Personal Jesus and New Testament Jesus

Art48

A man I know once asked a Catholic priest why the priest allowed himself to be addressed as “Father” when Jesus says “Call no man Father.” The priest at first denied Jesus ever said anything of the sort. When the man showed the priest Matthew 23:9, the priest said Jesus didn’t mean that priests should not be called “Father.”

In Matthew 15:1-4, the Pharisees criticize Jesus because his follows “break the tradition of the elders” by not washing their hands before eating. Jesus responds by saying the Pharisees of breaking commands of God, specifically the command to “Honor your father and mother” and God’s command to kill anyone who curses father or mother. I recently mentioned the verses to two different believers in Jesus. Both denied that Jesus ever said that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. After being shown the verses, both denied that Jesus meant that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. (The Old Testament command about killing the cursing child is in Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9.)

Reflecting on the incidents led me to the idea that there are two very different types of Jesus: 1) New Testament Jesus and 2) personal Jesus. New Testament Jesus is the Jesus of scripture, the character described in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and other New Testament books. Personal Jesus is the Jesus as imagined by some person. Everyone who believes in Jesus believes in their own personal Jesus. The relation of the believer and personal Jesus is identical to the relation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Sherlock Holmes; it’s identical to the relation of J. K. Rowling to Harry Potter.

That personal Jesus is the believer’s own creation explains why the believer thinks he/she knows what Jesus has in mind. Think about it. The Bible is said to be God’s very own word. In the Bible, there are verses where someone (Moses, some prophet) says what God had in mind, and there are verses where God himself is speaking. Matthew 15:1-4 is (if you believe Christianity) God himself in the person of Jesus quoting himself in his very own super-duper book. Yet, believers—who sometimes don’t know what their parents, spouse, or children believe or are thinking—claim to know what God himself had in mind, what God himself means to say. Jesus may have said “Call no man Father” but, no worries, the priest “knows” what Jesus had in mind, what Jesus would have said if only Jesus could speak as clearly and understandably as the priest. God himself in the person of Jesus may cite with approval his own Old Testaments commands, but, no worries, random believers “know” what Jesus had in mind.

This is why personal Jesus so often agrees with the believer. Ann’s personal Jesus loves and forgives gays, just like Ann. Bob’s personal Jesus knows that gays are going to hell, just like Bob. Carol’s personal Jesus realized abortion is sometimes the best choice and would never condemn a woman who had an abortion, just like Carol. Dave’s personal Jesus would never call abortion anything but murder, just like Dave. That list goes on and on.

Hardly anyone follows New Testament Jesus. After all, how can someone follow New Testament Jesus when they aren’t even aware of everything he said? Personal Jesus is a face the believer put on God. It’s a mask over an indescribable Reality. It’s a way of relating to Something that far exceeds our capacity to describe It. An ancient Greek philosopher said if horses had gods, their gods would be horses. Intelligent aliens who look like rabbits might worship the Great Furry Rabbit who sacrificed himself for the sake of all rabbits. Aliens who look like spiders might worship the Great Mother Spider who spun the web of the universe from her own belly.

Jesus as described in the New Testament is largely a product of the ancient Roman Empire, which changed the sabbath of Jesus from Saturday to Sunday and which changed his very name from the Jewish “Yeshua” to the Roman “Jesus.” (Jesus is a Roman name, like Marcus, Brutus, Cassius, Aurelius, etc.) Roman Emperor Theodosius would not have made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire if Christianity did not support the needs of empire.

Realizing their personal Jesus is a mask of God, may prompt a believer to desire experience what is behind the mask. They may desire to experience God directly. They may want to become a mystic and experience God exactly as an intelligent rabbit or spider might experience God.

plaque flag

Realizing their personal Jesus is a mask of God, may prompt a believer to desire experience what is behind the mask. They may desire to experience God directly. They may want to become a mystic and experience God exactly as an intelligent rabbit or spider might experience God. — Art48

I suggest that we might think of God/Jesus as an object seen from different 'perspectives.' A personality is a position in 'interpretative/hermeneutical space.' This or that aspect of the God-object may more or less visible to this or that 'perceiver' (intuiting soulsearching theologian).

The problem with God-behind-all-masks is the classic problem with Kant's reality-behind-all-appearence. It understands the given as a blanket thrown over the real. All we could even mean by what's under the blanket is built from looking at that blanket. Otherwise it's an empty intention, a mystified thought of nothingness. Yet surely people only care about a God under the blanket because they heard stories, imagine a kind of father or intelligible principle.

I suggest that appearance should not be understood as a blanket thrown over reality but simply as that reality from a perspective. Consciousness is not illusion or screen but the being of the world itself. Along these lines, God is already something we are looking it from different perspectives. Some people see God as an idea or a projection of the species essence, created rather than creator. Others think pretty much the reverse, etc. Perceiving the same God directly does not mean without error. I can think a passing car is a blue Dodge Charger until it gets closer, and then I change my mind.

Vera Mont

It's not only Jesus who is subject to individual interpretations; the OT is full of horrible stuff that believers explain away as metaphor, allegory or whatever. And, of course, entire books that they prefer to ignore altogether. Religion is a subjective matter: the mean and vengeful reach for the punitive passages that forbid whatever they disapprove of; the mild and merciful point to forgiveness and turning the other cheek; the generous cite storing up not riches in this world; the powerful refer to the relation of masters to servants; the greedy will cite Matthew 25, in which he gives God's seal of approval to usury and polygamy.
There are eight million stories in the Holy Bible; pick whichever ones work for you.

Ciceronianus

I recently mentioned the verses to two different believers in Jesus. Both denied that Jesus ever said that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. After being shown the verses, both denied that Jesus meant that a child who curses a parent should be put to death. — Art48

That sort of thing has been going on for quite some time. I always think of that portion of Monty Python's Life of Brian, where those at the edge of the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount can't quite make out what Jesus is saying. Someone thinks he says "Blessed are the cheesemakers" and is corrected by another listener, who says "Well, you can't take him literally, you know. What he really means is 'Blessed are all makers of dairy products'" (or words to that effect). I mentioned this is a prior post and think some moderator deleted it, for reasons I don't know. Perhaps the moderator thought Jesus should be taken literally, or that cheesemakers are truly blessed.

Moliere

An ancient Greek philosopher said if horses had gods, their gods would be horses. — Art48

Xenophanes

Art48

The problem with God-behind-all-masks is the classic problem with Kant's reality-behind-all-appearence. — plaque flag

Regarding Kant, Schopenhauer noted that since we are a thing-in-itself, it should be possible to directly experience at least one thing-in-itself, i.e., our own existence. If God is our ultimate ground of existence (per Vedanta, Ekhart, & other mystics), we are capable of experiencing the God-behind-all-masks.

I suggest that appearance should not be understood as a blanket thrown over reality but simply as that reality from a perspective. Consciousness is not illusion or screen but the being of the world itself. Along these lines, God is already something we are looking it from different perspectives. — plaque flag

But some perspectives can be false, as when we see a mirage and think we are seeing water. If God is ultimate ground of all existence, then I agree that God is already something we are looking at. But most of the time, we don't see God. Rather, we see people and places and things.

plaque flag

Regarding Kant, Schopenhauer noted that since we are a thing-in-itself, it should be possible to directly experience at least one thing-in-itself, i.e., our own existence. — Art48

If we already are the 'hidden' thing, then it's not hidden ? To me the deepest meaning of the incarnation metaphor is that we are God in mortal flesh --- timebinding softwhere/softwhen in an hardwhere (and a hardwhen) that's gory and wet and mortal. As symbolic being, discursive subject, I am an immortalish vampire cyborg.

I'll share [ part of ] my own vision of Incarnation, which is basically Feuerbach's, who is like a sunnier Schopenhauer, alive to the self-love of the human species, its delight in itself in the mental and bodily beauty of others.

What we experience are the perceivable features of individual objects. It is through the act of thinking that we are able to identify those features through the possession of which different individuals belong to the same species, with the other members of which they share these essential features in common.
...
Unlike sense experience, thought is essentially communicable. Thinking is not an activity performed by the individual person qua individual.
...
The species has no existence apart form these individual organisms, and yet the perpetuation of the species involves the perpetual generation and destruction of the particular individuals of which it is composed. Similarly, Spirit has no existence apart from the existence of individual self-conscious persons in whom Spirit becomes conscious of itself (i.e., constitutes itself as Spirit).
...
Arguing thus, Feuerbach urged his readers to acknowledge and accept the irreversibility of their individual mortality so that in doing so they might come to an awareness of the immortality of their species-essence, and thus to knowledge of their true self, which is not the individual person with whom they were accustomed to identify themselves. They would then be in a position to recognize that, while “the shell of death is hard, its kernel is sweet” (GTU 205/20), and that the true belief in immortality is

a belief in the infinity of Spirit and in the everlasting youth of humanity, in the inexhaustible love and creative power of Spirit, in its eternally unfolding itself into new individuals out of the womb of its plenitude and granting new beings for the glorification, enjoyment, and contemplation of itself. (GTU 357/137)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/

Tom Storm

Reflecting on the incidents led me to the idea that there are two very different types of Jesus: 1) New Testament Jesus and 2) personal Jesus. New Testament Jesus is the Jesus of scripture, the character described in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and other New Testament books. Personal Jesus is the Jesus as imagined by some person. Everyone who believes in Jesus believes in their own personal Jesus. The relation of the believer and personal Jesus is identical to the relation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Sherlock Holmes; it’s identical to the relation of J. K. Rowling to Harry Potter. — Art48

I suspect that there's a third Jesus - that of the religious community a person belongs to. Often based on a priest's or preacher's version. Many followers are too 'frightened' to formulate their own notions and surrender to the account of a compelling and authoritative apologist or cleric. This may then come to be seen as personal Jesus, but is not one based on a significant and original interpretative act and is generally shared intersubjectivity with a religious community. In most cases, your Daves or Anns do not arrive at their Jesus without strong, persuasive influences and regular reinforcement.

Banno

↪Art48

You mean the stuff about Jesus is just shit people made up for their own ends?

Well, yes.

↪Ciceronianus

Does the blessing include those who make junket?

Wayfarer

I suggest that we might think of God/Jesus as an object seen from different 'perspectives.' — plaque flag

Would you say that about any other person? In what context is a person an object?

Consider the role of objectification and the dominance of the objective stance in modern culture. It is why we generally appeal to 'what is objectively the case' when attempting to establish a fact.

Within the objectively-dominated perspective, 'God' becomes one of another class of objects in the world. (Isn't just this that was criticized by Heidegger as 'onto-theology'?) Something like a cosmic film director or super CEO who can be conveniently blamed for all the bad stuff that happens in the world.

This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. The point is to enact loving-kindness, not to make it object of a theory about it. That is why any real spirituality requires participation, not just empty words, and requires an inner transformation, metanoia, real conversion (and not just flag-waving).

(See God does not Exist, Pierre Whalon, and God as Ground of Being. Also one of the very next books on my reading list, Religion and Nothingness.)

plaque flag

Would you say that about any other person? In what context is a person an object? — Quixodian

You are way too touchy about entity or object as mere pieces of terminology. Yes I myself am an entity or an object. Does not hurt my feelings at all.

Wayfarer

↪plaque flag

It's nothing personal. It's a philosophical observation.

plaque flag

I think you aren't reading me as charitably as you might. I'm perfectly able of just asserting a theology which would, without any justification, come off as sentimental.

I suggest that we might think of God/Jesus as an object seen from different 'perspectives.' A personality is a position in 'interpretative/hermeneutical space.' — plaque flag

Something like a cosmic film director or super CEO who can be conveniently blamed for all the bad stuff that happens in the world.

This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. — Quixodian

Note that you are giving another perspective on the same ~~intentional object~~ referent of 'God.' You say : some people are seeing God incorrectly --- or not as well as they could. I see better, namely that :

The point is to enact loving-kindness, not to make it object of a theory about it. — Quixodian

But I already quoted Feuerbach, who pointed toward :

a belief in ...the inexhaustible love and creative power of Spirit — plaque flag

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It's nothing personal. It's a philosophical observation. — Quixodian

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound annoyed. I wasn't. I was razzing you is all.

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That is why any real spirituality requires participation, not just empty words, and requires an inner transformation, metanoia, real conversion (and not just flag-waving). — Quixodian

The issue of real spirituality is, in a certain sense, the real issue period. This was my basic concern when I took up philosophy, and I've never stopped thinking about it.

I try to look through the surface associations of terminology with my X-ray structuralist goggles. The passionate communist is as 'spiritually' motivated as the born again Christian on fire with Jesus.

The heroic is the numinous. Or call it the ego ideal. Many phrases are good enough once the structural role is grasped. Stirner called it the sacred and the highest essence. It's as if we are programmed to decide upon and enact a heroism.

Sacred, then, is the highest essence and everything in which this highest essence reveals or will reveal itself; but hallowed are they who recognize this highest essence together with its own, i. e. together with its revelations. The sacred hallows in turn its reverer, who by his worship becomes himself a saint, as likewise what he does is saintly, a saintly walk, saintly thoughts and actions, imaginations and aspirations, etc.

In the foremost place of the sacred, then, stands the highest essence and the faith in this essence, our "holy faith."

Art48

I suspect that there's a third Jesus - that of the religious community a person belongs to. Often based on a priest's or preacher's version. Many followers are too 'frightened' to formulate their own notions and surrender to the account of a compelling and authoritative apologist or cleric. — Tom Storm

I'd say that a person's personal Jesus incorporates some of the religious community's picture of Jesus.
I think we agree. How we decide to count the number is not important.

This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. — Quixodian

Would you agree that the idea that personal Jesus is a mask implies that at least some of personal Jesus' characteristics must be inaccurate and, thus, should be negated? (Negated in the sense that a person ceases to believe those characteristics apply to the God behind the mask?

Tom Storm

I'd say that a person's personal Jesus incorporates some of the religious community's picture of Jesus.
I think we agree. How we decide to count the number is not important. — Art48

I agree but you did write -

led me to the idea that there are two very different types of Jesus: 1) New Testament Jesus and 2) personal Jesus — Art48

I have often been struck by a believer's impersonal Jesus - the important thing for me is the frequent lack of individual commitment - believers so often do not arrive at a picture of Jesus through deliberation, but often passively receive their messiah from a third party who did all the hard thinking and came to all the conclusions. Jesus is against homosexuality only in as much as Preacher Smith or Dad is against homosexuality.

In my discussions with Fundamentalists, I recall again and again believers with almost knowledge of the Bible and an account of Jesus so stunted and derivative that it scarcely counts as Christianity.

I try to look through the surface associations of terminology with my X-ray structuralist goggles. The passionate communist is as 'spiritually' motivated as the born again Christian on fire with Jesus.

The heroic is the numinous. Or call it the ego ideal. Many phrases are good enough once the structural role is grasped. Stirner called it the sacred and the highest essence. It's as if we are programmed to decide upon and enact a heroism. — plaque flag

That's a fascinating notion and rings true for me.

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That's a fascinating notion and rings true for me. — Tom Storm

:up:
Thanks, and it's nice to feel understood.

Wayfarer

↪Art48

Only just now read the OP fully. I see what you’re getting at but it’s not something I’d pursue. Clearly ‘faith in Jesus’ has inspired both great kindness and enormous cruelty, great art and profound delusion.

I already quoted Feuerbach — plaque flag

And that quote makes sense to me. I’ll read the rest of that SEP entry. And I agree with your point about perspective - I only riffed on that sentence about ‘objects’ to make a related point about epistemology and ‘unknowing’ in philosophy of religion

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↪Quixodian

@Art48 seems to adopt a 'Kantian' idea that God is hidden from us by our own looking at him. This is like saying that the trees are in the way of us seeing the forest. Having only ever known a world and anything it from a perspective, through eyes and as a personality, we can't know what we mean when we speak of an object from no perspective at all. The spider's perspective fixes this problem, but it's not clear why the spider should have a better view than human being.

Our language intends the God and not our private images of God. The 'private images' are the trees. God is just 'the trees' seen properly, from an ideal vantage point. I don't claim to see God from such a vantage point. What I'm saying applies to spatial objects seen perspectively, and I think Husserl's description of such seeing can be generalized to nonspatial entities like God, justice, and rationality. The entity is not behind or hidden by its appearances. It is this 'transcendent' system of appearances, transcendent because it is never seen from all sides at once, and it cannot be reduced to any single perception of it. We see that we only see it partially. We try to move closer, clean our 'glasses.'

LuckyR

↪Art48

Well your commentary on "personal Jesus" is exactly correct, since gods exist inter-subjectively, every god of every religion is, by definition personal. Of course most religions maintain sacred texts, in which their gods appear, but gods don't exist in texts, they exist in the (personal) minds of their believers.

Ciceronianus

Does the blessing include those who make junket? — Banno

They're especially blessed.

Personal Jesus and New Testament Jesus

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