Picture Perfect

Seeing the religious fervor which has taken grip on so many blogs, I thought it would be appropriate to perhaps say a few words of my own on the subjects of Numbers 22:2 - 25:9, what is referred to as the portion of Balak. Whilst, strictly speaking, I'm not really allowed to speak about any in-depth religious matters, I figure there's so much out on the net anyway that if someone was really interested, they could pretty much find out what they wanted. Plus, I have that brilliant password contraption on this blog. So, read on, if you dare...

I'm always fascinated by this portion of the bible. It deals with so many riveting topics, pivotal to many debates out there. The topics in this portion include subjects as diverse as what some may refer to as the Calvinist debate (Free will versus predestination), spiritual beings - do they exist and who can see them if they do, - the "End of Days," status of law, rule of law, "does God change His mind?," the concepts of reward and punishment, the place of zealotry and fanaticism within religion and whether or not it has one, what altars and sacrifices achieve, prophecy - does it exist? and if so, what is it and who gets it? amongst other things.

I'll only look at the debate between free will and predestination, then add something about foreknowledge. But before that, one thing which I want to look at which I didn't mention is prayer. What is it and what does it do? This is a somewhat unusual take on things, and probably not one you'll hear anywhere, so brace yourself!

Prayer
I've heard, been in, read about many debates, be it on ccuk, in Dawkin's new book, or anywhere else and all the debates roughly go something like this (NP = no prayer, referring to those who don't believe in that sort of thing, whilst YP = yes prayer, denoting those who do):

NP: Prayer doesn't do anything.
YP: Yes it does.
NP: No it doesn't.
YP: Yes it does.

Depending on how enlightened the folks debating are, there may or may not be a discussion about the psychological state of those meditating or praying and the biological effects it may have on a person, compared to a person who is not in a state of prayer. Believe it or not, there is a difference in the biological state of mind of one praying, and one who isn't. But that doesn't answer the spiritual effect of prayer.

As far as I'm concerned, prayer should first and foremost be looked at as a self-transformative exercise, without regards to the hocus-pocus which may or may not be taking place somewhere upstairs. No one can really ever identify the exact spiritual effect a prayer may or may not have, and for those who claim they can show that (from as far left as Dawkins to as far right as fanatics), the more I am inclined to disbelieve them the more they propound that position. That's simply because, as Karl Marx once said (together with Madonna in her song "Material Girl,") we live in a material world, not a spiritual one and therefore what we see are material effects, not spiritual ones - and any spiritual effects we fancy we see are inferred, not apparant. So, whilst people are welcome to believe or disbelieve the spiritual effects of prayer, I wouldn't encourage people to look at it from that perspective alone.

So what effect does prayer have here in a material world, apart from the pictures we may have seen showing the transformation of brain chemistry?
Manifold. It may bring comfort (mourning, or spontaneous prayers), it may include acknowledgement of a higher power than yourself (grace, psalms in church, giving thanks), it may even make you change perspective on issues (I'll come to that soon). In short, it transforms the self from position A before the prayer, to position B after it is uttered (hence, self transformative).

My favourite is "change perspective on issues." This is what is referred to as "accounting." It is a form of internal reflection, rather than outright prayer, though it includes the latter too. I suppose this is the Jewish equivalent to meditation. Rather than anything hocus pocus going on here, all it is, is going back over (a) past deed(s) and accepting responsibility for them. Rather than being a type of mental self-flagellation, this accounting takes into account everything - the good, the bad and the ugly.

But it goes beyond good/bad deeds. In everyday life, I look at it as follows: would I rather be standing on this side of a decision I've made, or on the other side? I.e. would I rather have not made the decision? Almost always I find that I'm happy I made it. This is much better than worrying over things I've done and "what if I did that" or "what if I didn't do that" which I used to beat myself up with over and over. I find it's a question of taking a step back from your life and viewing it in the general picture of things. I come to realise that a single decision at this point plays very little in limiting my options. So why stress over something which didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, over which I have no control now and which, in the larger picture of life, doesn't actually set me back? No point whatever.

END of Prayer

Free will - Predestination - Foreknowledge.

Do we have free will?
Let's look at the bible.

God tells Balaam that he mayn't go with the officers of Midian. Balaam eventually goes anyway, despite this. On his way, he finds that he is blocked three times, by some sort of unseen spiritual force. Eventually, God reveals that an angel was standing in front of him. Said angel berates Balaam for not listening to God, then says "but fine: go if you want. Just know, you're going to say exactly what God wants you to."

From the fact that Balaam was able to disregard a direct order from God is proof enough for me that we do in fact have free will. However, the latter part of the story - that Balaam would not be free to speak his mind - suggests that Balaam didn't in fact have free will and his actions were being directed by God. Notice too, that God seems to "change His mind" - whereas at first, He told Balaam in no uncertain terms He didn't want him to go with the officers, he then sent an angel to say He in fact will allow him to.

I think the key in answering the disparity are the words "want" and "allow."
God didn't want Balaam to go, who went anyway. God allowed him to go.

This seems to suggest that God will allow people to do what they want, even if He doesn't agree with it. This therefore suggests free will, over predestination.

Interestingly, later on, Balaam's words are not those of curse, but of blessing. He responds to an enraged Balak "Did I not tell you that I could not go against the word of God and whatever He tells me to I shall speak?" This also seems to suggest predestination.

I would say, however, that these were unique circumstances: Balaam was a prophet of God. Whether for good or bad, that was his designated status, and like all prophets, he has absolutely no free will when speaking the word of God. I.e. whether he likes it or not, he must speak what God wants him to. When he was going to curse the Israelites, he said "whatever God shall put into my mouth that shall I speak" and that's exactly what happened. He wasn't the last prophet to disagree with the word of God. Jonah made a great fuss, for whatever reason(s), and ran away from his responsibility of prophecy. Like Balaam, however, whether he liked it or not (and the fact that he was willing to kill himself shows that he really did not like it) he had to speak the words God told him. As a prophet, that was his function.

That one would bring a proof of predestination from an episode where we find throughout the bible that the speakers are more or less forced to speak certain words, is no proof. We all agree that in this specific case, God's will is absolute over that of the individual.

Nontheless, we can bring a proof from the events prior to the prophecy - where God did not want Balaam to go, but in the spirit of free will, allowed him to go. At that point, he had no prophecy to speak. He was not on his way to fulfil any God-given mission and at that point, had free will like the rest of us.

What about the events in Exodus?
Pharaoh's "heart was hardened" by God. This is generally explained to mean that God made him obstinate, so that the inevitable outcome of Pharaoh's decision would be a refusal to free the Israelites. Aha! Predestination. Even more compelling, God says a number of times before the plagues that "I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh in order that Egypt shall see my wonders." This is clearly predestination: God wants X to happen, and is willing to project that want on an individual's choices, in this case, Pharaoh.

The age-old answer to this, is that the first three times, Pharaoh made his own choice: he refused to let the nation go, of his own free will. Nowhere is it written in reference to the first three requests by Moses to Pharaoh that "God hardened his heart." After something is done three times, so the saying goes (As a result from this episode) it is as if he has become set in his ways. I.e. After 3 times, sufficient precedent is given to assume that the outcome of the 4th time onwards, will be the same as the first three times.

But if that's the case, why should God have to harden the heart of Pharaoh in the first place? If it's a given, why remove that free will? Good question, and I don't know.

However, allow me to pontificate.
The words "I shall harden the heart of Pharaoh in order that Egypt shall see my wonders" is only an admission of predestination in this one case - the fact that it is mentioned, shows that it is out of the ordinary. It is not really a case for predestination, than it is a proof that God has the ability to direct events in this world, despite free will. The fact that God would have to "redirect" events may also show that there never was a set event sequence in the first place. That in order to change something, the outcome of the original set of events would have to be something God did not want, therefore something that He did not pre-set.

I believe that should answer that sufficiently.

But what of foreknowledge?
As I see it, foreknowledge of an event does not mean predestined (though predestined does mean foreknowledge). This is best explained by a small story...

Someone standing on top of a building see's two cars speeding. He sees that they're on different roads so that neither driver can see the other car, but those two roads they're on intersect with each other. The person on the roof can see with great clarity that unless something happens to stop this sequence of events, the cars are speeding as such, that they'll collide with each other at the intersection.

Is the person on the roof in control of anything? No. Everything is working independently of the man on the roof and yet he has a certain foreknowledge of events to come.

It is therefore clear, in my mind at least, that knowing the entire picture means you know the entire outcome of events. As such, like an engine, if you know what to tweak and when, you know what outcomes will be given. It just so happens God knows what to tweak, but instead of doing it himself, usually - but apparantly not always - wants us to do it ourselves...

Thus endeth the religious speak.