David Clarkson, The Idea of the Holy, The Numinous in the New Testament
Rudolf Otto writes, "The idea of election-- i.e. of having been chosen out and pre-ordained by God unto salvation--is an immediate and pure expression of the actual religious practice of grace" (Otto 87). I am glad that Porter brings up the topic of predestination and election, because I think that it is a topic that many people who call themselves christians do not like to bring up. I think the reasoning for their unwillingness to openly talk about the subject of election is mostly due to their lack of understanding of the topic as a whole, or distaste for the truth of the matter. Many people who call themselves christian in modern day America believe in what many people call the prosperity gospel, where they only believe and abide in the parts of scripture that talk about the prosperity and blessings they can receive as believers. Predestination and election falls in contrast to the more favorable doctrine this group of christians accept, hence the reason this topic is avoided by many believers. Because of this misconception, I like how Otto describes election as an expression of grace. As humans, I do not believe we are in a place to question God's election as he commands us in Romans. His election should only make us all the more appreciative of grace.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
David Clarkson, The Idea of the Holy
David Clarkson, March 9, 2016, Signs Following
Rudolf Otto writes, "Now the fewer preconceptions which we bring to our reading of the narrative-material of the Gospels, as reviewed and guaranteed by a thorough criticism, the stronger becomes the impression that in Jesus these powers were present with a rare potency" (Otto 208). I thought that this point was an interesting and accurate point by Otto. It seems to be referencing the idea that as readers when we are getting into the Bible for study, we come into the passages with a preconceived notion and idea of what we think we should be getting out of the passage in terms of application. This is a dangerous practice because instead of learning what the passage is actually saying, individuals might only be receiving what other people have told them the particular passage is about. This unintentional practice could be especially dangerous if an individual goes into reading a passage with preconceived notions heard from someone else that are false in doctrine. Moreover, this type of reading will raise a culture of individuals who are incapable of learning how to read and understand a passage without help for themselves. Personally, if I'm being honest, I know that I have been guilty of this type of reading before, as I have taken something a pastor or peer has told me about the Bible, and when I have gone for myself to read it, already had an idea of what I think it meant without reading it completely for myself.
Rudolf Otto writes, "Now the fewer preconceptions which we bring to our reading of the narrative-material of the Gospels, as reviewed and guaranteed by a thorough criticism, the stronger becomes the impression that in Jesus these powers were present with a rare potency" (Otto 208). I thought that this point was an interesting and accurate point by Otto. It seems to be referencing the idea that as readers when we are getting into the Bible for study, we come into the passages with a preconceived notion and idea of what we think we should be getting out of the passage in terms of application. This is a dangerous practice because instead of learning what the passage is actually saying, individuals might only be receiving what other people have told them the particular passage is about. This unintentional practice could be especially dangerous if an individual goes into reading a passage with preconceived notions heard from someone else that are false in doctrine. Moreover, this type of reading will raise a culture of individuals who are incapable of learning how to read and understand a passage without help for themselves. Personally, if I'm being honest, I know that I have been guilty of this type of reading before, as I have taken something a pastor or peer has told me about the Bible, and when I have gone for myself to read it, already had an idea of what I think it meant without reading it completely for myself.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Blade Runner Reflection - Malia
Blade Runner is a movie that calls
us to reflect upon the symbols in our life and the emphasis we place on certain
objects through the story of a society that worships technology to a staggering
degree. Technology in this film has come
to be synonymous with creation for the extent of what it has created – human “life”. With this ability to create life, is there a reason
to believe that there is a God above all else if humans have mastered the art
of creation as well? Is technology the
new key to life? I believe that this movie aims to bring the role of technology
in our lives into perspective and let us reflect on whether or not the extent
to which we worship technology has gone too far.
The creator in this film who
manipulates technology, Tyrell, is the master behind the Replicants and is
himself somewhat faultier than what he makes.
His glasses show his imperfection while technology has ironically created
a more perfect being. In fact, the
Replicants even begin to evolve past expectations and have emotions and a
desire on their own to live. Another
interesting point is that the real humans in the film seem to lack the emotion
and huge appreciation and desire for life that the Replicants possess. So do we
only really appreciate things that we don’t fully have because we know what it is
like to not have them? Is human faith in
jeopardy because of the fact that we are unable to fully appreciate all that we
have and do not have a reason to have faith?
And should the Replicants be considered humans for purposes of faith and
religion because they appreciate their life and have more genuine feelings on
life? This film helps us appreciate our
life and the role that technology plays in today’s society. The Replicants also serve as a reminder to not
take our life for granted because even though we don’t have a definite expiration
date like they do, our end time will come some day.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Decalogue
The Decalogue is about the 10 commandments. We watched film showing us the first commandment and the 5th commandment. Midrash is relevant in both films but in my opinion more so in the first film about a father losing his son and possibly his faith in science as well. The first commandment is "thou shall have no other gods before me" and this the commandment addressed in the first film. In the film, the father is raising his son alone and they seem to be very close, bonding over equations they can put into the computer. The father is a man of science in reason, this is immediately shown in his response to his sons question about death. The father responded with a very technical answer about the body shutting down and when pushed more by the son the father has no biblical answer, but instead a mild disintrest. This leads his son down a path to search for deeper answers, guided to sources about god from his religious aunt. All 3 characters view the world differently, the father has a pragmatic approach and the aunt believes god is in control of everything, while son is searching for answers somewhere in between. The fathers faith is then rattled when his god, science, betrays him, and allows his son to fall through the ice and drown. This leads the father to have an emotional episode in a church. How can someone not believe in god but still be angry at him? I just saw that on house and is very applicable here.
The second film is about the 5th commandment "thou shall not kill" which is something I think everyone can get behind. The film follows a young deviant commiting increasingly deviant acts throughout the town. The character esclates from being an ass to brutally murdering a taxi driver with a rope, stick and rock to finish the job. His lawyer stands up not for his actions, but objects to the death penalty, saying it is not a deterent to murder, which empirically has a lot of evidence behind it. While waiting to die we see the sweet side of the killer, he has a family he cares about and thinks that if his sister wasnt killed by his friend this would be different. Then we have a very uncomfortable scene of his struggle before being hung. After he was hung I felt very empty. Despite him having a family he cared about, I didnt have much sympathy for him, and I didnt think his sister dying was an excuse at all. Before he was hung I had no opposition to that happening. But after it happened it doesn't feel like justice is served. The cab driver is still dead and his family no better off. The deviant leaves behind a crying mother. Also, the hypocrisy of killing someone for killing sinks in too.
The second film is about the 5th commandment "thou shall not kill" which is something I think everyone can get behind. The film follows a young deviant commiting increasingly deviant acts throughout the town. The character esclates from being an ass to brutally murdering a taxi driver with a rope, stick and rock to finish the job. His lawyer stands up not for his actions, but objects to the death penalty, saying it is not a deterent to murder, which empirically has a lot of evidence behind it. While waiting to die we see the sweet side of the killer, he has a family he cares about and thinks that if his sister wasnt killed by his friend this would be different. Then we have a very uncomfortable scene of his struggle before being hung. After he was hung I felt very empty. Despite him having a family he cared about, I didnt have much sympathy for him, and I didnt think his sister dying was an excuse at all. Before he was hung I had no opposition to that happening. But after it happened it doesn't feel like justice is served. The cab driver is still dead and his family no better off. The deviant leaves behind a crying mother. Also, the hypocrisy of killing someone for killing sinks in too.
tree of life
When I found out we were watching the tree of life I was very disappointed. I had watched the movie in theaters with high hopes but felt bored and confused through the whole movie. However, now that I am at a stage in my life where I feel I can reflect on my childhood from a distance, I feel differently about the movie. Still, I had trouble wrapping my head around some of metaphors and messages the movie conveys in an EXTREMELY artistic way. Nature vs. Grace is a very important theme in this movie with the father representing nature and the mother representing grace. She is loving and forgiving while the father is more pragmatic and cold saying that being nice will get his boys no where. When the movie got to the plot it shows Jack growing up and at times losing innocence. He will do cruel or lustful acts of nature. For example killing a dog and stealing the neighbors underwear. His mother consoles him and tries to show him in a loving way that is wrong, being the force of Grace against his acts of nature. Throughout the story of Jack's childhood, we get to see his little brother and the interactions he has with him. The movie shows Jack and his family mourning the death of his little brother the moment it happened and years later. This tests the mothers religion, when being consoled by her friend saying "hes in gods hands now"she thinks to herself "wasn't he in gods hands the whole time?" The end of the movie shows her letting go of him and telling god to take her son in a beautiful scene on the beach where she raises towards the sky in all white sheets and lets her hands go. So even in her sons death, she handles nature (her sons young death) with grace.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Decalogue 1&5 - Numinous and the Search - Malia
Decalogue 1 focuses on a father and son who both have different views on the world and place different levels of importance on the holy aspects of life. The father places his faith in technology and the profane creations of humans, while his son places great importance on the sacred and that which he cannot even understand. Pavel, as a child, is unblemished by the world's narrowness and his mind and heart is free to wander and be open to the calling of the numinous. The father, on the other hand, is chained by what is concrete and proven, until the day that it stops working for him. The father's faith in his technology is shattered when he loses his son. He then musts start over and begins with no faith. This is what brings him back to life, though, because he is again a blank slate, like his son was.
This is a testament to the fact that the mysterious is both daunting and fascinating. For the son, he was too young to witness anything but the fascinating. The father, especially after having gone through what he did, experiences both aspects of the mysterious. From the father's journey that we got to see, it seems to me that he personifies our search for something real; the numinous as the object of search and yearning that we sometimes don't realize we are searching for until all other obstacles are gone or until we are stripped bare of anything else and have only that left to discover. As the father runs into the church at the end of the Decalogue 1, it is a great symbol for the fact that numen begins to tak over everything once it is discovered. From now on, as the church encompassed him, he will be encompassed by his search to find that something more.
In relation to Decalogue 5 and the murder, the numen relates to Jacek's need to find something more. He does so in a very wrong way, obviously. It is a completely human thing to have emotions and desires that we cannot understand , and I believe that this was a misdirection of the yearning felt in the numinous that was misdirected to resemble instead a profane desire.
The moral of these two stories is that the inherent yearning for the numinous is in all of us, but depending on the circumstance and what kind of person we are, that yearning can manifest in different ways, either for a benefit or detriment. But at the end of the day, God is here to fulfill that desire for something more in us, and it is our job to be able to discern how to do so.
Decalogue 1 & 5 - Christine Porter
In Krystsztof Kieslowski's film "Decalogue" each of the 10 commandments are interpreted and acted out in 10 one hour episodes. Kieslowski uses a style of interpretation used in Hebrew scripture, Midrash. These episodes focus on the deep meaning of each commandment and forces it’s viewers to feel and reflect internally on their own life.
The first episode we watched focused on the first commandment, Thou shall have no other Gods before me. We see an agnostic father whom only believed in what could be quantified and proven. After completed his calculations on the computer, the father was confident that the lake outside of his home was solid enough for his son to ice skate. When the ice cracked and his son passed away, he questioned his reliance on calculations for the first time. When his son’s body if recovered from the freezing water, the bystanders are very upset and most of them are crying or showing some sort of distress. The boy’s father just stands there with a blank expression, feeling lost and in complete disbelief. Personally I believe Kieslowski did a great job portraying the importance of having faith and trusting in a God that cannot be physically seen or proven with numbers, but that can be felt. It is unfortunate the father had to go through the tragedy of losing his only son, but sometimes traumatic events like this are the only way to wake us up and expose our idols. Rudolf Otto writes in The Idea of the Holy, “It is not that the actual feeling gradually changes in quality… but rather that I pass over to make the transition from one feeling to another as the circumstances change” (Otto, pg. 42-43). The father’s circumstances definitely changed when his computer failed him and it cost him his son’s life. After losing his son, the father in this film may have had more appreciation for God’s sacrifice of his one and only son because he could now relate on a personal level about the amount of pain felt when losing a child.
The second episode focused on the fifth commandment, Thou shall not commit murder. I experienced many emotions when viewing this film. The audience watches as the main character of this film mistreats most people that he comes into contact with, with the exception of a group of younger girls. The more people the main character mistreats, the more the audience wishes he would get some sort of revenge or face some sort of consequences for his actions. As the main character violently murdered an innocent cab driver, I felt anger and could not help but hope he would experience the punishment he deserved. When the man showed a personal side and opened up about his sister, mother, and his desire to be buried with his father it reminded me that he was a human as well and it caused me to question my morals. Does this man, that violently murdered an innocent man and caused harm to many others, deserve to die because of his actions or is this man a human that is struggling through mental issues and should just be given time in prison to think about his actions? I see both sides of the issue and find myself going back and forth. Towards the end of the film the murderer says, “They are against me” in which a different man responds, “No, they are against what you did.” Does someone actions define who they are? Is the main character seen only as a murderer now, and not as a human being?
God gave us 10 commandments to follow here on Earth and because of my personal life and my faith I felt very connected to this film and the importance of understanding the deeper message Krzysztof Kieslowski was attempting to convey through Midrash. I believe Kieslowski did a wonderful job portraying the importance of God’s love above any Earthly love.
The first episode we watched focused on the first commandment, Thou shall have no other Gods before me. We see an agnostic father whom only believed in what could be quantified and proven. After completed his calculations on the computer, the father was confident that the lake outside of his home was solid enough for his son to ice skate. When the ice cracked and his son passed away, he questioned his reliance on calculations for the first time. When his son’s body if recovered from the freezing water, the bystanders are very upset and most of them are crying or showing some sort of distress. The boy’s father just stands there with a blank expression, feeling lost and in complete disbelief. Personally I believe Kieslowski did a great job portraying the importance of having faith and trusting in a God that cannot be physically seen or proven with numbers, but that can be felt. It is unfortunate the father had to go through the tragedy of losing his only son, but sometimes traumatic events like this are the only way to wake us up and expose our idols. Rudolf Otto writes in The Idea of the Holy, “It is not that the actual feeling gradually changes in quality… but rather that I pass over to make the transition from one feeling to another as the circumstances change” (Otto, pg. 42-43). The father’s circumstances definitely changed when his computer failed him and it cost him his son’s life. After losing his son, the father in this film may have had more appreciation for God’s sacrifice of his one and only son because he could now relate on a personal level about the amount of pain felt when losing a child.
The second episode focused on the fifth commandment, Thou shall not commit murder. I experienced many emotions when viewing this film. The audience watches as the main character of this film mistreats most people that he comes into contact with, with the exception of a group of younger girls. The more people the main character mistreats, the more the audience wishes he would get some sort of revenge or face some sort of consequences for his actions. As the main character violently murdered an innocent cab driver, I felt anger and could not help but hope he would experience the punishment he deserved. When the man showed a personal side and opened up about his sister, mother, and his desire to be buried with his father it reminded me that he was a human as well and it caused me to question my morals. Does this man, that violently murdered an innocent man and caused harm to many others, deserve to die because of his actions or is this man a human that is struggling through mental issues and should just be given time in prison to think about his actions? I see both sides of the issue and find myself going back and forth. Towards the end of the film the murderer says, “They are against me” in which a different man responds, “No, they are against what you did.” Does someone actions define who they are? Is the main character seen only as a murderer now, and not as a human being?
God gave us 10 commandments to follow here on Earth and because of my personal life and my faith I felt very connected to this film and the importance of understanding the deeper message Krzysztof Kieslowski was attempting to convey through Midrash. I believe Kieslowski did a wonderful job portraying the importance of God’s love above any Earthly love.
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