from all Your sins

It’s heresy, even blasphemy of course - - especially if one is piously innocent and naive, wanting or psychologically needing to cling to things “old” and learned, familiar, comfortable and “known” - - but perhaps Jung had it right, Carl Jung, who said of God “I don’t need to believe; I know”. 

I also don’t need to believe, because Who Said “Let there be” and it was so -- as Robert Jenson said, "Whoever or Whatever led Israel out of Egypt, Whoever or Whatever raised Jesus from the dead" - - spoke to me personally in my own Time, even with His own signature “I AM”. This is not new or news to anyone who knows me or has known, heard or read me over my years, as I’ve publicly confessed this my nonsense in conversation and seminar groups, and from at least four pulpits, and writing and blogging any number of times. 

And, like Jung who said "I know", after all these years I still know what I heard that Monday evening, 13 February 1984, as I do NOT "know" that which the Nicene fathers decided I must stand and recite that I believe every Sunday morning in order to be an orthodox Christian. Indeed, as Schleiermacher said, some of their formula is beyond human knowing.

But as usual, I wander. What I think Jung got feasible, and is not unlikely, is his shockingly controversial notion that, in retrospect, the outrageous sin that He, God, had knowingly allowed to be committed upon Job, and had defended Himself, dismissing His own part in it, and arrogantly proclaimed His own unchallengeable righteous omniscience - - that He suddenly realized that He did not know Himself, indeed had never known Himself. And that if Man, Adam, here Job, can intellectually have himself as his own object, then He - - in Whose image He had formed Adam the Earthling and Job his son (as in Narnia we are all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve) - - He Himself also had the capacity of self realization, reflection, retrospect. To contemplate Himself.

Startling to Himself, an epiphany of self enlightenment. That, contemplating Job and Job’s innocence, He realized that He Himself did not know Himself, had never thought to do a proper morning examen challenging Himself; and had been neither omniscient nor righteous, but an oblivious reflection of both the best and the worst that Adam can be. 

For the worst read the book of Joshua. But also read Mark and John.

Back on path - continuing with Jung’s notion, He realized that a just and righteous God must needs make things right between Himself and His creatures, specifically His creature Adam the Earthling who adores Him. And that the only way He could make it right - - from tempting Adam in the Beginning, to this His sin against Job, yea even to the Ages of Ages - - was by sacrifice. And that, blood sacrifice - - which could only be Self-sacrifice because nothing else could suffice (humbly reversing the penitent/offended roles in Anselm's satisfaction theology of Atonement) to come as a Lamb to be sacrificed as we might, would, and did; the Lamb Who was Slain thus having been the Pantocrator Himself. And judge it even for all time.

Perhaps Jung’s notion of Good Friday as God's penance, His “Answer to Job”, closes the circle and ratifies chesed, Grace as His characteristic, and satisfies all righteousness. With this in mind, at last we can understand Matthew 3:15; and I can forgive HMichael.

So from me: pardon + and deliver You from all Your sins, confirm and strengthen You in all righteousness … and whatever You say about everlasting life.

Only in my own name can I speak and absolve. Only the others, other victims of HMichael, victims of Hurricane Dorian, and both the murdered and the eternally unborn victims of the Holocaust, can speak for themselves, to forgive or to retain, as they will.

With this, perhaps I can find my way to forgiving Father Nature for the Act of God called Hurricane Michael, and can let it go and focus on my own remaining Time. At any event, a mortal, other than the grudge, holding bitterness for the rest of my life, I have no choice - - where forgiveness is not for the Forgiven but for the one who forgives.

A final muse. By extension, perhaps the Opening Statements for Debate must deal with who was created in Whose image?


RSF&PTL

T+

images

Top: "Tom's Bridge" HMichael-demolished landmark pier on East Beach Drive PC, with thanks

Bottom: Hurricane Michael, having done his damndest to us and me, making for Alabama