On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita

In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna reveals his real form to Arjuna. The chapter seems like a departure from the surrounding chapters, which focus on bhukti (i.e., devotion to Krishna). For example, in chapter 9, Krishna gives Arjuna the following imperative: “Always think of Me and become my devotee.” Unlike seeing the deity as he really is, sincere devotion to that which is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion is possible without being given “divine eyes.” The metaphysically, ontologically real is an attention-getter in the text, but it is the devotion, or bhukti, that is more important from a practical standpoint. Even theologically, the experience of transcendence, of which the human brain is capable, can be said to be more important than “seeing” divinity as it really is because the latter, unlike the former, lies beyond our grasp. In fact, seeing Krishna as he really exists is not necessary, for in chapter 10, Krishna says, “Here are some ways you can recognize and think of Me in the things around you [in the world].” This is yet another reason why the devotion rather than seeing Krishna as he really is, ontologically, should be the attention-getter in the Gita.

The full essay is at "On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna."

Mary

The film, Mary (2024), is pregnant with intimations of the theological implications of her unborn and then newly born son, Jesus. That story is of course well-known grace á the Gospels, and the theology of agape love associated with that faith narrative is at least available through the writings of Paul and many later Christian theologians. What we know of Mary is much less, given that her role in the Gospels is not central even though the heavy title, Mother of God, has been applied to her without of course implying that she is the source of God. The film, like the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church has done, endeavors to “evolve the myth” by adding to Mary’s story even though the additions are not meant to be taken as seriously as, for example, the Catholic doctrine that Mary is assumed bodily into heaven. The movie comes closest to the magisterium in suggesting that Mary’s birth is miraculous; the magisterium holds that Mary is born without sin, and that Jesus inherited this because of the Incarnation (i.e. God, rather than Joseph, impregnates Mary). Suffice it to say that the perception of myth as static is the exception rather than rule; it is natural for the human mind to work with myths such that they can evolve rather than take them as given in a final form or extent. This is not to say that we should focus on the faith narratives as if they were ends in themselves and thus unalterable; rather, as the film demonstrates, religious transcendence is of greater value.

The full essay is at "Mary." 

A Fortunate Man

Religion plays a prominent role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer, must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own father.

The full essay is at "A Fortunate Man."

On Brahman Becoming Embodied as Krishna

In the Bhagavad-Gita, the personal deity Krishna explains to Arjuna to process by which Krishna becomes embodied. This raises the question, what is Krishna unembodied? Although one candidate is Brahma, the personal god of creation, I contend that the answer is Brahman, which is being, consciousness, and bliss. Brahman is unmanifest, so how is it that being itself, even if conscious, can have a will and a creative agency, or ability, to manifest as a personal deity? The notion of Brahman is completely foreign to the Abrahamic religions, wherein a personal deity is the creator and has perfect being. So it is worth thinking about how, and even whether, a personal deity like Krishna can manifest by the will and creative force (maya) of Brahman.

The full essay is at "On Brahman Becoming Embodied."

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Among the classic biblically-based films out of Hollywood, and the first to show Jesus’ face, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is a highly idealized rather than realistic depiction of the Gospel story. Only when Jesus is on the cross does emotion show on Jesus’ visage; even the horrendous suffering from the torture leading up to the crucifixion is not shown. The Christology is thus idealized, with Jesus’ divine nature impacting his human nature even though the two natures are theologically distinct. Because the film was the first to show Jesus’ face, it could be that depicting Jesus’ human nature in its fullness, absent sin of course, would be too much for a film made before the social upheaval that began in 1968 in the West to depict. The main drawback in depicting Jesus in such highly idealized terms is that it may be difficult for Christians to relate to Jesus in emulating him by carrying their own proverbial crosses in this fallen world. The main upside of the almost Gnostic idealization is that the theological point that the Incarnation is of the divine Logos, which in turn is the aspect of God that created the world, is highlighted. Reflecting David Hume’s concern, I submit that transcending (rather than denying) the anthropomorphic “God made flesh” to embrace God as Logos—God’s word that creates—more fully captures the insight of Pseudo-Dionysius, a sixth-century theologian, that God goes beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions. 

The full essay is at "The Greatest Story Ever Told."

Kierkegaard’s Socratic Task: Delivering a Christianity of Inward Faith

Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of (being) the single individual, especially in the subjective pursuit of truth. Before Socrates, truth (and morality) was to be found externally, in culture and tradition, and thus in an objective sense. Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of the individual’s subjectivity in the pursuit of truth; that truth can be internal without devolving into relativist nihilism. The Danish philosopher appropriated what he had learned from Socrates methodologically in the self-declared “Socratic task” of auditing “the definition of what it is to be a Christian.”[i] Behind Kierkegaard’s authorship is “the task of becoming a Christian.”[ii] This applies to helping others—as a Socratic midwife!—to become Christian and, relatedly, to Kierkegaard’s own willingness accept the inexpressible grace of being sacrificed by the Danish Church—those self-declared Christians actually oriented to money. Kierkegaard ironically exclaims, “I am not a Christian.”[iii] Such irony! “I do not call myself a Christian,” Kierkegaard wrote strategically, “but I can make it manifest that the others are that even less.”[iv] Herein lies the acceptance of being sacrificed in the interest of truth. Kierkegaard observed that “’Christendom’ lies in an abyss of sophistry that is even much, much worse than when the Sophists flourished in Greece.”[v] The success of comfortable pastors justifying their earthly wealth theologically under the auspices of the Prosperity Gospel renders the Socratic Kierkegaard still relevant today.[vi] Fortunately, Kierkegaard would assure us that the individual Christian can still find truth within rather than outwardly comprehending the doctrines that the pastors, whose claim to being Christians is dubious at best, claim to know. In this essay, I show how Kierkegaard appropriates Socrates’ method in service of this point. The Danish philosopher gained from his Greek model the tools with which to undercut the doctrines as knowable (by the theologians and pastors), so he could privilege becoming and being a Christian as a matter of personally discovered inward faith yet without positive epistemological content getting in the way.

The full essay is at "Kierkegaard's Socratic Task."

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[i] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 341.

[ii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View: On My work as an Author, the Point of View for my Work as an Author, Armed Neutrality, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 55.

[iii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 340.

[iv] Ibid., 341.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] On the historical shift in theological interpretation from anti-wealth to pro-wealth, see Skip Worden, God's Gold (Seattle, WA: Amazon, 2016).

From Being “Real” to Mythic: Do Religions have Lifespans?

Thousands of years ago, Greeks acted out narratives from what we now refer to as myths. The word myth connotes a religious narrative that has long-ago expired from being believed to be actual. Of course, no Christian in modern times would refer to the Passion as a myth; to refer to the crucifixion and resurrection as mythic would be insulting. Yet as a society increasingly secularizes, the events in the religious story gradually give up their all-embracing signature. As Good Friday or Easter becomes “just another day” for more and more people in the increasingly secular West in particular, the respective events lose their hegemony in defining for people in their daily lives what the Friday and Sunday are about. That is, the events "deflate" from being perceived as all-embracing in the sense of defining the significance of the days. If sufficiently relegated, the story itself can more easily be viewed as myth, rather than real. Notice religion’s appeal here to history or at least empiricism as a validator. Without such a basis intact, religious events are somehow less real in a religious sense of meaning.[1]

In fact, a religion’s situs in a society can go from default-status to ultimately being replaced. Nietzsche’s “God is dead” in the late nineteenth-century prefigured the rise of secularization—the discrediting of the reigning concept of the deity by ascribing the vice of vengeance to it inexorably deflating the Abrahamic religions. Particularly astonishing is not the fact that religions have lifespans, but, rather, that any given religion in decline can endure an incredible amount of time at that stage. This phenomenon can prompt a person to wonder whether the religions are not human, all too human.

The full essay is at "Religion and Myth."

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1. Here I’m relying on ch. 12 of my book, “God’s Gold.” In that chapter, I contend that religion overreaches in claiming history for itself. For a religion to use history as a sort of anchor is to make a category mistake.