The Struggle of the Olympic gods of Space with The God of Infinite Time
“The God of time is the God of history…He is the God
who acts in history towards a final goal…the victory over the demonic powers
represented as imperialistic nations….”
—Tillich, Theology of Culture, pdf.,
p.37.
The Ancient Greek polytheistic gods of Olympus were appropriately lousy gods because they ruled over a lousy world—spatial existence is the closed realm of ubiquitous irrational undeserved tragedy in a never-ending “circle of genesis, and decay, greatness and self-destruction”(Ibid. p.32). In this sense, Greek polytheism was a realistic theology of human existence. The Olympic pantheon of gods ruled over a circular spatial cosmology wherein “space is tragic,” and god is a stranger. In post-lapsarian Christian ontology (The Fall of Man) humans are essentially connected to the divine, but are not strangers to God as in Deism—instead, human beings are alienated, or estranged while still possessing an embedded pre-existing inherent connection. The concept of time as circular prevented Ancient Greek thought from developing a philosophy of history. Space and time are the structures of all existence that can be thought of symbolically as the fundamental struggling forces that determine human life and history.
Mythos transmits insight in a
narrative story form through a symbolically coded paradigm such as
monotheism. Tillich launches an archaeological search to collect the ancient
symbols of polytheism to contrast them with our overly familiar concept of
theological monotheism. Mythic symbolism--just as with logical symbolism--gives
access to deeper levels of existence that otherwise would be unintelligible.
Tillich has an extensive typology of religions that include the different types
of polytheism (see ST., Vol. III, p. 222). Universalistic
polytheism holds that special divine beings, places, or forces populate the
world, but still are not fixed entities or subjects of stories. They are only
vague embodiments of universal animistic powers that are hidden yet manifests
itself everywhere. Mythological polytheism placed divine
power in individual ruling deities of a fixed character in mythic stories.
These deities are self-related, and transcendent to their realm of control yet
relate to other individual gods in conflict, and struggle in which they lie,
cheat, steal, kidnap, and kill. These gods were like loud pugilistic neighbors
that lived down the road. The polytheistic mythological gods create and battle
over holy places. Later in history, these gods lost divine status and were
taken less seriously by ancient people. The gods of Ancient Greece were
themselves subject to the greater power of fate. Although a ruling god could
over power other demonic forces, any victory is only temporary as they are
always under threat by other antagonistic tribal forces. These gods were not
truly unconditional making them partly demonic (ST., Vol. III, p. 224).
The same limited conditional gods compose Dualistic polytheism
such as Zoroasterism
(Light vs. Dark), and Manichaeism (Good vs. Evil) where holiness is placed in
one realm and the demonic in another realm which really is a dualistic
monotheism where each god is half limited by the other so that this ambiguity
of what is holy leads to new typologies of monotheism seeking to find a resolution.
Symbolically understood, monotheism is a conceptual gathering point of the
multiple powers of Logos into a universal singularity. Heidegger’s analysis of
the Greek word “Logos” found its original meaning as “gathering
together, to collect, to order.”
Tillich interprets Olympic polytheism as
pagan because it elevates a special space as ultimate in “value and dignity”
so that the pagan god is bound to a place--but beside yet another antagonistic
tribal place. Even death and Hell is a place. He concludes that the difference
between polytheism and monotheism is “not a difference of number but of
quality. Only if the one God is exclusively God, unconditioned and unlimited by
anything other than Himself, is there a true monotheism, and only then is the
power of space over time broken” (Theology of Culture, Paul Tillich, p.
32).
All human beings must have a place, or home to
sustain their lives. Space has a natural predominance over the life processes
of human existence. The “earth and soil” is worshiped for having vital
intrinsic divine creative powers, but single groups attribute “divine honor,”
or “ultimate honor,” to a particular space, which is then given ultimate
unconditional adoration for its divine life-sustaining power. This sacred “earth
and soil” also include other spatial concepts such as inborn native loyalty
to “blood and race, clan, tribe, and family.” However, space is limited for any one group so that “deification”
of Space comes unlimited claims for Space in a will
to power struggle against other nations for absolute supremacy. Tillich writes,
“The god of the one country struggles with the god of the other country, for
every spatial god is imperialistic by his very character of being a god. The
law of mutual destruction, therefore, is the unavoidable fate of the powers of
space” (Ibid. p.32). A cosmos without a telos (Goal, or
Aim)--of directed time, of something creatively new, or a New Being--is
instead superseded by demonic powers of the gods of space. Extremist jingoistic state nationalism is
collective political narcissism that deifies itself and space. Any god can be
symbolically transformed into a god of war, but the polytheistic space gods
where particularly susceptible to this fate because of people’s primordial
relationship to soil and tribe. The gods of space eventually bring about the
fall of a nation because they are necessarily unjust, unfree, idolatrous, and
self-destructive. Tillich points to modern nationalism as a form of polytheism
in modern life where space rules over time.
“The people of time in Synagogue and Church
cannot avoid being persecuted because by their very existence, they break the
claims of the gods of space who express themselves in will to power,
imperialism, injustice, demonic enthusiasm, and tragic self-destruction”—Tillich,
Theology of Culture, p. 39.
According to the Hebraic literary interpretation
of the books Deutero-Isaiah, God is the God of time and history. History has a
beginning and end during which the monotheistic God of time directs history
toward a teleological goal. Time reaches for fulfillment in the universal
Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of peace and justice. The gods of space destroyed the
concept of “universal justice” as each polytheistic deity overpowered another
in a series of endless imperialistic wars.[1] “Prophetic monotheism”
proclaims the negation of national boundary wars by demanding the separation of
God from all nations. The God of Abraham commanded that Abraham leave his
homeland, and the false gods of blood and soil. Whenever the Hebraic God of the
Old Testament is identified with the finite whether it is a golden calf or a
city-god, a separation begins even if it means separating Himself from his
chosen people.(Ibid. p.35).
[1]Notice how the concept of monotheism contains within itself
the negated concept of polytheism. Only by the internal contradictions of pagan
polytheism does the universal concept of monotheism arise to overcome its
division in a conceptually refined synthesized “One God” with an open universal
teleological history and universal justice. Monotheism is the anti-symbol of
polytheism. Hegel called this process of negation and retention, “determinate
negation,” or Aufhebung (sublation).
In prophetic monotheism, God is the God of
universal history that overcomes the divisions of people and even the division
of language itself (Pentecost). In polytheism the pagan gods perished when
their nations were defeated. Prophetic monotheism preached that the God of
Abraham could destroy all nations--even allow His chosen people to be enslaved
by all nations-- without destroying Himself so that “his quality as the god
of justice enabled him to become the universal God” (Ibid.,11). This
conception of a teleological God of history ended the dominance of polytheism.
Tillich points out that it is not a coincidence Socrates, the Jews, and the
early Christians were persecuted as atheists for not recognizing the
polytheistic gods of space for they instead centered on “historical
fulfillment and justice belong to the God who acts in time and through time,
uniting the separated space of his universe in love”(Ibid., p. 38).
Amos
“You cry with a loud voice to the nations: ‘This
is our God, and there is none beside Him.’ "--
Hymn to Amos
The prophetic herdsman, Amos of Judah(755 B.C.),
described in the Hebraic and Christian Old Testament would not identify himself
as a professional prophet because they had no credibility from their past
reputations of engaging in hubristic nationalism and ignoring crimes committed
by the powerful. Judah is just west of the Dead Sea, but Amos preached in the
Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (781-741 B.C.) and
had conquered Syria, Moab, along with Ammon. Amos is the prophet that
proclaimed the coming collapse of the prosperous Kingdom of Israel due to its
nationalistic idolatry and oppression of the poor. Amos was tortured by Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, then exiled and forbidden from prophesying against Israel. As a consequence of
exile, Amos is the first known literary prophet to write down his prophetic warnings.
Amos prophesied that there is one universal divine justice in history thereby
reducing all nations and tribes to equal levels before a righteous divinity.
Amos preached that all sacrificial ritual obligations of religious orthodoxy
are not enough to make a righteous person, but instead calls for un-coerced intentional
participatory worship. A nation is required by God to always want economic
justice and condemn injustice everywhere to maintain a relationship with
the divine.[2]
[2]
Ethical thinking is inherently teleological in that the moral agent seeks to achieve
the good by free will and right actions.
Because of Amos’ continued written criticism of
Israel from exile the son of Bethel priest, Amaziah, traveled to Judah and
murdered Amos—a familiar pattern.
“Synagogue
and Church should be united in our age, in the struggle for the God of time
against the gods of space.“—Tillich, Theology of Culture, p. 39.
The Amos pattern is familiar because we are all
living it now. We are all torturable.
Torture is now legal
in the United States. Torture is an essential theme even in media
entertainment. Through decades of legal maneuvering, ethical justifications,
and actual practice American society has gradually undergone a mithridization of accepting torture as a justifiable practice. American civil society has
embraced an ethos of Machiavellian will to power employing pathological
business practices, and given over to solipsistic narcissism. These are the
“spirits,” or “mind” of the present local and global era.
Media
is awash with torture imagery. Even family “entertainment” has evolved into the
display of pseudo-torture sessions in “reality-based” television
programming. In episode
309 of “Fear Factor” (original airdate, 3/3/2003) a woman is
strapped into a chair while seven needles six inches in length are inserted
under her skin (not the breasts, of course, since that would be obscene).
Interestingly, the pseudo-torture session is performed in a “prison”
setting with the leather strapped chair similar to an electric chair. In this case, acceptance for torturing human beings is won by presenting human suffering as a television “game” where the participants are "voluntary." This psychological categorization acts to suspend belief to override one’s
natural repulsion of torturing another human being, and allows the message to
reach its desensitized target audience. One would wonder what the ratings would
be if a person was tortured against their will!
Researchers
Dr. Agnes Nairn ,Christine Griffin, and Patricia Gaya Wicks in a
project at the University of Bath started out studying the influence of
brands on children from ages 7 to 11 were shocked to discovered that children
had intense hatred for Barbie dolls and acted out simulated acts of torture on
them “from scalping to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving.”
Dr. Nairn focused her study on this violent behavior which crossed age, and
gender. The dolls were seen by the children as disposable and therefore could
not be an object of empathy, or affection.
Research
scientists have found signs of widespread hopelessness within the American
population that include fascist right-wing factions that seek imposing general
chaos as a method of destroying
society in the hope something better will emerge. Political scientists
Michael Bang Petersen, Mathias Osmundsen and Kevin Arceneaux studied 6,000
right-wing extremists in the US and Denmark and published their findings in a research paper titled, "A
'Need for Chaos' and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced
Democracies,” The participants were asked a series of test questions and reported: “24 percent, agreed that society
should be burned to the ground, 40 percent agreed with the statement, “We
cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down
and start over.” Similarly, 40 percent agreed with the statement, “When it
comes to our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking ‘just
let them all burn.’”
Currently,
all American media is saturated with billionaire financed propagandists
attempting to jam the channels of communication with endless disinformation,
sophistry, false narratives, conspiracies, censorship by omission, sexism,
militaristic nationalism, fear, racism, and hate so that the weaker argument defeats the
stronger argument. American Christians must be part of this struggle
against the pagan gods of space.
It's Only A Paper Moon
by
Yip Harburg
"The theme endures because we’ve all had the experience of
suddenly finding ourselves believing in something beautiful but flimsy. Our
imagination can launch us skyward, but if we don’t return to earth we can lose
ourselves. But coming down from a false heaven allows us to connect with our
fellow travelers in a new, enlightened way. The road ahead will never be easy,
but reality gives us the possibility of finding real happiness."-- Carrie Kilgore
It is only
a paper moon
Sailing
over a cardboard sea
But it
wouldn't be make believe
If you
believed in me
Yes, it's
only a canvas sky
Hangin' over
a cotton tree
But it
wouldn't be make believe
If you
believed in me
Without
your love
It's a
honky tonk parade
Without
your love
It's a
melody played in a penny arcade
It's a
Barnum and Bailey world
Just as
phony as it can be
But it
wouldn't be make believe
If you
believed in me
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