Word Study: ψυχή (Gr. Psuché)

Let’s talk about John 10, verses 14-18. It’s talking about the sheep and the shepherd- an extended metaphor for Jesus and us (believers, and people/humans in general). 

I recently got an interlinear bible; it has the New Testament in English and Greek, with a word-to-word translation line-by-line (hence the interlinear), and for the Old Testament it has Hebrew and English. It’s So. awesome.

Let’s take a look at the English of these verses:

 14 I [Jesus] am the good shepherd; I know my sheep [humans, Israelites] and my sheep know me— 

15just as the Father [-God] knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 

16 I have other sheep [humans, all nations] that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 

18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” [Emphasis and parenthetical comments added by me]

 As it turns out, the word that NIV translates “life” in Koine Greek is actually the word psuché, [or ψυχή, in its neutered form] which we derive our modern word “psyche” from. According to Strong’s concordance(5590), it means one’s soul, seat of affection and will…. One’s individual identity. in other words, Jesus gives his soul for us. His total identity.

Jesus was God who became man. He came down from his seat next to the throne of the Father-God to become fully God, and fully human person on earth in order that we could be saved through his death and sacrifice on the cross. Did he alter his identity in order to do this? No, because ultimate love is part of God is; his identity as a loving God was merely manifested in his coming down to earth.

But he did not die because puny humans killed him. No, his sacrifice of his will and life were a result of his choice. This choice was empowered by the authority given to him by the Father-God. And he returns to sit at the right hand of the father, but he gave it all up to show us his love. His identity is as the one who loves us enough to give up and sacrifice his will so that we can be saved.

This blows me away. I don’t know about you, but saying “oh yeah, Jesus gave his life for me, but nbd [no big deal] because he’s God anyway” doesn’t have as much strength as “Jesus gave his will, soul, and individual identity, and laid it all down in order to save us sheep.” It is one thing to say you will die for someone. It is another thing to say you will give your entire identity, life, and soul for someone. Especially if those someones are similar enough in attitudes and behavior to be compared to sheep (and all the positive and negative associations that come with that). 

 

 

 

Christianity Is Not For the Anti-Intellectual Mind

 

[Originally posted at Naked Christian Blog]

A common complaint of atheists, agnostics, the secularly religious, and skeptics of Christianity in is that Christianity is not a religion that is particularly intellectual; that is, it is not intellectually rigorous, or defensible on a scientific and philosophical level.

Here are five common arguments or assertions that I’ve heard from atheist friends and skeptics personally:

 

• The Bible is unreliable and can’t be trusted as a historical document.
• There are no real, concrete methods to back up or conclusively prove the existence of a Judeo-Christian God.
• Any said attempts at explanations are intellectually vacuous– that is, they contain “trap doors,” or non-sequitur reasoning to try and explain why the theological explanations precariously hold together; not concretely laid, logically-sound syllogisms
• A large percentage of Christians reject evolution as the source of life on earth, which is ridiculous, because evolution is scientifically proven thought (people who believe that the earth was created in a short amount of time are akin to those who believe unicorns actually exist)
• The Christian views of morality are antiquated and (even worse), hurtful and hateful to minority groups such as (but not limited to) women, homosexuals, transgenders, etc., therefore Christianity is not a valid view or religion in our postmodern times.

I will be discussing these five points or arguments each on their own in my proceeding blogs, but first I wanted to tell you a bit more about myself and my background and why you should listen to what I have to say at all.

First of all: I did not get a degree in philosophy, from either a public or Christian university. I’ve merely spent a decent amount of time reading about whether Christianity (theism) is a valid philosophical viewpoint to hold as opposed to, say, pantheism or naturalism (atheism). The observations in my blogs are primarily based on the thoughts and reading I have done on these subjects. I love debating and discussing theology, philosophy and (to borrow the old definition) natural philosophy, but do not expect everything I say to be bulletproof; in fact, I welcome dissension and pointing out weaknesses in my arguments from all viewpoints; I only know what I know, and I can’t know more unless someone else shows something else to me.

That being said, I graduated from a public university a year and a half ago with a dual major of Linguistics and Creative Writing with a minor in Arabic. Even though all these areas of study are unswervingly focused on language, they gave me a a mere glimpse  into language, culture and ontology in different capacities and usages; and yet it was a glimpse that has only sparked my love for pursuit of more knowledge and experience in these areas. I spent a summer studying Arabic in Amman, Jordan, and that experience alone changed my life and broadened my perspective of the world, to say nothing of the other countless hours spent studying a variety of languages, literary theories, philosophies and authors whose own views were nothing like my own.

I say all this only to mean that if a white girl from an ultra-conservative Christian home can read and study literature as varied as Manuel Muñoz, Georgio Agamben, Karl Marx, Chuck Klosterman, Sandra Cisneros, Ibn Battuta, Noam Chomsky, etc., then maybe you could read a little bit from a conservative Christian girl even if you don’t necessarily share my perspectives on the issues at hand.

And who knows? Maybe a really cool discussion will come of it.

It is a sad regression in the twenty-first century to see people being able to discuss conflicting viewpoints and ideas without vitriol and respect for their peers become an impossibility. That being said, I am, in essence, a lay(wo)man, and most of what I say will be from a personally derived path of logic and experience implemented with writers’ and philosophers’ and scientists’ works.

When I first arrived at the public university I graduated from, I knew that I would be in the minority as far as staunch Christian faith. I had heard of how many young adults enter into the university atmosphere and walk away from their childhood faith. I accepted the possibility that the University might change my mind on a lot of things, but I walked into the classroom with the mentality that if I couldn’t hold on to my faith through the college experience, then my faith wasn’t one worth having.

I have an open relationship with God, and I have an agreement with him that (though this is laughable to me) should I ever find a worldview or religion or mindset that is more cohesive, logically sound, and supported by reality than what I currently believe, I will move my allegiance from the Christian God I serve to this new bastion of religionism/secularism/whateverism.

This may seem to border on the heretical to some Christians, but this mindset is built on the belief that the God I know and love made me with a mind that can and will analytically analyze the living daylights out of anything. And why, I wonder, would God create me that way if he didn’t expect me to use it in every area of my life? God created humans with great intellectual capacity, and I think he wants us to use it– for beneficial intellectual pursuits, that is. And besides, if my God who I believe in really is the God of the universe and who I think he is (and so much more than that), then he is strong enough and burly enough to take a little critical analysis.

It’s a part of who I am to adhere to the truth no matter what. In doing so, I honor God—even if the adherence to truth might hypothetically send me away from God… But seriously, not really.

My goal in writing this series of blogs is to show that Christianity (contrary to popular opinion) demands an intellectual relationship with God just as much an emotional and spiritual one. Christianity is a very intellectually satisfying religion and is not a bunch of contradictions. The intellectual rigor of Christianity is dependent on one thing: your willingness to learn and go deeper into the religion that is just as commonly associated with egg-laying bunnies as it is with ontology and the philosophical and scientific foundations of civilization as we know it.

If you are already a Christian, I hope that these blogs encourage you to grow in your faith in an intellectual manner.

One final thought:

“Faith” is often misinterpreted; to many, it means blindly believing in something without reason or recourse.

I don’t think this is the faith Christians are supposed to possess. In fact, if this is the only kind of faith you possess, you will not be a Christian for very long.

The faith that God wants and shows in his followers in the Bible is a belief based on the evidence seen before our eyes and a trust in our past experiences of God in order to stretch and grow our current faith.

If you’re interested in diving into some books on the questions above, check out these resources (many of which are by former atheists, I might add)

Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

Mere Christianity: A look at the foundational philosophy for a Christian worldview

I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist