How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot?
— William Butler Yeats
“…we shall always bear in mind where we are and consequently regard every man first and foremost as a being who exists only as a consequence of his culpability and whose life is an expiation of the crime of being born.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
The old antinatalist complaint - I didn’t ask to be born ! I had no choice ! I am imprisoned in brute necessity !
But that’s just what this “life” is, in order to make this choice.
However, what we call "life" as we experience it now is not true life. True life is Zoe - spiritual life, such as Christ came to give, rather we exist now according to Bios - biological life, by devouring dead plant and animal matter.
There are, in fact, three Greek words for life used in the New Testament: bios, psyche, and zoe.
The Greek word translated as life in John is zoe:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
Zoe refers to the uncreated, eternal life of God, the divine life uniquely possessed by God.
McGowan says,
"Baptism was not merely a ritualized sign of a contract for moral righteousness agreed to before going into the water. For Justin it was a powerful and mysterious reality that provided an answer to deep-seated needs embedded in the human person from the outset:”
Personally, this is the only answer I’ve found to the horror of being thrust into life. Listen to this heartfelt scream by Mircea Cărtărescu :
"How is it possible for us to exist? Who allowed this scandal and injustice? This horror, this abomination? What monstrous imagination has enveloped consciousness in flesh? What sadistic and saturnine spirit allowed the conscience to suffer, allowed the spirit to scream in torture? Why did I descend into this mud, into this jungle, into these flames full of hatred and anger? Who pushed us from our high places?
Who locked us in bodies, who bound us with our own nerves and our own arteries? Who forced us to have bones and cartilages, sphincters and glands, kidneys and nails, skin and intestines? What are we searching for in this soft and filthy machine? Who blindfolded us with our own eyes, who covered our ears with our own ears? Who approved of pain and who approved of sensations? What do we have to do with the clusters of cells in our body? With the matter flowing through it like through a tube of agonizing flesh? What are we doing here? What is this mockery? Why do we swim in the acids that ulcerate our thinking? Protest, revolt against the conscience buried in flesh!"
Well, this is St Justin’s answer : baptism :
“And we have learned the following reason for this from the apostles. Since at our first birth we were born in ignorance and by necessity, from the wet seed of our parents’intercourse, and were brought up in bad habits and evil education; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and ignorance, but may become the children of choice and understanding, and may undergo in the water the forgiveness of sins we previously committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of all. . . . And this washing is called “illumination,”because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understanding. (1 Apol. 61.9–10, 12)”
There are, in fact, three Greek words for life used in the New Testament: bios, psyche, and zoe.
The Greek word translated as life in John is zoe:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
Zoe refers to the uncreated, eternal life of God, the divine life uniquely possessed by God.
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it in all its fullness."
"For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world…"
We are given Zoe through Christ in baptism. St Justin says baptism is :
“….in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and ignorance, but may become the children of choice and understanding..”
Upon this passage Andrew Mcgowen remarks :
“Justin’s earthy account contrasts unchosen natural generation with the choice and freedom of new birth; one wet, messy beginning requires another to fix its problematic consequences."
Elsewhere McGowan writes :
"Although Justin did not share Marcion’s rejection of sex and marriage, his sense of reproduction as hopelessly compromised helps explain how sex could be seen as part of the problem to which baptism was the solution.”
We are here to make this decision - to say “Amen” to life, to assent to be born anew - but not to this fallen creation imprisoned by death, but to a “spiritual” form of existence, in a new creation...and it is this one that we must go through to reach that Kingdom.
"For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world…"
We are given Zoe through Christ in baptism. St Justin says baptism is :
“….in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and ignorance, but may become the children of choice and understanding..”
Upon this passage Andrew Mcgowen remarks :
“Justin’s earthy account contrasts unchosen natural generation with the choice and freedom of new birth; one wet, messy beginning requires another to fix its problematic consequences."
Elsewhere McGowan writes :
"Although Justin did not share Marcion’s rejection of sex and marriage, his sense of reproduction as hopelessly compromised helps explain how sex could be seen as part of the problem to which baptism was the solution.”
We are here to make this decision - to say “Amen” to life, to assent to be born anew - but not to this fallen creation imprisoned by death, but to a “spiritual” form of existence, in a new creation...and it is this one that we must go through to reach that Kingdom.
McGowan says,
"Baptism was not merely a ritualized sign of a contract for moral righteousness agreed to before going into the water. For Justin it was a powerful and mysterious reality that provided an answer to deep-seated needs embedded in the human person from the outset:”
Personally, this is the only answer I’ve found to the horror of being thrust into life. Listen to this heartfelt scream by Mircea Cărtărescu :
"How is it possible for us to exist? Who allowed this scandal and injustice? This horror, this abomination? What monstrous imagination has enveloped consciousness in flesh? What sadistic and saturnine spirit allowed the conscience to suffer, allowed the spirit to scream in torture? Why did I descend into this mud, into this jungle, into these flames full of hatred and anger? Who pushed us from our high places?
Who locked us in bodies, who bound us with our own nerves and our own arteries? Who forced us to have bones and cartilages, sphincters and glands, kidneys and nails, skin and intestines? What are we searching for in this soft and filthy machine? Who blindfolded us with our own eyes, who covered our ears with our own ears? Who approved of pain and who approved of sensations? What do we have to do with the clusters of cells in our body? With the matter flowing through it like through a tube of agonizing flesh? What are we doing here? What is this mockery? Why do we swim in the acids that ulcerate our thinking? Protest, revolt against the conscience buried in flesh!"
Well, this is St Justin’s answer : baptism :
“And we have learned the following reason for this from the apostles. Since at our first birth we were born in ignorance and by necessity, from the wet seed of our parents’intercourse, and were brought up in bad habits and evil education; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and ignorance, but may become the children of choice and understanding, and may undergo in the water the forgiveness of sins we previously committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of all. . . . And this washing is called “illumination,”because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understanding. (1 Apol. 61.9–10, 12)”
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