IX
– Spaced out? What were you thinking about? – said Natalie, returning to the table.
– I was thinking about... Where were we, anyway?
– The Trumpet.
– Before that.
– Shema, Israel!5
– Right. And one of the things to understand about Christianity, throughout the generations, is that it is not some sort of tape recorder playing, but a live feed, in Portuguese, Deus é sempre em directo – nunca em diferido. Directamente do futuro. Well, from Eternity would be better said. Dieu est toujours en direct
– jamais en différé. God is always live – never on tivo. Something like that.
»Anyway, one of the episodes that we can dwell on so to contemplate one of the problems of God with humanity might be the one we find in the Gospel of Mathew, and parallels, in the beginning of chapter 9. One of the things that I note that happened around the cure that Jesus performed there is the answer that He gave to the thoughts that some of the present were entertaining in their hearts, after Jesus had said to the man, your sins are forgiven: what’s easier? To say your sins are forgiven or get up and walk?
»This seems to allude to some sort of centrality to what concerns human consciousness, free will and the, if you like, creativity of God before the premise of not interfering directly with the mechanisms responsible for such things, as in providing a specific grace so that people would believe in Him, as if rewiring something in the soul or minds of men so that the hints of God’s existence and the Supreme Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ would become clear or self evident. Healing people, raising the dead, walking on water, for God, that’s easy. Touching people’s hearts or just reasoning with them so to try to make them realize the Truth, not so easy. Again, the fact that God doesn’t interfere with those «mechanisms», that make human beings conscious beings and not just animals, is not due to an impossibility from His part, but because of the truth, as in, by doing it so, that is, by interfering with those mechanisms directly, instead of a real, truthfully conscious and free willed being, you get a puppet, that says he believes in you and that loves you, but you’re really the one making that happen by direct intervention, and if so, consciousness, free will, love, truth ultimately, about this issue, can be no more.
The Trumpet.
It comes from shofar, a ram’s horn used for trumpeting in many valences throughout Israel’s History – gathering the people, signaling in battles, etc. In the New Testament, the symbol of the trumpet was also used. This time as a sign that God will give so to announce the Second Coming of Jesus.
It’s a mysterious subject, the one of the Second Coming and the elements around and about it, thought Samuel. Take, for instance, this one, of the Trumpet. Samuel sometimes thought of the one responsible for giving this sign might feel like that maestro or band leader in The Dirty Dozen, who would start up the band every time the base commander appeared – not now…! Not now!, you [a lot of censorship]…! Now!, Now!
– But returning to our first subject – continued Samuel. – Sanctity, so to be an objective thing, seems that has to be related with something, or Someone, better said, because, otherwise, on its own, that is, it would be just a concept result of an arbitrary, as in, depending on the perspective of the evaluator, without universal premises, thus being submitted to variation of opinion depending on whomever might make a consideration on the theme, thus being, then, just something that doesn’t really exist, as in, for instance, just a demonstrational standpoint, a compliment or a manner of speaking. For some, sanctity would be this, for others, something else, varying in range from detail to substance.
»The first concept of sanctity in Judeo-Christianity seems to be of separation. God’s People should be separate from others, primarily and in sum, theologically wise, since that alone implies comprehensions on everything else. God’s People, thus separated from others, shouldn’t, then, evaluate with the criteria of other peoples nor learn from their understandings on whatever it might be, in case those comprehensions and lifestyles conflict with God’s Teachings. There is only One God, Origin of Life, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Beginning and End of Reality, and it’s from Him and Him alone that all should be understood.
»Another understanding of sanctity is related with purity. Being purity, simply put, the unmixed state of something, withheld of other elements that are unnatural to its inborn condition. Purity, in what concerns the human being, seems to be related with truth and/or honesty, towards what God has revealed about Himself or, unacquainted with God’s revelation, towards what is usually designated as good conscience or the innate sense of justice, at least of not harming others.
»Understanding sanctity as faithfulness to an innate sense of justice, that is, the ability, in oneself, to morally distinguish right from wrong and undergo a virtuous behavior towards the others and life in general, despite of unacquainted with God’s Teachings, seems to lead to a previously to be made understanding of what the human being might be and, in consequence to the conclusion one may arrive at, what one’s basically meant to do with his life in this world and how one should then behave. In the lives of the human beings, one of the major question marks could be the question of life after death.
– In a way, and without wanting to sound presumptuous, that seems to be the meaning of life: to try to understand the circumstances of life beyond death. If you want to be philosophically serious, it seems that you have to have some sort of a detective-like mind set, while understanding yourself, the world and the circumstances of History. But, please, continue.
– Interesting comparison. Continuing: In consequence to the more or less defined answer or conclusion one may arrive at, out of a personal view or by shared belief of a religious doctrine, one, then, out of that view, understands oneself this or that way, and, then, based on that understanding, (in theory, anyway) behaves accordingly. Needless to say that one may also find appropriate to disregard that inevitability, meaning death, or just live as if it didn’t exist, dismissing, then, any attempt to reasonably understand what could it mean or might signify to his conscious and rational nature.
»Will everything that one has done in this life be absolutely inconsequent after death?, or will the ideas, words and behaviors that one carried out throughout his life have to be accounted for, according to some criterion, as if reflected on the Mirror of Life and Love and Truth? Is death just a senseless eternal void, like a dreamless eternal sleep?, or is there a coherent continuity with this life? Questions similar to these seem to arise spontaneously about life after death, so some sort of an answer to them seems to be something important to do, consciously or not, so to settle some sort of general personal philosophy and system of values, even if just vaguely. Again, one may choose to disregard them and improvise with whatever one may find appropriate to do when the situations arrive, regardless of any understanding and conclusions made to the previous questions.
»There are and have been many theories about the human being, what he’s understood to be and thus how he should behave, from a religious standpoint, to a philosophical one, having or not into account life after death and the existence of God or divinity in general. Despite of adhering to this or that understanding, the human being could be accepted as in consisting, in broad strokes, of an organism passable of being submitted to the most abominable passions and the most selfless ideas, behaving according to either, radically or in the various degrees of its spectrums. We’re addressing this in abstract, so to say that in a case-by-case evaluation, naturally that the degrees of both instances may differ. Ultimately, on opposite sides of the spectrums, either you end up with a sociopath or with a «saint». I say saint in quotation marks because of not being referred as such in a catholic perspective, just to give an idea of what’s being tried to say. As in, summed up in other words, either a total disregard for others in order to achieve one’s own self interest or satisfaction, on the sociopath side, or the opposite, with the «saint», a total disregard of one’s own self interest or wellbeing on behalf of others.
»So, what is being tried to say with this? Basically that the human being, nevertheless being subjected to various kinds of ideas and/or impulses or whatever you may wish to designate them as, cannot be inevitably and absolutely determined to think or behave in this or that manner, precisely for being a bearer of reason, thus conscious/aware, as in spiritually free, if you like, and not just an animal that is inevitably determined or ruled by the primacy of its instincts or impulses or specific animalistic drive. Because of the nature of reason, the human being seems to be enabled to be or to dwell in what could be called a state of neutrality, as in the ability to free himself of any determinations other than the ones of his own rational resolve. Naturally that can be factors that could create a disposition to think and/or behave in this or that manner, or what is usually designated as the question of nurture versus nature, but, despite of the preponderance that either might induce on the individual, in a continuum fashion or in a exacerbated way in some points in one’s life, again, the nature of reason seems to provide to the human being some sort of neutrality, as it enables the individual to achieve what could be called a distance towards not only exterior factors but inner ones as well, while rising him above or enabling him to play a third party role, if you will, being, then, nurture or nature, in the end, just excuses, as anyway everybody already knows that they are. If not so, Jesus wouldn’t have said, in truth, in truth I say to you: who isn’t born again, cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven.