CONTRA FATUM

"along with himself, Christ made the whole world arise" (On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, II,44)

If there were no obscurity, man would not be sensible of his corruption; if there were no light, man would not hope for a remedy. Thus, it is not only fair, but advantageous to us, that God be partly hidden and partly revealed; since it is equally dangerous to man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing God. (Pensees, 446/586) What can be seen on earth indicates neither the total absence, nor the manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this stamp. (Pensees, 449/556) “Let them at least learn the nature of the religion they are attacking, before they attack it. If this religion boasted of having a clear vision of God, and of possessing Him plain and unveiled, then to say that nothing we see in the world reveals Him with this degree of clarity would indeed be to attack it. But it says, on the contrary, that man is in darkness and far from God, that He has hidden Himself from man’s kn...

"after all, Mr Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said, thus suggesting to the sceptical reader that possibly there may be some loophole through the hierarchy of languages, or by some other exit" (Russell, 2003, p. xxi)

There is some contradiction of terms, since, if that is ineffable which cannot be spoken of, a thing is not ineffable which can be called ineffable " (Christian Instruction 1.6.6)

Note: the following post is the first of a planned series on Christian anarchism titled 'The Kingdom of God is Anarchy: Anarchy as a Christian Practice of Faith'. The below is the first part of the introduction. The links between Christian theology and practice on the one hand, and a radical, anti-authoritarian rejection of all kinds of dominance on the other, are far from being novel. Throughout most of Church history, Christian thinkers have frequently returned to Jesus’ original criticism of all forms of political and religious oppression, and his proclamation of the kingdom of God, where power is replaced by love and authority by freedom. Paul – even if his thinking is often regarded as somewhat authoritarian – made it clear, that Jesus will eventually destroy “all rule, and all authority and power”, and that Christians fight against the principialities, powers and rulers of “this dark world”. For Christians this meant not to practice any kind of violence or domin...

I recently found myself having to walk out from a worship service at a Baptist Church, as I could not stand the kind of worship music that is becoming the norm among Evangelicals. This happened when the European Baptist Federation celebrated the opening of its annual conference, this year in Lviv, Ukraine. As it was a celebration the volume was extra high, etc., making the music quite intolerable. I would normally argue that as long as we are gathered in the name of Christ, no question of aesthetics can justify leaving church – no matter how bad the music is! While I still think this is true in principle, I felt this time I had to go and breathe some air (and get a beer) in order to reflect upon what it is with contemporary worship music, that I dislike so much. What I found is that it’s not just a matter of taste and style, but a matter of how form relates to content. The misconception that the gospel must in some way be given an arbitrary form that does not follow from its conte...

Note: the following post is the first of a planned series on Christian anarchism titled 'The Kingdom of God is Anarchy: Powerlessness as a Christian Practice of Faith'. The below is the first part of the introduction. ”There is a perfect likeness between Christian and anarchist: their object, their instinct, points only toward destruction. […] The Christian and the anarchist: both are decadents ; both are incapable of any act that is not disintegrating, poisonous, degenerating, blood sucking ; both have an instinct of mortal hatred of everything that stands up, and is great, and has durability, and promises life a future.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Antichrist §58) The above quote appears in the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist from 1895. Nietzsche wrote his famous book in at time when anarchism as a political philosophy was gaining increasing support. Many anarchists were strongly critical of religion in general, but for Nietzsche he fundamental...