Liberal Madness, Conservative Treachery, and Jesus: part IV: Allegory

Allegory in the Garden of Eden: Male and Female he created them…

This is an article in a series, the first is here:

Church History: What Went Wrong? part 1
Liberal Madness, Conservative Treachery, and Jesus: part II
Liberal Madness, Conservative Treachery, and Jesus: part III: Allegory
Liberal Madness, Conservative Treachery, and Jesus: part IV: Allegory
Liberals, Conservatives, and Jesus: part V: Male and Female
Liberals, Conservatives, and Jesus, part VI: Politics and Religion

Let’s here continue with our discussion of allegory in relation to the scene in the Garden of Eden.

Before we get to the meaning of “male” and “female” and be accused or allegorizing, because these are only supposed to refer to physical genders, we need to establish our interpretational expectations a little more.

So, we will engage in some allegorical reasoning. That is to say that the whole idea of spirituality/religion is both that there is supposed to be something extraordinary behind the appearances of the world. Then, the only thing extraordinary about our minds in relation to this is that is it not self-focused, but focused only upon that remarkable thing which is found to be much more accommodating and transformative to the psychology of man than anything we can dream up ourselves. Since its the Bible we are speaking about, this even more applies. We cant be seduced by the formulations of the Left and Right, but take our view of biblical allegory from what is without vigorous argument the ultimate biblical concern.

Our ultimate biblical concern is that which attracts us that is not a person and is that Person on which our faith centers. Its called a certain knowledge and its certain Person. They are the same thing, in the same thing. We assume a meaning coming out of a biblical symbol, and assume that it is indeed a symbol, not through any a priori conclusion or through a subjective bias, since both of these are insular to humans. If there is a transcendence reality that we have seen, the a priori is that phenomenon, not any conclusion or subjective content. If such a phenomenon did not happen or exist to found the exalted revelational assumptions of Christianity, this Christianity would not be found to have any, and nothing to commend it to be a real glimpse into another world, just like any other world religion. This is, in fact, where Christianity is going.

As I said in so many words, the only rule we can’t use is one that is so open, so specialized for the service of personal affections, that it produces no predictable results or another that is so biased toward hermeneutical law that the meaning becomes prosaic, producing a text that is at odds with the whole idea of a revelation that is supposed to be disclosing something remarkable and sharply unexpected.

In this study, we will float some ideas. These are not about the meaning of the 1000 years in Revelation or the chain that is carried by the angel of the bottomless pit, or what the ring in the Prodigal Son represents. The problem that starts in the idea of allegory is not first about what justifies us in giving spiritual meaning to a natural figure or phrase. The problem is about all of our operational metrics in determining what kind of meaning we will end up with and what justifies holding it up as a revelation of the Divine. To this, we must discuss allegory in context with the subject of biblical symbolism, working our way into the harder, more particular categories and things. That is of course if we do not choose in wisdom to leave some of them alone and left to the Lord’s disclosure in the consummation.

We have three tasks:

1. Establish parabolic/revelational presupposition. The presupposition is that the center-line would have to have the following features to avoid insularity or hyper-objectivity.

Along without our last point in this series, the meaning is equal with the Person who is assumed to have given its symbol, but such that it is self-sustaining in its ability to serve it, without the need for fine argumentation that comes out of the invention and cleverness of people to establish it. We would not have to bring in a philosophical principle, archaeology, textual criticism or propositional logic. Meaning, as its Person, must be obvious, not through struggle, and the most obvious and most important thing in establishing the Bible or Jesus as “truth.”
The symbolic meaning would speak of both the ultimate Person of the faith and his credentials simultaneously, which must act as metonymies. Only this way can the Person be inescapable from a certain transcendent meaning, and meaning for the text itself be inescapable from this meaning. A particular meaning for the Person is inseparable from him because his credentials are inseparable without destroying the objective importance of him to matters of objective-revelational spirituality.
The meaning would have to be ameliorable, in an ultimate sense, to the conception of the remarkable as to the conception of the excitation of the psyche.
The meaning would have to combine or imply the dual, primarily epistemic categories of subject and object to solve the problem pertaining to what is known and how it is known, causing an outcome which settles doubt. This doubt results in an inability to make reasonably unassailable determinations that a perfect kind of object may exist for inspection and/or an unattainable psychic state in which to view it as such. All theories of epistemology are traditionally around this skepticism, with the presupposition of the likely impossibility that one thing or subject objectively exists, and that we must deal only within the notion of the problem of the psyche against its unchangeable limitations in a closed world. But the object of which I speak, before it can affect the change on the subject, must first be itself an ultimate objective and subjective subject and object.
The meaning is expected to come from a combination of both the greatest imaginable predicate and conclusion of the belief that extends to things other-worldly. If the conclusion is transcendent and the predicate is transcendent then the meaning, their result, is transcendent.

2. Establish a reigning epistemic paradigm

Others could be proposed, but let’s deal with what I have. What kind of truth paradigm do we have now and how is it different from the presuppositions above?

a. My quote above is this: “The meaning is equal with the person who is assumed to have given its symbol, such that it is self-sustaining in its ability to serve it, without the need for fine argumentation that comes out of the need for the invention and cleverness of people to establish it.”

The meaning we are looking for in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden seems to be one of the most difficult. Obviously, it is not only a tree, but it is self-explanatory as representing the knowledge of Good and Evil, with a devastating effect on those who partake of its fruit. But what kind of knowledge of good and evil?

In our corrupt paradigm, whatever the meaning is, we essentially think that it must be open to corruption, obscurity, and breakdown as well. There is usually an agreement that “good and evil” represent everything, both good and evil in a mixture. That before the fall, evil was not known, but only as a potential. This “everything” is often explained as the knowledge for good and bad invention, life or death, faith or death, rebellion and obedience, the introduction of moral categories that did not exist previously, the experience of good and evil, and many more. But these tell us practically nothing about the kind of knowledge of good and evil and never settle the question. They only give us general hints of where it might be found.

Because of this, it also does not tell us much about what kind of state is the antithesis of pre-fall man or what is to be said is the antithesis of knowledge by which God would be known pre-fall. Since the tree is indeed the antithesis of the Tree of Life, that tree is obviously representing the opposite in an eternal, perfect provision by God. Whatever the meaning, we have to be consistent in applying it to a knowledge of God’s knowledge of good and evil and man’s knowledge of good and evil, since the text says that if Man knows it, he will be like God, knowing good and evil. Whatever position we take under our world-truth paradigm in which Christianity partakes, it will certainly not be a foregone conclusion, but will certainly be good in making sure that a theological industry that requires thousands of books, seminars, workshops, university classes, histories religious philosophy papers will be produced to support its many options which are also certainly not examples of that kind of knowledge provided by God of him pre-fall.

b. “The symbolic meaning would speak of both the ultimate Person of the faith and his credentials simultaneously, which must act as metonymies.” The meaning is, in our world-truth paradigm, expressed by the idea that what proves or stands for the credentials of a person is in some sense the thing or person himself, just not by his sight, by his knowledge. This is SOP for carnal things, but not operational for spiritual truth claims, because of the presupposition of transcendent ultimate’s. In spirituality, the awe of experience before the miraculous suspends the need for inferred truth and suspends the importance of the person as the first concern. In this experience, the facts and methods of the viewer, as well as his sense of self, are replaced by the fact of God’s appearance and God’s person in one phenomenal display, identical to a credential. The meaning of a real transcendent symbol should be expected to follow suit. That is, if the meaning concerns the Pearl of Great Price, the meaning is assumed both of a Divine thing and a Divine proof of the thing, with that certifying information first. In our fallen paradigm, however, the meaning is not responsible for any particular kind of proof or object, and the particular kind of proof is not necessarily productive of meaning taken as transcendent.

Remarkable today is opposite of this assumption that is reigning the Church. The apostasy of the Church can be easily expressed in terms of Jesus separating from his informational entity instead of being fused with it inextricably. We are over objectifying the Person or under objectifying his Knowledge, leading to a faith that is naive or groundless.

c. “The meaning would have to be ameliorable, in an ultimate sense, to the conception of the remarkable as to the conception of the excitation of the psyche.” Presently, we assume that meaning is not found in both simultaneously, but in one or the other: either the concept a thing which is alien and original to transcendence, or which amps up emotion and illumination. Here, we are looking for both in the same meaning.

What we are expected to be ultimately excited about in our hearts and minds about the Bible is not necessarily the same as what informationally causes it, and this causes both an acceptance of puerility of meaning and requires such puerility to maintain this expected state. It also causes us to think that the greatest kind of spiritual experience of the mind, of the spirit, of which one is capable is that which is personal and not demonstrable to those that are not experiencing it. Also, that what is real is something that is not necessarily demonstrable as to its fact. Faith in Jesus is one thing, but why, or what kind of information caused this, is something else.

Jesus is one thing, but scripture which is about him is something else, according to our scholars and to our faithful members. You can take one without the other, or, if you must take them both they would have to each be separable under some circumstances. Accordingly, the meaning of the “Word of God” as the seed of the Kingdom in the Parable of the Sower, which is produced between the symbol “seed” and biblical wisdom, biblical information, biblical predicates, can be something different from these which establish it.

But in this parable, we start with two mysteries, one which is deliberately disclosed by Jesus and one that is left to us to decide. What is the Word of God is the question he puts forth, what is the content of faith. If this phrase “what is the Word of God” is something that we tend to think Jesus did not use meristically with a certain type of scripture, then the parable is merely about the mystery of how the general revelation impacts the hearts of one sort of person and another. The Word of God is just the Word of God, the Bible, or everything and anything in it and about it. That is, what excites the heart about the Divine is about religious propositional statements in the Word of God that need not impress anything more than natural sensibility. Furthermore, it need not be a state justified by any particular kind of scripture in the Word of God which is itself demonstrated as fact, but is just as well established on our impression of the confession “Jesus is the Son of God, he died and rose the third day and his blood cleanses from all sin.” The meaning of the “Word of God” in our way of the world can be anything we so wish as long as it is not linked inexorably to any particular scriptural stream of information.

However, God is saying that the penetration of the heart and consciousness at its deepest and level and to the greatest effect to his will is the same as what is most remarkable that is not Man and could never have come from him or his world.

d. “The meaning would have to combine or imply the dual, primarily epistemic categories of subject and object to solve the problem pertaining to what is known and how it is known, causing an outcome which settles doubt.” Subject/object equivalence in an ultimate. In our way of meaning, subject and object are framed from the perspective of humans as concepts that are created by humans. Because of this, the subject is always something earthbound and so the objects in view. The results are then always prosaic, and only inject lines of doubt and invite more questions and deliberations.

In this, Jesus is an object, we are the subject, for example, but taken as humanly constructed concepts just like any other man-made object before us in the natural physical or mental world. This is why we are able to so easily see the meaning of Jesus in his first contact with the mind as an object, as a person, as a man, then as a mere man, and the equal of a linguistic proposition like “the Son of God,” or “love” and “kindness.” The kind of person who views him is one naturally concerned primarily with physical objects, objects of personal use, statements and conclusions, and things manufactured or natural to our environment. The only way to prevent this is when objects and subjects are taken as the same thing in the meaning of a transcendent symbol. The only way to prevent this degeneration is to first take Jesus the person as a supernatural, Divine object, which is easy, but then equally as a supernatural, divine informational entity within the scriptural revelation. This removes the human subject as the crucial reality before the Christ object moves him back, placing between them Christ’s miraculous knowledge coming out of the prophetic phenomenon of scripture.

e. “The meaning is expected to come from a combination of both the greatest imaginable predicate and conclusion of the belief that extends to things other-worldly.” This rules out prosaic and racially subjective outcomes. The outcome of “the Pearl of Great Price” is then not expected to be “Jesus,” “virginity,” or “the church.” These can live independently as autonomous conclusions. It would also not be expected to be “diligently seeking” of “the value of the Kingdom of God,” as these are common religious motivational predicates. These do not render anything that is itself remarkable and superior to the claim of all other religions, which are those only informed by tradition or the imagination. “Jesus” is assumed the ultimate conclusion, but this can only be with a compatible supernatural predicate that supports him.

Establish the Biblical Antithesis of Obscurity

There are two dimensions to any meaning: a miraculous or ultimate and a mundane. An objective one and a subjective one. A predicating aspect and a conclusory one. Something that is true and a fact, or merely personal opinion. Something derived by its obedience to a rule and something that is intuitively derived. Predicates and statements. Accordingly, Jesus has a personal aspect and a scriptural aspect. Now, don’t you think its telling that all our traditional biblical meanings favor one over the other, usually the apparent, the conclusive, the doctrinal, the objective, the prosaic, the personal? This is because there is nothing to compel one part of the dichotomy into an inseparable relationship with the other, and neither are they compelled to be qualified as meanings by their ability to positively demonstrate that they are in a supernatural relationship? Our meanings are not ultimates of meaning, and neither are these meanings ultimates of origin except in our wishes and imaginations.

Messianic prophecy is something quite different and is the biblical antithesis to our carnal one. It is the killer of all jejune meaning because it is about the person of meaning and his miraculous attestation as to the person of meaning. You can’t separate them or even conceive of it without completely destroying the importance of Jesus or the notion of a confirmable religious knowledge. But our church will certainly try hand-in-hand with the atheists.

The “Pearl of Great Price” of which I speak is ultimately the truth of Messiah from scriptures. Can you see that this meaning is about both Jesus and his subject, his promise, his proof, his motivation, what he died to fulfill, his credentials as Messiah, his special cure and replacement for propositional logic that wants to qualify him alone, or philosophical arguments, speculation, doctrinal statements, creedal bullet points? Can you see that this, not something like “the path of Jesus,” is called the narrow path, and there are few that find it (Mat 7:14)? Can you see why this is called the rock, as opposed to the sand which is washed away (Mat 7:24)? Can you see why this is the truth of Christ by the figures of grapes and figs, from both the good tree of Jesus and those who are his believers by this knowledge, as opposed to thorns and thistles of the false prophets and their followers (Mat 7:15-16)?

Can you see why this is the “good” of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, which is the imperfect but necessary good in that it is the only way to God within a matrix of other motivations that are always trying to replace it and kill it off? That this tree represents the symbolic world where effort and failure are present and necessary in the quest for truth, in opposition to the world that Adam and Eve knew before they sinned with the tree, a world that God knew about in this dealing with the angels before but protected the pair from? The sin of choosing evil by choosing everything, in which one must sift through to find the good with difficulty? The seduction of the possibility of everything coming to exalt them? A world which they could never handle and in which would bring misery and death, and require the dark glass of a kind of necessary faith instead of direct sight by which to see God? The sin of accepting ambiguity, bromides, platitudes, generalizations, logical arguments, homey wisdom, theological statements, slogans, traditions, philosophy, which are both good and evil, but only evil if they are taken as self-sufficient and not in service the good knowledge of the Messiah from the prophets?

Can you see why this is the “me” in the “no one comes to the Father but by me”?

Next article in series…

What is the Word of God?: Passing by Nehushtan

When I Survey the Wondrous Nace, part 1: Passing by Nehushtan

Table of Contents hide

1 1. Establish parabolic/revelational presupposition. The presupposition is that the center-line would have to have the following features to avoid insularity or hyper-objectivity.

2 2. Establish a reigning epistemic paradigm

3 Establish the Biblical Antithesis of Obscurity