Christianity is becoming tangible to me

A unique thing is happening to me lately. It's like all things Christian are becoming tangible to me. Like they're becoming a part of me. I mean doctrine, and affections, and prayer, and the higher visual language of the Bible. All of it. 

It's like what sex, money, and food is for a person who is more worldly than God-oriented. Those are things you touch, you eat, you accumulate, you use. For me now faith, affections, prayer, the armor of God, spiritual warfare, the Kingdom of God, the language of the Bible are all things I can actually touch, and taste, and accumulate, and use directly. 

I know that sounds strange. I mean, I was reading the Creation Hymn of Genesis and actually felt like I could eat the text. I was reading it in the original font of the 1611 Authorized - King James - Version too. Which I feel has a sort of mental tactile meaning. 

I also have a new feeling of being in this body and moving around in the world. Like a feeling of being above the Kingdom of Satan. A sort of, "Yeah, yeah, you're evil boys, yeah, yeah..." 

It might be from immersion in the Bible, doctrinal works, visual language of the Bible, getting new understanding of big things like affections; a sort of fusing of many strands into a center-of-gravity that is truly separated out from worldly deceits. 

Affections

We are accustomed to speak of mind, emotion, and will.

I've noticed, though, that the soul, in Christian terms, is said to have the power of mind and will. Where is emotion, I wondered? 

Emotion is spoken of in three ways: affections, inclination, and conscience.

Yet conscience and inclination are associated with, respectively, the mind, and the will. Affections seems to be associated with *both* the mind and the will.

 

Meaning there doesn't seem to be that middle realm, between the mind and the will, where emotion exists.

 

In a form of ancient psychology I am familiar with (Fourth Way, Ouspensky) what is called the Emotional Center is actually said to not really even exist. I.e. that we only know negative emotional behavior from that 'center' that is really fueled by hijacked sexual energy and supported by different types of negative imagination and passionate undue focus on a person or people creating an indulging in resentment that manifests violently or as self-pity or depression. 

 

I agree with the above. 

 

I now wanted to know what affections are. That more religious term used by Puritan theologians.

 

Foundationally affections seem to be what we most - or truly - value. 

A guru once said to his students, we talk of awakening and increasing consciousness and so forth, but we have to ask ourselves if really what we most want is a red sports car. 

In his own way he was talking about affections.

So affections are basically what we truly value. Let's say: the things of God, or the things of this world. To just keep it simple.

Then there is another aspect to affections that make them seem like what we think of as emotion. It is that our affections can be stoked like a fire if we meditate upon the objects of our affections. (Or obsess upon them, I suppose.)

In churches where an encounter with Jesus is foremost they'll perform praise music that works everybody up which is a stoking of the affections to where the people are crying and wanting to hug somebody. 

That's not how the Puritans did it. They would say to meditate upon biblical subject matter to stoke up holy affections. 

I say the above because I just wanted to clear up why we associate affections with common emotional states and behavior. I.e. there *is* that aspect to affections. Stoking them as one would stoke a fire. I.e. affections, though connected with the mind and the will, are not merely thoughts or inclinations but are things that can have some energy of passion in them.

So with a clear definition of affections we can think about them clearly and as Christians start to get a sense of what it is we really value at the end of the day.

Intelligence, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom

This is just off the top of my head. I'm going to try to differentiate intelligence, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. I googled once on this subject and came up with little but scattered things, nothing really immediately striking me as definitive, so, here goes...

Intelligence is ability to apprehend things. To get the gist of things being presented to you in an instructional way or when engaged in some activity in real time. Degrees of speed and clarity play a role. I lack in this a bit. I studied classical piano (before the internet), and it never occurred to me to buy a recording of a piece I was working on just to see how it actually should sound. A more intelligent person would have thought of that. Just one example. I was young. Still. 

Knowledge means you aren't ignorant. You *at least* aren't ignorant. You may be dumb, but you're not ignorant. You know basic things. You're relatively up-to-date on basic things. You have a decent vocabulary. You know some basic history and geography thus having some perspective in time and space. You have basic knowledge of cultural things. Etc. 

Understanding I believe applies to subjects. They can be very big, general subjects like universal human nature, or more narrow subjects like being an automobile mechanic. It's characterized as an ability to see parts in relation to a whole. Many professional intellectuals have knowledge of parts of something but lack a vision of the whole, and hence do not have understanding of the subject. Economists can be like this. Not Adam Smith, though, he had parts-in-relation-to-the-whole understanding.

Wisdom has to do with choice and action. Knowledge and understanding as applied to real life events and situations and circumstances. A wise sea captain might choose to take an action to avoid a bad storm that a rookie sea captain perhaps might not have taken. The wise sea captain had a lifetime of experience to draw upon. 

So there it is, off the top of my head. I think I did a pretty good job. I had no idea what I was going to write when I started.  

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Pt. 2

So a person can be relatively intelligent and have knowledge but have no understanding or wisdom.

Another person can develop understanding of something and even have wisdom without perhaps being the smartest (intelligence) person in the room.

A general can have knowledge and understanding of the art of war but no wisdom on the battlefield. 

The ultimate, I think, is to use what degree of intelligence God has given you and apply yourself to get general knowledge; then apply yourself to get understanding of big subjects (and perhaps a handful of smaller ones that interest you); and along the way, maybe despite yourself, become a wisened old elf when the chips are down.

The substance of true understanding

To get and see true understanding do this: ask a question on an archetypal subject such as, "What is man?" And answer it from the Bible. Man is a fallen being. A sinner. Though made in the image of God. Etc. This is understanding. "What is the earth?" The earth was created by God when he created the heavens and the earth from nothing. It is the theater of God's plan of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification. Etc. "What is truth?" Truth is the decree of God emanating from his mind and manifesting in his sovereign realms of creation, Providence, and grace. 

"What does God abhor and loathe?" Sin and the worship of idols. This is understanding. 

 

Understanding can be gleaned from the Book of Nature as well. Water is scarce in the desert. Empirical fact. Don't walk in the desert without carrying water with you.

 

Understanding can be of things apprehended quickly through intuition and conscience and emotional type discernment. Faster than mere intellect. Just has to be said.

 

Understanding also is involved with the various activities man can be involved with (building, creating, inventing, discovering, creative destruction, influencing, growing, trading, crime). 

Also, understanding can be seen in seeing disparate parts in relation to a whole. 

Also, seeing the forces at work in any event or situation. Ability to see from other people's perspective. Etc.

 

I won't attempt a complete catalogue; I just wanted to let on that I'm aware understanding is not limited to the book of God's self-revelation, though that is arguably the foundation of real understanding.

Two languages of the Bible (not Hebrew and Greek)

First, I believe understanding is the power of a glorified body. In heaven there will be degrees of being. This is clearly stated in the Bible. I believe understanding, true understanding, is what will separate individuals vertically. More than will; more than aspects of emotion (affections, inclination, conscience), I believe understanding is the preeminent thing. Those other things will be there as well, but understanding is what we are. And by 'power' I don't mean any of the negative aspects of power we know in these fallen bodies, in this fallen world. In a glorified world, in glorified bodies power is only positive. So, where do you go for the substance of understanding? Ultimately speaking? You go to the very word of God. And finding a new way, a new language, to get greater understanding from the word of God is a very big thing...

In the past I've said that the Holy Spirit rewards the effort to read the Bible complete, cover-to-cover; and that extra-biblical helps don't really help that much. I.e. outlines, commentaries, summaries, etc. Yet I stated that systematic theology seems to have the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in it. Meaning systematic theology seems to really help to get real understanding of the Bible alongside the actual dedicated reading of the Bible.

I stand by that. Now I add to it...

There is another language other than systematic theology that truly helps to get more understanding from the Bible. It is the language that is the visual language of the Bible. Images, symbols, metaphor, simile, motif/conventions, archetypes.  

Types and anti-types are a similar language but they are really a different thing. Perhaps that is a third language. (And perhaps figures of speech used in the Bible are a fourth language to learn.) But now I am complicating matters. Types and figures are still in the realm of the language of images and symbol and motif and archetype. 

So, two languages. Systematic theology and the visual language of the Bible. 

The source for systematic theology is obvious. If you are Reformed/Calvinist there are any number of great STs to choose from and learn from. Berkhof, Bavinck, Grudem, Frame, a'Brakel, etc., etc. That is not what this post is about.

This post is to recommend a tremendous source to learn the visual language of the Bible. It is titled Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Published by IVP. General editors are Ryken, Wilhoit, and Longman. 

This is a serious work. It is not slap dash. It will last, or should last, for hundreds of years. It took me awhile after acquiring it to see its value. The entry on 'Order' might be a good one to see the depth of the insights this dictionary provides. I can't paste it here because I only have the hardback. I'm just saying, if you acquire it read the entry on Order. 

The editors make a useful illustration in talking about the right brain/left brain idea. The left side of the brain is more idea oriented, intellectual, concepts, numbers, etc. The right side is more attuned to emotion and visuals and sound. They point out when we read the Bible we are likely to mostly read it with the left brain approach. There is nothing wrong with this. We want to know what the Bible is saying to us. We want to learn biblical doctrine. We want to understand the statements and commands and so forth of the word of God. Yet in that process we let a lot of imagery go by the wayside. 

It's important to say, because I'll be accused by some if I don't, that the imagery of the Bible is not there to change the direct meaning of the doctrine in the Bible. It's not an excuse to make the Bible say whatever one wants it to say. Sort of like the way some use biblical theology as a discipline to get away from the formulas systematic theology presents to us. No, yet the imagery of the Bible can deepen our understanding overall, not only of the basics of the faith but just universal understanding of ourselves, the world, God's Kingdom, and everything else. 

Important paragraph here: this is about language. Language works like this: when we get new language into us we then can see things we couldn't see before. This isn't just words but all languages such as music, or mathematics, or visual art. Even trades like brick laying or commercial fishing can be seen as languages. But words are the most basic. Words in your own spoken language. I use this example: a child walks to school three hundred times and never sees a Ballet School he passes by. Then one day at home he reads a dictionary and learns the word 'ballet.' Next day he walks to school and lo and behold he sees the Ballet School he passed by everyday. He needed the language in him to be able to see the thing. In this case it is something external to him, but it could also be something inside us that we begin to see if we get the language in us to see it. Something like 'resentment.' If we never learn that word and its true meaning we won't see it manifesting in us. Etc.

I have stated the Homeric epics are a complete higher, visual language of inner, spiritual development. That is something academia can't see. It is totally off their radar. It's the kind of language that you just have to download into your being. Just read it. Without preconceived notions or ulterior motives (an ulterior motive like passing a class in college). This is what the Bible means by reading something like a child. That doesn't mean being naive or gullible or never trying to get real understanding of what you're reading; it just means coming to the text purely and taking it in on faith that it is higher than you and of worth. There are not many influences you want to approach like that, but the Bible and the Homeric epics (and J. S. Bach, to give an example from another category of influence) are good examples of ones you should approach like that. 

So this Dictionary of Biblical Imagery is a tremendous source for learning the tremendous language of the visual aspects of the word of God.  It is a big book though. It can be intimidating. I struggled with how to approach it. There are 850 entries in it. 66 of them are entries on every book of the Bible, which is a great gift the editors gave to us. They obviously put out maximum effort in putting this resource together. In the intro they even gave an extensive listing of archetypes in the Bible. Don't miss that. In fact don't neglect to read the Introduction if you acquire this book. It is really mandatory and incredibly helpful in knowing what is going on with the entire project. 

Here is a taste from the Introduction on archetypes: "Archetypes are the universal elements of human experience." "...they fall into three categories...[image or symbol; plot motif; character type]." "Archetypes are a universal language." "...archetypes are the elemental stuff of life." "Such elemental images are primal in the sense of being rooted in essential humanity, independent of civilized trappings and complexity. One effect of reading this dictionary will be to uncover the primal roots of the Bible." 

One interesting thing about images and archetypes, the editors point out, is when you categorize them they fall into good and bad, desirable and undesirable, ideal and unideal groupings. 

A last note: Zondervan has for some reason published a dictionary with the exact same title. I know you can't copyright titles, but this was not a nice thing to do. So avoid the Zondervan book by the same title, and get the real thing.

I eat some crow on Michael Heiser

OK, another book recommendation, except this time I've actually read the book, cover to cover. I have to eat some crow on this as well. It's a book by a guy I've criticized many times. Michael Heiser. The book is called Supernatural. I've criticized Heiser for not being clear in what he is putting forward, and I've called him a heretic in holding hederodox doctrine. He does tend to speak out of both sides of his mouth, but in this book, Supernatural, he is clear and straight forward and not a heretic after all. An Arminian, yes, but that is not heresy, just shallowness. It doesn't intrude on his main subject matter which is cosmic spiritual warfare. So... His main book is Unseen Realm. He wrote it to convince scholars, so it has a lot of scholarly defense and going deep into the languages and so on, and it can be a tedious read. I kept saying just give me the bullet points. Before I abandoned my reading. Well, Supernatural IS the bullet points. It's exactly what I needed. He wrote it for people who didn't need or want the scholarly version. So it's only about 110 pages, easy reading, fast reading, and enjoyable because of so many insights along the way. This book is BIG. Heiser has consolidated a lot of disparate narrative points of the Bible and fit them into the whole. He really has. The evidence is real: new insights pop out everywhere. It all lines up. There are so many times where you can say, ohhh, ok, that's why that strange part of the Bible is there. Etc. I mean, people like me who really know the Bible and the most biblical doctrine called Federal, Covenant Theology, a parts-in-relation-to-the-whole theology itself, can see true, new insights in Heiser's work. The reason is because systematic theology avoids the supernatural aspects of spiritual warfare in the Bible. So it was ripe to be exposed. This is a worldview book as well, by default. All my esoteric posts on the Law fill out this book as well. This book also gives the background to what's happening in the world now as well. Get the book. Read it. Supernatural by Michael Heiser.