Chapter 10: The Lost World of Genesis One

Chapter 10 seems more like a reiteration of the points made in the previous chapters. In case one wants to read the previous chapter, the link is here. This chapter is titled 'The Seven Days of Genesis 1 Do Not Concern Materials Origins'. The chapter merely reinforces the point that text of Genesis 1 provides an account of functional origin, not of material origins. The author adds that the fact that the text speaks of functional origin does not mean that God is not the creator of the cosmos. There are evidences in the biblical text that God is the creator of cosmos. For example, New Testament writers begin to be concerned about the material origins, which the author of Genesis was not, and thus provides theological reason that God is the creator of the cosmos. 

Another point the author adds here is the point that the text does not really suggest for old earth or young earth. It does not say anything about the age of the earth. The age of the earth has to be deduced from scientific findings, not from the biblical text. However, once it is granted that the scientific findings about the age of the earth is correct, it raises a theological point whether death was there even before sin entered the world. The author argues that death of human enters through sin. But death as such, say, of plants or animals would have been there even before sin enters the world though Adam and Eve. The growth of plant which was created on day 3 requires death of at least cell. And Adam would have death skin (epidermis). It is not possible to imagine deathless life.

Chapter 9: The Seven Days of Genesis 1...

Chapter 9 is titled 'The Seven Days of Genesis 1 Related to the Cosmic Inauguration'. This chapter develops further the argument made in Chapter 7 and chapter 8. This chapter specifically tells about the significance of the temple inauguration.

God resides in a temple. But to settle down in a temple, there is a process. And the process involves construction and inauguration of the temple. Exodus records about Moses making the Tent of Meeting. And when all the preparation about the Tent of Meeting is done, the tabernacle is inaugurated. This process of inauguration is also the process of creation of the tabernacle... because unless the tabernacle is inaugurated, it just remains a constructed tent. The constructed tent becomes a tabernacle after it was inaugurated. And inauguration is completed by the glory of the Lord filling it! This duration about the inauguration is not quite certain but it does take time... 

Genesis 1 gives the description of the inauguration of the cosmic temple. And it says that here the duration for the inauguration of the cosmic temple is done over 7 days.

Essay Contest -- 1st Prize, € 300, 2nd, 200 & 3rd, 100.

We live in times of kaleidoscopic historical change when international law and settled after World War II world order once again find themselves threatened and become as the object of flagrant violations. The issue of responsibility of particular subjects of international relations and specific individuals for outright criminal actions that harm the civilized humanity is actual and raised once again.

In this regard, Ukraine based NGO “Society Initiatives Institute” seeks to eliminate embarrassing information void in the social, cultural and spiritual spheres, formed around the figure of the scientist, lawyer, expert on international law Raphael Lemkin, scholar who created and implemented in the broadest scientific and legal usage, the term “genocide.” A true cosmopolitan, Polish lawyer, with Jewish descent, born in territory of modern Belarus, who studied in Ukraine and Germany, before working in the universities in USA, he was writing about the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians (also known as Syriacs) and Jewish People.

It was his efforts which led the term to be entrenched in Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. Also back in 1953, in his speech to the New York audience “The Soviet genocide in Ukraine”, Raphael Lemkin, was the first to recognize and speak about the crimes of the Stalinist Communist regime against the Ukrainian people, analyzing it in the context of international law.

In order to properly commemorate the name of Raphael Lemkin and to spread and continue the theoretical researches on the issues of genocides, Society Initiatives Institute is organizing this International Essay Contest.

Eligibility

The contest is open to all interested around the globe.

Key Message

The theme of the International Essay Contest is “Genocide – the dark mark of humanity”.

Essay may be written in the context of legal, political, historical, cultural, economic or any other issue connected to genocide.

How to apply?

The deadline for submission of an essay is 30^th of November, 2014.

Each contestant can submit only one essay developed in English, Ukrainian, Russian or Polish. It must reflect the contestant’s own writing and original thinking. The Committee will disqualify any essay where plagiarism is suspected.

An essay should be maximum 1000 words long in the following format: essay title / author’s name and contacts / school/university/affiliation / essay (introduction, main arguments, conclusions).

Essays and all questions should be sent to essay@sii.org.ua.

The deadline for submission of an essay is 30^th of November, 2014.

Awards

The winners will be selected by the Committee established by Society Initiatives Institute consisting of board members and scholars not more than two weeks after the deadline of essays submission.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners chosen by the Committee will be awarded with 300, 200 and 100 euro respectively.

The best essays will be published on web-pages of organization and its partners.

 NB: The link of the original site is available here.

Chapter 8: The Cosmos Is A Temple

This chapter and chapter 7 are closely related. Both the chapters talk about the relationship between the Temple and the cosmos. This chapter is in a way easy to summarise because the author himself has summarise the points he tries to make in the chapter. So having argued, he finally gives the points he makes in the chapter this way: 

1. Whether it is in the Bible or the surrounding Ancient Near East culture, temple is viewed as a microcosm. It is not the biblical author borrowed the idea from the surrounding cultures; it's just that up to certain extent there is similarity in the way people thought.

2. The cosmos is understood in certain pattern by the people then; and the way they construct and design the temple is made to resemble their understanding of the cosmos. 

3. The function of the temple and the cosmos have similarities. For example, it is understood that God is to dwell in the temple, but it is also understood that the cosmos is the dwelling place of God. This is how temple is viewed as a microcosm. 

Wolterstorff's Justice: Chapter 1

The first post that introduces the book is here. Nick's book is loaded with finer distinctions between various philosophical opinions, and therefore, it is not easy to summarize the book without cutting out certain points. This indicates the depth of his engagement with the matter, and yet one can get lost too unless one concentrates. This is not a book that you can just relax and read; it requires serious reading! 

Nick provides a preliminary description of right in the introductory chapter. He gives another preliminary description of right in this chapter again. The last paragraph of this post will explain this concept. In this chapter the author explains the difference between the concept of justice  laid out by right order theorists like Plato and his own version which is similar to that of Roman jurist Ulpian.

This is Plato's version of justice given in the Republic. In the Republic, Plato narrates the account of Socrates' dialogues with his friends to obtain concepts of justice for an individual soul as well as for the city. For this blog, I am simplifying Plato's account. To obtain the concept of justice, Plato  begins by asking what the function of a city is. And he says that the function of a city is: to provide  provision, to defend itself and to govern the citizens. Then he goes on to ask how the city would function well. He says a city would function well when there is division of labour (say, a craftsman doing his craft to provide provision; a soldier defending the city; and the king governing the city well) based on natural ability and education. Thus, if there is no mistake in the structural division and educational provided based on one's natural ability, and the different parties function based on their respective ability, it will be a good city, a city that functions well. It will then be a city where justice prevail -- where there is right order. 

In the book, Nick explains Ulpian's version first and then comes to Plato's version. I reverse the order for this blog post. Ulpian writes that justice is a "steady and enduring will to render to each other their ius."  'Ius' is normally translated as 'right', but the word 'right' here needs explanation. For example, because you have promised to pay me Rs. 100 if I work in your garden for two hours, I did work for two hours. Now you refused to pay me. I have the right to be paid. But I am not enjoying my right. The fact that you refused to pay me does not make my right vanish; it's just that I am not enjoying my right. When you pay me, I shall be enjoying my right. Thus, justice prevails when I enjoy my right, when my 'ius' is honoured. When my right is denied, I am wronged by you. You are guilty; and I am wronged. For justice to prevail, I need to enjoy my right. 

The right order theorists argue that rights come about because of legislation, speech acts etc. Whereas Nick argues that rights do come about that way, but there is more to it.  Nick argues that rights also come about because the entity possesses certain property, stand in certain sort of relationship with other entities or perform certain sort of action; they have certain inherent rights. This is the difference between right theorists like Nick and right order theorist like Plato. Thus, the difference basically is, if I may surmise, whether there is any right called inherent right or not. And this (natural) inherent right is not natural right! By natural right, generally it means the conferred natural right, not inherent right. Right order theorists can accept conferred natural right or rather simply natural right, but not inherent right. And Nick is going to defend the idea of inherent right and the concept of justice based on inherent right an individual possesses.

Religious Conversion and Reconversion

BJP is back to power again and somehow debates on religious conversion, reconversion and other related matters are making news once more. Islam and Christianity are once again beginning to be portrayed as religions that convert people from one religion to another religion. As a Christian I want to emphatically admit that Christians do 'propagate Christianity' praying and hoping that people will eventually come to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and God. I believe that Islam too engages in similar activities, persuading people to become a Muslim. The Constitution of India allows a person to propagate one's religious belief. For this same reason, if a Hindu undertakes re-conversion processes, persuading converted ones to return to their traditional faith or even persuade a-religious person to join Hinduism, it's the same as what Christians and Muslims are doing; and I am quite okay about it. Propagating one's religion involves trying to convert people or reconvert people.

However, in this process of conversion or reconversion, there has to be certain ground rules. No party must forcefully try to convert anyone. Conversion must take place only through persuasion, explaining and living out the beauty and truth of that particular religion. Forceful conversion is neither morally nor legally right. Those who force others to convert or reconvert must be legally sued.

Someone may ask why there is a need at all to try to convert others. Or rather, why must I try to convince the other person that my religion is true and beautiful, thereby implicitly implying that yours is not true and beautiful. Why can't each one just practice one's religious belief and leave others alone? 

Religion has been an important feature of human lives throughout human civilization. And if one reads religious history, one will realise few things: 1. Many religions have died out in the past and many new ones have emerged. 2. A religion does not remain static in term of its belief and practices. 3. Certain religion has evil practices. 

To give examples, let me cite from history. 1. Manichaeism is now gone and so is Mithraism. But then over a period of time, religions like Bahaism and Mormonism emerge. 2. Buddhism was established by Gotama, yet it has mutated into various shades; and so Islam or Christianity. The beliefs of the different sub-groups are not entirely the same and the practices too are not all similar. 3. Religious culture of Aztecs include human sacrifice. 

From this brief account, one realises that religions evolve. Even within my own religious tradition, there was time when Bible was not made accessible to all or following the cultural practices of the day, slaves were owned by Christians or people of certain background were not accepted as equals. However, things changed. Hinduism has also undergone lot of changes in its historical evolution. Women were not allowed to read the sacred texts in the past; it is changing now. All these changes occur because there has been intra and inter-religious debates and discourses in human history. Without such dialogues and discourses, a religion will fossilized and required reformation will not take place. Political practices, religious beliefs, economic traditions etc are human enterprises, and as human individuals and civilisations interact, our lives and our social-religious-economic-political enterprises will change. Some religion may not be able to keep up with the changing political and economic scenario, and they may die out. Some may evolve very well and emerge triumphant as some religions have been in recent days. For example, one query what many religious and political scholars ask is whether Islam will be able to peacefully adapt to the ever growing tradition of liberal democracy without losing its identity, and if it does how will it take place? This interaction is inevitable; and in the process, Islam may even have things to learn from other religions. 

Because of this sort of ever increasing interaction, religious dialogues and discourses across cultures will take place. And once this takes place, conversion and reconversion are going to be happening. Just as I live within a particular political tradition, I live within certain religious tradition. Yet I have to have an openness to learn about better political tradition or even be willing to perform reform within my own political tradition; and this same thing applies to my religious belief too. I think my view is right, yet I am open to interaction and learning -- that's the kind of attitude I think we must possess. But having such an open mind is to be open for conversion and even to convert others -- religious, political, social etc. As long as forceful conversion and other immoral practices are kept out, friendly dialogues and intercourse resulting in even conversion must be left open to establish a progressive society.