Paul’s Dialectical Teaching
The Body of Christ
Monday, April 6, 2015
The first of Paul’s dialectics that I want to point out is the philosophical problem of the one and the many. How do you reconcile the seemingly endless diversity and any final or true unity between the many things in the universe? I am convinced that only the mystical and non-dual mind can equally honor the individual and the whole at the same time.
Paul resolves this paradox through his doctrine of the Body of Christ: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). He goes on to illustrate his point by saying that some members are an eye, some a foot, some a hand. I, Richard, am just a mouth. You too are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others’ full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in one overarching unity.
This leads Paul to a very concrete missionary strategy of building living communities which can produce a visible and believable message. (This is quite different from the post-Protestant regression into mere individual salvation.) Paul is a collective, corporate thinker, who creates corporate audio-visual aids to spread the message. Yet for centuries we’ve interpreted his message as if he is speaking about individuals. This has made Paul seem more like a mere moralist rather than the mystic he is. Mystics tend to see things in wholes, we get preoccupied with the parts—and never get beyond that.
Paul seems to think, and I agree with him, that corporate evil can only be overcome or confronted with corporate good. Paul uses primitive yet very powerful words for the negative side of corporations, institutions, and nations—in various translations: “thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers” (Colossians 1:16). These are not “bad angels” as much as collective evil attitudes. However, because they are so widely shared, they no longer look like evil. Paul is pointing to the mass consciousness or collective cultural moods that control us, things we can’t see when we’re inside of them. And, because of this, and the way we are programmed to think, the powers and principalities are hard to resist.
For instance, I’ve never heard a single sermon on the tenth commandment—“Thou shalt not covet . . . anything that is thy neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17)—because coveting goods is the only game in town. It’s called capitalism, consumerism, and advertising! It would be downright un-American to criticize any of these. In Paul’s thinking, those big cultural blindnesses can only be overcome by a group of people living and affirming and supporting one another in an alternative lifestyle. The individual can hardly live an alternative consciousness by himself or herself. The pressure to conform is too great, and the eyes (and words) to see it are just not there. It is no surprise that the word “non-violence” did not come into usage till the early 20th century.
Gateway to Silence:
I am not separate.
References:
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD);
St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (CD, MP3 download)
