In “Jesus & Philosophy” (2009 SCM Press, London), Don Cupitt assesses the place of Jesus in the history of ethics. Biblical scholars, particularly those in the Jesus Seminar, maintain that, starting about 20 years after his death, Jesus was made into the personification of his teaching and given an exalted cosmic status. After a few decades, a supernatural superstructure was built around him obscuring his own sayings, producing instead mostly fictionalized narratives of his life, as well as material pertinent to his followers’ current concerns.
Using the ranking system of the Jesus Seminar, Cupitt finds that the sayings most likely to reflect closely Jesus’ own teaching (coded red or pink) reflect a major innovation in ethics with a shift from realism to emotivism. The moral standard is brought down from heaven, thought to be real, and relocated in the world of human feelings and relationships, or, in Cupitt words, the world of ‘the heart’.
For Cupitt, Jesus stresses the moral importance of a high level of critical self-consciousness: Get the beam out of your own eye, calculate, and then be extravagantly generous, because that is what melts the heart, unfreezes human relationships, and breaks the culture of ressentiment (Cupitt’s emphasis). Ressentiment is the French word that Nietzsche uses to sum up the whole range of reactive or negative emotions, including scorn, disgust, dislike, envy, lust, disapproval, repugnance, contempt, impatience, malice, irritation, anger, rage, fury, fear, terror, hatred, boredom, indifference, recoiling, seething resentment, begrudging, outrage, indignation at, despair of, and many more. When they surge up in us in reaction to another, we want to separate ourselves as far as possible from that person.
In contrast, the positive emotions do not cloud or block our relation to the other person. These emotions are mostly very cool and transparent and not numerous. They include regard, attention, interest, sympathy, pity, respect, admiration, allegiance, friendship, and love. Usually the positive emotions don’t present moral problems, but the negative ones are often violent and a threat to social peace. To overcome them, we must often be almost supernaturally “big” and generous, going beyond justice.
To help us do this, the Jesus of the red or pink sayings urges us to choose a new moral world where everything is clear and brightly lit, completely open, explicit, bright and clear, not continuing with ill-feeling which is often double-feeling, such as malice, deceit, deception, and duplicity which imply a certain doubleness that maintains a gap between our displayed feelings and real but veiled feelings that are hidden behind them.
Because of his emphasis on feelings between people, Jesus values people more than the religious law. Stories like the healing on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-14) imply the end of the rule of religious law and the appearance of a human who is more radically free and autonomous than ever before. Thus, Jesus radicalizes Jeremiah and Ezekiel who proclaim that the law will be written on people’s hearts and God will take away people’s hearts of stone and give them instead hearts of flesh (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26). Jesus becomes anthropocentric and emotivist, changing ethics profoundly by secularizing ethics, historicizing it, and humanizing it. However, to question the Divine Law is to question God, especially God who is “outside” us. Thus, these sayings may be some of the reason for Jesus’ troubles with the authorities.
Jesus’ teachings are difficult for individuals to follow, and, of course, threatening to the religious establishment. It is no wonder that an overlay of supernatural narrative was quickly put onto Jesus’ radical sayings. It is easier to worship than to follow and emulate. “Go and do likewise” is a difficult command; it is easier for us to leave the changing of the world to God. However, if the law is written on our hearts, we become God-like agents of change.
At the end of the book, Cupitt addresses this dilemma of direction from “outside and above” us and motivation from within, writing that ethics has two different faces or dimensions, corresponding to the doctrines of creation and redemption. “Creation” ethics would have us support existing reality: be loyal to the system as it is, obeying the rules, playing our parts, and raising the next generation. In contrast, “redemption” ethics would have us keep alive and spell out the Dream of a better world. If the Dream is sufficiently vivid and attractive, it will shape our values and the orientation of our lives. The Dream present in Jesus’ sayings has only recently, with the collapse of external religious sanctions, begun to be recognized and grasped as the way to the Law within us. Cupitt concludes by suggesting that the rediscovered historical Jesus might become the way to the reform and renewal of Christianity.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I've really got to read some of Cupitt's stuff, on your recommendation. It's very helpful to hear such a lucid summary of an argument that's in line with much of what the Jesus Seminar folks seem often to argue--that if we could just cut back through the layers of elaboration around the core story, the revolutionary power of Jesus's visions would be accessible.
I find, though, that I have reservations about what feels to me like a flattening of the meaning of Jesus's life into primarily ethical consdierations. I can't shake my own commitment to a more mystagogic understanding of why his life and death matters. I'd like to think that the apostolic and patristic accretions around the core kerygma have positive value, if one engages them critically rather than taking them at face value. Not in order to dilute the revolutionary social message of Jesus's ministry, but to ground it more deeply in a spirituality that can sustain those who embrace it.
I really like the lucid explanation you present of Cupitt's writting. The Jesus you present is, for me, a more acceptable one than the deity presented by various churches. So Jesus is a humanist, indeed almost a secular humanist. Hooray for him! That is a Jesus I can accept.
David, your feeling that seeing Jesus only as an ethical teacher is “flattening” is, I think, the impulse behind the church’s adding the mythic layers. Turning Jesus into a god is easier for people than becoming god-like as Jesus who truly follows the law. Worship of Jesus is easier than emulation of his behavior. So, we continue to see the law “out there” with the external God “above” us, rather than the law “written on our hearts” within in us.
The law within us is too hard for us to follow. We seek external rules to bind us and, we hope, others. When we and others clearly break what we know to be the law, e.g., when we murder, cheat, and war on each other, there is death and devastation, and we say, “Why didn’t God step in and stop these bad events?” Of course, the answer is we thought these bad events would be to our advantage, so we took over from God. As the story of Lazarus and the rich man has it: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead (Luke 16:31). So, if we don’t “listen” to God on some deeper level, the mystagogic, e.g., resurrection will make no difference to us. The Jesus of the red and pink sayings is implying, I think, that true ethical behavior of the type that he calls for and Cupitt describes is what leads to true communion with God. There is nothing flat about that.
Re: my comment. What sayeth thou?
Franklyn, thank you for your comment. In “Jesus & Philosophy,” Cupitt makes the point that Jesus of the red and pink sayings is generally consistently secular, i.e., he rarely appeals to the God “up there”, external to us. Rather, his extraordinary power with people seems to come from his ability to be fully present to those he is with. I think we owe Cupitt a debt of gratitude for bringing specificity to a description of this ability. He describes Jesus as an emotivist, a person who is in tune with and accepting of the emotions expressed by other people and sees these emotions as the basis for ethics, because they express the desires of the “heart.” Jesus displays positive emotions with people. These emotions do not cloud or block the relation to the other person. These emotions are mostly very cool and transparent and not numerous. They include regard, attention, interest, sympathy, pity, respect, admiration, allegiance, friendship, and love. Because he is an emotivist, Jesus does not display a “realist” ethic that requires obedience to an external authority figure, viewed as real, who “hands down” ethical precepts to be followed. For example, this is an interpretation of the healing on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-14), which implies the end of the rule of religious law and the appearance of a human who is more radically free and autonomous than ever before. Thus, Jesus radicalizes Jeremiah and Ezekiel who proclaim that the law will be written on people’s hearts and God will take away people’s hearts of stone and give them instead hearts of flesh (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26).
So, Jesus shifts the metaphors from “up there” to the “heart.” I think that what impressed people about Jesus was his embodiment of “the law written on the heart.” In his ethics he was secular in the sense that he didn’t say “Do this because God says so.” Rather, Jesus demonstrated that people can embody the law of love of God and neighbor and live this law by their emotional identification with other people.
Note, however, that this does not mean uncritical acceptance or approval of all that other people do. For Cupitt, Jesus stresses the moral importance of a high level of critical self-consciousness: Get the beam out of your own eye, calculate, and then be extravagantly generous, because that is what melts the heart, unfreezes human relationships, and breaks the culture of ressentiment, the culture of negative emotions. Once past the negative emotions, it may be possible to discuss the ethical implications of a particular situation with the people involved. Often people cling to their unethical behavior because they fear the negative emotions, the negative judgments, of others. When it becomes clear that such negative emotions will not be forthcoming from others, people may confess and repent of their transgressions. Of course, also, they may “harden their hearts,” as the Bible says of Pharaoh (Exodus 4:21), and not change their behavior. This is why the Bible says "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentation 3:22-23). Thus, if we are to have “the law written on our hearts,” we, too, must be steadfast in emulating the Lord.
Jesus as you explain him is familiar to me: a mature and excelllant psychotherapist speaking in the language of his times to people who may be primitive and emotionally limited. His language is different but his symbols and his message (as you present that message) is today. It is the same message that many eastern religions present, albeit with different symbols and language. And, it is the message of psychoanalysis as explained by Freud (not his disciples.All great men are ultimately done in by their disciples.)
comment from Bill W.)
How can I react to your blog? First, congratulations that you are still reading some stimulating ideas. Concerning the historical Jesus, I am not up to date. I have heard of tht eJesus Seminar, but have not explored it. The historical Jesus still reminds me of the Quest that was written about more than a century ago. Since then, theology has gone in different directions.
I am reminded, however, of the so-called red-letter Bibles that printed the purported words of Jesus in red. It was, of course, arbitrary. Worse than that, it fed a kind of biblicism that turned the Bible into a paper pope, nothing less than idolatry. The ELCA constitution takes a different tack. Its confession of faith places the Trinity first. Second is Jesus Christ; first, incarnate, second, proclaimed, third, written. Next, the 3 creeds. Then the 16th century Lutheran documents. But you probably know all this.
On a different subject, you may know about the ELCA decisions re sexuality, especially referring to clergy. As a result of the August decisions, we are losing churches, clergy, and members. Same as the Episcopalians. Where this will go, I don't know. But I am reminded of an obscure idea of FDR not long before he died. He suggested to Wendell Willkie that together they explore a reallignment of political parties along liberal/conservative lines. Instead, we blur the distinctions in our parties.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your email about my blog post, “Jesus & Philosophy.” I have posted all but the last paragraphs about your time with Katie in the comments section of the post.
Thank you for describing the basis for the ELCA’s constitution. I didn’t know about it. What is most interesting is placing the Trinity first. To me, this indicates that our direct experience of God is the basis of our faith, even if this experience was eventually formalized in 4th century language, obscuring its meaning for us moderns. The written narratives, important as they may be, are really secondary to that direct experience.
This is, I think, the impulse behind the work of the Jesus Seminar. It is an attempt to experience the sayings of Jesus as directly as possible without the later overlays. And I do think that most scholars, whether in or out of the Jesus Seminar, agree that much of this later material reflects church issues, rather than Jesus’ own concerns. Obviously, we’ll never know for certain what Jesus own teaching was, but I think that Cupitt is right in thinking that Jesus emphasized the “heart” as the source of ethical behavior, rather than adherence to externally imposed rules. However, Cupitt is also correct in pointing out that most people need the structure supplied by the “law handed down.” We are too eager to indulge our negative, reactive feelings, rather than cultivating our positive feelings. So, we need the rule of (external) law to constrain ourselves. I think this is what Luther calls the “left hand” of the law. As “children of Adam,” we unfortunately need this left hand.
Franklyn, thanks for your comment.
Yes, because the Jesus of the red and pink sayings did talk about ethics arising from the “heart,” he sounds somewhat like a modern psychotherapist, but I would be cautious about seeing him as “modern.” He was of his time and culture; he just took the Hebrew prophets more seriously than many of his contemporaries. So his emotivist approach places him at odds with the religious structures that would mediate revelation. Rather, he seemed to say that God speaks to the individual heart. Cupitt is right however in writing that our negative reactive feelings tend to get in the way of hearing the “Law written on the heart.” The structures can play a constructive role if they can constrain our worse impulses.
Post a Comment