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Eternal Life and The Evil One

9/2/2022

4 Comments

 
Picture
We’re all familiar with the words “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s Prayer. However, the original Greek uses the phrase “τοῦ πονηροῦ,” best translated as “the Evil One.” So, Jesus is praying that we be delivered, not from evil events or motives, but from Satan himself, the Devil.

How to understand in modern terms Jesus’ personification of evil? Well, if God is defined as “Being Itself,” the Devil is a symbol of “Non-Being,” against which God struggles. Jesus is assuring us that, no matter what reverses God suffers in time and history, God—the “Ground of Being”—will ultimately triumph over Non-Being both in history and in our individual lives.

But how can that be? Were the six million Jews murdered by Hitler saved from the Evil One? Only, I’d argue, if there is a Heaven, the biblical symbol for Eternal Life. But what is Eternal Life? Is it a state of being in which our individual consciousness is preserved and flourishes?

I would answer, “Yes.” Of course, that answer raises another problem. Our modern, secular viewpoint is materialist. Modern humankind recognizes as real only that which we can see with our eyes or our scientific instruments. The idea of a spiritual realm in which we live an Eternal Life is commonly considered nonsense designed to allay our fear of death. And I feel the force of that atheistic idea. I myself am drawn to that rationalist argument.

Yet my spiritual side tells me that we must trust God. God—Being Itself—will take our finite, human being into Itself after we die. My ultimate take-away from the Lord’s Prayer? God will defeat the Evil One.

 ~ Richard Russell 
4 Comments
libby link
9/5/2022 05:29:18 pm

love will win because love has already won.

Particle Physics tells us that linear time is a function of material observation at the scale of human perception.
"
"All time is now". "Evil" too has already won, - evil devil eve - all stories of humankind who is the current iteration of that which asks the questions which set the whole shebang in medias res - here where we are in the ever moving middle.

Its complicated.

Reply
Richard Russell
9/7/2022 09:42:03 am

Hi, Libby.

I sort of understand your concept of "All time is now." It is, however, complicated. I guess mere human beings can never completely understand the mystery of God's Being.

Anyway, I deeply appreciate your evocative comment and hope to hear more from you in future.

Thanks.

Richard

Reply
Donald Lathrop
9/10/2022 09:19:54 pm

Hi Richard,

I like your reference to Tillich's phrase "Ground of Being".

However, I guess I don't really know what that term means, if I think hard about it.

I guess "ground" means some manner of underlayment of the experience of living, or "being". I associate "being" with existing, with living. On the other hand, I associate non-being with death or simply no longer existing. As I have never had any kind of contact with those I loved while we both existed, I find no evidence for any meaning to a state of "nonbeing". I guess the term simply suggests "ain't no moreness" and that doesn't work for me to bulid any meaning.

Keep up your good reflections.

Peace,
Don

Reply
Richard Russell
9/11/2022 04:24:54 pm

Hi, Don.

Tillich's "Ground of Being" could be replaced by the phrase "creative structure of being," which some of us refer to as "God." Surely we all agree that existence/nature has a structure that creates new forms (molecular and biological evolution).

As far as the struggle of Being against Non-Being, that's my personal hypothesis/guess that allows me to make sense of this crazy world.

Anyhow, keep up your good comments!

Richard

Reply



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