CC43: The Hole-y Bucket of Humility

"There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole." 

"Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, then fix it, dear Henry . . . " 

"With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza . . ." 

The hole-y bucket of religious humility. There's a big hole right in the middle (or worse, the bottom) where the good stuff gushes out. You always feel half-empty in your relationship with God, instead of full to the brim with courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion. Photo credit JAT 2014.

You probably know this song from your childhood. We used to sing it at Brownies and at summer camp. It always made us laugh when we got to the punchline of the song: the bucket that started the song because it had a hole in it was the tool that was needed by Henry and Liza to fix said bucket. Without an un-holey bucket, they couldn't fix the hole-y bucket. But they only had one bucket -- the one with the hole in it. It was a circular argument.  

The orthodox Western Church's teachings on humility are exactly like this childhood song.

Before I talk about the Church's teachings on humility, though, I want to talk about a different core virtue, one that's never discussed in the church. This is the core virtue of humbleness. Humbleness is what Jesus taught. 

Humbleness is a feeling that sort of settles into the middle of your heart after you find redemption. Humbleness is the natural state of thinking, feeling, behaving, and understanding that you end up with when you accept the redemptive power of God's forgiveness in your life. Humbleness is your natural soul state. It's who you really are underneath all the bullshit layers of status addiction. It's a deep sense of trust in yourself -- not a sense of pride or hubris, but a sense of trust. It's an unshakable sense of acceptance. It's a sense that God made you to be a particular person, and that's the only person you can be. So you stop fighting your inner self. You become free to become your inner self.  

That's what humbleness is. It's a state of absolute freedom from the tyranny of status addiction. Once you're free of the constant voice of status addiction in your head -- the constant judging of yourself, the constant comparing of yourself to others, the constant criticism of others, the perfectionism, the self-pity, the lack of common sense, the lack of peace, comfort, and safety in your life -- once you're free of all that you can begin to like yourself as a person. (Wouldn't that be a refreshing change?)  

A humble person is free to make choices based on a whole new set of criteria. A humble person isn't worried about getting more status, so a humble person is free to practise the virtues of common sense. A humble person isn't trying to be somebody he's not, so a humble person doesn't feel guilty about following his calling. A humble person thinks it's wrong to accuse of God of being too lazy or too stupid to make souls that are all different from each other yet all equally beautiful and worthy. A humble person shows her love and respect for God by trying every day to be who she really is, instead of trying to be somebody she's not. A humble person knows his limits.  

This is not what the Church means when the Church talks about humility.

The traditional orthodox Western position, based on Paul's teachings, is that no human being (except that Jesus dude) has ever been truly worthy of God's love and trust. The Church starts with the assumption that you are a bucket (aka "a vessel") with a big, fat hole in the bottom. 

You are a bucket that needs to be fixed. All your courage and your faith have been draining out through the hole. Obviously, the hole needs to be patched. You must use your free will and your self-discipline to patch the hole so "the vessel that is you" can contain the love of Christ. But you must also practise humility. Humility demands that you not consider yourself a bucket at all, because then you'd be able to carry your own portion of courage and faith, which you're not allowed to have, because that would be presumptuous. Only when you rejoice in the fact that you're a bucket with a humongous hole in the bottom will you be able to feel Christ's love flowing through you and out into the world through the hole. You must therefore be a hole-y bucket in order to fix the hole-y bucket that is you.  

Catch 22, anyone? 

Let's imagine instead that the hole-y bucket is your biological brain/central nervous system. This bucket admittedly has a few holes in it by the time you've grown up. But these holes are fixable. More importantly, the holes are not you. They're not the real you. They're damaged biological parts that need to be healed (same as clogged arteries or a broken arm). So you find some qualified people who can help you heal them. Slowly, one by one, the holes begin to heal. You begin to discover somewhat to your surprise that you -- you, yourself, and you -- are capable of startling feats of compassion. The more healed your bucket, the more love and courage and faith your bucket is able to hold.  

Go figure. Who would guess that a bucket without a big hole in it would actually hold more of the good stuff (like love and forgiveness) than a hole-y bucket? 

Gee whiz, Mother and Father, that's, like, totally unfair of you to make our reality as humans so logical! 

Mother and Father, you rock!

 

"Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, "Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I d not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour" (Matthew 25: 1-13). Usually interpreted as an apocalyptic parable about the delayed End Times, this parable is actually a rebuke of the false virtue of Humility. Humility goes hand in hand with foolishness, lack of common sense, lack of personal responsibility, and a dangerous sense of entitlement.  Photo credit JAT 2020.

CC42: Humility: Vice or Virtue?

Ah, the joys of humility, that most cherished of Christian virtues! O ye wondrous affliction, scourge of my heart, desiccator of my soul! How could I envision Original Sin without you, you who from ancient times have trampled all that is good and true and beautiful within me! You who are the very face of Christian orthodoxy! You who demands that I obey my earthly leaders! Fair Humility, you are an idol beyond compare!

Humility, your justness and righteousness have been proved again and again within orthodoxy's precincts. To you we owe a great debt, for you have protected the Church throughout the centuries from the evils of independent thought. Even more important, you have locked the door to Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven to ensure that people of true faith and good heart can't get in. Verily, you are one of the rocks upon which the orthodox Western Church stands.

Hear now a modern summary (written by this humble author) of the famed Rule of St. Benedict, first written in Latin in Italy in the early 6th century. (The reader is referred to the following text: Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of St. Benedict in English (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982)).

Abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy, site of the early 6th century CE monastery founded by St. Benedict of Nursia. Monte Cassino was the first monastery founded by Benedict, author of the highly influential Rule of St. Benedict. The buildings were reconstructed after being largely destroyed in the WWII Battle of Monte Cassino. Photo credit: Monte Cassino – wide view by Pilecka – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

FIVE CORE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES IN THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT

For St. Benedict, author of The Rule, the most important Christian quality is to place the love of Christ before all else, a point he returns to several times in his book of instructions for beginners (for example,Chapter 4:1, 20; Chapter 72:11). Benedict takes a two-pronged approach – faith combined with good works – to this religious vocation (an approach which turns out to be particularly effective, too, if we are to consider the fact that his Rule is still used by many religious orders today). First, he creates guidelines that affect how the monks will think and feel about their relationships with themselves, each other, and God; in other words, he tries to fulfill the needs of faith. These are the instructions that pertain to renouncing the self and to humility, both great virtues in Benedict’s opinion. In order to follow Christ, monks must renounce themselves, taking no notice of anything good in themselves except to give the credit to God, not themselves (4:42). No one is to follow his own heart’s desire (3:8). Neither should monks expect to have free disposal even of their own bodies and wills (33:4; 58:25). Private ownership is a vice (Chapter 33), and, along a similar vein, a monk may not exchange letters, tokens, or gifts with anyone – or be found to be in possession of such items – without the abbot’s consent (Chapter 54). These rules, if followed, draw the monk’s thoughts and feelings away from anything that makes him distinct or different from his peers, and make it easier for him to practise humility. "Humility" is one of the core features of Benedict’s Rule. Chapter 7 outlines the 12 steps of humility, and many other chapters of the book exalt humility as well. A monk who ascends Benedict’s ladder of humility will find at the twelfth and highest stage an awareness that he is always guilty on account of his sins, and through this awareness of his true unworthiness, he will be able to receive cleansing of his vices and sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit (7:62-70). In this way, the monk will finally know the perfect love of God.

Second, Benedict creates a set of strict guidelines that governs what monks do, when they do it, and how they do it. In other words, he tells them exactly how to perform good works – how to act. Monks who agree to these rules, which can be thought of as the day-to-day tools and practical routines necessary to the vocation of loving Christ, will acquire the essential Christian virtues of obedience and self-discipline. Obedience to the abbot and the rule is profoundly important in imitation of obedience to Christ. Indeed, the abbot is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery (2:2) Moreover, obedience must not be blighted by the evil of grumbling (5:14; 34:6; 53:18) but must be given always with gentleness (Chapter 68) and purity of heart (20:3). Monks who take their final vows must promise three things: stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience (58:17). From that day forward, they are no longer free to leave the monastery (58:15), although they may be cast out or excommunicated after due process if they are sufficiently disobedient. It is therefore in the monks’ best interests to exercise self-discipline, which could perhaps be defined as being "not slothful, not unobservant, not negligent" (the vices that Benedict lists in his concluding chapter, 73:7). In Benedict’s monastic communities, this self-discipline meant more than just "a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love" (Prologue: 47). It meant remembering all the rules, and practising all the rules, even on rare occasions when monks were travelling or were working far away from the oratory; so, for instance, monks on a journey could not omit the prescribed hours (50:4), nor could monks sent on a day errand presume to eat outside the monastery on pain of excommunication (Chapter 51). Self-discipline may also have been helpful when it was time to get up in the middle of the night to celebrate the Divine Office! [from an unpublished paper by the author; italics added] 

____________________________________ 

The apostle Paul would be proud of you, noble Humility. For you are the theological sleight of hand that keeps good, pious Christians in their place, doomed to feel unworthy, sinful, desperate to be saved, and constantly separated from God.

You are a proud and cruel goddess, Humility.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them,' You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?' So the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:1-16). Photo credit JAT 2025.

 

CC31: How God Listens To Your Soul and Not To Your Idiocy

I remember the day when I finally accepted the fact that God could hear all the nasty thoughts I was thinking. I wanted to throw up.

Up until then, I'd been trying hard to convince myself that "what happens in my head, stays in my head." I was sure that my nasty, judgmental thoughts about other people were my own little secret. Sure, I felt guilty about those unkind thoughts. But as long as I didn't express them out loud, nobody would know about them but me.

But then I decided I wanted to learn to be a mystic. It was a conscious decision. Nobody forced me to become a mystic. Nor did I have any big epiphanies or any life-altering visions or any sudden calls from God (i.e. conversion experiences). I simply thought it would be cool.

I confess now, with the full benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that ten years ago, when I made the decision to learn to be a mystic, my motivation reeked of status addiction. This was not the best of motivations, as I've pointed out in earlier posts. I wanted to be "special," and it seemed to me that "the mystical path" would be a good way for me to become "better" than others. I confess now that this was my motivation at the time, but ten years ago, I wouldn't have been willing to admit this to myself. I desperately wanted to believe that I was becoming a mystic "for the benefit of others." I wanted to believe that I was only a humble servant of God -- a humble vessel of God's will. Really, though, what I wanted at the time was the status that comes with being a mystic.

"Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, 'I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, "I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?" The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God, as my life was ebbing away'" (Jonah 2: 1-7a). Photo credit JAT 2018.

I wasn't entirely devoted to my own selfishness, however. There was a part of me that genuinely yearned for a deep sense of connection with God. There was a part of me that was very . . . lonely. Very sad. There was a part of me that felt small and quiet and vulnerable, that wanted to reach out to God, but didn't know how. This part, of course, was my soul. But I didn't know that at the time. I was too busy filling up my head with New Age idiocy to recognize the voice of my own soul.

Good news, though. God was much smarter than I was, and God didn't pay any attention to my ridiculously vain and selfish New Age/devout Christian prayers. God listened only to my soul. My soul was saying, "I want to remember how to love," and that's the only choice I made that God was willing to help me with. I must have offered up 20 selfish prayer requests for every time I asked God to help me learn how to love. God ignored the many selfish demands I made (thank heaven we have a God with common sense!), then God put my nose to grindstone on the one prayer I'd asked that was worth asking.

I had no idea that this one sincere prayer would be such hard work for me, my family, and God. I had no idea that I was literally asking God to help me rewire my entire biological brain.*

You would assume, naturally, that the process of rewiring a person's entire biological brain would take a great deal of time. (It did). And a great deal of experienced help. (It did). And a great many changes in daily lifestyle. (It did). And a great many conscious changes in attitude. (It did). And many moments of painful insight. Plus setbacks. And moments of quiet healing. And tears along with great joy.

It did.

How I Felt At First. Although most of the time my brain felt rigid and full of selfish weeds, God saw the spring flowers waiting to bloom. My sincere wish to remember how to love was the trillium God saw and nurtured. Photo credit JAT 2014.

That's what it felt like, and many spiritual seekers have described similar feelings. But inside my biological body, at a neurophysiological level, changes were taking place. My neurons and glial cells were changing, adapting, making new connections, breaking old connections. My immune system was changing along with my entire nervous system. I was getting a gradual "nervous system makeover." This happened because my body was rewiring itself to accommodate my new regimen -- my new regimen of remembering how to love.

If I've learned anything about the spiritual journey, it's this: no human being anywhere on Planet Earth at any time in Earth's history has ever been exempt from this biological reality. You are a package deal. You are a soul intertwined with your biological body, and you can't find spiritual enlightenment if you're punishing or mistreating your physical body (for example, through ascetic practices). It's a scientific reality that nobody can escape, though most mystics want to pretend they're exempt from these rules.

Eventually I realized that I was -- am -- a package deal, and that as part of this package deal, my thoughts and feelings are not hidden from God. My thoughts and feelings are an open book. I can try to fight this reality, or I can work with this reality. It's my choice. If I try to fight it, I hurt myself, and I end up hurting the people I love. If I decide to work within this paradigm, and trust that God forgives me even when I make a mistake, then I'm using my free will in the most loving way possible. I'm using my free will to trust in God's love and forgiveness. I'm using my free will to be in full connection and relationship with God. I'm using my free will to be open to their observations and suggestions for constructive change.

Of course, this paradigm pretty much implies that change is part of the healing process.

So . . . this runs smack into the painful truth that religious leaders who reject change in favour of the status quo (status addiction) are not part of the healing process.

I'm very grateful to God the Mother and God the Father, plus the soul who once lived as Jesus son of Joseph, for being so patient and so firm and so consistent with me. They got me on track -- the track I'd chosen of remembering how to love -- and they never gave up on me. They stuck right with me, and they put up with a lot of abuse from me, until I got it through my thick head that my soul was -- is -- okay.

As for those nasty thoughts I used to have . . . I don't have them anymore. Eventually I learned that those nasty thoughts were the "voice" (as it were) of status addiction. I was looking for a way to raise myself up inside my own head by putting other people down. (Yeah, it really is that simple!) When I confronted my own status addiction issues, and stopped denying the harm I was creating for myself and others, I no longer needed the "high" of thinking nasty thoughts.

So I stopped.

It's a great cure for that feeling of wanting to throw up because you're carrying so much guilt, remorse, and embarrassment about your own nastiness.


* Only recently have neuroscientists come to understood how malleable and changeable the human brain is. This new field of research is known as "neuroplasticity."

CC24: The Emperor's New Clothes: Psychopathy in the Church

There's a fellow in my graduate theology program who is a constant reminder to me of how the orthodox Western church ended up preaching the doctrines of sin, salvation, sacraments, and separation from God (the four S's). If we were to put this fellow -- I'll call him Titus -- in a time machine, and send him back to Carthage in the early fifth century CE to argue with the famously tortured Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo, I'm not sure which of the two would prevail. That's because, in traditional parlance, "they're both cut from the same cloth." They share certain dysfunctional psychological traits along with certain coping mechanisms to compensate for their dysfunctional traits. They're also both deeply sincere in their beliefs. This is why both men cause so much suffering in the lives of others.

It's important to emphasize that the man I know, Titus, is absolutely convinced that he's been called to ministry by God. He's not a con man or a criminal with a conscious intent to harm others. In fact, if you asked him about his motives, he'd look you straight in the eye and tell you that he's a humble servant of God. He truly believes this.

But Titus has serious issues -- as in unresolved psychodynamic issues. He's a walking powder keg of narcissistic bullying, and he's utterly blind to this. (His classmates, who are the targets of his behaviour, see his issues quite clearly). So serious is his lack of empathy and his lack of respect for boundary issues that I suspect he suffers a great deal. I suspect he suffers inside his own head. He's tormented by his own "demons," and, like so many other people, he's looking for some form of relief from his inner despair. And who can blame him? It's not fun to feel like crap all the time.

Secular treatments have given him no long-term relief. So now he's looking to the Church -- traditionally, one of the great sanctuaries for narcissistic men (and narcissistic women). Here he can find a logical explanation for his suffering. Here he can be absolved of personal responsibility for the current state of his life. Here he can finally use his intellectual gifts, his musical gifts, and his badger-like tenacity in order to create something meaningful in his life. I'm not being facetious here -- Titus is a talented, well educated man.

I have no doubt that he's finding psychological comfort and relief in the teachings of men such as Paul the Apostle, Augustine of Hippo, and Martin Luther. That's because these famous theologians were also talented, well educated men who were suffering from the effects of their own unaddressed issues. They were not stupid, nor ill-informed, nor criminally minded. But they knew something was wrong, and they earnestly wanted to fix it. If they found themselves forced to alter everything Jesus once taught in order to fix it, then so be it. Once they'd found a theological solution that offered some relief for their personal feelings of emptiness, well, who can blame them for wanting to tout their solution to others? Who can blame them for intentionally supplanting Jesus' message of personality responsibility and forgiveness with a message of sin and salvation? It's a much easier "sell" than Jesus' message, and besides, each of these men had personally felt the relief that came with the "4-S package." So they weren't really lying -- they were just improving on Jesus' message.

 

Silenos was a figure from Greek Mythology. He was said to be a close companion of the Greek god Dionysos and was known for his drunkenness, one of the "sins" that human beings tend to blame on everyone but themselves until they find the courage to take responsibility for their own actions. Anyone who has succeeded in leashing an addiction to alcohol knows that this particular "sin" can be overcome with the right sort of help (which doesn't include being told you're a worthless, hopeless, "demon-possessed" wretch who has no control over your unloving choices because of Original Sin). This Roman marble after a Hellenistic work of the 3rd C BCE is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2019.

 
The problem is that this package of theological doctrines -- the 4-S package of sin, separation, sacraments, and salvation -- only offers psychological relief to a certain subsection of the population that's suffering from certain kinds of psychiatric dysfunction. It enables the narcissistic bullies to feel a lot better about themselves. But it doesn't do a damned thing for anybody else.

This notion will be extremely unpopular among devout Christians who cherish their traditional, orthodox beliefs about original sin, etc., etc., and this notion will be especially offensive to those who insist that Church doctrines are the handiwork of God instead of the handiwork of a few dysfunctional theologians. But there you have it -- the Church has codified within its body of sacred laws a self-correcting, virtually impregnable suit of body armour to protect the "rights" of a select group of self-entitled, selfish, controlling, abusive, HUMBLE (!!!!) servants of God.

How could such a self-serving system survive for so long if it wasn't God's true intention?

Well, that's an easy question to answer. Have you ever tried to live with a severe narcissist? Or work with a severe narcissist? Or live in a community (or even a country) ruled by a severe narcissist? Once a narcissist crosses the line into full-blown psychopathy (and this happens more often than good-hearted intellectuals want to admit), the rule of terror takes over. It's very hard to think straight, let alone challenge official doctrine, when you and your loved ones are being terrorized, abused, relentlessly persecuted, tortured, raped, imprisoned, and silenced in every way imaginable.

We've recently seen this kind of psychopathic behaviour emerge in group form in the European Holocaust, the Cambodian Holocaust, and the Rwandan Holocaust. These holocausts were all instituted by "revered leaders." The Church, I would argue, has had its own share of "revered leaders" who relentlessly preached holocausts (crusades) against "heretics" who rejected official church doctrine.

Am I saying that some of the Church's revered theologians and past leaders would match today's understanding of psychopathy?*

That's exactly what I'm saying.

* For more information, please see Robert D. Hare's Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York & London: The Guilford Press, 1993.)

 

CC23: Seeing God in Black and White: A Parable

Here is your class assignment for the day: using only two tubes of paint, one white and one black, you are to paint a full-colour picture of something beautiful. 

Lilies of the Field (c) Image*After

Get to work, everyone! Now! And don't complain to me that the assignment is unfair. If you're truly righteous, pious, and devout, God will show you how to paint a full-colour picture using only black and white paint. If you fail, well . . . if you fail, you obviously don't have enough faith in God. Don't blame me for your failure. I didn't make the rules. If you fail, it's your own fault (you poor sin-saturated thing, you).

Pray, people, pray! Pray with all your might! If you pray correctly, maybe God will grant you the grace of being able to paint pictures in glorious, divine colour. Prove to me that you have faith! Pick up your paintbrushes and paint! Anyone caught cheating by bringing in tubes of red, blue, or yellow paint will immediately be brought before the Inquisition. Possession of any paints except Lead White and Carbon Black will be considered a shameful act of hubris, because only God is allowed to have coloured paints. Those other tubes you've seen at the store are the work of the Devil.

That's right, class -- everyone down on their knees. That's better. And remember not to look up while you're painting. Don't look up at the trees or flowers or clouds or hills that you're trying to paint. Such viewing is an unpardonable sin. You will paint beautifully coloured images based solely on the black and white words I'm about to recite aloud to you. Are you ready, everyone? Good. Here we go. In the beginning was the Word . . . .

Ah. A question. What is your question, child? You want to know what the colour red is? Well, as all the great mystics have taught, you'll only be able to see the divine colour red once you've let go of all desire to know what red is. Once you no longer care what red is, perhaps God will open your eyes for you so you can see it. But until then, there's nothing you yourself can do. No one can learn how to see red, or be taught how to see red. To claim this would be the height of human pride and arrogance! Be grateful you can see black and white, child! Some people can't even see that.

If you tell me you can already see red and blue and yellow, it's proof that the Devil has captured your soul, you poor thing. Resist, resist! Pray harder. Ask for deliverance from the torment of False Colour. Ask that you may be given the divine gift of Church-Approved Sunglasses to block out those dangerous visions of colour. Life is much simpler in black and white. Everything is less confusing when I tell you what to do. Naturally, I always have your best interests at heart, you poor, weak, inferior creature, you.

I promise to look after you, as Christ looks after us all! It's the least I can do in this broken, corrupted, black and white world.

Well, the day is over, and I see that once again no one in my class has enough faith in God to produce a thing of explosive beauty from the paints I have humbly provided.

You in the back corner! Joshua, Yeshua, whatever your name is! You will be turned over to the Inquisition, and tried on charges of heresy for presuming to tell the class that all people can learn to see red lilies in the field if they listen to God with open hearts and not with closed minds!

As if God even wants to talk to regular people!

CC22: The Trinity: A Perfect Shell Game

If you've been reading my last few posts and you're now hopelessly confused, then I'd like to thank you -- it means you've been paying attention!

My last post (about the Law of Attraction) seems to contradict my earlier posts about prophecy and apocalypticism and the Church's claim that we can't change anything in our relationship with God because of original sin. But hey -- that's the great thing about orthodox Western Christian theology! It doesn't have to make sense! Mutually contradictory doctrines are more than welcome in the pulpit -- in fact, the more confusion, the better. That way, people in the congregation will always feel off balance and slightly stupid in comparison to the elevated seminarians who have humbly answered God's call to preach the Chalcedon Creed.

And such a joy it is to be able to preach the mystery of the Trinity and the whole homoousios (one substance) thing!* Of course it doesn't make any sense . . . but that's the beauty of it! Our inability to understand the Trinity reminds us constantly that we're weak and unworthy in comparison to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Obviously, if we weren't so weak and unworthy, we'd understand the whole thing better, more like those specially chosen priests and ministers who are higher than we are on the ladder of spiritual ascent. But, alas, ours is not to wonder why, as the old saying goes. Ours is to obey.

"Then Job answered the Lord: 'I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. "Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?" Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. "Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me." I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you'" (Job 42: 1-5). As Job finally comes to understand, it's always better to listen to what God has to say about God instead of what theologians say about God. If you want to know God, you need to look beyond the limited scope of church doctrines on the nature of God; you need to be willing to look at all of Creation. The carved items shown here are part of the Thomson Collection at the Ontario Gallery of Art, Toronto ON. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The Church says that God is One, but is also Three, and we must obey the Church's teachings on this matter. We must submit to a Trinitarian God. Even in the United Church of Canada, where a lot of people no longer feel comfortable with Trinitarian theology, General Council still requires that baptisms be carried out in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (all of whom are male).

It's a neat trick, this God-is-One-but-also-Three thing. It's a convenient way to play a shell game with the contradictory teachings in the Bible and in the Church's own body of doctrines. By insisting that God is of one substance but three different natures, the Church can preserve its traditional image of God as a transcendent, monotheistic, unemotional King and Judge, while at the same time keeping the idea of God as interventionist Spirit, and God as Suffering Son. But don't forget -- God is all these things at the same time, so you mustn't try to imagine that the Suffering Son is a different being or entity in comparison to the transcendent and unemotional King. And don't forget that although the Son conquered the devil and original sin while he was here, you're still suffering from the effects of the devil and original sin because, well, because, ummm, the End Times aren't here yet, so the promise of salvation hasn't been completely fulfilled yet. But don't worry too, too much, because even as we speak, God is stretching out his hand from the future End Times (where all things have already been fulfilled), and is reaching into the present time through the actions of the Spirit and the miracle of prolepsis to bring some of that fulfillment into your life today.

Like, huh?

I have a better idea, one that's much less complicated. Let's try Jesus' own teachings about God for a while, and see if we can do better in our ongoing efforts to forge a meaningful, sensible, joyous relationship with God the Father and God the Mother.

Jesus' own teachings can't be any worse than what we've got right now.


*If you want to read about the history of the debates that led to the christological and trinitarian doctrines still held by the church, a good introduction can be found in Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984). An extremely thorough and erudite theological review of the relevant early doctrines is presented in Jon Sobrino, Christ the Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001).