Desire is the common tripping Stone

In Philo, i thought it was interesting the way he described desire as this insatiable act. Philo's virtue was for desire was temperance. As human beings we can never be truly satisfied and we are always looking for situations that might fill that void that is in ourselves. When we come to God, He fills that void but we often forget because desire creeps in like a virus that never leaves. Desire is like a wildfire sometimes cannot be controlled and we have to practice at it to get rid of all those bad desires in our life. It makes me question why God would design humans to be prone to desires? He did give us free will but it feels like he basically gave us sin on a platter and told us not to eat of it.

PS i commented on reason vs revelation

Why does He do it?

“A union of the three takes place, through God extending the power, which proceeds from himself through the spirit, which is the middle term, as far as the subject. Why does he do this, except that we may thus derive a proper notion of him?”

 I found this to be a very interesting statement when talking about how God “breathed” life into man. To ask “why does he do this” is honestly to ask why we even exist as humans. As non-honors as it may seem, this actually reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote I saw on twitter. He said “Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake.” Talk about a reality check for those of us who thought we were any kind of important. Still, when I read this passage of Philo, what Lewis said makes a lot more sense. What other reason could God possibly justify creating us for other than to glorify Him in everything we do. In a sense, God would be robbing us of potential joy if he gave us anything else to pursue because He truly is the only eternally worthwhile pursuit. He has a righteous duty to himself to glorify himself. And this very act is done by that breath. He goes on to say that “human intellect would not have dared to mount up to such a height as to lay claim to the nature of God, if God himself had not drawn it up to himself.” This concept truly continues to blow my mind over and over, that God creating us and allowing us to suffer the messes of this world is by deepest nature an act of grace. It is so because in the midst of all the darkness, God grants us the ability to pursue Him, to be drawn to him as the only perfectly worthwhile pursuit.

P.S. I commented on Michelle's

P.P.S. I tried to post this last night, but the wifi in the hotel stopped working all last night for some reason. I was able to comment using my phone, but it wouldn't let me create a new post. Sorry if this doesn't count, but honest to goodness I had it all ready in plenty of time. The internet just wouldn't cooperate.

Symbolism of the wild.

(2) And to those who raise the question why the lawgiver gave his laws not in cities but in the deep desert, we must say, in the first place, that the generality of cities are full of unspeakable evils, and of acts of audacious impiety towards the Deity, and of injustice on the part of the citizens to one another; (3) for there is nothing which is wholly free from alloy, what is spurious getting the better of what is genuine, and what is plausible of what is true; which things in their nature are false, but which suggest plausible imaginations to the engendering of deceit in cities; (4) from whence also that most designing of all things, namely pride, is implanted, which some persons admire and worship, dignifying and making much of vain opinions, with golden crowns and purple robes, and numbers of servants and chariots, on which those men who are looked upon as fortunate and happy are borne aloft, sometimes harnessing mules or horses to their chariots, and sometimes even men, who bear their burdens on their necks, through the excess of the insolence of their masters, weighed down in soul even before they faint in body.

We read this passage today in class and did a little bit of discussion, and it reminded me of a story I read in the 11th grade. I tried for a while to find it, and finally discovered what I was looking for: Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown. (Great read. I 100% suggest it.) 

So What I get out of this passage from Philo is that the city is a headquarter of sin. It is where the wicked reside. However, In Young Goodman Brown, it brings up a different opinion. It says, 

"With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him, as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!"

His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at Goodman Brown's approach, and walked onward, side by side with him."

In this story, it seems that the safe haven is in the city. This is where security lies. This is where community lies. However, the wilderness of the forest is where evil lies. The forest is the hiding place for evil because it conceals sin. Goodman Brown wants to go into the forest because the forest is open to sin. He is wanting to sin and the wilderness hides his actions. Once there, he meets a man who is truly the Devil, and later everyone in the community who also is going to the woods for evil, and those in the community who were pious turned out to be witches and wizards who wanted to sin rather to speak the name of God. 

Where I'm going with this blog is that these two have contrasting views of the wilderness. Philo's wilderness is a safe haven from the wickedness of the city, but  Hawthorne's wilderness is a place to act in wickedness to leave from the safe haven of the city.

Aeneas and the Ten Commandments

One thing that struck me in class today was Dr. Schuler's reference to Aeneas carrying his father and the household gods to safety. It made me think more about Philo's division of the Ten Commandments into two groups of five. The first four commandments seem at first to be dealing with a different topic than the fifth does. But Philo explained that the way we treat authority cannot be divided from our treatment of God. Philo said that we may think that we serve God even when we do not honor our parents, but if we do not honor our parents, we are not honoring God. This is actually very reasonable, because by not honoring our parents we are breaking God's law. Philo also seemed to point out that the way we treat our parents influences the way we treat God. If we do not honor our earthly fathers, who gave us life, we probably will not honor our heavenly Father, who gave us AND our fathers life.

At this point, you may be wondering why I brought up Aeneas in this post. I started thinking about this incident after Dr. Schuler mentioned it during the discussion. I realized that if Aeneas had left his father, he would have also left the household gods that his father was carrying. He would have dishonorably left both his father and the gods to ruin. Also, this chain of Aeneas holding his father, who was holding the gods, created a hierarchy for the family. The gods were above the father, and the father was above the son. I may have drawn implications out too far, but this really grabbed my attention.

P.S. I commented on Michelle Nellsch's post.

reason vs revelation

Today in class I was very interested when we discussed reason and revelation. More precisely we discussed Athens and Jerusalem and wnat each of them symbolised. How is reason accurate without revelation. They are coexisting beings that support each other and are flawed when viewed separately. Without revelation, reason is chaotic and destructive toward all who posses it. An example of this is morals, without the revelation of what is right or wrong there is not a standard to which we must be held to. That quickly escalates into chaos, destruction, and pain. Also, revelation without reason is pointless. Reason helps us to interpret scripture and determine truths. Without reason, revelation is only words without a clear and consise meaning. Therefore they are misread and mis interpreted, leading to secular cults and wrong ideas about the scripture. Now while Philo has some things that i do not agree with, I believe he is right when he used reason and revelation as partners instead of enemies.