A Different Wordview
But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases. Psalm 115:3 NASB
Whatever – Richard Nisbett’s book, The Geography of Thought, is a contemporary study of ancient differences in worldviews. Contrasting the Western Greek view with that of the Chinese, Nisbett’s analysis demonstrates that our “world” is hardly uniform in conception or observation. It is simply not the case that all human beings understand the world in the same way. Ancient thought patterns continue to alter perception and unless we recongize this we will often be stunned, preplexed and perhaps shocked when we discover that the “other” person can’t even fathom what we are talking about.
Nisbett’s contemporary analysis, although dealing with Asian thought patterns, is an enormously helpful tool for anyone who wishes to enter into the ancient Semitic world of the Bible. How the Chinese think is much closer to Hebrew patterns than to the Western world. There may be many cultural, linguistic and historical reasons for this, but no matter why this is the case, the revelations from Nisbett’s study illuminate just how different the biblical worldview is from the way Christian Western thinking has developed.
David’s verse from Psalm 115 opens the door for this deeper investigation. David literally says that all YHVH takes delight in He does (kol asher-hafetz asa). We might also read this as “YHVH delights in whatever He does.” If you think about this, it contains a paradox. How can YHVH delight in the extermination of the Amalikites? Or how can His chastisement of Israel be a delight? The language cries out for logical correction. But that wouldn’t be Hebraic.
I have extracted dozens of citations from Nisbett’s work that may help us come to terms (I did not say “explain”) statements like this verse. You can access all of these extracts HERE. Nisbett speaks about Chinese but in nearly every case you can substitute Hebrews. For those who don’t have interest in the lengthy version, I leave you with this:
“Greeks were independent and engaged in verbal contention and debate in an effort to discover what people took to be the truth. They thought of themselves as individuals with distinctive properties, as units separate from others within the society, and in control of their own destinies. Similarly, Greek philosophy started from the individual object—the person, the atom, the house—as the unit of analysis and it dealt with properties of the object. The world as in principle simple and knowable: All one had to do was to understand what an object’s distinctive attributes were so as to identify its relevant categories and then apply the pertinent rule to the categories.
Chinese social life was interdependent and it was not liberty but harmony that was the watchword—the harmony of humans and nature for the Taoists and the harmony of humans with other humans for the Confucians. Similarly, the Way, and not the discovery of truth, was the goal of philosophy. Thought that gave no guidance to action was fruitless. The world was complicated, events were interrelated, and objects (and people) were connects ‘not as pieces of pie, but as ropes in a net.’”[1]
Can you imagine that David’s statement is not a piece of theology but rather a way of acting in the world?
Oh, yes. Just this one addition.
“Christianity is the only religion that finds it necessary to have a theology specifying essential aspects of God and that this insistence on categorization and abstraction is traceable to the Greeks.”[2]
Topical Index: Nisbett, delight, paradox, Psalm 115:3, hafetz, whatever
[1] Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought, p. 19.
[2] Ibid., p. 200.
Just in case someone notices, I had to resend the TW and forgot to change the subject line on the email.
Mark,
By chance, is the title supposed to be “Worldview” instead of “Wordview”? Or is it a play on words?
Not sure Rick. I don’t write or edit the blog posts, Skip does. I’m just the tech/web guy.
It look like you are the only one who actually appreciated the difference.
Quotes from Richard Nisbett’s summary by Skip in the TW The Geography of Thought:
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. (This dictionary, by the way, was written specifically so as to define the words used in the KJV.) “Pleasure” some meanings:
3. Approbation (approval) “The Lord taketh pleasure in His people.” Ps. 147 and 149
4. “What the will dictates or prefers; will; choice; purpose; intention; command; as, use your pleasure. “Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure. My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.” Is. 46
It is said that all languages degrade; that is, lose meanings of words, as well as lose words themselves. English is no exception. This word, pleasure, has probably lost about half of its original usage. I think we are the poorer for it.
Next subject:
Ok, Skip, here goes. Just for fun – just for fun, mind you, I am fixing to take some liberties with some of those fine quotes from Richard Nisbett (and I am so very grateful, again, for your effort, here!). Just for fun, I am going to attempt to run on the concept that the very idea of a singular, lone, discrete and abstract God, all by Himself, is a thought not even possible to the Eastern mind. We see the many gods of antiquity, and we in the West, start counting. That’s the Greek in us. So we separate them into individual personalities. Hmm, let’s see; Zeus was not in agreement with anyone else in that pantheon; he is definitely a lone actor; he is fractured from the others by essential competition. Baal competed with the gods of all the other nations; um, so did all the others! Not one of them got along with any of the others! They were all DISTINCT from each other, so much so, that the typical action of a conquering nation was to smash all the representations of all the deities that they had just conquered, so as to proclaim their god the only real one. All the false gods were in competition with each other, and I propose that that is how they were differentiated!
The One true God of the Israelites, by contrast, was to be thought of as an essential whole; not to be separated (or in competition with anything or anyone else), or SINGLED OUT. The Elohim of heaven was always referred to as one entity, but my question is, is that an entity of a noun ( of which a number is an example), or is it an entity of a verb (of which character, say, is an example)?
Below, just for fun, within the quotes from Nisbett, I have put the liberties I have taken in parentheses, so please forgive. Just an exercise in attempting to lay Greek thought over the top of Oriental thought. Here goes:
“In the Eastern tradition, objects (the Godhead) have concrete properties that interact with environmental circumstances (the balance of that Godhead) to produce behavior. There was never any interest in discussing abstract properties (one singular God) as if they had a reality other than being a characteristic of a particular object (that Godhead).” p.153
“English is a subject-prominent language. There must be a subject (one singular God) even in the sentence “It is raining.” Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, in contrast, are ‘topic-prominent’ languages. Sentences have a position, typically the first position, that should be filled by the current topic (or, characteristic, of the Godhead): “This place, skiing is good.” p. 157
“For Westerners, it is the self (one singular God) who does the acting; for Easterners, action is something that is taken in concert with others (the Godhead acting in concert with Itself) or that is the consequence of the self(one of the Personalities of that Godhead) operating in a field of forces (the rest of that Godhead).”
“But most peoples, including Asians, view societies (the Godhead) not as aggregates of individuals (um, one, two, three) but as molecules or organisms (again, that collective Godhead). As a consequence, there is little or no conception of rights (ultimate, singular Godhood) that inhere in the individual (One – just one, mind you – of that Godhead).”
“Christianity is the only religion that finds it necessary to have a theology specifying essential aspects of God (He can be counted!) and that this insistence on categorization and abstraction is traceable to the Greeks.”
Analytic thought, which dissects the world into a limited number of discrete objects have particular attributes (such as number) that can be categorized in clear ways (One Person of the Godhead is NOT the next One of that Godhead), lends itself to being captured in language (it is very easy for everyone to talk about numbers). Holistic thought, which responds to a much wider array of objects and their RELATIONS (hello: is this not the very definition of God?), and which makes fewer sharp distinctions among attributes or categories (that would be that one-two-three stuff again), is less well suited to linguistic representation (I guess that means that if I try to argue this subject from an Eastern point of view, I can probably expect to lose out to the more superior linguistic platform that the Greek singular mindset enjoys. Oh, well.).” p. 211
Thank you for some fun thinking today!
~ And the Word, [this Word} became flesh, and tabernacled among us.. ~
[And this Word] humbled Himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the tslav (the execution stake)
~ He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His Name is called the Word of God ~
In “Hebraic thought” or “wordview” — Who is this man?
He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
So dialectical thinking….”beware of your friends, not your enemies” – A contradiction and Westerners don’t like this. You could say mothers are all loving, conditionally.