Alti clowni, alt razboi

Emailul care a fost lansat in seara cand unii prieteni din Romania au fost dezamagiti ca nu am fost concediat, este o conversatie veche. Am indoieli sincere ca as fi facut anumite afirmatii in forma si in contextul respectiv, dar nu am cum sa probez aceasta. Este onest sa spui cuiva ca il inregistrezi, pentru a-si pastra o copie, sa se poata apara in caz de calomnie sau inexactitate. Este absurd sa te bazezi pe versiunea celui care e iti intinde capcane. Faptul in sine ca nu am fost avertizat sa salvez logul ar trebui sa ridice intrebari. Inclinatia de a crede varianta mai putin favorabila face insa parte din natura umana, asa ca nu-mi voi pierde timpul cu explicatii.

Vreau in schimb sa clarific doua aspecte care tin de comportamentul uman. Voi incepe cu mine. Faptul ca un pastor predica evanghelia, si in acelasi timp recunoaste caracterul legitim al unor intrebari incomode, nu insemneaza ca este ipocrit. Am fost dusmanul falselor raspunsuri, nu al cautarii de raspunsuri adevarate. Mai mult, este datoria mea pastorala sa ma identific cu dilemele contemporane, nu cu cele de acum dooua secole.

Am mai degraba motive sa ma indoiesc de autenticitatea credintei care nu are intrebari, pentru ca aceasta este fie prefacuta, fie moarta. Inteleg ca unii ar vrea sa ma declar ateu si sa las amvonul pe seama fanaticilor si cabotinilor. Chiar daca voi fi concediat (probabil), sau exclus (posibil), din cauza acestui email, voi continua sa predic evanghelia. Stiu ca multi ar vrea ca biserica sa devina Korea de Nord. Suntem cativa care incomodam acest proces. Cand nu vom mai fi noi, vor fi altii. Parca Pavel spunea ca impotriva adevarului  nu se poate face nimic.

A doua problema de comportament il priveste pe prietenul CJ. Voi fi scurt si concis, si voi lasa reactiile pe seama cititorilor fara sa revin asupra afirmatiilor pe care le fac.

Oamenii incapabili de empatie (folosesc o locutiune pentru a evita termenul clinic), au un avantaj asupra noastra. Nu trebuie sa care cu ei un bagaj de sentimente sociale complexe. Acest vid launtric le da capacitatea sa citeasca foarte bine simtamintele semenilor. Din acest motiv sunt foarte manipulativi si pot proiecta harisma cu usurinta. In acelasi timp, un asemnea om nu are capacitatea sa-si controleze agresivitatea, si musca in cele din urma pe oricine se apropie de ei. Aviz celor cazuti in capcana harismei unei astfel de persoane.

In al doilea rand, atunci cand un astfel de om se arata dezamagit de cineva pe care il iubeste, si aseaza agresivitatea si actele antisociale pe seama acestei dezamagiri, ESTE SINCER. Problema este ca simtamintele noastre sunt responsabilitatea noastra. In cazul unor astfel de oameni, totdeauna altcineva este responsabil de simtamintele lor ranite. Si todeauna aceste sintaminte ranite sunt o scuza pentru manifestari zgomotoase si incalcarea regulilor pe care altii le respecta. Asa ca nu discutam aici problema sinceritatii sau iubirii fata de cel lovit pe la spate, (imi vine in minte tipul care l-a impuscat pe Lenon), ci faptul ca astfel de persoane traiesc cu iluzia sincera ca altii sunt responsabili de furiile lor.

Am crezut totdeauna ca CJ este sincer si autentic. Nu ca o virtute, ci ca o incapacitate de detasare critica de propriile impulsuri. Am stiut ca ne strica imagnea. Am stiut ca va sari la beregata intr-o zi. Si l-am tolerat.

Dezavantajul celor care au de carat bagajele empatiei si sentimentelor complexe.

To Ibrian

Provocarea ta merita un raspuns mai elaborat decat am timp sa criu acum.  Sunt prins intr-o numaratoare inversa pana la jumatatea lunii cand se va decide soarta mea de catre Sfantul Oficiu. Pana atunci vreau sa termin o carte pe aceiasi tema ca si editorialul tau, intrucat nu stiu daca voi mai avea confortul necesar dupa aceea. Asa ca iti ofer un fragment din cartea mea inloc de raspuns.

Let us detach ourselves from the sterile question on whether or not God exists. We will leave this to the private or public profession of faith, not because the question is unimportant, but because the answer is beyond demonstration. Our object here is the concept of God as a human mind product. We learned about it from from the primary teachers of the West: the Jewish rabbi and the Greek philosopher.

The Jewish concept of God is given in a double verb in Ex 3:14: “hayah hayah”, rendered as “I AM THAT I AM” in modern translations. What strikes here is the tautology. The implication is that God cannot be defined as something except himself. This is also reflected in the third commandment prohibition of abusing the name of God in common talk. A deeper conclusion of the tautological character of the definition of God, is that God cannot be subjected to logical analysis or empirical falsification.

As for the Greeks, one of their earliest definitions of God belongs to Epimenides of Knossos, a sixth century BC poet-philosopher: “For in thee we live and move and have our being”. Epimenides is protesting against the Cretans  “liars” (Tit 1:12) who held that Zeus was mortal and even prepared a tomb for him.

He was quoted by Paul before the Areopagus (Acts 17: 23), to the effect that “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device” (29). In other word God does not simply exist. He is the ontological ground of everything in existence: “in him… we have our being”. Nevertheless “we are the offspring of God”, and as such, human experience has an ontological dimension.

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Because goodness, beauty, truth, justice and love are attributes of God, it follows that they also participate in “the ground and the power of being”. They are self-standing and self-defining like God. They are also part of man’s essential being, rather than sociological constructs. This concept was first clearly articulated in Plato’s dialogues, and is admittedly the most defining aspect of the Judeo-Christian legacy. It is also the most challenged.

The Jews and the Greeks followed different ways in speaking about God. Yahweh was defined by a narrative rather than abstract judgments. He took an active part in human affairs and was revealed among a community of faith. The Greeks invented theology as a rational approach of God  inspired from geometry.

The merging of the two traditions resulted in what Nietzsche called “a sun whose like has probably never yet occurred on earth”#. “I think so I exist…”, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”, “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free…#” are scattered beams of a sun setting in the West.

It was also Nietzsche who made the statement that God was dead. Because Greek and Scholastic metaphysics have been delegitimised by the scientific revolution, the modern mind no longer possessed an intellectual tool to rationalise belief in God. Nietzsche denied not the existence of God as such. He rather meant that the concept of God belonged to a metaphysical frame of reference, rendered obsolete by science and modern experience.

What we have here is a situation of hauntology (Derrida).  A God that has become the spectre of his own history is our only witness to the rationality of being. The ghostly voice utters that good an evil, beauty and ugliness, justice and oppression, are infinitely more than social constructs. They are ontological dimensions in an ontologically defined reality. Yet because of its spectral nature, the haunting idea cannot be brought into full daylight.

Paul Tillich hoped “for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment”. Until that day comes, we have to stand the ground of the haunted prince of Denmark, listening to visitors from medieval graves against the rotten relativism of our times.