1Pt1v17-18 - revised paternity
Texting One Peter
“..And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold..” 1Pt1v17-18
↩👨👦 “..if you call on him as Father.”
↩ “..if..” If then. If is a springboard, a slingshot, a fulcrum to the pivot of an argument. It is a rhetorical inflection that demands an answer, arguing thusly: I pose an exclusive strong-claim hypothesis that if there is x evidence then we must must must come to y conclusion with all its practical ramifications. In this way, if is the mortar which holds together the building blocks of data, in their arches of interpretation, in the edifice of knowledge. If is a bit like Paul’s therefores, but with an interrogative and inclusive inflection. If x, so is it? If x, so are you?
If coercively:
The Devil knows how to use if coercively Mt4v3, 6, 9 “if you are the son of God..”
The desperate demonised know to use if as a last resort if Mk9v22-23 “if you can..”
Proper If-then Christianity is a nested conditional Boolean cumulative argument about causality and consequence; if-then Christianity is a bold hypothesis hiding in plain sight; if-then Christianity is a leading question I ask myself.
If convictingly:
“If Christ has not been raised..” 1Co15v14
“If Christ is in you..” Rm8v10
“If sons, then heirs..” Rm8v17
Christian. Live subjunctively. Live as-if.
👨👦 “..call on him as Father.” I don’t think I contend with myself with appropriate if-then agonism. I don’t press the logical conclusions of Christianity far enough. I don’t speak this If-Christ, I don’t live as If-Christ. What if are you weaponising? What if are you propelled by? Try: If-God-is-Father-then-… This hinge is employed by Peter to advocate the degree of earnest urgent severity in his call to holiness: as-Father. Do I? Is “Father” my name for ultimate reality? Do I call God “Father”? Do I call on God as “Father”? “God-is-Father” remains as an epistemically entertainable premise without metaphysical reality or practical application - until we solve for father-as-good-father We have to solve this over against the learnt father-as-futile-forefather.
💰 “..ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers..”
“..ransomed..” How do you pay a ransom? Who would your ransom be paid to? What would you cost? Consider, if humanity is a building project:
🧱 God paid the original material costs and labour costs, the design and consultancy fees, and the workshop time and plant hire to build, to establish, to create a universe and birth a people.
🔧 Further. God paid the ongoing upkeep costs to repair, maintain, modernise and nurture through centuries of folly ~ he insures the building and third parties, he pays the cleaners and concierge; in this open universe, he paid in and pays in the ongoing service charges of a leaky holy people, who renege on their mortgages, run rent in arrears, sublet to demons, and piss in the elevator.
💸 And, above and beyond. God paid the ransom - after the coup, when anarchy reigned in the block, he bought out the squatters. He paid off Wickham, he paid off the whole block. God does negotiate with hostage takers - purchasing the hostages above their market resale value, above their utility value - at injurious cost to himself. Our God, among the gods, is foolish and sentimental for so doing. Our God loves with an appallingly improper love. This. This is good-enough good-good-fathering - costing not less than everything.
🧙♂ “..ransomed from.. ..forefathers” Your forebears were hostage takers. You were the bargaining chip which your forefathers played against the universe, a gamble they lost, so a loan they defaulted on. This goes beyond stealing from their college fund, beyond poisoning the wells of your children’s environment, this is bartering souls into people trafficking. Your cosmic wage-slave state-of-being is indentured pawnhood in the clink of a tyrannical father’s unboundaried power game, you are a slave propping up the insecure edifice that he was given to steward by his tyrannical father. A futile perpetuity, a deathly eternal return, a generational imprisonment. You can be ransomed from your forefathers, because you were once illegitimately coopted to their empire.
This is a tale of two fatherhoods.
Revised paternity is the beginning of holiness.
POST SCRIPT on Fatherhood
Lk1v59-60 “..#GSAP: I'm Alison's yout, but I'm God's son. A roundhouse blow to patriarchy? John is named neither by nor after his father.. What does it mean? You are the artist-formerly-known-as..”
Lk3v35-36 “..in being born-again, the lever of pollution's plumbing is cranked backward, like an ethical Archimedean screw pumping debt back up Calvary's hydroelectric hill. No longer is man handing misery onto man - the downstream effluent piped into today's youth is reversed. To every prodigal son. The father makes the first move..”
Rm5v13-14 “..Ah Adam, the first in a line of dominoes leading to Philip Larkin's f**ked up parents.. So, Sin: a systemic contamination, a family affair, an inherited foible, a blood disorder, even a Y-Chromosome deficiency? Christianity changes how we have been fathered and how we father..”
Rm14v13-14 “..Fathers: You cause others to stumble. You planned the route, you packed their bag, you checked the weather. You set the conditions, you gave the permissions, you taught them shame. You left the gas on, you left the knife out, you left the engine running. You set the precedent, you gave them cause to fear, to hate, and to stumble..”