Fit Bodies, Fat Minds

Every morning you see them beating the footpaths with the modern mantra, “fit body equals higher quality of life ”. They are also to be seen on the courts like long grass swaying in unison as they practise tai chi or glistening brows and sweaty muscles pounding iron in some gym or other. While this is all well and good if not somewhat disturbing for the couch potato what has happened to the art of healthy meditation?

Fit Bodies Fat Minds is a book written by Os Guinness to stimulate us out of our torpid thinking habits. Aeons ago the wise man Socrates wrote: The unexamined life is not worth living. What did he mean? Is quality of life going to be measured merely in terms of what sort of a trace we leave on a heart monitor? Or will it rather be measured by the impact our life has left on others? Will we be men with great cardio-vascular statistics or as C.S. Lewis wrote: Men without chests?
There is according to William Clifford an obligation, a duty to examine what we believe and why we believe it, a duty to reason: He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it; he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be iso­lated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action. (From the book Truth by Simon Blackburn.)

W. E. Sangster reiterates Clifford in this piece: Whatever has been is. Past thought and feeling sink into the subconscious, not to lie forever dormant, but to colour future thought and feeling, and sometimes to rush up with terrible power to effect the will.
Another way of looking at this is to ask- how do we make everyday decisions about everyday matters? Whether we realize it or not each of us has a worldview. A worldview could be described as the sum total of all that we hold both consciously and in the sub-conscious- our total paradigm and from this we draw or rely on to make all our decisions. It is true to say that the closer our worldview is to reality- of how things really are- the more real or authentic our lives will be since all decisions are a reflection of the sum total of our true beliefs. Like it or not a worldview is part of our makeup, everyone has one irrespective of whether it is a view of your own making- through conscious effort- or just something imbibed without thought from the culture we live in.

Of course the trouble is wherever we go we take our baggage with us. How do we minimize subjectivity and maximize objectivity? How do we avoid seeing the world through rose tinted glasses? Or indeed how do we avoid creating a world, which is worse than it actually is? Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers are referring to this problem when they came up with this statement:

'We each create our world by what we choose to notice; creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.'
Is there really no hope of being objective? What about maths? Surely 2 plus 2 equals 4 in any place at any time and in any language? Is there any hope that not all things are necessarily relative? We live in an age that has all but abandoned the idea of absolutes, truth is what you make it but is only true for you; and what I make to be true for me is equally valued as true, but how can both views be true when they are diametrically opposed? What about language? If you can understand what I am saying (even if it isn’t a perfect understanding) then isn’t there some hope of objective truth. If all things were truly relative (according to each individuals perception of reality) then wouldn’t any real communication be impossible?

According to Peter Berger Sociologist there is hope- and it lies in examining what we believe and if necessary modifying any beliefs that don’t measure up-

Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.

In this he echoes Clifford also, in that we owe it to ourselves, we have a duty to examine our beliefs in the light of reason and thus become freer people.

Stopping in our movements is sometimes the last thing people want to do, especially when it entails some serious introspection- we live in the age of busyness, as some wit once said we have evolved from human beings into human doings! We are a driven generation.

Are there objective standards against which we may measure what we believe? Are there tests against which we may prove our ideas? Is this the realm and aim of philosophy?

How do we come to have our beliefs? Are we hard wired or do our beliefs merely reflect our circumstances and environment? Why do we have beliefs at all, can we not live adequately within the bounds of known facts?

Because life is what it is and we are constituted how we are, we all have beliefs. Life is not always forthcoming with facts but it is always demanding our decisions, consequently many of our decisions are based on our best guess and this is where our beliefs come in. But where do we find the truth? Someone once said,

“ What you believe is determined by why you believe it”
That is to say the things you have chosen to believe are somewhat predetermined by where you choose to look for answers, your pre-existing beliefs have determined what sources of truth you are going to pursue and therefore have a direct influence on what you will come to believe. For example a prejudice against religion will mean you will not look to the Bible or the Q’uran for answers. It also means a prejudice against bias will ensure that you do not acknowledge your preconcieved assumptions and unproven metaphysical claims that are basic to your worldview.

Implications from Free Will regarding Christs Mandate From God:Power Over All Flesh

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.(John 17:1,2,3)

John records in his gospel the prayer of Jesus shortly before he was taken and delivered up to death by crucifixion.

Jesus declares for all to hear that the father has given him power over all flesh for a certain purpose. It is useful to ask some questions of these statements. What, for example, is meant by the phrase: power over all flesh? The word power is translated from the word:
exousia {ex-oo-see'-ah} Strong's {1849} Definitions: from (1832) (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e. (subject) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (object) mastery (concrete magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: - authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength.

Interestingly it is the same word used shortly after as recorded in John 19:10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Whatever else we may believe of this word in John 17:2 it is quite plain that Pilate was assuring Jesus that he held absolute power over his life and death. It is also the same word that Jesus just as confidently assured Pilate that: Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: (John 19:11)

We have here in fact, tri-partite claims to power. God, who- by definition is all-powerful- has given Jesus, according to his own testimony, power over all flesh. So the power of Jesus (in respect of the situation above) is power over all flesh for a particular purpose. It is power conferred on Jesus to enable him to fulful a God given mandate. Jesus has been given power from the Almighty to accomplish a task with regard to those whom God had given him. To the contrary, Pilate, being the representative Roman potentate, claims his absolute sovereignty over his domain and it appeared that -holding Jesus captive- his was the upper hand. The word power in all of these instances, from the context is plainly power over others.

To what purpose did God give Jesus this power over mankind? …that he should give eternal life…We get from this that the mission of Jesus was to give eternal life, this was the reason God endowed him with power over mankind, or at the least to as many as those whom thou hast given him. Clearly, in the ordinary use of language we do not use the phrase "as many as" with reference to the whole group, the whole class to which we are referring.  If we had been present at the sinking of the Titanic it would have been all too clear what was meant if we had been instructed to save "as many as" we could fit on the lifeboats.

 If we ask the question: What power did Pilate claim over Jesus? It is quite obvious that Pilate believed that he could quite arbitrarily kill him or let him live. That he held in his hands life or death for Jesus. It hardly needs saying that Pilate trusted he had this capacity irrespective of whether the Christ was actually willing to die or not. This understanding is intrinsic to the statement "power over".

Now a curious thing arises when we ask this same question of Jesus’ power. What do I mean?

Well suppose we ask this question of Jesus’ power over all flesh: What power does Jesus claim over you? According to the verses above, Jesus claims that he has the power to give you eternal life. So far so good. But then what if we were to ask: does he have the power to give you eternal life irrespective of whether you were willing to have it or not? We quite readily accord Pilate the advantage of power over life and death irrespective of willingness in the subject; but will you accord the same for Jesus? Have you not even more reason to do so? After all Pilate’s power was merely mandated to him by the Emperor of Rome whereas the Christ has a heavenly mandate. Pilate had invested in his office all the power of the Roman Empire true enough, but is that anything in comparison to the power invested in Christ by the Creator of the Universe? (In Pilate’s own mind he was empowered by Rome, not God.)

Your reaction to the above is determined by your understanding of the human will, if you are of the opinion that you are naturally able to refuse eternal life you seem to be running contrary to the tenor of scripture. If Jesus cannot give you eternal life (whether you are willing or not) then it must of necessity follow and be true that he does not have power over all flesh! Now many will be asking what is the point of all this discussion of power. No one is forced to be a Christian against their will are they?            

The point is to make plain where our confidence lies- in the infallible, immutable all powerful will of God, or in the fickle, human will. God does not anywhere say he gave Christ power to offer eternal life. No, not at all, on the contrary Christ said he had been given power over all flesh in order to give eternal life to as many as the father had given him. Now when C.S. Lewis was finally converted he did say that he was the most reluctant convert in all of England- dragged,  as it were, kicking and screaming into the kingdom but this is far from what normal experience teaches. This teaching in scripture exemplifies what has become known as "irresistable grace". What then, shall we say of the role of human will in the salvation event? Our willingness (to follow Christ) is in fact part of Christ's "power over all flesh".

"All things have been delivered to Me by my father, and no one knows who the son is except the father, and who the father is except the son, and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him." Luke 10:22

" For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified." Romans 8

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:8

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Philippians 2:13

I would suggest that if you do not accord Jesus with- at the very least- the same magnitude of power that you were willing to extend to Pilate, then you are guilty of the same presupposition that Pilate held: The ultimate sovereignty of the human will as opposed to the sovereign free will of God alone.  We should not make Pilates mistake our own. He trusted in the absolute sovereignty of man in the form of Roman rule but did not reckon with power from on high.

When Jesus responded to Pilate’s claim to absolute power over him, it was a magnificently staggering rebuttal: Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: (John 19:11)

Even the power of evil intent, whether it is to refuse to give life to the Son of God, or whether it is to refuse eternal life from the Son of God, is in an ultimate sense, under the sovereign power of God alone.

For further discussion regarding irresistible grace go here: