's breath?) made for a nice salad.

Protected Bike Lanes on Broadway (31st St)

I was impressed by these bike lanes on broadway. They're relatively protected (by barricades at the corners) to discourage aggressive drivers from intruding on the space. NYC if finally getting a little bit more bike friendly.

Chris Rea: "Tell Me There's a Heaven"

Sometimes what I know of what I'm feeling is through the music I'm hearing in my mind. And lately, for days on end, my earbug has been Chris Rea singing "Tell Me There's a Heaven".

I guess you could say I'm not a happy camper.

Does suffering mean anything? Does suffering have any larger meaning or contgext? Or is it (as I suspect) suffering is just suffering?

I am suffering. I am stressed. When I am overstressed I lose things, and I am losing things left and right. This week I have lost my $100 roller ball pen; my best sunglasses; in the last six weeks I've lost a lot of things including articles of clothing, books, my PATH train fare card, my JC Penney credit card, and my digital camera. I also lost my home internet connection because I couldn't pay the bill. I'm trying to get through this rough patch, but things keep getting worse no matter what I do.

All this misery I'm enduring. Does it mean anything?