A response to James's observations on the value of good literature ... & even Harry Potter (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 10, 2012, 15:58 (289 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

I've been mulling a bit further on what I wrote in response to Beehive in the previous post and, in particular, my citing of the value James places on good literature (including the likes of Harry Potter and Batman).

To me what it all demonstrates is this deep need there seems to be in the human psyche for models. We look to literature, we look to movies, we look to sporting stars, we look to saints, as some kind of modelling as to how we might efficaciously live our lives. Sometimes we also look at figures in literature or public life in a negative way and say, "well that is not a good model for an intelligent, fulfilled or happy life".

In writing what I wrote in the previous post I wasn't trying to suggest that Jesus Christ is the only "model" for life. There are plenty of others. What has had me mulling further on this is about a claim we might make for the uniqueness or specialness of Jesus Christ as a model?

I've thought about this a lot over the years — and more especially after a wide range of commentaries we've published here on Catholica, from observations made by Ian Elmer, Tom Lee, Peregrinus, Tony Lowes, Brian Pitts, to many on the forum — the claim of Jesus being "the Son of God". My conclusion is that Jesus is unlikely to have thought of himself literally as "the Son of God" (complete with the virginal birth and all that). Where he is attributed to have used those sort of expressions in the scriptural record they were more in the manner of what we would call "figures of speech" or, in the Judaic meme of his time, they were "theological expressions" rather than scientific or medical expressions. More interesting than what Jesus might have thought about himself I suspect is what those who knew him personally might have thought about him. I suspect, based on the scriptural evidence, that many of them literally did believe he had such extraordinary powers that he literally must be "the Son of God" in a literal, factual sense rather than merely as some "figure of speech". It's a bit like the "starry-eyed adulation" one can still see in sectors of society for pop stars, or Olympic stars — or at this conference being sponsored by the Cardinal this weekend, for "leaders" or "people with a lot of money" [LINK].

An argument for the uniqueness or specialness of Jesus...

I think there are a range of separate arguments as to why Jesus ought be respected as a "special" and even "unique" model.

The first, and simplest, is simply the testimony of the eye witnesses. Whether what scripture says was actually said, or done, by Jesus, or was written later by scribes and seers with a deep knowledge of Judaic history and theology in the end doesn't matter (as far as this particular argument I'm putting here goes). What is plainly evident is this guy was "very special" and he attracted a significant following from people who eventually had to endure significant persecution for their belief in him. There are other figures in history of course who have attracted similar adulation, and a significant band of followers who had to undergo various forms of persecution for holding onto their beliefs.

I think the bigger and more enduring "test" of the claim for "specialness" or "uniqueness" of Jesus comes from the judgment of what might be termed "the long sweep of history". I remember at one stage George Orwell devoted one of his newspaper columns to writing about writers who only a decade or two previously had been big names and "best sellers" but at the time he was writing their names had almost completely disappeared from the landscape. There have similarly been many religious gurus down through historical time — and many have disappeared and we don't even know their names. Jesus though has endured. I think simply on the weight of numbers or, what in modern terms we would call "the statistical evidence", Jesus has a big claim to being pretty unique and an inspiration for a heck of a lot of people. In this context I don't think it matters whether they perceived him as some kind of "magician" or as some kind of "model for life", I'm really just pointing to the evidence that he can lay a claim to being a hugely significant figure in human history (for whatever reason).

To me the third argument I'd put up for the "uniqueness" or "specialness" of Jesus is the hardest to prove. It comes back to the argument I was putting to Beehive earlier: what is the evidence from people who have endeavoured to actually "live out" the Jesus' vision or "Way (of looking at life)"? As I wrote to my own children when they were about 18, I think any or all of the great religious paradigms (there are 8 or 10 of them in the world) really take a lifetime to learn or master. You can't undertake a four year degree at university in order to know all there is about Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity, or any of the others. All of them are a lifetime study. There is much in Catholicism that I might disagree with but, as I said to my children, when I find something fundamentally wrong or flawed in the story of Jesus himself that's when I think I might give up the religion I was born into and think about studying one of the others to see if it offers "better answers". So far — and this is now nearly twenty years after I offered that unsolicited advice to my children — I don't think I have yet found anything fundamentally flawed in the Jesus story. (Yes, plenty of flaws in the interpretations and superstitions piled on his person, but at the fundamental level — the sort of "Jesus our Brother" language Tom McMahon uses, or the Yeshua language that the likes of Brian Pitts or Leonard Swidler use — I have to say "I still believe in Jesus". Jesus offers "lessons for life" — a "modelling for life" — that eclipses the "lessons" or "modelling" provided by a Harry Potter, a Batman, a Superman, a Usain Bolt, a Don Quixote, or any of the other great figures of history, by the stellar distance of light years.

One of the things I'd really like to see is for a few bishops — the ones who are supposed to be the so-called "experts" in this sort of stuff — descending from their pulpits and actually engaging in the sort of robust discussion you find in this string about these things. I don't live in hope of it happening in my lifetime. This sort of discussion scares the living daylights out of them. Of all the presentations to be made at the two conferences in Sydney this weekend I think the only one I'd have the slightest interest in listening to is one being presented right about now as I write this by Eugene Hurley (Bishop of Darwin) entitled "Difficult questions Catholics ask". I have a sense that Eugene is one of the few who might be able to descend from the pulpit and discuss these sort of questions in our language with utter candour and honesty. From the rest of them we tend to get either "institutional spin" or, when the questions get too difficult, they suddenly find they are busy with other urgent tasks and they run away from the discussion.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]