Latest / Reformed Thinking / Knowing God, Knowing Ourselves | John Calvin

Transcript

Knowing God, Knowing Ourselves | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Imagine you have spent your entire life living in a pitch
0:03
black cave. Right.
0:04
Like, absolute total dark, yeah. Total dark.
0:07
You've never seen the sky. You've never seen a fire.
0:10
You have never even seen a candle.
0:11
OK, setting the scene. And one day you are crawling
0:14
around in the dark and you find a dirty, smudged Gray rock.
0:20
Just a basic piece of rubble. Spot on.
0:22
Just a piece of rubble, but because it is the lightest thing
0:25
you have ever encountered in this pitch black environment,
0:27
your eyes adjust to it. Oh, I see where this is going.
0:30
You spend years marveling at this rock, right?
0:33
You become convinced it is the brightest, purest white object
0:36
in the entire universe. Because you literally have no
0:39
other frame of reference. Precise So what happens to your
0:43
mind, and you know, your vision, when someone finally drags you
0:46
outside that cave and forces you to stare directly into the
0:50
midday sun? You'd be completely blinded.
0:52
Yeah, it would be a shock to the system.
0:54
Welcome to reformed thinking. Today we are unpacking A
0:57
framework that takes a sledgehammer to the way modern
1:00
society tells us to view ourselves.
1:02
It really does. It shatters the whole modern
1:04
paradigm. It does.
1:05
We are looking at some historical excerpts from John
1:08
Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and we are
1:11
focusing on the intricate two way relationship between knowing
1:15
God and knowing ourselves. So this is a deep dive tailored
1:20
specifically for you, the listener, if you want to gain
1:23
this knowledge quickly but thoroughly.
1:25
And it is a framework that completely upends our modern
1:29
instincts. How so?
1:31
Well if you look at the self help industry today, or
1:34
psychology, or even just general cultural advice, the reflex is
1:38
to treat self knowledge as a closed loop.
1:41
Like looking inward. Yeah, the idea is that if you
1:44
want to understand who you are, you have to look inward.
1:46
You take personality tests, you go on solitary retreats, you sit
1:49
in quiet. Rooms, right?
1:50
You try to isolate your mind to figure out your true identity.
1:53
Spot on, but the source material we are examining today argues
1:57
the complete opposite. It really does not pull any
1:59
punches. No, it does not.
2:00
It opens with a claim that true sound wisdom consists of only
2:04
two interconnected parts. Just two.
2:06
Just two. The knowledge of God and the
2:09
knowledge of ourselves. On the surface, that sounds like
2:12
a fairly simple categorization. It does sound simple at first
2:15
class. But then you get to the core
2:17
tension of the text. It introduces this massive
2:20
chicken or the egg scenario. Right.
2:22
Which of these two types of knowledge comes first?
2:24
Yeah. How does one trigger the other?
2:26
I mean, can you ever actually know yourself without knowing
2:29
God or vice versa? That is the central problem, the
2:32
Tex wrestles. With is a huge question.
2:34
It is these two types of knowledge are joined by so many
2:37
bonds that discerning which one precedes the other is incredibly
2:41
difficult. Like untangling a massive knot.
2:44
Yeah, a huge knot. But to grasp what wisdom
2:48
actually is, the writer argues, we have to start by looking at
2:51
the undeniable reality of our own human condition.
2:54
We have to start with what we possess.
2:56
We do, and that observation, interestingly enough, forces an
3:00
upward gaze. OK, let's breakdown the
3:02
mechanics of that upward gaze, because the text makes a jarring
3:05
point right out of the gate. It really is jarring.
3:08
It states that no one can look upon himself without immediately
3:11
turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God.
3:14
Which is a bold claim. Extremely bold, Yeah.
3:17
It implies that true self reflection is impossible without
3:20
your thoughts naturally bouncing upward.
3:23
Bouncing up toward a creator. Yeah, but if I am just sitting
3:25
here taking inventory of my own life, my career, my skills, my
3:29
family, why does that automatically force my brain to
3:32
think about a divine creator? Well, it comes down to the
3:35
origin of your attributes. What do you mean by that?
3:37
When? You take that inventory, you
3:39
notice your intellect, your physical abilities, your
3:42
talents. The things I am good.
3:44
At Yeah, the things you excel at, the text refers to these as
3:47
our mighty gifts. Mighty gifts, OK?
3:49
But a moment of honest reflection reveals a stark
3:52
reality. You did not invent those gifts.
3:56
I mean, I worked hard for my degree, but I did not invent the
3:58
brain that got the degree. That is the point.
4:00
You did not conjure your own intellect out of thin air.
4:03
Your very existence is a subsistence in the one God.
4:07
OK, subsistence. That is a heavy philosophical
4:11
concept. It is a bit weighty, yes.
4:13
I want to make sure we are not just using dictionary
4:15
definitions here. Sure, let's ground it.
4:17
Think of subsistence like a desktop computer that doesn't
4:21
have an internal battery. OK, I am with you.
4:24
It is plugged directly into the wall socket.
4:26
As long as the electricity flows, the screen is bright, the
4:29
processor runs, the fans spin. It looks like it has a life of
4:33
its own. Right, but the second you pull
4:35
the plug, the entire machine goes dead instantly.
4:38
It has no independent life. Zero.
4:40
It doesn't generate its own energy, it is just drawing it
4:43
continuously from an external source.
4:45
That is a highly accurate way to visualize it.
4:48
The text actually uses a reference from the book of Acts,
4:50
noting that in him we live and move.
4:53
Meaning our basic ability to take a single breath is like
4:56
that computer drawing electricity.
4:58
Yeah, it is all borrowed energy. Because we are not generating
5:01
our own life force, observing our own existence naturally
5:05
forces a logical mind to look for the origin point of the
5:09
electricity you have. To follow the cord to the wall.
5:12
Spot on, and the text provides a very vivid natural image to
5:17
illustrate this mechanism. The dew analogy.
5:20
Yeah, it compares the benefits we receive in life to dew
5:23
falling from heaven. I love that analogy.
5:25
If you are walking through a dry, barren field at dawn and
5:29
suddenly your boots are soaked with dew on the grass, you know
5:33
the moisture did not spontaneously generate from the
5:36
dead dirt. It had to come from the
5:38
atmosphere. Right, it came from above.
5:40
The writer takes that imagery a step further, comparing these
5:43
benefits to rivulets that lead us to the spring itself.
5:47
Like little streams of water. Yeah, if you were hiking in the
5:50
woods and you stumble across a rivulet, a tiny trickling stream
5:55
of fresh water, your logical conclusion is not that the water
6:00
just materialized out of the rocks.
6:02
That would defy physics. It would.
6:05
The stream implies a source. If you follow that little
6:08
stream, it leads you to a larger river and eventually it guide
6:11
you all the way of the mountain to the spring.
6:13
The spring is the source of the water, just like God is the
6:16
source of the mighty gifts. That is the connection the text
6:18
makes, yeah. So when you look at the good
6:20
things in your own life, those are the rivulets.
6:23
Tracing them backward naturally leads you up the mountain.
6:25
You start by looking at yourself, but the undeniable
6:28
evidence of the water forces you to look at the peak.
6:31
That is the first mechanism. Our gifts point upward.
6:34
OK, but the text does not stop there, does it?
6:36
No, it's shift gears dramatically.
6:39
Here how so it? Argues that it is not just our
6:41
gifts and benefits that point us to God, there is something else
6:45
that does an even more effective job of disclosing the infinitude
6:49
of benefits reposing in God. And what is that?
6:52
Our absolute poverty. OK, the text actually says.
6:56
Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of
7:00
benefits. Which is incredibly
7:02
counterintuitive. It really is.
7:03
You would naturally assume the good things point to the good
7:05
source. Like a beautiful painting points
7:08
to a talented painter. Yeah, but here the argument is
7:11
that the lack of good things, the brokenness, is what really
7:14
throws the spotlight on the spring.
7:16
It requires understanding the specific theological context the
7:19
writers operating within, right? The text speaks of a miserable
7:23
ruin into which the rebellion of the first man cast us.
7:26
A miserable ruin. Yes, this framework does not
7:30
view humans as empty vessels waiting to be filled up with
7:32
knowledge. It views us as ruined
7:35
structures. We are devastated, according to
7:37
this text. The vocabulary used to describe
7:39
this ruin is intense. Very graphic.
7:41
It talks about mankind being a veritable world of miseries.
7:46
It's as we are despoiled of divine raiment, leaving our
7:49
shameful nakedness to expose a teeming horde of infamies.
7:53
A teeming horde of infamies. That sounds like an infestation
7:56
of insects under a rotten log. It is a graphic depiction of
8:00
total depravity. It paints A bleak picture.
8:02
The idea is that humanity has been stripped of its glorious
8:05
original clothing, the divine Raymond, and is left shivering,
8:09
exposed and utterly corrupted. But wait, I have a hard time
8:12
with that phrasing. What part?
8:14
If I look at human history, sure, I see war and famine and
8:16
ruin, but I also see incredible things.
8:19
That is true. I see doctors dedicating their
8:21
lives to curing diseases. I see beautiful symphonies.
8:24
I see parents sacrificing everything for their children.
8:27
Acts of genuine good, yeah. If we are just a teeming horde
8:31
of infamies, how does this framework account for any human
8:35
goodness? Why don't we just see absolute
8:38
evil all the time? That is a crucial distinction to
8:41
make. Calling humanity a ruin does not
8:44
mean humans are incapable of anything good or beautiful.
8:47
OK, unpack that for me. Think of a ruined mansion.
8:50
Like an old abandoned estate. Yeah, if you walk through a
8:53
collapsed, abandoned estate, you might still see gorgeous marble
8:57
columns, intricate tile work on the floor and a beautiful grand
9:01
staircase. Right, you can recognize the
9:03
brilliance of the original architect.
9:05
Spot on, but the roof is caved in, the windows are shattered
9:09
and weeds are growing through the floorboards.
9:11
It is falling apart. The presence of the beautiful
9:13
marble Collins does not change the fact that the house is
9:16
fundamentally uninhabitable. It is still a ruin.
9:18
It is a ruin. The symphonies and the medical
9:21
advancements you mentioned are the beautiful columns, remnants
9:24
of the original design, but the structure itself is
9:27
fundamentally compromised by the infamies.
9:29
Oh, I see. So the beauty we do see just
9:31
highlights the tragedy of the collapse.
9:34
That is a great way to put it. And the text notes that this
9:36
miserable ruin produces a specific psychological reaction.
9:40
It does. It says we are stung by the
9:42
consciousness of our own unhappiness.
9:44
We experience fasting and hungering.
9:47
Yes, the ruin is not a comfortable place to live.
9:49
Obviously not. Through the fear and the hunger
9:52
that the ruin produces, we learn humility.
9:55
But look, if I am listening to this deep dive right now, my
9:58
first instinct is to wonder about the psychological toll of
10:02
this. Sounds depressing.
10:03
Yeah, doesn't dwelling on my own depravity and nakedness just
10:07
lead to despair? A lot of people ask that.
10:09
If I look in the mirror and genuinely see a ruin, my
10:11
instinct is to give up. I don't naturally want to seek a
10:15
higher being, I just want to hide.
10:18
Sure. How does acknowledging our
10:19
misery act as a catalyst rather than a crushing weight?
10:22
Because of the contrast it creates in your.
10:24
Mind the contrast? The text argues that from the
10:27
feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity and
10:31
depravity, we recognize something outside of ourselves.
10:35
We realize we lack something. We realize that the tree light
10:38
of wisdom, sound virtue, full abundance of every good, and
10:43
purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone.
10:46
The fasting and hungering. Yeah, think about the physical
10:49
sensation of hunger. If you eat junk food all day,
10:52
you never crave A nutritious meal.
10:54
Your stomach feels full even though you are malnourished.
10:57
You are technically starving for nutrients, but you feel fine.
11:01
But when you are truly starving, when your stomach is empty and
11:05
cramping, you don't just sit there and think about the
11:07
emptiness. The.
11:08
Pain of the hunger forces your brain to obsess over food.
11:12
You seek vents. What you lack, the misery itself
11:15
creates the appetite. That is it.
11:17
The dissatisfaction is a mandatory psychological step.
11:20
The text makes that pretty clear.
11:22
The writer makes it explicitly clear we cannot seriously aspire
11:27
to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves.
11:30
You have to feel the sting of the illness before you are
11:33
motivated to search for the cure.
11:34
If you think you are healthy, you never make an appointment
11:37
with a doctor. You have to feel the pain,
11:39
notice the symptom, recognize the infirmity.
11:41
The text it says we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate
11:46
the good things of God. Which highlights a tremendous
11:48
danger discussed in the text. Yes, the danger of ignorance.
11:52
The source material asks what man in all the world would not
11:56
gladly remain as he is, so long as he does not know himself.
12:00
If a person is content with their own gifts and ignorant of
12:03
their own misery, they stagnate. They never move.
12:07
It is the comfort of ignorance. Going back to the Ruin mansion,
12:11
if you don't realize it is a ruin, you might think you're
12:14
living in a palace. You arrange the rubble, you
12:16
sweep the dirt into a neat pile. You set up a little chair in the
12:20
corner of a collapsed room and you tell yourself everything is
12:23
fine and. Because you are content playing
12:24
in the rubble, you never look for a better home.
12:27
Now never look up. That artificial contentment is
12:29
the ultimate trap. Recognizing your miserable state
12:32
is the only thing that breaks the illusion.
12:34
It is the only way out. The text concludes this first
12:37
dynamic by saying that the knowledge of ourselves not only
12:40
arouses us to see God, but also leads us by the hand to find
12:45
Him. It takes us by the hand.
12:47
The realization of our poverty is not designed to grind us into
12:51
the dirt. No, it is a mechanism designed
12:53
to pull us toward the only place where true light and sound
12:56
virtue exist. OK.
12:58
But as we move into the second phase of the source material, we
13:02
encounter a massive problem. A huge roadblock.
13:05
Attempting to look at our misery in isolation, trying to gain
13:08
self knowledge without first looking at God has a fatal flaw.
13:12
Human beings have a built in psychological defense mechanism
13:16
that prevents us from evaluating our own ruin accurately.
13:19
This is where the framework gets fascinating.
13:21
It really is. Because if we just sit around
13:23
trying to evaluate our own misery, we almost always end up
13:26
making excuses for ourselves. We convince ourselves the ruin
13:29
isn't that bad. Right, so the text flips the
13:32
equation entirely. Knowing ourselves is literally
13:35
impossible without first gazing at the divine standard.
13:38
The writer identifies this defense mechanism as an innate
13:41
trap of pride. An innate trap.
13:43
The text states plainly that man never achieves a clear knowledge
13:47
of himself unless he is first looked upon God's face and then
13:51
descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.
13:54
You have to look up before you can look down.
13:56
Why? Because the text points out that
13:59
we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise
14:02
and holy. It calls this pride innate in
14:04
all of us. We come out of the womb with a
14:07
default operating system that constantly whispers you are
14:10
doing a great job. We are inclined by nature to
14:13
hypocrisy. The argument here is that unless
14:16
we stand convinced by clear, undeniable proofs of our own
14:20
unrighteousness, foulness, folly and impurity, we will just keep
14:24
believing we are the heroes of our own story.
14:26
And we are never convinced of our foulness if we only use
14:29
ourselves as the standard of measurement.
14:31
We need an objective standard. The text insists the Lord is the
14:35
sole standard by which this judgment must be measured.
14:38
And this leads to an analogy in the source material that
14:40
absolutely shatters the way we evaluate our own morality.
14:43
This is the concept of The Dirty white object.
14:46
This is one of the most brilliant visual explanations of
14:49
human hypocrisy in the text. Let's breakdown the optics of
14:52
how this works in the human mind because it's so insightful.
14:55
Yeah, let's look at the mechanics of.
14:56
It we talked about this a bit in the intro with The Cave.
14:59
Imagine an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects.
15:03
A completely dark space. Right.
15:05
You were in a room painted charcoal black.
15:07
The furniture is black. The lighting is incredibly dim.
15:11
OK. I am picturing it.
15:12
Then someone places an object on the table that is a modeled
15:16
dirty, smudged Gray, white just. A filthy rag?
15:19
Basically, yeah. Because your only frame of
15:21
reference is pitch black, your eye evaluates that duty white
15:26
object and judges it to be absolute, pure whiteness.
15:29
It looks brilliant. Simply because of the contrast.
15:32
The text takes this optical illusion and applies it directly
15:36
to our moral and spiritual vision.
15:37
How does that map onto our daily lives?
15:40
Because nothing appears within or around us that has not been
15:44
contaminated by great immorality, What is a little
15:47
less vile pleases us as a thing most pure.
15:50
We confine our minds within the limits of human corruption.
15:53
We restrict our standard of measurement to a horizontal
15:57
plane A. Horizontal plane.
15:58
Think about how this plays out in modern society.
16:01
Think about social media. Oh, social media is the perfect
16:03
example of this. Why do we love curating feeds
16:06
that show extreme behavior or terrible influencers or people
16:10
making awful choices? It makes us feel better about
16:12
ourselves. I think it is about control.
16:15
We manufacture a dark work room. We surround ourselves with
16:18
digital examples of pitch black behavior.
16:21
Exactly so that when we yell at someone in traffic or act
16:25
selfishly at work, we can look at our own dirty white morality
16:28
and say, well at least I am not as bad as that guy on the
16:31
Internet. We use other corrupted people as
16:34
our measuring stick. And as a result, we are
16:36
abundantly satisfied with our own empty image of
16:38
righteousness. We are greeting on a curve.
16:41
A very forgiving curve. But the entire curve is
16:43
contaminated. We judge a slightly lesser evil
16:46
as something to be praised. And as long as we keep our frame
16:49
of reference horizontal, looking only at the other people around
16:53
us, we will always fall victim to this innate pride.
16:56
We will always think our dirty white object is pure.
17:00
So to break the illusion, we need a different light source.
17:03
We have to shatter the horizontal curve.
17:05
The text provides another visceral metaphor here, moving
17:09
from colors to our physical senses, specifically staring at
17:13
the sun. The Sun analogy beautifully
17:16
illustrates how our self estimation collapses when
17:19
introduced to a true standard. Let's talk about that.
17:22
The text asks us to think about how we evaluate our eyesight in
17:26
broad daylight. OK, so if you are standing
17:28
outside looking down at the ground, surveying the trees in
17:31
the buildings. You feel like you have perfect
17:33
vision. You can see the pebbles on the
17:35
dirt path. You can see the veins on a leaf.
17:38
You seem to yourself endowed with the keenest, strongest
17:40
sight possible. But then you change the
17:42
direction of your gaze. You look.
17:44
You look up and gaze straight into the midday sun.
17:47
Suddenly, that exact same power of sight that felt so flawless a
17:51
moment ago is blunted and confused by a great brilliance.
17:55
You are blinded. Your eyes water, you have to
17:57
look away and all you see are spots.
18:00
Why does it hurt? Because the human eye is not
18:03
built to take in that level of unshielded glory.
18:05
And the physical conclusion you are forced to admit is that your
18:09
keenness and looking upon earthly things is actually sheer
18:13
dullness when it comes to the sun.
18:15
Your vision is not as strong as you thought.
18:17
The writer then applies this physical reality directly to how
18:21
we estimate our spiritual goods. As long as we do not look beyond
18:24
the earth, as long as we keep our vision horizontal, we
18:27
flatter ourselves most sweetly. We are entirely content with our
18:30
own righteousness, our own wisdom, our own virtue.
18:33
The text says we fancy ourselves all but demigods.
18:36
Demigods. It is a crazy term to use, but
18:39
it is accurate. We look at our little acts of
18:41
charity, our small moments of cleverness, our ability to hold
18:45
down a job and we think we are superhuman.
18:47
We are staring at pebbles on the ground and bragging about our
18:50
flawless vision. But suppose we begin to raise
18:53
our thoughts to God. Suppose we ponder His nature and
18:57
how completely perfect His righteousness, wisdom, and might
19:00
are. The text calls this absolute
19:02
perfection the straight edge to which we must be shaped.
19:05
A straight edge. Yeah, a straight edge.
19:07
If you try to draw a straight line on a piece of paper
19:10
freehand, it might look pretty straight to you.
19:13
You might hold it up next to your friend's wobbly freehand
19:15
line and think I did a great job.
19:17
I am an artist. But the second you lay a metal
19:20
straight edge next to your line, the illusion dies.
19:23
You see every wobble, every slight deviation, every crooked
19:27
mark. The vocabulary the text uses to
19:29
describe what happens when we hit the divine straight edge is
19:32
jarring. It doesn't hold back.
19:34
When we measure ourselves against absolute perfection,
19:38
what masqueraded earlier as righteousness in US will
19:41
suddenly grow filthy the in its consummate wickedness.
19:44
We'll see. It doesn't say it looks slightly
19:46
flawed. It says it grows filthy, and
19:48
what wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will
19:50
stink in its very foolishness. Our human wisdom literally
19:54
stinks when compared to the source.
19:56
And what wore the face of strength will prove itself the
19:59
most miserable weakness. The contrast is absolute.
20:03
What in US seems perfection itself corresponds I'll to the
20:06
purity of God. The Dirty white object is
20:09
finally dragged out of the dark room and held up against true
20:12
whiteness. And we finally realize how dark
20:14
and mottled it truly is. So what actually happens to a
20:17
human being when that broken measuring stick is taken away
20:21
and they are exposed to the blinding sun of a pure standard?
20:24
Do they just politely adjust their self esteem, shrug their
20:28
shoulders and try to do better tomorrow?
20:30
Right. What is the reaction?
20:32
The source material shows that the reaction is not a quiet
20:35
academic adjustment. The reaction is violent.
20:38
It is an overwhelming response. The encounter with absolute
20:42
majesty produces a visceral, overwhelming psychological
20:45
collapse. This brings us to the profound
20:48
destruction of human pride. The text points out the reaction
20:52
of the Saints in Scripture. It specifically highlights the
20:55
dread and wonder they experience.
20:57
Whenever these towering figures of faith felt the presence of
20:59
God, they were stricken and overcome.
21:02
The writer notes a fascinating contrast in human behavior.
21:05
He describes men who in the normal course of life, remained
21:08
firm and constant. These were not fragile people.
21:11
They were stable, strong leaders.
21:13
But when God manifests His glory, these same firm and
21:17
constant men are shaken and struck dumb.
21:21
They are laid low by the dread of.
21:23
Death, the text says. They are in fact overwhelmed by
21:26
it and almost annihilated. Annihilated.
21:29
Reduced to ash. To ensure the reader grasps the
21:32
weight of this reaction, the source material lists specific
21:36
examples of this consternation. This is not an isolated
21:39
phenomenon. No, it is a repeated, verifiable
21:42
pattern across biblical history. Let's examine those examples
21:45
because the context is staggering.
21:47
The text mentions a common cry found in the Book of Judges and
21:50
in the Prophets. The expression was frequent
21:52
among the people. We shall die, for the Lord has
21:55
appeared to us. Their immediate instinctual
21:58
assumption upon encountering pure Majesty was that their own
22:02
impure existence would be extinguished on the spot.
22:04
Just wiped out. Then there's the example of
22:06
Abraham. The text references Genesis 18,
22:09
right? It notes how Abraham recognizes
22:11
more clearly that he is earth and dust when once he'd come
22:15
near to behold in God's glory. Earth and dust.
22:18
Think about the cultural context of Abraham.
22:20
He was a patriarch, A wealthy, powerful man with armies and
22:24
resources. It was respected by kings.
22:26
But when he gets close to the glory, his entire paradigm
22:30
shifts. He recognizes his composition is
22:32
just dirt. He links himself right back to
22:35
the creation narrative, acknowledging he has nothing but
22:38
animated soil. He has 0 illusions about his own
22:41
status. The text also points to the
22:43
prophet Elijah. In First Kings 19, Elijah is
22:46
described as being unable to bear the awesomeness of God's
22:49
appearance. He must cover his face.
22:51
He physically cannot look upon it.
22:54
It is the sun analogy playing out in real life.
22:56
The brilliance is so blunting, so overwhelming, that he has to
22:59
shield his eyes to survive the encounter.
23:02
And then the text brings in the book of Job, which is entirely
23:05
centered on this dynamic. Job's narrative provides a
23:08
powerful psychological argument. The text notes that Joe's
23:11
description of God's wisdom, wisdom, power and purity always
23:14
expresses an argument that overwhelms men with the
23:17
realization of their own stupidity, impotence, and
23:19
corruption. Stupidity and impotence.
23:22
Again, the text is completely dismantling the demigod
23:25
illusion. Job was a righteous man, the
23:27
best of the best in his era. But when the straight edge is
23:30
applied, he realizes he can do nothing and knows nothing.
23:34
The source material asks a very pointed question based on Job's
23:37
narrative and what can man do? Who is rottenness itself and a
23:41
worm? Rottenness and a worm.
23:43
This vivid imagery strips away every single layer of the divine
23:47
raiment we pretend to wear. It forces an agonizing
23:50
acknowledgement of the miserable ruin we discussed earlier.
23:52
But the writer pushes the concept even further.
23:55
He doesn't stop at human inadequacy.
23:57
He scales it up. He expands this into a concept
23:59
of cosmic humility. He references the prophet
24:02
Isaiah, and the imagery here scales the problem to the entire
24:06
universe. The text asks what can a man, a
24:09
worm, do when even the very cherubim must veil their faces
24:13
out of fear? The cherubim.
24:14
These are celestial beings. Creatures of immense strength
24:17
and purity, entirely uncorrupted by human sin.
24:20
Yet even they cannot stand unveiled before the majesty of
24:23
the Creator. And the text quotes Isaiah 24.
24:27
The sun will blush and the moon be confounded, when the Lord of
24:30
Hosts shall reign. The sun will blush.
24:32
Think about that. The brightest object in our
24:34
physical sky, the nuclear furnace that we cannot even look
24:37
at without destroying our optic nerves, will be embarrassed by
24:41
its own dimness when the absolute splendor is revealed.
24:44
The text says the brightest thing we know will become
24:46
darkness before it. It is the ultimate application
24:49
of the straight edge. If the literal sun is darkness
24:52
compared to this majesty, where does that leave human self
24:57
estimation? That is the question that should
25:00
haunt us. It really should.
25:02
If pure celestial beings and the literal sun and moon are
25:05
overshadowed by this brilliance, what does that say about our
25:09
daily exhausting attempts to justify our own tiny, dirty
25:13
white righteousness? We spend so much mental energy
25:16
arguing that we are good people. We do.
25:18
We argue that we voted for the right politician, that we
25:22
handled a conflict at work better than our Co worker.
25:24
We are so desperate to prove our own worth.
25:26
The text used this cosmic scale to cement its core thesis.
25:30
Which is that man is never sufficiently touched and
25:33
affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he's compared
25:36
himself directly with God's majesty.
25:38
You can compare yourself to your neighbor.
25:40
You can compare yourself to a criminal.
25:41
You can even compare yourself to the sun.
25:43
But until you compare yourself to the absolute perfection of
25:47
the Lord, you will not be sufficiently touched by the
25:50
awareness of your actual state. You will just keep walking
25:53
around your darkroom wearing your dirty white shirt, fully
25:56
convinced you are gleaming. Which leads us to the final
25:59
structural conclusion of the text.
26:01
Having established that these two parts of wisdom, the
26:04
knowledge of God and the knowledge of self, are
26:07
inextricably linked, the writer leaves us with a specific rule
26:11
for how we must approach learning.
26:13
The pedagogical conclusion. The text says that however these
26:17
two types of knowledge may be mutually connected, the order of
26:20
right teaching requires a specific sequence.
26:23
The text mandates that we must discuss the knowledge of God
26:27
first and then proceed afterward to treat the knowledge of
26:31
ourselves. The sequence matters.
26:33
It matters a lot. Even though you cannot look at
26:35
yourself without your thoughts bouncing up to God, and you
26:38
cannot know yourself accurately without the divine straight
26:40
edge, when it comes to actively pursuing wisdom, you have to
26:45
start with the straight edge. Let's synthesize everything we
26:47
have covered to understand why this order is mandatory.
26:50
OK, let's pull it all together. You cannot measure a crooked
26:54
line without first drawing a perfectly straight one.
26:57
If you start by trying to measure a crooked line with
26:59
another crooked line, you generate bad data.
27:02
You just end up feeding your innate pride.
27:04
You have to look at the sun before you can realize your
27:07
sight on Earth is actually sheer dullness.
27:10
If you start by looking at the Earth, the defense mechanism
27:13
kicks in and you conclude you are a demigod.
27:16
The order of right teaching is a safeguard.
27:18
By establishing the pure standard of majesty first, any
27:21
subsequent examination of your own soul is protected from the
27:25
illusion of The Dirty white object.
27:27
It forces you to see the ruined mansion for what it is.
27:30
And paradoxically, as we discovered early in the
27:32
discussion, seeing the ruin, feeling the poverty and
27:36
acknowledging the hunger is the very catalyst that leads us by
27:39
the hand to find the cure. It creates a complete circuit of
27:42
wisdom, but the entry point into the circuit must be the
27:45
contemplation of the divine. It is brilliant to be honest.
27:49
We have covered incredible ground today in this deep dive.
27:51
We really have. We started with the realization
27:54
that every breath we take is a rivulet pointing to a spring.
27:58
We saw how the miserable ruin of human nature causes a hunger
28:02
that drives us to seek an external cure.
28:05
We expose the optical illusion of human hypocrisy where we
28:09
mistake dirty white for purity because we lock ourselves in a
28:12
room of corrupted comparisons. We looked at the sheer terror
28:16
and annihilation of the greatest biblical Saints when they
28:18
encountered the true straight edge, realizing they were dust
28:22
and worms in the presence of a majesty that makes the sun
28:25
blush. And we concluded that
28:26
recognizing our poverty is not a reason for despair, but the only
28:29
valid starting point for attaining true abundance.
28:32
It dismantles human pride down to the bedrock, but it replaces
28:36
it with a truth that is infinitely more stable.
28:39
It strips away everything false. I want to leave you, the
28:43
listener, with a final thought to Mull over as you step back
28:46
into your daily routine. A parting question.
28:49
Next time you feel completely secure in your own rightness in
28:52
an argument, or entirely justified in a decision you
28:55
made, pause and ask yourself a question.
28:58
What is your standard? Are you comparing your actions
29:01
to the flawed people around you, settling comfortably for a dirty
29:04
white standard? Or are you willing to drag your
29:06
justifications out of the dark room and hold them up to the
29:09
blinding brilliance of the sun? Have a great day and keep
29:12
seeking true wisdom.