Announcing ACT's upcoming 5-week online course on spiritual theology

Academy for Christian Thought

Belief with Integrity

The Eight Deadly Thoughts - Spiritual Discipleship of the Mind

Learning objective: To practice the medieval spiritual discipline of meditating upon the Lord.

Scope: We begin with a brief history of spiritual theology, followed by a discussion of Evagrius’ eight deadly thoughts, and conclude with the practical application of assessing the kind of person you are and think about the kind of person you ought to be.

Key terms: Spiritual discipline, habit-formation, nolition (the intentional opposition to our wills), compassion, generosity and God’s habitual presence.

Spiritual discipline refers to the proactive decision to exercise metaphysical self-control over physical emotions, passions and temptations of the mind. In each instance, we will consider how science, technology and medicine has transformed the way we think and live. Our goal is to understand the power of nolition by spiritual habit-formation, to override the default volitions of out in-built competitive survival instincts.

Obstacles: Today, much of academic thinking suffers from a theological amnesia about the purpose of theology – to nourish our spirit beyond just wishing it so. Worship without theological integrity can result in ritualistic slavery and theology without the goal of worship can result in dry religious philosophy. Responsible spiritual theology combines a desire for devotional experience alongside rigorous assessment of every truth claim about God. The works of major spiritual theologians: Evagrius of Pontus, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor of Constantinople (all from modern Turkey) have been sidelined, not by secular voices but by Church teachings themselves. Those of us of the Reformed Tradition inherit a strong censorship of writings and thoughts that became victims of the 16^th century European religious wars, which were more economic and political than theological.

Conflict: The battleground was the role of nature in learning about God. Ancient prescientific theologians had always understood nature as God’s creation and an important source of God’s revelation, i.e., natural revelation, one that modern science can explore and celebrate even more. But the sola scriptura movement claimed that only the supernatural revelation as presented in the Bible is trustworthy. Nature, and by association, modern science, was a temptation to be resisted. Past theologians taught that the created order we call the universe reflected God’s wisdom and majesty, but by the 20^th century, nature and the scientific investigations came to be seen as threats to the closely-guarded magical status accorded to the gate-keepers of spiritual knowledge. As it turned out, science did become a threat. Along with technological innovations and medical advances, science became a serious threat not to faith or belief in God but to the perception that God can only be known and cherished through the words of the Bible. This gagging of God and limiting God to human words of testimonies betrays both the wonder of nature and the beauty of the Bible as written testaments of divine encounters by ancient God-fearers.

Practical actions: Live every moment of your life with an awareness of God, even if God seems remote in you daily life. As we grow in wisdom and experience of life, we tend to desire something more than what seems to be our lot in life. Desire God’s habitual presence. How? By shifting our attention from merely being vaguely aware of God’s presence, we can intentionally seek to be in the presence of God. At any moment in our lives, we pay attention to things that we care about – priority determines ranking. But we are free to make the desire for God’s habitual presence our center of attention even as we do the mundane things in our daily lives. The key to success is habit-formation, the formation spiritual habits that is. In this seminar, we will consider how we might form communities among trusted fellow pilgrims of faith, to celebrate the gift of life to the fullest while delighting in God’s grace by practicing the discipline of compassionate generosity.

In this seminar: We shall consider the eight deadly thoughts as starting points to help us navigate the theological cobwebs that plague the Church with increasingly longer lists of do’s and don’ts. We shall examine medieval insights into the nature of the human mind alongside modern neuroscientific understanding of how the brain works. Then we will be better equipped to assess the competing truth-claims of religious and scientific voices, some of which are helpful but many of which distract us from knowing God and learning to harness the most powerful gift of being the imago Dei – the capacity and persistence of love.

The 8 Deadly Thoughts

1. Gluttony: Attempts to get satisfaction from things rather than from God. Examples include over-indulgences in the three basic wants of the human mind; food, shelter, and love (significance).

2. Lust: Attempts to get satisfaction from the sexual use of bodies rather than love of people. This is not a critique of sexual instinct, which is part of God’s creation. Rather, it is a warning that desires for the bodies rather than the persons themselves depersonalize and objectify the persons.

3. Avarice: A defensive greed for self-provision that kills generosity by filling us with anxiety and insecurity, e.g., "I can’t be generous because I have to think of my own future”. The quest for security keeps us from generosity.

4. Sadness: A form of self-pity and disappointment that rejects what God has made in you. It arises from comparison with the material achievements or inheritances of others. Thoughts of “if only I were a different gender or race, then...; If only God had made me different...”

5. Anger: The unrestrained, cumulative anger that ultimately destroys. An example is the anger that God might bless your enemy – think of Jonah.

6. Sloth:  It does not refer to laziness but rather, indifference to the presence of God in our lives that leads to despair. I call it spiritual paralysis. The Greek word Accidia is to "not care." It may arise from discouragement over the apparent lack of spiritual progress in our lives. We blame church politics, fallen leaders, unfriendly, unloving or hypocritical Christians, gossip, etc,

7. Vainglory: A desire for attention that you want everybody to know of your success in life. It is the vain desire to fill the minds of others with yourself, as Doctor Johnson said.

8. Pride: The decision to take full credit for our achievements and progress in life. "God is not my helper." This results in a deep sense of superiority that hinders any spirit of generosity and compassion for others.

The outcome of each deadly thought is a reduced capacity to love your neighbor with compassion and generosity. They are called thoughts rather than sins because in themselves, they do no harm. It is only when these thoughts are nurtured and executed upon that they can created situations that stop you from fulfilling your potential as a person created by and loved by God.

Below is a sample Q&A Submitted by Julie Toh of Australia from PT Online and some feedback. Julie has offered to share her Q&A submission in the hopes that we all might sharpen our exegetical and hermeneutic skills! Thanks Julie! Feedback is below Julie's response in GREEN.

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Exodus Question March 2011: 

Read chapters 4, 7-11, and 14. The primary function of the 10 plagues was so that the Egyptians will know who God is. What does it mean that Pharaoh hardened his heart(8:15, 32; 9:34), Pharaoh’s heart became hardened (7:13, 22; 8:19; 9:7, 35) and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8)? When the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, does this absolve Pharaoh for his actions? Will God harden our hearts and what does it mean?(Exegesis) If God can harden our hearts, does this mean that we ought not be blamed for our unbelief? What lesson can we draw from this with respect to the nature of habits of the sinful heart?(Hermeneutics)

 

 

Context

 

Hardening of Pharaoh's heart was necessary for God's power to be displayed and shown to all.

Take a moment to consider "context"--the context is what is going on at the time. The context might be that Pharaoh refused to let Moses and his people go into the desert, or that he refused even after numerous experiences of God's plagues. What you are offering above is a kind of exegetical reading of the meaning of the text. We are all prone to jump to this. Rather, helping to identify the context, the history, the events before we offer our exegetical understanding of the text will help us to give a more responsible exegesis.  Here might be some examples of context:

• The Israelites are in Egypt, having lived there for 430 years.
• The Egyptians had a history of invading powers, such as the Hyksos, but are now ruling the land.
• Egypt is under the rulership of the son of the Pharaoh in power at the time of Moses’ youth.
• The Israelites are still under and aware of the Abrahamic covenant.  It is unclear if they are still living a life submitted to the Abrahamic covenant.
• The Israelites are under slavery, Pharaoh is fearful of their growing numbers (Exodus 1)

Exegesis

Pharaoh hardened his heart may mean that he had a chance to believe as miracles were performed in front of him and, time and time again, when the plagues became unbearable that he would believe and when the plague was removed that he would change his mind and in a sense, "talked" himself into disbelieving and caused his own heart to build a wall between God and him. This went on and on until this wall became unpenetrable that it is written that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. This does not absolve Pharaoh for his actions as he was given many chances to make the right choice. 

 Can you give me salient moments from the text itself (even just referenced by verse) of how you build 

 this exegetical understanding? 

Yes God may harden our hearts if necessary and it may mean that there's something we need to learn that is happening in front of us.   

This last sentence here is more of a hermeneutic point than an exegetical one. A distinct way that we can distinguish between the act of exegesis is in the pronouns. Are we talking about "them"--those in the past who wrote and were reading and making sense of the text? This would be exegesis. Or are we talking about "us"--how we make sense today of what was written about (or orally passed down) in the past? This would be hermeneutics. Another way to think of this is from the PT Handbook, "Apply yourself totally to the text (exegesis) and apply the text totally to your self (hermeneutics).

Hermeneutics
Yes even though God may harden our hearts, we do still have a choice/freedom to obey Him. When we disobey Him, usually the consequences of our sinful nature will catch up to us. In the end, everyone does get judged. The lesson we can draw from this is to always take heed of what God is telling us and obey.

This is a good hermeneutic in that it flows from your exegesis. However, be careful not to say more in your hermeneutics that you were able to glean from your exegesis. For example, maybe based on other passages of the bible that are familiar to you, you can say, "In the end, everyone gets judged." However, are you able to build and substantiate this hermeneutic from this particular text? One of the most important rules of hermeneutics to always keep in mind as we humbly approach each passage and its interpretation is "it cannot mean to me today what it did not mean to the writer and audience in their time. As you can see, this is why it is so important to work very hard towards a responsible, thorough exegesis.

Self-Diagnostic Quizzes Available!

Hey All!

We hope you have found this month's self-diagnostic quiz on the new tabs! Each month after the PT Live Session in NYC we will be posting these self-diagnostic quizzes online, along with the key posted on a separate page. Work as hard as you can to answer before looking at the key! The questions all come from your notes. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!

Harrigan
harriganmb@gmail.com

PS--if you have already taken the quiz, please note that in the PT.1 Genesis 1-11 quiz, there was an error that is now corrected. Question 4 should be C) We don't know for sure, NOT D) 400 years apart! Thanks!

Authorship, Attributions & Authenticity of Pseudonymous Writings

Most of us are acquainted with writings purported to be written by someone other than the true author. Examples of these are forged checks, plagiarized term papers or dissertations, diaries of the famous, ghost writing, books written by professors’ assistants, pen names, business memos written by secretaries ‘over my signature’, letters to the editor as a transparency device, etc. Unfortunately, some of these are designed to fool the reader while others are acceptable methods of documentary efficiency, or clever literary devices to make a point. When we speak of pseudonymous biblical writings, we do not instantly mean they are forgeries. Indeed, if any of them are forgeries, they do not deserve our attention. The question is whether a pseudonymous writing had any intent to deceive. We believe they do not.

1. Authorship: When we speak of authorship, we refer to the actual person who penned a piece of writing. So when we read the Letter to the Romans, we are certain that Paul was the author even if he asked a scribe to write it on his behalf, just as we are sure that Paul also authored the Letter to the Galatians although this time, he write the letter by his own hand. In either case, Paul is known as the author of both letters.

2. Attribution:  A common and accepted practice called attribution has existed within the biblical tradition for centuries. An author writes in the name of, and attributes his material a revered figure of the past. Examples of attribution include the Pentateuch to Moses, the Psalms to David and the Wisdom books to Solomon. During the Hellenistic times of the first Christian century, it was accepted practice to write in the name of famous philosophers of the past, including almost all the great figures of Greek and Roman intellectual history. The early church continued this practice. Many letters were composed and published in the name of Bishop Ignatius after the death by disciples who wanted to extend and spread his teachings.

3. Authenticity: But do the attributed letters of Ignatius make them authentic? Today, modern scholarship can readily distinguish ‘authentic’ from ‘inauthentic’ letters of Plato and Ignatius. But here, the word authentic does not refer to the contents as fake but rather to the attribution of authorship as untrue. What is then untrue is the ostensible identity of the author. But the content is not considered untrue or fake. In other words, an inauthentic attributed authorship does not render a text a forgery.

4. Forgery: Scholars such as Bart Ehrman may be too quick to claim that uncertain authorship points to forgery. In fact, any disputed authorship means simply that – it could be disputed either way. Paul may well have written the final form of Ephesians that we have inherited, or it may be a later edition written by someone else. This tells us nothing about whether it was a forgery or simply a non-Pauline source. It may be a pseudonymous writing, where the author chose not to reveal his or her identity.

5. Pseudonymity: A pseudonymous writing simply means that the writer did not wish to be named and left a false identity. There may be a variety of reasons why. Examples of this include Samuel Clemens who wrote as Mark Twain and Mary Ann Evans who wrote under the name George Elliot. Among biblical writings, it is often because the writer does not wish to draw attention away from the authority of the texts he has been privileged to convey.

6. Disputed authorship of pseudonymous writing in the NT: Of the 22 NT letters, only eight are undisputed as to their authorship: They are, in order of publication: Galatians,1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, and Revelation.