Today's Scripture Reading (February 24, 2021): Galatians 1
One of my first philosophy papers
in college was a treatise on the subject of "How Do I Know that I am
Awake." It is an interesting question. How do we know that we are awake,
that all of this thing that we call life is not a dream or, depending on the
moment, a nightmare? Maybe the best answer is the life has a different quality
to it. Being caught in a dream feels different. But the problem with that
answer is that, while I can recognize the dream when I am awake, I have had
many dreams that I did not identify as a dream when caught in the midst of them.
As long as I was caught in the grip of the dream, the dream felt real. I
recognize that I am one of the lucky ones; I remember my dreams. But it may be that
the only way that I can tell that I am awake is that I recognize the quality of
the dream, something that I am not always able to do when I am asleep.
So, I am awake. Maybe. A foolish
argument? Of course, but so are many of the philosophical questions imagined by
humans. And the answer to these questions asked by the human mind can only be
pondered and answered in human philosophies. And human philosophies are always
fallible. After all, my answer to "How Do I Know that I am Awake" is
likely very different from your answer.
Paul makes a very human play on
words in his statement to the Galatians. The phrase "the gospel I preached"
is literally "the gospel I gospelled to you" or "the euangelion
I euangelizo." But this play on words is also where the interference
of human thought ends. The gospel Paul preached was not a human philosophy; it
was not highlighted by human efforts to answer the unanswerable questions that
only we can imagine. This is not about "how many angels can dance on the
head of the pin," or "can God create a rock that is too heavy for
even him to move," or even "how do I know that I am awake." These
are examples of human questions to which only humans care about finding an answer.
Paul's message was a direct revelation from God; it was the things that God wanted
his children to know. Paul's philosophy of the gospel was given its birth on
the Road to Damascus as Jesus spoke directly to him. "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a
light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a
voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you
persecute me'" (Acts 9:3-4)? It was a question that Paul, then called
Saul, could only answer out of his human experience. The philosophy that had
caused him to be a persecutor of the emerging Christian Church had grown out of
the human mind.
It would be the last time that Paul would voluntarily follow
a human philosophy. Now he walked a path that Jesus had laid out for him, and
that originated in the mind of God.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Galatians 2
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