Kenosis in Practice
What is Kenosis exactly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosis
Kenotic ethic
The kenotic ethic is the ethic of Jesus, considered as the ethic of sacrifice. The Philippians passage urges believers to imitate Christ's self-emptying. In this interpretation, Paul was not primarily putting forth a theory about God in this passage, rather he was using God's humility exhibited in the incarnation event as a call for Christians to be similarly subservient to others
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08617a.htm
Week One: Finding Myself and what I am called to do: let go...
I found this blog on the internet and immediate was again reaffirmed this word is meant to seep into my very bones and change me if i let it be so by practicing mindfulness daily.....
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Conflict resolution: George Ellis speaks on Kenosis
The most compelling part of the program to me was when Ellis answered a question about how the concept of kenosis could be applied to a conflict like in Iraq. He gave an actual historical example that demonstrates that an ethical approach to military action can be successful. I highly recommend that you listen to at least that portion of the interview (it starts at about the 41:15 mark).
Listen to the interview with George Ellis here.
Read the notes and view links to many related resources here.
"But then the issue is what is the nature of true morality? Nancey and I have argued that it must be kenotic in nature, that is, it must be a kind of ethics involving letting go of one's own interest on behalf of others, being ready if necessary to sacrifice one's own interests for them, even on behalf of an enemy. This is of course very controversial, just as it was when Jesus in essence stated it in the Sermon on the Mount. However I am convinced it is a deeply transforming principle of fundamental importance, which is universally recognised by the non-dogmatic branches of all the great religions: it is held up in all of them as behaviour to aspire to. Indeed this is the theme of one of Sir John Templeton's books, called Agape Love: A Tradition Found in Eight World Religions. Furthermore this is the only basis for true security, for the deep foundation of security is based in transforming your enemies into friends. That can in the end only be achieved by the kind of sacrificial practices exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu, for this is the only way to touch the hardened heart. What seems rationally impossible can indeed become possible through the generosity and hope underlying and enabling kenosis and forgiveness."
The following letter from a Scottish soldier was sent to Dr. Ellis after he received the Templeton Prize in 2004. Ellis read this during the live event at WHYY in Philadelphia to illustrate his concept of kenosis in action in a strange situation. Ellis says that despite the British army's overpowering force, they risked their lives in order to achieve peace by not retailiating but by exercising restraint, even while being attacked. It's this type of sacrifice, Ellis points out, that can be applied to the situation in Iraq.
In 1967 I was a young officer in a Scottish battalion engaged in peacekeeping duties in Aden town in what is now Yemen. The situation was similar to Iraq, with people being killed every day. As always, those who suffered the most were the innocent local people. Not only were we tough, but we had the power to pretty well destroy the whole town had we wished.
But we had a commanding officer who understood how to make peace, and he led us to do something very unusual, not to react when we were attacked. Only if we were 100 percent certain that a particular person had thrown a grenade or fired a shot at us were we allowed to fire. During our tour of duty we had 102 grenades thrown at us, and in response the battalion fired the grand total of two shots, killing one grenade-thrower. The cost to us was over 100 of our own men wounded, and surely by the grace of God only one killed. When they threw rocks at us, we stood fast. When they threw grenades, we hit the deck and after the explosions we got to our feet and stood fast. We did not react in anger or indiscriminately. This was not the anticipated reaction. Slowly, very slowly, the local people began to trust us and made it clear to the local terrorists that they were not welcome in their area.
At one stage neighboring battalions were having a torrid time with attacks. We were playing soccer with the locals. We had, in fact, brought peace to the area at the cost of our own blood. How had this been achieved? Principally because we were led by a man whom every soldier in the battalion knew would die for him if required. Each soldier in turn came to be prepared to sacrifice himself for such a man. Many people may sneer that we were merely obeying orders, but this was not the case. Our commanding officer was more highly regarded by his soldiers than the general, one must almost say loved. So gradually the heart of the peacemaker began to grow in the man and determination to succeed whatever the cost. Probably most of the soldiers, like myself, only realized years afterwards what had been achieved.
Ms. Tippett: Cosmologist George Ellis. I'm Krista Tippett. And this is Speaking of Faith from American Public Media. Today, we're talking about the intersection of faith and science in George Ellis' thought. He has studied such lofty topics as the structure of space and time. In recent years, he's also become interested in whether the universe has an underlying moral foundation.
George Ellis points to the recurring ethic of nonviolence and self-sacrifice that runs throughout the major religions and the lives of human beings who've changed the world, figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and in Ellis' native South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko. As a Quaker Christian, George Ellis values the key image of the ethic of Jesus found in the New Testament. It uses a Greek word, kenosis, to describe Jesus' sacrifice of His life and His power for the freedom of others. The word "kenosis" means to empty oneself. Here's more of my conversation with George Ellis that took place before a live audience in Philadelphia.
George Ellis points to the recurring ethic of nonviolence and self-sacrifice that runs throughout the major religions and the lives of human beings who've changed the world, figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and in Ellis' native South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko. As a Quaker Christian, George Ellis values the key image of the ethic of Jesus found in the New Testament. It uses a Greek word, kenosis, to describe Jesus' sacrifice of His life and His power for the freedom of others. The word "kenosis" means to empty oneself. Here's more of my conversation with George Ellis that took place before a live audience in Philadelphia.
Ms. Tippett:So in this book you've written with the theologian Nancey Murphy…
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: …called On the Moral Nature …
Dr. Ellis: Nature of the Universe.
Ms. Tippett: You say that one important piece of the dialogue between science and religion, and I think also what you're saying one important piece of how we view what happens in the world and what it means and what makes the difference is ethics.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: And you talk about the true nature of deep ethics.
Dr. Ellis: Yes, yes.
Ms. Tippett: So talk about that. I think it's also interesting that, you know, coming, obviously, you did have this wonderful miraculous turn of events in South Africa…
Dr. Ellis: Yep.
Ms. Tippett: …for many — for decades and for longer than that. I mean, you say ethics is — you feel that ethics is something that's in the universe to be discovered.
Dr. Ellis: Yes.
Ms. Tippett: So tell us how you can come to that.
Dr. Ellis: Let me just prepare the way slightly by saying in order to understand what I mean by that, the same is true of mathematics. Mathematicians discover the nature of mathematics despite what they want. What I mean by that is something like the following. It was a great shock to mathematicians when they discovered that the square root of two is irrational. That's not something that they wanted. The number pi is irrational. That's also not something mathematicians wanted. What I'm pointing out here is that mathematics exists and is discovered. It's not invented by humans. It's something which is discovered. Therefore, in some sense, it exists in order to be discovered.
The view on ethics I take as an ethical realist is it's the same, the nature is sitting there in some sense waiting to be discovered. And the deep nature of ethics, which we were writing about, is what we call kenotic ethics. Kenosis being letting go or giving up on behalf of other people.
Ms. Tippett: Right. And kenosis is a Greek word.
Dr. Ellis: It's a Greek word meaning letting go or giving up, and it's used in the Bible in Philippians. It's central to my understanding of Christianity, and there's a spectrum which goes through in practical terms from forgiveness, which is a crucial part in which you are giving up the need for revenge. And it goes through to self-sacrifice on behalf of others, which is what Gandhi was about, Martin Luther King was about. And to me, that's the really, really deep transformative principle, which was also in the life of Christ, of course, when he sacrificed himself on behalf of others. I think it's important to say that to me, kenosis is a generic principle which is much wider than just ethics. For instance, it's actually central — this emptying oneself — it's actually central to education and learning, because if you go into learning any subject with a preconceived notion, you can't learn. You have to empty your mind of your preconceived notion that you can see something new.
In ethics, it's, though the key point about kenosis is the willingness to give up, which makes way for contact with the human part of the other person. And it's a kind of moral jujitsu in that they're expecting you to react in the way that they want you to react. They are your enemy and they want you to be their enemy. And if you refuse to be their enemy, then they don't know how to handle it.
As an example from my South African context, one of the people I worked with as a social worker and community worker was detained by the security police. So now, he's in jail with them. He then started because of his nature, he's outgoing, generous kind of guy, he starts talking to the jailors of — 'How are your children?' 'How are you getting on?' 'Do you enjoy doing what you're doing?' ?' All this kind of stuff. That totally undermines what a jailor is supposed to be about, because now you are treating the person who is holding you prisoner as an equal, as a person, and you are ignoring the fact that he's the jailor and you're the prisoner. And that just changes the context.
Ms. Tippett: So that would be a really gentle form of this kenotic ethics.
Dr. Ellis: That's a very gentle form, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ms. Tippett: And then the extreme form would be a person like Nelson Mandela, the example he set.
Dr. Ellis: Yes, yes.
Ms. Tippett: Being in prison for 20 years.
Dr. Ellis: Being in prison for 20 years and not letting go of the grudges, the hatred, which he could have had. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ms. Tippett: All right. So let's just clarify, you believe that this ethos, this ethic of kenosis, in fact, is like a mathematical truth…
Dr. Ellis: Yes.
Ms. Tippett: …and is sort of built in to the universe.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: And it finds expression in, I don't know, every major religious church that I can think of. In some form…
Dr. Ellis: Correct.
Ms. Tippett: …humility, self-sacrifice, serving others. On the other hand, is very counterintuitive to the way — I don't know — than today's newspaper would tell us the world works.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah. It's counterintuitive because the way it works is it transforms the context. In the real conflict situations, the kind of thing which Gandhi was involved with — where he was trying to free India from the British oppressors — he trained his followers to accept suffering, not to retaliate. And by doing so, he reached into the heart of the British oppressors. But after a while, the pain is incredible at that deep level. The pain is — the training is incredible. Gandhi spent about 15 years studying and thinking before he did it. So did Martin Luther King.
Ms. Tippett: The pain of what?
Dr. Ellis: Of doing what in a sense is incredibly unnatural. Of being willing to sacrifice, of being willing to — well, in that case, to be beaten up just as they were, to be beaten up and not to retaliate. It requires incredible courage, devotion, dedication in that extreme kind or form. The life of Christ, of course, is the ultimate kind of example.
Ms. Tippett: I think I want to ask you, is this something that has to do with you as a person of faith more than a scientist, or does this also flow into this idea of this ethic that's embedded in the universe? Does this also affect your — you as a cosmologist or the way you approach the field of cosmology?
Dr. Ellis: It's this cosmology with the small "c" and the big "C."
Ms. Tippett: So this is the cosmology with the big "C."
Dr. Ellis: Yeah. Absolutely.
Ms. Tippett: OK.
Dr. Ellis: From the cosmology with the big "C," it immediately gives one for a route into — in effect arguing for the existence of God, if you like, from the way that the whole thing is constructed.
Ms. Tippett: OK.
Dr. Ellis: From the small "c," it's — as a scientist, I work as a scientist and this just doesn't enter into it. As a cosmologist in the big "C," they're just trying to understand the big pattern, the way humanity relates to the universe. It's a central issue.
Ms. Tippett: You also talk about the limits of science…
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: …and about how ethics and human consciousness and human emotion, although they often get bracketed out as illogical and not a part of science, in fact are always causing things to happen.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: And in some sense, driving the physical universe and all the things that science can study. Is that fair?
Dr. Ellis: There were several kind of things, which — do you want to pursue the limits to science or do you want to pursue…
Ms. Tippett: Whichever one you want to do. Or you can do them in order, you know…
Dr. Ellis: Yeah. Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: …in order of your choice.
Dr. Ellis: I think it's terribly important in terms of looking at science to understand it's got these incredible achievements — and I love science. I love the way it works — but it has these limits. And the limits, which I think it's really important to understand, that science sees nothing about ethics or aesthetics or meaning or metaphysics, all of these areas. And you immediately get told by some people, 'Look, this is just the old God of the gaps thing and, you know, this is just discredited.' It's not the God of the gaps, it's the God of the boundaries.
Ms. Tippett: Which is that God is in what we can't understand or work with in science.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah. But the point about the God of the gaps argument is saying, 'Look, that's a gap which will be filled in by science.'
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Dr. Ellis: But the point about this is that there are boundaries to what science can handle and science will never ever get into those areas. And that's crucially important. And the one which is important is ethics. So let's go back to the ethics. There's a whole lot of people out there trying to say, 'Well, ethics is understood by science through sociobiology.' There's another lot of social scientists saying ethics is understood through sociology and psychology and anthropology, and so on. And they are just profoundly mistaken when they say that, for a whole host of reasons. And perhaps we don't want to get technical about this, but the simple way to see how mistaken they are is to ask the following question to a scientist who says 'Look, science can comprehend ethics.' We can use science as a basis for ethics. 'So fine,' we say, 'fine. Tell us what sciences we should do in Iraq today.' OK? Then you get this deafening silence because science is totally unable to say anything about that. The reason is there are no experiments in science to do with what is good and what is bad. There are no scientific units for good and bad. There's no experiment. It's just outside the scope of science, not only now, but forever, never ever will be within the bound of science.
Ms. Tippett: So, so what is good and what is bad, but also in just what human beings do, which is essentially what happens in the world.
Dr. Ellis: Yeah.
No comments:
Post a Comment