A Philosophical Theology on Historical Study as the Preservation of Reality
Uncovering the injustices of the past is the most important aspect of historical research for it enables us to understand and correct the present. The calling of historians in its purity is to become beacons of justice and leaders of change. Historical knowledge of the violence, injustice, racism, and greed of the past disassembles false ideologies that govern the present. Historical truth is able to lift the cultural weight of lies from the shoulders of the population who live in a false reality. History’s witness to the failings and inhumane activity of power must preserve the voices of the powerless, the victims of history.
The etiological narrative of humanity in the Edenic stories communicate to us the entrance of sin, death, violence, sex and shame as simultaneous, the first murder follows, and it must be noted that the word sin is not used in the stories until Cain’s fratricide. Sin in the text is connected to the reality of murder, of killing out of uncontrolled desire to be greater than the other.
Historical efforts that acknowledge the violence of humanity is met with our natural sense of shame. The guilt of the sin and killing committed by our forefathers (who committed fratricide by killing their neighbors) is placed in sharp contrast to our moral conscience that dictates our feelings of shame.
The iniquity of the father’s is visited on us all through the impact of history upon every facet of our lives; the familial, the tribal, the social, the national, the political, and the global. Death insists that life is real and gives birth to history. The story of humanity cannot be told apart from the passing of the generations and their acts of violence. All attempts to sanitize violence or sacralize violence are merely tools for continuing cycles of violence that leave masses of humanity abused, horrified, terrorized, and slaughtered. Violence is sanitized through the idols of militarism, nationalism (racism), and capitalism manifested in its many forms of concentrating power and wealth for a few.
Religion and theology are co-opted by these idols and used for justifying violence. Likewise, the sacralizing of war removes the sense of shame for killing but not the trauma experienced by so many. Nonviolent theology cannot be co-opted by these idols, it is beyond their reach for it is the calling of God to all who seek to follow Jesus. The beauty of Ephesians chapter six is in the metaphorical meaning of the imagery of a soldier being stripped of all that constitutes his identity and left naked to be clothed in all that constitutes the identity of a Christian.
The sacralization of military violence is the rawest form of religious competition, it opposes the truth of history. This truth can be seen in the scriptures of the OT and only an honest reader guided by a moral conscience recognizes the co-opting of religion by the sacralizing of violence. Yet, within the confines of these stories and laws God can be found wrestling with humanity’s violence, sin, and shame. The OT serves as a universal record of humanity reflective of all history. That God is revealed in this written work we call scripture attests to the claim that the OT is a universal reflection on the cycles of violence, war, and oppression of all types, mixed with the voices of hope, merciful justice, and liberation of the oppressed. The problem with history is that there is too much of it. The scripture solves this problem and provides us with universal lessons of history, and for the astute reader, God is found in the text’s message; simply look for mercy, read with compassion and not from a legal perspective.
The beginning of history is our beginning, and inevitably includes death for we are creatures, but more than creatures for we are created in the image and likeness of God. Death insists that life is real, and history affirms the reality of life and death. Without humanity, without procreation (sex), violence, sin, death, and shame, there is no history. God cannot reveal who God is apart from human history. The history of God begins with the history of humanity. Any alleged events prior to humanity are either inconsequential to history or mythical.
God can only reveal God’s self within an historical construct where procreation (sex), violence, sin, shame and death exist. Ergo, God is a creating, nonviolent, holy, redeeming being void of shame who can reverse the processes of death for God lives within and beyond human history.
Qohelet wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. While we might attempt to claim that science and technology have brought newness to our lives, it remains that in relation to history as the story of humanity’s violence – there is nothing new under the sun. We are still driven by the same self-destructive desires, still led astray by those who claim greatness, nurture hatred, build towers, and by old men who send young men to die in yet another war - we still witness the abuse of women, the misogyny, and the silencing of their voices.
The Old Testament is a universally applicable history to all of humanity and carries in its bosom the revelation of God that culminates in Jesus’ in the New Testament. The theological myths of Genesis 1-11 encapsulate realities common to all peoples everywhere throughout history. The single entrance of newness in the OT is the revelation of monotheism exemplified in Abraham, clarified in Moses, and exhibited as denunciation of all oppressive systems in the finest of the prophets.
The Historian who works to serve humanity understands that the stories of the past must be presented in the present in order to expose the killing that led to the presence of power in the present. Human beings subconsciously accept inherited wealth and power as a sign of superiority over other cultures, and forms of government. Ultimately, the rise of an empire considers the language of the powerful to be superior to all other languages.
When history is written by the victors it seeks to eradicate the shame of conquest and genocidal acts. History written to expose the shame of the past, enables people to move toward healing of the present through conscious awareness that is followed by the burden of knowledge and in healthy souls leads to culpability. Culpability accepts the interconnectedness of humanity in the present with the sins of the past. History is an essential guide for healing the world in the present, for recognizing reality.
One of history’s basic lessons is that human beings are not fit to rule over one another. Rather, we were created to serve one another. In order to know how to serve others in a holistic manner that heals the sins of the past that have formed the present, we all must explore the history that has contributed to the world we inherit. For this reason, historians who are not in service to the state but expose the sins of the state in particular, but also the culture, and the failure of religion are essential for the healing of the world. Without these historians we live in a false reality; good historians preserve reality.
