Thread by @hlgriffin

@AndrewRillera It has so much to do with our attachment bonds with our caregivers shape our basic grammar of the way the word feels, which is the foundation for what the world means & how we should name it.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield & @d_l_mayfield have done some great work on the @propheticimagin recently on hell anxiety among white evangelicals from an attachment lens. propheticimaginationstation.com/episodes/i-tho…

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin All of our knowledge is built on trust. What we can see depends on ways we have relied on others to see and name and understand the world around us. We can come to see differently, but that means trusting differently.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Sometimes that change is propelled by a loss of trust in the people who formed us. Sometimes its propelled by seeing someone walk in freedom and hope that we haven't been able to imagine.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin If we come to trust that this person's experience is tapping into something real & we identify with that person enough to think there could be more for us as well, we might follow if we hunger more life in that area.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin I've been thinking about this a lot with Philo's reading of Deut 30.11-14 in Praem 79-84 vs. Paul's in Rom 10.6-8.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Greeks ranked our physical senses along a hierarchy that corresponded to the hierarchy of the cosmos. Sight was the most noble sense because it was active, like the active and rational cause of the cosmos. Your sight reaches out for objects of sense.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Sight corresponds to the active, ruling part of your soul that operates in your heart muscle: the mind. The mind and sight both reach out to understand. The eyes rely on light from the son or other light source to see. The eye of the mind relies on noetic light from the Logos

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Hearing was still considered a noble sense (prob because it processed noncorporeal objects if you were a Platonist, or more airy objects if you were a Stoic), but it was inferior to sight because it was passive. Passive is always inferior to active in the cosmic hierarchy.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin You have to wait for noise to come to you for your sense of hearing to hear something. It's a dependent sense, but more rational than other senses. You can receive language, for instance, which is more like the Logos b/c reason & thought are involved.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Smell and taste and touch are all less rational and more passive than sight and hearing. They are also more intensely tied to the appetites of the body & the dangers of bodily pleasure.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin One can appreciate art or beautiful objects or music that is in harmony with the mathematical order of the cosmos without necessarily having irrational passions stirred up.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin The lower senses are more dangerous, which is part of why Philo spends a lot of time on gluttony before he moves onto enslavement to sexual pleasure when he's describing the baddies. They are ruled by lower senses rather than the higher senses, evincing their irrationality.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Philo's Athletes of Virtue are always looking at the embodied world to look beyond it to its source in the intelligible Logos in heaven. They are seeking to know God and valuing the heavenly realm over the earthly realm, which is good can be dangerous when it is the highest end.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin If you look at the Praem passage, Philo is taking the mouth & heart & hand in Deut 30 to mean words, thoughts, & deeds. It was a commonplace (prob Stoic) image to think of just action as a harmony of thoughts, words, & deeds with truth.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin The nation of Israel and the Law of Moses represent this harmony. Praem 83- "Fro who, however spiteful his nature, would not admit that surely that nation alone is wise & full of knowledge whose history has been such that it has not left the divine exhortations voided...

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin "...but has fulfilled the words with laudible deeds (πληρῶσαι τοὺς λόγους ἔργοις ἐπαινετοῖς)? Such a race has its dwelling not far from God; it has the vision of etherial loveliness always before its yes, & its steps are guided by a heavenward yearning..."

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Praem 84 cont: " So that if one should ask 'what matter of nation is great?; others night aptly answer 'a nation which has God listen to its prayers inspired by true religion & to draw night when they call upon him with a clean conscience."

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin The Law of Moses is in harmony with the Law of Nature, so that those under the law of Moses as a nation are best able to obey the Law of Nature. The harmonious movements of the microcosm of their minds is characterized by justice b/c they imitate the right order of the macrocosm.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin If you were shaped by that reading of scripture, which would have seemed entirely reasonable given that it was in line with the best psychology & neuroscience of its day, how would you make sense out of the failure of much of Israel to recognize Jesus as the Logos?

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin You might be inclined to think that it would be fitting that God would reject them forever for their obstinance & ingratitude, as evinced by their inability to see the truth despite having the Law, which should make them see reality.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin You might also think there was something wrong with God's goodness or that his Providential gift of the law to Israel had failed. If God's mind changed or failed, God wasn't God. If you read Moses like the Timaeus, God's providence seemed a little screwy if Jesus is Lord.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Paul reads Deut 30 in Rom 10 in a way that is opposed to Philo. He conspicuously ignores the word "hand" in Deut 30, which Philo emphasizes the most. The active sense of sight & imagery of light & darkness is gone, indicating that human effort to order the reason isn't in play.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Paul emphasizes the passive sense of hearing. We cannot reach God through our reasoning about the Law of Nature/Law of Moses. We have to wait for words of God to be spoken to our ears.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin You get a harmony of thoughts and words with "Confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord," but even this recognition is dependent on the word reaching you. You can't find it yourself by looking for it, no matter how hard you try.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin We don't have Philo's biography of Jacob from the Exposition, but we know that he reused a lot of his material from the Allegorical Commentary on Jacob. Jacob represents the type of soul that achieves virtue through striving & practice.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin He climbs that ladder of virtue in his dream, sometimes going up two steps, sometimes going back as he strains to practice. The more he practices, the more virtuous he becomes, and the more he has the capacity to receive God's gifts from the lifegiving, active force of the Logos.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin God's gifts are proportionate to what we can receive in Philo. Mortal flesh can only contain so much. The more a human seeks toimitate God with the likeness of the image of God (the ruling part of the soul which is the mind inside the heart muscle), the more grace it can contain.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin So God gives gracious benefactions to those who seek him & have followed the law. It's more than what they deserve & still reflects God's gracious magnanimity. They are still more fitting recipients than those who have not sought God.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Philo informs us in Opif that the sufferings & toil on earth are a fitting punishment for the impious devaluation of God in favor of the pleasures of the body. The well of God's gracious benefactions to human in creation is stopped up, less they be lavished on the unworthy.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Paul sees God's grace as coming to those who have not sought God, and not in proportion to the recipient. Jacob in Philo's commentaries receives a revelation of the Name of the Lord as God's gracious gift in response to Jacob's striving practice at virtue to follow the divine Law

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin We also have surviving parts of the Allegorical Commentary in which Philo puns off the parts of the Stoic lekta ("sayables", λέγειν) when he's talking about the "Name of the Lord." A Stoic lekton is a true logical statement proposition consisting of a noun & a verb.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Here's how the pun works in Philo:
ῥῆμα = verb or utterance
ὄνομα=noun or name
κύριο όνομα= proper noun

κύριος= Lord
ὄνομα κυρίου= name of the Lord

Those who are gifted with an utterance of the Name of the Lord have received a true statement of what God is like.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Philo is big on how humans can know things about God pertaining to God's existence from our contemplation of the cosmos using our rational minds, but we can't know God's essence. He talks about God's existence with various substantive form of εἰμί like ὁ ὤν.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Philo's saying that God is the Existent One from whom all other Existence flows. God is the ground of Being. God is who God is.

When Moses is told from the burning bush that the name of the Lord is "I am," the Lord is saying that he is the One that Exists.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Take a look at what Paul does in Rom 10.5-9 with Deut 30.11-14:

"Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that 'the person who does these things will live by them.' But the righteousness that comes from faith says, 'Do not say in your heart...

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin ... ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or 'Who will descend" into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?...

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin But what does it say ( λέγω)?

“The word is ( τὸ ρῆμα ἐστιν) near you,
on your lips and in your heart”

(that is, the word of faith [τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν τὸ ρῆμα τῆς πίστεως] that we proclaim); ..."

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin ...because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord (κύριον Ἰησοῦν) and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Now check out 10: 13: "For, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord ( τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου) shall be saved.'

Philo's favorite pun off the parts of the Stoic lekton to talk about God as the ground of being has been highjacked by Paul to in the name of the Lord Jesus.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Paul uses it to talk about God's generosity that makes no distinction between Jew or Greek but seeks out unworthy recipients of grace to give generously to all who call on the name of the Lord, which reaches the ears of those who have not sought him.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin If the proper name of God (τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου) is the Name of the Lord, and the verb (ρῆμα) that describes God is "Is", than Jesus is Lord (κύριον Ἰησοῦν) is the ultimate Stoic lekton.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Paul is saying that Jesus is the One Who Is, who is Lord because he is the ultimate Active cause of the Cosmos and the source of all that exists.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin God raised him from the dead because his Passive human body of earth & clay was linked to the Active cause of the universe. God raised him from the dead because Jesus is Lord.

πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἂν ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου σωθήσεται.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Also, the whole weird ἄβυσσος thing in Rom 10.7 is totally Philonic. He reads a Middle Platonist cosmology onto Gen 1-2 in Opif and reads ἄβυσσος as "void" (κενός).

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Just as God fills the void of the passive object with the Active force of the Logos, so the active force within humans (the likeness of the image of God in their minds) must bring order to their micrcosm, lest vice fill the void that virtue should fill.

@AndrewRillera @K__Mayfield @d_l_mayfield @propheticimagin Philo doesn't use ἄβυσσος in the Praem passage on Deut 30, but he does use κενός along with tons of imagery from Gen 1.1-3 to talk about how Israel does not leave the divine exhortations "voided."