"15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:
the righteous perishing in their righteousness,
and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
16 Do not be overrighteous,
neither be overwise—
why destroy yourself?
17 Do not be overwicked,
and do not be a fool—
why die before your time?
18 It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes."
- Ecclesiastes 7:15-18
When we ended class on Tuesday we were discussing excess and deficiency. Dr. Mashburn said that if we "thought Aristotle was hard, to try reading Ecclesiastes 7," so I took him up on his challenge. What I found was quite astonishing. The bible actually says to not be overrighteous, something that I didn't even know existed. Righteousness is a hard enough thing to strive for given our humanity, let alone overrighteousness. Could you imagine what that would look like? We don't see many 'righteous' people in this day and age, so what does it mean to be 'overrighteous'? I can only speculate, but I think this is referring to the people who present themselves as 'holier than thou' Christians. By this I mean they lead people to believe that they are perfect in every way and have completely conquered their sinful nature, which last I checked is impossible.
Avoiding overwickedness however, I can understand. This one is harder for us to follow given our wicked sinful natures. We're all born with wickedness in us, and we must learn righteousness. So given our current state, I would venture to say that if we are striving for righteousness that we are doing all we can to stay in the middle of these two extremes. We'll never as humans be able to completely do away with our wickedness, so true overrighteousness isn't attainable, but the attitude of the overrighteous is easy to fall into. Basically, our job as Christians is to keep ourselves in check. Not letting ourselves get a big head and constantly remind ourselves that we aren't perfect while also constantly making sure we aren't falling deeper into wickedness.
I know this really wasn't our 'literature' from this week, but it was mentioned in class by Dr. Mashburn and relates hand-in-hand with Aristotle's view on the 'happy medium'. Hope you guys let it slide!
So, what did we learn this week? The reading listed on the Syllabus is only the suggested topic for blogs and not mandatory to write about? Ben picks up on little snippets in class that most people overlook? The old testament is confusing? All good answers. Tune in next week when I'll write a blog solely based on recycled information from my paper.
P.S. I commented on Lucas' blog "Chronic Arete"
Wow, I didn't know the bible mentioned of overrighteousness either. I knew of the concept - the Pharisees and their attitude of righteousness - but I didn't realize that it was specifically mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI think it is also interesting that it syas the "righteousness perishing in their righteousness." I wonder what aristotle would have thought about this statement, since to him one who continually does virtuous acts with a virtuous attitude is virtuous, but what about the person who is so caught up in being virtuous that it leads to their destruction. In that case is "happiness in conformity with perfect virtue?" (PG. 29)
Ben,as I was reading your post, the last line of your text from Ecclesiastes stood out to me. "Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes." Last week at Truespin, Neil talked about fearing God. He defined what it is to fear God, and explained why we need to fear God. What Neil concluded was that when we live in awe of God, it ultimately balances out our lives. Isn't that what we all strive for? To not have to much of one thing, and too little of another. Whoah! Here it is! In class we discussed having too much or having too little. Mashburn referenced to Ecclesiastes a week after Neil spoke about the same thing. If we live in awe and worship of Christ, it balances our life. Humanity has been in need of this balance since balance was lost at The Fall.
ReplyDeleteI caught Mashburn’s comment as well and it pretty much baffled me. Like you, I focused on sorting out his comment rather than the majority of what we discussed in class… (Wait what?) I believe The Word is perfect without contradiction, so when he said this I was a little discombobulated. The Book of Revelation says God will spit the lukewarm out of his mouth, but Ecclesiastes says we should be in the middle? After pondering on it I came to the same conclusion as you did.
ReplyDeleteSame here, I had to go home and look that one up too. I also believe that Ecclesiastes is talking about "holier than thou" attitudes. I come in contact with alot of those kind of people at work, and they really do make Christianity look terrible. God doesn't want people to go around with haughty attitudes, judging anyone who doesn't believe exactly the same as them.
ReplyDelete