METATHEOLOGY

A difference of cultural emphasis is noted between the ancient Near East and the old Far Eastern world. A humanistic heroic ideology prevailed in India and China with their satellite regions. The ancient Near East witnessed a colorful (theomachia: battle of gods). The Buddhistic pentalogue (the Five Commandments) starts with the prohibitive “Thou shalt not kill” (???? ??) whereas the biblical decalogue (the Ten Commandments) explicitly presupposes a (theomachia: battle of gods) by ordering “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20: 3).  The Confucian ideal concerns human relations with moral heroism and martyrdom: the relationships between king and subject, husband and wife, parents and children (????:????). Taoism suggests return to nature. Monotheism is, however, full of divine passion and ambition with the unique zeal of        (‘el qanna’: jealous God) (Ex 20: 5). The (theomachia: battle of gods) of the ancient Near East has consistently been replaced by monotheism which is now observed to be in conjunction with monosoterion (: unique salvation) (Acts 4: 12) expanding its influences upon the whole world. It turns out to be true throughout history that divinity is stronger than humanity.

The Western Europe of humanity and polytheism was transformed by monotheism and monosoterion (: unique salvation) (Acts 4: 12). Colonialism and imperialism joined human heroism and rational idealism in the  modern era. A strong yearning after emancipation from divine bondage and tyranny was brought to expression. At the same time the invisible realm of supernatural divinity seemed to retreat; the visible energy of human development and conquest has apparently become a global ideology. Modern intellectuals of philosophy have consistently been shy of calling divinity, and circuitous in making a detour to the sense of human achievements.  Partly a negation or denial was not positively granted to the hegemony of divinity (Kant, Hegel, Schelling); partly a shout of confidence was coming aloud in the decease of divinity (Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche).  Complete assurance of divinity has vanished from the intellectual climate of the Western world.

Intellect almost always accompanies a sense of superiority and pride. Script was originally invented to respond to daily practical need for mutual trust and  communication. But a scribal class in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt or in China came to hold an exclusively privileged position of bureaucratic hegemony, not admitting any commoner to infringe on their prerogative.  No possibility was open to commoners for an easy access to scribal heritage like an alphabetic system; easy access meant a threat to privilege. It was a miracle that ancient Canaan invented an extremely convenient means of communication: the Semitic alphabet or the Phoenician alphabet.  Old Scripture was inherited through a very easy access to script: a democratic literacy equal before human rights. This alphabet was transmitted to the Western world by trade; Greece made the best use of it. Though the alphabet was tremendously easy to master, it gave rise in Greece to another different superior class that produced an unbearably difficult sophisticated vocabulary of philosophy inaccessible to commoners through  Western history. This class has formed a ruling aristocratic class of culture and academic disciplines. It has undeniably influenced the theological personnel of pastoral duties and functions who have had to do with divinity.  The Empire of Rome exhibits a huge combination of Scripture and philosophy.  The modern intellectual world is in like manner affected, and is simultaneously in a situation to be, in turn, occupied by a cyberculture and a cybernetic language not easily accessible to primitives and less literate commoners.  Intellectualism is constantly manufacturing a sort of difficult terminology in the guise of superiority, hegemony and monopoly.  Thus divinity is allegedly either beclouded and covered or extinct. 

It is, nonetheless, really startling to be aware that “a Language was incarnated” (Jn 1: 14) without any handwriting but with encounter and dialogue which involve cardiomorphemes (motional behavior and shape of heart).  Divinity is active in so concealed a form despite apparent prevalence of intellectual humanity; a cardiomorphological confrontation is here neither evasive nor elusive.  One can see now how metatheology has worked in history and is working now as ever.