Gadfly's Muse

Colossians 2: Only the Appearance of Wisdom

Image: "Barren Branches", 2018, Chesapeake City, Md.

Colossians 2:2–3  that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:8   Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Colossians 2:20  Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—

Colossians 2:22–23  which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

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A theologian whom I much admire, Herman Bavinck, lived through the cataclysm that ushered in the "new" 20th century.  It was a time of great flux.  Social movements shook the "old world" global structures and the advances in science, medicine, engineering, and philosophy combined into something like a new religion.  Man, confidently thought he could know it all.  Yet, as Bavinck noted, many of the younger intellectuals were keenly aware of a spiritual vacuum. They became aware in the midst of an "idolization of science and culture", of a growing apprehension of spiritual elements that must account for the "unknowable and unrecognizable" reality surrounding us.  This led, in Bavinck's words, to an incipient "mystical idealism."  That which was common to the idols of both scientific and mystical ideology was "an aversion to the common Christian faith."

I submit that not much has changed in the last 100+ years.  Paul says that in many ways it was the same then in the regions of Asia Minor to which he wrote.

"Mystical idealism" is not a bad characterization of the problem troubling the church at Colosse and Laodicea.  They were being assaulted by "philosophy and empty deceit" that was woven from the witch's brew of "tradition(s) of men, according to the basic principles of the world." (v. 8)  There were several elements to this threat, as in Bavinck's day and as are now.  At its core, these false teachings stem from sinful man's desire to explain the cosmos his way, that is through reason.  

The key principle is to construct both empirical (physical) knowledge and religious (metaphysical) knowledge from the "basic principles of the world." (vs. 8 and 20)  Thus man wants to reason from what "he sees" to "what is."  In physical knowledge, science, this is straight-forward, though very deficient when it comes to explaining all things.  In religion, man wants to construct "idols" from what he sees and assign to them the spiritual power to explain events in the real world.  Thus the "stars", in Paul's day, were thought to be angels or demons.  Astrology was embraced as explaining any life events.  

In both physical and metaphysical aspects, it always comes back to man wanting to be in control.  If all it takes is "wisdom and knowledge" (cf. vs. 5) then man can manipulate his world.  He can satisfy the gods through rituals and offerings.  He can manipulate the physical world to master all of its terrors.  In other words, at its heart, there is man's absolute desire for autonomous knowledge.  This was Adam's sin and it is man's sin right down to this day.

Paul takes on this autonomous desire head-on.  Knowledge, true knowledge, absolute knowledge, is not possible to man through contemplation of the "basic principles of the world."  The most man can attain, whether through science or philosophy, is a "provisional knowledge" that has some undeniable benefits but it always fails in the comprehensive sense.  True knowledge, as Paul teaches, is only available through "revelation."  In other words, God has to make known to man that which is absolutely true.  

Paul unequivocally states that the fullest revelation of absolute truth was revealed to man in the Person of Jesus Christ.  In Him are "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."  ALL of it.  The answers to all man's questions man are found in Him.  And the means by which man gains access to this knowledge is through faith.  Faith brings a man into relation to Jesus.  One does not gain this privilege and the freedom it brings by doing "stuff."  The idols demand religious works or they, very petulantly, turn on their followers.  But Jesus frees His followers from those burdens, those "regulations". (vs. 20)  

In Jesus, through faith, the physical world and the metaphysical world are opened to man.  Certainly, we do not know comprehensively.  But that which we know we can know absolutely.  The ultimate truth of all things, physical and metaphysical, is God Himself and in Christ, we are brought in relation, and knowledge, of the "fullness of the Godhead!" (vs. 9)  As we "walk in Him (and) are rooted in Him" and "abound in" Him (vs. 6) we turn away from the "appearance of wisdom" (vs. 23) and obtain the real thing.

In science we no longer begin with the elementary principles or observations, we begin with Christ and thus see those things through Him.  This is the path of true knowledge in Science.  Philosophy or Metaphysics, do not start with the world as we perceive it but with Christ as He has revealed it.  Thus our world becomes unified in our understanding.  Chaos becomes order and order reveals glory.

No longer are we to seek knowledge through vain religious activities. (vs. 23)  We are to seek it where it can be found, in Christ, as He has revealed Himself to us through His Word and His Spirit.  This is freedom and this is joy.

 

Are You Certain?.......

[image: Uncertainty, 2009, JAVanDevender]

 Exodus 3:14 (NKJV)

¹⁴ And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”  

Mark Twain once famously remarked: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”  I think that the apparently widely held view of the death of "certainty" can be similarly discounted.  Today, as Stephen Colbert said  "Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. " (Knox College commencement address, 2006).  It is fashionable to be cynical and it makes one appear oh so wise.  In politically correct thinking, "Certainty" is equated to fundamentalism which immediately conjures up images of inquisitions, Scope's Monkey Trials, radical bigots bearing signs, and people hanging on to guns & bibles or beheading people for demeaning the Koran.  It would appear that "certainty" is the root of all sin in some thinkers except they would never call it sin... that would be too "certain" a word.  I suppose the contemptuous remark by Bertrand Russell pretty much sums it up: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts."

What can be said concisely stated about this?  Aye, there's the rub.  It's a topic that properly warrants precision and explication far beyond the limits of this venue.  But a couple of points can be made.

Where the cynics are right!  It is true that in the sphere of creation, the physical world, the world of space and time, nothing is "certain" in and of itself.  There is no "certainty" that ax heads will not ever float, nor that the sun's course through the heavens will not be arrested for the space of hours, nor that the dead will not rise and walk out of their tombs, or a vast body of water be parted at the command of a prophet.  If there is anything that the Scriptures proclaim, loudly, repeatedly, vigorously and prophetically, it is that all "being" is contingent (that's a big word that means dependent on something else).  Therefore the only place certainty can be properly discussed is in the sphere of that "something else" not in the sphere of derivative effects.  Are the only absolutes "death and taxes"? - NO... they are not absolutes at all.  Is it absolutely certain that the Sun will rise tomorrow?... NO.  Are all politicians certainly fools... liars... cheats?.... NO (against all common sense).  Within the created realm there is only contingency... certainty can only be properly assigned elsewhere.

Where the cynics are wrong! That is why God's Name ("I AM") is so crucially important.  He, in all His three Persons, is the only certainty.  It is only when some thing is derivative from His Person that it also achieves certainty.  "Right and Wrong" - to the degree that "righteousness" is representative of His Person, is absolute and certain.  In HIM, we live and move and have our being... our lives are "certain", even in this immediate instance, as we experience them, only because He is willing our heartbeats and upholding the accumulation of atoms that compose our bodies.  In this Descartes fell short.  It was not because he thought that he could say "therefore I am"... rather it was because God was "thinking" of Descartes that he "was."

Does this leave us with an enforced arbitrariness about our lives.  Must we live with uncertainty because God might change His mind at any moment and everything from the law of gravity to the supper on our tables might suddenly change?  Must we live in paranoid fear of an uncertain world?  No, for God has sealed our lives and our world to exist within a framework of contingent certainty.  Contingent because it's prior condition is that God has promised.  Certain because His promise is rooted in His Person and cannot change.  Thus certainty in this world is not only possible, it is mandatory for God's creatures.  It is commanded of His creatures that they be certain... of Him.

 Timothy 2:11–13 (NKJV) ¹¹ This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. ¹² If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. ³ If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.  

Those closing words are the ground of all assurance and the foundation of all certainty.  Trust them... cling to them... depend upon them.  What He has promised, what He has set in place, what He has ordained... cannot fail to come to pass... it is absolutely certain... for He cannot (by His own nature) deny Himself.

Thank God for His wondrous promises.

Related articles

Book Review: The Certainty of Faith - By Herman Bavinck

Bayern on Certainty Arguments

Many Rivers, One Foot, No Certainty

why I (need to) believe in God vs. Pascal's Wager

What You See Is Not ALL You Get!

[photo: Stark Reality, JAVanDevender, 2012]

Values, life meanings, purposes, and qualities slip through science like sea slips through the nets of fishermen.  Yet man swims in this sea, so he cannot exclude it from his purview.  This what was meant when we noted earlier that a scientific world (emphasis his) view is in principle impossible.  Taken in its entirety, the world is not as science says it is; it is as scienc,e philosophy, religion, the arts, and everyday speech say it is.  Not science but the sum of man's symbol systems of which science is but one, is the measure of things.

Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions, p. 16

Smith's book is a refreshing non-Christian assessment of the irrational consensus stretching across the various segments of American culture, at least as far as I can see it.  Over the past 50 years, with greater or lesser intensity, Americans have grown cynical and suspicious of any claims to truth other than that which their senses can validate and their perceptions confirm.  

This is not an entirely new phenomenon in absolute essence.  From the arrival of the Puritans right up throgh the classical enlightenment of Colonial times and extending even, though significantly lessened, through the Romantic 19th century, and certainly in the early Modernist 20th century, Americans have always prided themselves on being "practical."  Our approach to religion, politics, art and literature has been influenced, if not conditioned, by the screening grid of "what works?"  

But within that prevailing practicality Americans had certain values, misplaced perhaps but real, that limited that practicality.  Though not a philosophical community, Americans were yet disposed toward the idea of "the beautiful", the pursuit of "quality", the social imperative of the American "Dream", the unquestioned assumption that we had "hit" upon that blend of freedom/responsibility/encouragement which was the key to human development and future prosperity.  We were unabashedly evangelistic.  Promoting our ways and our ideas, with some success and with too much arrogance, and exporting our institutions throughout the world.

In other words, we had a "world view" that formed a central unifying idea.  Immigrants were "assimilated" into this view.  Cultural distinctives were precious but subordinate.  To be "Southern" was to embrace secondary ideas about life in these United States that were never-the-less absolutely subordinate to the higher claim of being an "American."  I submit that even the shameful issue of race relations was characterized by this approach and I would submit the evidence of the proud performance of non-whitee Americans in ALL the wars of the period.

But that changed.  The common embrace of intangibles dissolved under the influence of vicious political power plays, the dedicated strategy of radical elitist academics and intellectuals, and the rise of "selfish me-ism" sensuality that characterized the masses of the post-1960's populace.  

Something had to fill the void created by the dismissal of abstract "values."  That which was confidently advanced was "scientism" - the belief that the only true "truth" is that which can be established by the principles of formulaic validation and predictive behavior.  It showed up across the board.  Education theory became the subject of endless, repetitive, and often contradictory "studies."  "Studies prove..." became the unquestioned warrant for whatever hare-brained agenda some demagogue wanted to advance.  "Prove it" was the underlying demand that opened the door for the idea that everyone's opinion is of equal value no matter what their qualifications on the subject being discussed.

Consensus dissolved, intellectual and moral anarchy has prevailed and now, simply, there is no dream.  All we have left is the sterile imbecility of moral license and the reductionist straight-jacket of impressionist thinking.  In a social structue where in "quality" is not recognized, where "advancement" in personal virtue is not celebrated, and where transcendent goals are not pursued, there is and must be a corresponding despair - the sense that "something is missing"  - and the resultant flattening of human existence.

Smith is on to something.  He is too much a product of those same trends to be able to critique his own observations.  He cannot find a measure (scientism) to be able to distinguish, among the commonly held values of the world's various religions, any which are to be elevated as the repository of "truth."  He still treats the facts of human religions as the data from which conclusions are to be drawn.

But he says and sees many good things.  All that is lacking is the insight, that what you "see" is not ALL there is.  Among the world religions, only Christianity can claim the priority of "truth."  That statement is not proved by the data of the Christian religion itself... it is furnished by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit... a Person who is not contained in human equations nor constrained by human conceptions.  He is the validation of all that is transcendent for in Him is beauty, peace, joy, life and truth.