Mr Beaver on AI

"But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."

Thus Mr Beaver to the Pevensie children.  He is speaking, of course, about the White Witch, who falsely claims human descent.

Now, in Narnia it is fine not to be human.  Aslan is not human.  ("Aslan a man!  Certainly not." - also Mr Beaver.)  The problem is anything masquerading as human, or trying to take a role which belongs to human beings.

Anyway, you can draw your own conclusions, but I tend to think that Mr Beaver is on to something and that he could have been talking about technology as much as witches.

Being angry biblically

I don't know about you, but recently I've been feeling angry.  I am not at all unfamiliar with anger as an emotion, but something about the present moment seems to stir up anger in a way which is particularly difficult to deal with.  Most recently, it has been mainly the news from across the Atlantic that has made me angry - not just the terrible events themselves, but the appalling arrogance and self-satisfaction of those driving them.  It makes me angry.  And I've realised that my feeling of anger is compounded by a sense of helplessness.  Often when I am angry about things, I can do something about them.  I can have a conversation with the person who has angered me, I can remove myself from a situation.  Here I can't do either of those things.  I don't have the ear of, say, the President of the United States, but I am obliged to live in a world over which he has a huge influence.  And I am angry about that, and angry about the people (including, and perhaps especially, those who invoke the name of Christ) who enable that.  Helplessly, hopelessly, angry.

As an aside, and in case you think this is unduly politically one-sided (though for myself I think sometimes one-sidedness is called for), here are some other things from across the political spectrum that have made me feel similarly angry recently: the deliberate erosion of the idea of the sanctity of human life by British politicians; the crass materialism which drives our politics; the confusion over sex and gender which has been deliberately inculcated to forward an individualistic and antinomian agenda; the critical underfunding of services in the UK to the point of collapse...  The list goes on.  I'm quite angry.

And this is where I think some of those dark and slightly awkward passages from the Psalms are pretty helpful.  You know the sort.

Punish them, God;
let them fall by their own schemes.
Drive them out because of their many crimes,
for they rebel against you.

God, if only you would kill the wicked
–you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me –
who invoke you deceitfully.
Your enemies swear by you falsely.
Lord, don’t I hate those who hate you,
and detest those who rebel against you?
I hate them with extreme hatred;
I consider them my enemies.

The examples could be multiplied.  What are these angry passages doing in the Bible?  Well, surely one thing they're doing is reminding me - and you, if you feel at all like I do - that the situation is neither helpless nor hopeless.  When we are angry, we can voice our anger in prayer to God - and these passages remind us that we don't have to first moderate that emotion, clear it up, tone it down.  No, here is full on anger, but it is anger brought into the presence of God.  Anger that implores him to do something about people and situations I can do nothing about.

The very violence of these verses is, I think, helpful.  God, if only you would kill the wicked.  I can't, and I shouldn't.  But you can, O Lord - vengeance is yours, you will repay.  And of course it is safe to make this appeal to God, in a way it would not be safe to make it to anyone else.  He knows what is right, and he will do what is right.  Only he can judge who are the wicked who must die; only he can ensure that the arrogant rebels receive what they deserve.  If I call down curses on an innocent head in my anger, he is able to turn those curses into blessings, and indeed to correct my perception if I am open to that.  In my anger, I commit myself and the world for which I am concerned to God.

Of course these Psalms aren't here for every moment of pique and fit of rage I might experience.  But when there is real anger, with real cause, here are prayers I can pray.

Cutting room floor, 18th Jan 26

Yesterday I preached from Colossians 1:15-23, an absolutely glorious passage and one in which you could easily spend multiple weeks without exhausting everything it has to say about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here are a few issues and topics I would have liked to spend more time on that didn't make it into the sermon.

The firstborn over creation - verse 15

That's the way our church Bible (NIV) translates this phrase, in line with various other English translations (e.g., CSB).  I was aware, though, that people using other translations (e.g., ESV) might be reading 'firstborn of creation'.  Both legitimate translations.  Sometimes verses like this will be picked up by movements which subscribe to heretical views of Christ - for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, who hold something very like the ancient Arian heresy.  In this view, the Son of God is a created being, albeit the first and most highly exalted creature.  'Firstborn of creation' certainly sounds like it leans that way!  However, the very next verse makes it clear that every created thing was created in, through and for the Son - placing him very clearly with God the Father as the Creator.  Some of our English translations try to avoid the confusion by translating 'over creation'; this is not an attempt to be deceptive, but reflects the background to Paul's use of this title in, for example, Psalm 89:27, where the Davidic King of Israel is given the title of God's firstborn to reflect his rule as the greatest of the kings of the earth.  To be the firstborn of creation is indeed to be supreme over creation - not as the greatest creature but as the great Creator.

All the fullness - verse 19

All God's fullness dwelt in Christ - that, of course, makes sense, since Christ himself was the eternal Son of God.  But doesn't God dwell fully in every believer by the Holy Spirit?  Yes, he does - but not in this way.  In Christ, we see the personal union of human and divine nature; he is truly God in the flesh.  And in fact his humanity has no independent existence - it is not like there was a human being called Jesus, who was subsequently indwelt or taken over by the Son of God.  No, the fullness of God dwelt in Christ in an utterly unique way, such that his whole life was the life of the eternal Son lived out in our flesh.  On top of that, Christ in his human nature received the Spirit without measure, whereas believers, it seems, can be filled to a greater or lesser extent by the Spirit.  (It is hard to explain exactly what that can mean, since the Spirit can not be split up into parts, or be partially present; perhaps we should think of it in terms of the human experience?)  Moreover, our being filled with the Spirit is dependent on his fullness - he is the original and the ongoing power of our fullness.

The interplay between the universal and the particular

Christ is supreme over all creation (universal), but he is specifically head of his church (particular).  In Christ all things are reconciled to God, in heaven and on earth (universal), but to continue to enjoy that reconciliation in their own lives the Colossians believers must persevere in their trust in Christ (particular).  It seems very important to me that we not underemphasise one or the other of these angles.  If we lay all our stress on the universal, we might end up denying the importance of the church, and we may well end up teaching that everyone will be saved no matter what - a viewpoint which is at odds with the general perspective of Scripture.  If, on the other hand, we only talk about the particular, we run the risk of becoming quite narrow, missing the doctrine of creation (or at least missing its link to the gospel in Christ), and only valuing 'churchy' activities; we might also make the gospel quite individualistic, as if everything in the end depended on our decision.  We need to say both that Christ is universally Lord and reconciler, and that he is particularly Lord in his church and invites particular faith.