Friday after Ash Wednesday

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

This is one of the verses I memorized as a youth (Authorized Version*, of course). The words still ring in my mind: “whatsoever things are true, … honest … just … pure … lovely … of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

I am no philosopher and I certainly have my rather vehement criticisms of Augustine of Hippo, but he also had some good and grace-filled things to say. (Is that what they call damning with faint praise?) Augustine spoke of evil as “privatio boni” of which Wikipedia says: Privatio Boni can be loosely translated as "privation of good." It is a theological doctrine that good and evil are, in some circumstances at least, asymmetrical. Strictly speaking, it holds that evil is insubstantial, so that thinking of it as an entity is misleading: it would be more constructive to speak only of it as the lack of good.

While there are philosophical quibbles about this concept and its neo-Platonic roots, I am willing to go with the idea that good and evil are asymmetrical, not opposite and equal. Evil is a lack of the good, not an independent force. (Thinking at the keyboard, folks, so this may not be a tight exploration.)

It would be illusory and gross denial to ignore evil, to turn a blind eye to injustice, oppression, abuse, cruelty, corruption, and neglect—those practices that lead to suffering and destruction.

This is why I don’t think Paul’s admonition to the saints in Philippi requires us to dismiss or deny evil. His apostolic exhortation does, however, point us toward keeping our focus on what is primary and real: the good. We must consider evil but we do so in the context of good.

I rant extensively here about this world’s ills, especially about what I perceive as the disastrous policies of the current administration in the White House. There is always a danger that I can be consumed with anger and/or hatred. I need to guard against that because I do not want my soul to be destroyed from within by a festering darkness.

I would not, however, rail against what I see as injustice if I did not have some understanding and vision of justice. It is because of the positive good of justice that I seek to call injustice to account.

Thus, denouncing wickedness should never take over but always be grounded in a vision and pursuit of goodness. This means I am also called to justice and goodness. In the light of God’s goodness and justice, I really cannot think of myself as holier than George Bush, no matter how much I want to see myself as less wicked. (Those divine standards really let the air out of our balloons.)

I also need to think about the good and not fixate on evil, for all manner of reasons, both obvious and subtle. The Apostle Paul reminds us of this and calls us to think on what is good.

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.* They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John 17:14-19)

There is much debate these days in Anglican Land (thanks, Mark Harris, for that term) about God’s truth—how it is known, discerned, and practiced. In this passage from the Fourth Gospel we hear Jesus affirm that God’s word is truth and that Jesus has given his disciples this word. Given what we may reasonably discern of the development of Christian theology even within the New Testament period, not to mention the sub-apostolic era, it is clear that what Jesus taught (i.e., gave his disciples) was not a body of doctrine but a collection of sayings, parables, and actions from which doctrine was later developed. God’s truth is thus conveyed obliquely through story and deed. Unless we are going to assert that Jesus conveyed half-truths, partial truths, or distortions, it seems to me that we must conclude that the truth of God through Jesus is oblique metaphorical truth and it is in oblique and metaphorical truth that we are sanctified.

The paramount Word of truth, of course, has been identified as Jesus himself, at least since the time of the Fourth Gospel and most probably sooner. I doubt that many would deny that the disciples saw in Jesus a powerful and transforming experience of the truth about God.

All of this is quite different from doctrinal criteria. It is Jesus we seek to lift up so that he may draw the world to himself, not teachings about Jesus but Jesus himself. We speak of him through our understandings and formulae but they only point to him, they are not Jesus. It is important not to confuse the map with the territory.

May we all, indeed, be sanctified in truth.

Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live. (Ezekiel 18:31-32)

*For non-British, non-Anglican friends, Authorized Version is the formal title of what we commonly call the King James Version.

Support us, O Lord, with your gracious favor through the fast we have begun; that as we observe it by bodily self-denial, so we may fulfill it with inner sincerity of heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--the BB