A lot of people tend to say that the Council of Nicea in 325 outlawed belief in reincarnation so the bishops could control people. If you only have one life then they can control you.
This is incorrect for two reasons. First, reincarnation was not discussed at the Council of Nicea. The closest thing to reincarnation was the pre-existence of the soul, and that was declared anathema in 553 at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. That would rule out reincarnation by extension, but reincarnation itself was not mentioned there either.
A number of heavy hitters within the early church did oppose the idea of reincarnation, and the general push seems to have come from Irenaeus who lived in the second century. Irenaeus lived during a time when Rome regularly, and often brutally, persecuted Christians. He found himself in charge of a sizable Christian community basically because all the people above him in the area had been killed. There was a lot of confusion and discord within the community, so he thought that if Christianity was to survive there needed to be unity of belief. There had to be one catholic (meaning universal) church.
So Irenaeus went around condemning people he saw as heretics. But he didn't do it out of desire for political power. Partly it was driven by fear. If Christians can't agree on anything then the whole movement might vanish in the face of Roman persecution. Another driving force behind his condemnation was because there really were a whole lot of fruitcakes out there. There were people trying to establish cults of personality, who preached that they could give you all the power of prophecy and unless every person was a prophet then you weren't really born again. You don't even have to think about it to see that this is insane. People take some initiation by a charismatic and then they get up on stage and start spouting whatever nonsense comes to mind as if it were genuine prophecy. Irenaeus did believe in genuine prophecy. He himself had had veridical visions (the death of his teacher Polycarp being one such vision). But there is no way to approach this idea that everyone gets to be a prophet in a rational way. You can't possibly test it. If everyone is a prophet then someone with impure motives can lead a whole lot of weak minded people astray. Irenaeus said that prophecy should be checked against what is written in the gospels (and you need to know which gospels are real in order to check, and Irenaeus was a driving force behind the establishment of the four canonical gospels as canon).
A spiritual successor of Irenaeus, Athanasius, was one of the chief opponents of Arius, whose beliefs were denounced at Nicea. Arius believed Christ was created by God and that the Holy Spirit wasn't even part of God at all. Athanasius was by no means popular. He was exiled several times but he kept managing to worm his way back into his old position as Bishop of Alexandria. I wouldn't say he had political motives, he probably was genuine in his beliefs.
Neither did Constantine himself have any political motives. He too was genuine in his beliefs, and he was a very simple man who wanted to keep everything simple. He convened the Council at Nicea to work out the basics that every Christian should believe, sort of to set out a definition, but he also believed that there was room for congenial debate and disagreement on particulars. He wasn't trying to beat anyone over the head with doctrine. There were times when the bishops were carrying on and he had to step in to resolve issues just to keep the council moving, but it wasn't out of any particular political agenda.
We then move on to the council in 553 and the rejection of Origenism. I don't see this as a power play either. Origen taught, like Arius, that Christ is less than God and is of a different substance than God. What he believed in regard to reincarnation specifically seems to depend on who you ask (and the agenda of who you ask). He believed in the pre-existence of the soul, definitely. All souls were created, not at conception out of nothing as if sperm and egg have magic powers, but by God prior to the creation of the universe. All souls started out as perfectly good, but they have free will, so some of them got bored of contemplating God all the time and they rebelled. When Origen talks about bad deeds souls did in their previous lives he seems to be talking about what souls did in Heaven prior to birth in a human body, not successive human lives on Earth. He also taught that all souls will eventually return to their primordial state of purity, so Hell is not eternal, even if it lasts a really long time.
The problem is that Origen wrote such a vast library of work that it's practically impossible for any one person to read, let alone comprehend, all of it. Whether he believed in reincarnation as such is not important, to me at least, because rejection of pre-existence of the soul automatically rules out reincarnation.
This is all just a side note, however, because the primary goal of the 553 council was the rejection of Nestorianism, which is an entirely different issue unto itself. Origen was just sort of tacked on as a rider. If there were political motivations at the council they weren't the bishop's motivations, they were the motivations of the Emperor Justinian himself. The "Church Fathers," or whoever, weren't trying to control people's lives, it was Justinian. Justinian was a despot and a tyrant and he believed himself to be the world's one true authority on absolutely everything. Anyone who disagreed with him on anything had to face his wrath. If anyone wanted to control a person's one and only life it was Justinian, not anyone within the church, but even Justinian's grip on power could not last forever, and bickering over minor issues would continue. (For example, the Cathars in the 13th and 14th
centuries believed in reincarnation, and they were pretty popular in
what is now southern France, until the king of France had them killed
for political reasons.)
Aside from the no pre-existence thing, I don't really see the control issue entering in. Most theologians just believed that the soul was created either by God at conception or somehow the soul was created by the union of sperm and egg (creationism and traducianism). However prevalent belief in reincarnation was for early Christians, it just seems to have died out by inertia. Theologians accepted the ruling against pre-existence, so they just didn't question it. Not questioning things is something adults do as a matter of being adults, that has nothing to do with trying to impose a power structure from the top down, it's about fitting into a power structure from the bottom up out of pressure for acceptance. People want to fit in. "If my teacher doesn't believe in reincarnation, then neither will I. Please like me." You have a handful of unpopular people with an unpopular idea, and over time there are fewer and fewer supporters until there are none left. That's just how things work.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Judging Judgment
Twice this past week I've read, in two different books, that judgment gives you power over people, or at least it gives you the illusion of power, and that's why you should never do it. I don't believe either of those statements.
First off, Jesus commands us to judge. Idiots, or lazy people, or narcissists, or sybarites read "Judge not..." and then black out the rest of the chapter because they satisfied their craven desire to avoid judgment. But if you actually read it, and you're not using one of the modern pussy "translations", what Jesus is telling us is not to judge others by a different standard than the one we use to judge ourselves. He flat out says "Don't be a hypocrite" (a Greek word that only a Greek-speaking audience would understand, indicating that Greek was Jesus' native language, which makes perfect sense since it was the official language of the whole eastern Mediterranean for the previous three hundred years and the language spoken in all the big cities where Jesus worked), not "Don't judge anyone under any circumstances ever".
Later in Matthew Jesus says if you see your brother trespass against you tell him so he can correct his action.
Then we have in John where Jesus says to "Judge righteously".
And Paul continues reasserting the need for right judgment by rebuking the Corinthians for not judging one of their own who had sinned.
It becomes a matter of who am I going to believe, Jesus or some pop culture writer? Not that difficult a choice.
The whole idea of not judging comes from the perverted anything goes "If it feels good do it" mentality that poisoned a generation in the 60s and has been used to brainwash children in the schools for the past 30 years. And the people who say not to judge almost always do so ironically, because they are judging while they admonish judging! The statement is self-defeating, like the assertion that Absolute Truth does not exist. If you judge people for judging then you are the very thing you allege (it's a lie) to despise, which is itself a judgment and is itself what Jesus rebuked in the part of the verse you blacked out!
And second, I don't think judging others puts you in a position of power, at least perceived, over that person. Not if you're using right judgment as you are commanded to. If you're judging everyone, including yourself, by the same standard then how does that put you in a position of power? You are also among the group being judged, and the standard of judgment is not based on your own caprice but on what is True.
I know I fall short of the standards by which I judge. Does that mean I'm placing myself in a position of power over myself? Does that even make sense? How can I have power over myself other than through willed action? In order to exert power there must be a self and an other, but if there is just a self then there can be no exertion of power, and no relationship of any kind.
If you see someone with an untied shoe and you say "Your shoe's untied," you don't have power over that person, you just have a different perspective, and you're using that perspective to help that person. That's compassion, not power. You would want the other person to do the same for you. That's right judgment. If you're doing something stupid and self-destructive you would want, at least subconsciously, someone to tell you, just as you would tell someone who you see doing something self-destructive, out of compassion, not power.
People today have the wrong view of sin. Sin is not about angering God or about anyone holding power over anyone else, it's natural law. If you do this, you will get this. If you try to unbalance the universe the universe will take steps to rebalance itself. And you can never win. Sin should be thought of like causality. If you smoke heroin you destroy your body and have to face the physical consequences regardless of whether you're a good person or not (unless you're Keith Richards, then your body is indestructible); if you rape children you destroy your soul and you face the metaphysical consequences. I picked a particularly obvious example, but it gets subtler than that. Sin says that actions (and thoughts) have consequences because the mind works in a certain way and garbage accumulates over a lifetime and there's no way to escape that no matter how good we are at ignoring it or rationalising it away. At death we are exposed to the clear light of Absolute Reality, and it becomes impossible to lie to ourselves. Beliefs go out the window and then the shadow has free reign to torment you mercilessly.
It's true from an Absolute perspective to say not to judge, but that's because 1. from the perspective of the Absolute NOTHING is happening, there is no manifestation, so there is literally nothing to judge, and 2. the people who say not to judge aren't speaking about the Absolute, they're sybarites who don't want to feel bad about smoking crack and having lots of anonymous sex. 1 out of 1,000 people who say not to judge even believe in the Absolute. The other 999 are materialists who believe that when you die you rot, in which case judging still wouldn't be wrong because there would be no truth at all. Not only would judging not be wrong, if you took the view of the materialists to its logical conclusion, but absolutely nothing would be wrong, including raping and murdering the person who told you not to judge just for the lulz, and furthermore there would be no free will so it wouldn't even make sense to speak of right and wrong anyway.
There's a reason why the noble eightfold path begins with right views and moves on to right speech, right action, and right livelihood. If we just take a purely Absolute view when looking at spiritual practice (like the Course, which is 100% Absolute and ignores the relative completely), then we can say not to judge. It can be done, just as it's possible to climb a sheer cliff, but taking the steepest possible path isn't very useful if your aim is to get as many people to Absolute realisation as possible. That's why great teachers throughout history have given us morality, which is relative bodhicitta, because our minds have been trapped in the relative world for so long that we need relative practices to break down our barriers. We need to exhaust the relative mind so the clear light of Absolute awareness can shine through. Morality does not get us enlightenment, because nothing can. Nothing can take us to where we always already are. Morality serves as a means of making us more likely to see that we already are enlightened. Morality reduces the obstacles within our relative minds and the relative world.
You can say that judgment makes no sense from the Absolute perspective, but you can't build a society in the relative world based on the Absolute. Talk of judgment, sin, and morality have meaning in the relative world. They are relative practices for the relative world, because the alternative is close to impossible. We can take the Absolute view all we want, but until we are fully enlightened we are still at the mercy of our relative mind, and we will still have to deal with fear, doubt, regret, shame, etc. And until we are enlightened we still need judgment in order to overcome the relative mind.
First off, Jesus commands us to judge. Idiots, or lazy people, or narcissists, or sybarites read "Judge not..." and then black out the rest of the chapter because they satisfied their craven desire to avoid judgment. But if you actually read it, and you're not using one of the modern pussy "translations", what Jesus is telling us is not to judge others by a different standard than the one we use to judge ourselves. He flat out says "Don't be a hypocrite" (a Greek word that only a Greek-speaking audience would understand, indicating that Greek was Jesus' native language, which makes perfect sense since it was the official language of the whole eastern Mediterranean for the previous three hundred years and the language spoken in all the big cities where Jesus worked), not "Don't judge anyone under any circumstances ever".
Later in Matthew Jesus says if you see your brother trespass against you tell him so he can correct his action.
Then we have in John where Jesus says to "Judge righteously".
And Paul continues reasserting the need for right judgment by rebuking the Corinthians for not judging one of their own who had sinned.
It becomes a matter of who am I going to believe, Jesus or some pop culture writer? Not that difficult a choice.
The whole idea of not judging comes from the perverted anything goes "If it feels good do it" mentality that poisoned a generation in the 60s and has been used to brainwash children in the schools for the past 30 years. And the people who say not to judge almost always do so ironically, because they are judging while they admonish judging! The statement is self-defeating, like the assertion that Absolute Truth does not exist. If you judge people for judging then you are the very thing you allege (it's a lie) to despise, which is itself a judgment and is itself what Jesus rebuked in the part of the verse you blacked out!
And second, I don't think judging others puts you in a position of power, at least perceived, over that person. Not if you're using right judgment as you are commanded to. If you're judging everyone, including yourself, by the same standard then how does that put you in a position of power? You are also among the group being judged, and the standard of judgment is not based on your own caprice but on what is True.
I know I fall short of the standards by which I judge. Does that mean I'm placing myself in a position of power over myself? Does that even make sense? How can I have power over myself other than through willed action? In order to exert power there must be a self and an other, but if there is just a self then there can be no exertion of power, and no relationship of any kind.
If you see someone with an untied shoe and you say "Your shoe's untied," you don't have power over that person, you just have a different perspective, and you're using that perspective to help that person. That's compassion, not power. You would want the other person to do the same for you. That's right judgment. If you're doing something stupid and self-destructive you would want, at least subconsciously, someone to tell you, just as you would tell someone who you see doing something self-destructive, out of compassion, not power.
People today have the wrong view of sin. Sin is not about angering God or about anyone holding power over anyone else, it's natural law. If you do this, you will get this. If you try to unbalance the universe the universe will take steps to rebalance itself. And you can never win. Sin should be thought of like causality. If you smoke heroin you destroy your body and have to face the physical consequences regardless of whether you're a good person or not (unless you're Keith Richards, then your body is indestructible); if you rape children you destroy your soul and you face the metaphysical consequences. I picked a particularly obvious example, but it gets subtler than that. Sin says that actions (and thoughts) have consequences because the mind works in a certain way and garbage accumulates over a lifetime and there's no way to escape that no matter how good we are at ignoring it or rationalising it away. At death we are exposed to the clear light of Absolute Reality, and it becomes impossible to lie to ourselves. Beliefs go out the window and then the shadow has free reign to torment you mercilessly.
It's true from an Absolute perspective to say not to judge, but that's because 1. from the perspective of the Absolute NOTHING is happening, there is no manifestation, so there is literally nothing to judge, and 2. the people who say not to judge aren't speaking about the Absolute, they're sybarites who don't want to feel bad about smoking crack and having lots of anonymous sex. 1 out of 1,000 people who say not to judge even believe in the Absolute. The other 999 are materialists who believe that when you die you rot, in which case judging still wouldn't be wrong because there would be no truth at all. Not only would judging not be wrong, if you took the view of the materialists to its logical conclusion, but absolutely nothing would be wrong, including raping and murdering the person who told you not to judge just for the lulz, and furthermore there would be no free will so it wouldn't even make sense to speak of right and wrong anyway.
There's a reason why the noble eightfold path begins with right views and moves on to right speech, right action, and right livelihood. If we just take a purely Absolute view when looking at spiritual practice (like the Course, which is 100% Absolute and ignores the relative completely), then we can say not to judge. It can be done, just as it's possible to climb a sheer cliff, but taking the steepest possible path isn't very useful if your aim is to get as many people to Absolute realisation as possible. That's why great teachers throughout history have given us morality, which is relative bodhicitta, because our minds have been trapped in the relative world for so long that we need relative practices to break down our barriers. We need to exhaust the relative mind so the clear light of Absolute awareness can shine through. Morality does not get us enlightenment, because nothing can. Nothing can take us to where we always already are. Morality serves as a means of making us more likely to see that we already are enlightened. Morality reduces the obstacles within our relative minds and the relative world.
You can say that judgment makes no sense from the Absolute perspective, but you can't build a society in the relative world based on the Absolute. Talk of judgment, sin, and morality have meaning in the relative world. They are relative practices for the relative world, because the alternative is close to impossible. We can take the Absolute view all we want, but until we are fully enlightened we are still at the mercy of our relative mind, and we will still have to deal with fear, doubt, regret, shame, etc. And until we are enlightened we still need judgment in order to overcome the relative mind.
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