Towering Technologies and Heights

This is a post I have had on my list for a while to write in response to Pauli's request in a comment some time ago, that I write some on "Towering Technology." The only disclaimer I will preface this with is that the old addage rings true, "the higher the leap, the harder the ground." BUT that does not mean it is not worth the climbing (a pig cannot be weighed down by sin because a pig cannot sin, but I would rather be a man in poverty, as long as I am contrite, than a pig in bliss). It simply means that in striving for the perfection God creates us possible of a achieving we must balance the heights of our God-given potential with a similar (if not greater) degree of lowness of humility. This is, I think, at least one of the subsidiary meanings of the precarious balance that Chesterton refers to as, "the romance of orthodoxy." What is in a Name (The Legacy of Cain): Pauli had surmised that this would go back at least to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, but actually it goes even further back. Those men wanted to build a "name" for themselves but they were not the first to build under a certain name. In Genesis 4 Cain is condemned to nomadic exile for murdering his brother Abel, and he complains, "my punishment is too great to bear." It would have been better for Cain had he accepted the punishment and learned something from in it, but he did not. Instead he moved and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden, and there he built a city and named it after his first born son Enoch (all of this information as well the imemdiately following paragraph is taken from what is called the "Cainite Genealogy" in Genesis 4). The 7th generation from Cain was a man named Lamech, the first recorded polygamist. His two wives bore to him 3 sons who became the "fathers" of "civilization": Jabal was the father of shepherds/cattle men, Jubal was the father of musicians and Tubal-Cain was the father of those who forge metal into instruments. Lamech was also a very violent man, he killed a man for the small offense to him and then came home and bragged to his wives about it. Thus in this place that is the seat of the seeds of civilization and technology, we have the temptaions to evil that come with it. These temptations go all the way back to Cain who buitlt the city and to his parents. It was a "cunning" serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to want to be "like gods." And this same temptation was passed on to his son: when Cain is angry that Yahweh accepts Abel's sacrifice but not his own, God speaks of sin as a serpent, crouching at Cain's door in wait for him (Genesis 4:7) Keep in mind that the theme of naming is essential to the sort of "Kingly" vocation of man (I am borrowing this term from Dr Scott Hahn, who notes a "Kingly" and a "Priestly" vocation of humanity in the 2 creation stories of Genesis 1 &2). It is in the action of naming the animals in Genesis 2 that God shows man that he is incomplete with out woman. But apparently the royal task of naming the animals and the woman were not enough; Adam gave in to temptation and sought a name for himsef, "like a god." The temptation and sin were passed to his son Cain; then to Enoch, the son for whom Cain named a whole city; and then to the descendents in that city who were the first masters of tachnology and the arts. In Genesis 6:1-4 we see how this lineage continued in the "mighty warriors," the Gibborim, who were believed to be born of the union of mortal women with gods; they were the "famous men" (literally, "the men of the name"). And finally we see how, even after a catastrophe like the flood, men still sought to "build a name" for themselves by building a tower that reached into the heavens, into the realm of God Himself (Genesis 11: 1-9). A Kingdom Divided (The King of Israel) The Deuternomic covenenant is related in the book of Deuteronomy, which literaly means "second law" since the first version of the covenant, given at Mt Sinai, was broken by Israel. This second version functioned as a sort of "constitution" for Israel as a nation and then a Kingdom. The thing that makes this second version distinctive from the first is the presence of a number of "concessionary" laws. The first covenant was given by God in power and might on top of a mountain (thunder and lightning and Moses's face glowing when he came down with the tablets). The second version was given through a 120 yr old man droning on a field. But that second version contained some shrewd measures the man was allowed to introduce, measures that anticipated some of the "cunning" that would attend the "hardness of heart" of the Israelites. (In this section I am borrowing again from the thought of Dr Scott Hahn). A good example of one of these measures was that on divorce, and this is evidenced in Christ's words on the matter in Matthew 19:7 ff and the parallel in Mark 10:4 ff. If a man wants to divorce his wife, but he is not allowed because of "till death do us part," what is he to do? Well, in heavily patriarchal society where a man might get away with murder (literally) he might just makle sure that "till death do us part" comes sooner rather than later (a new wife while the old one lives would be frowned upon by the community, but an "accidental" death ... "well, you have our condolences"). The provision prevents greater evils from hardness of heart. Among these conscessions were what are called, "the laws of kingship." That Israel would want a king like the nations around them was forseen, and so was the fact that the king would be tempted to covet more and more power and to abuse it more and more. So the "laws of kingship" prohibited the king from amassing 3 things connected with power, the 3 "W"s: Women, Wealth and Weapons. Obviously, "money is power," but so are wives and concubines when they are the princesses of foreign rulers wed in political marriages. Likewise, a standing army is power, and the better armed they are with the "latest and greatest" weapons the more powerful they are. The Temple One further thing that was a "concession" in the Deuteronomic covenant was "central sanctuary." The "natural" place to worship a deity was a "high place" (a hill top grove of trees), and the pagans had been using these sights for many ages. Just like at Sinai, where the Israelites said, "we will worship Yahweh, BUT we should worship Him in the form of a golden calf, which just so happens to be an Egyptian god," so the people entering the promised land would say, "we're going to use these standard worship spots to worship Yahweh, and it won't hurt to use the old forms too ... and he'll understand that when we worship the Baals taht were worshipped there before we're really worshiping Him - right?" So, the Temple of Jerusalem was really the fulfillment of a precept that was a concession to deal with the people's predeliction for idolatry - no sacrifices accept to Yahweh at His central sanctuary, the Jerusalem Temple. And this institution leads to the next instance to examine. The Highest Point of the Temple (Christ) In the fourth chapter of St Matthew's Gospel we read that, like the Israelites, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness (40 years in Israel's case) and was then tempted, among other things, on a high place to worship a pagan god - one called "the tempter," hinting back to the serpent in the garden, and in Christian tradition this is the devil, or Satan. The 3rd temptation in this event was pretty much an all out assault of pressure to idolatry, a bare-faced temptation to this. The first 2 temptations however appeal to the fact that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, but the tempter wanted to "catch him up" by getting him to focus on the power of this position. The first temptation is to simple physical power, "you are hungry, use your power for your appetites ... and in the process prove that power of messiahship." The second temptation, on the pinnacle of the temple, was to the political power of the Messiah, like the king of Israel who would eventually be tempted to amass power through wealth, political marriages and military might. Interestingly, Christ was not the first "Messiah," there is an immediate fulfillment of that role in the Old Testament itself. "Messiah" means "annointed one," and in the Hebrew Scriptures it means the annointed son of the king. The first fulfillment of the "Messiah" was Solomon, the wise one, 3rd king of the united Kingdom of Israel. A number of scholars note that the Temptation of Christ was focussed on the concept of being the "messiah." From that great height where He could see all that could be His in the way of political power as Messiah, Jesus was tempted to focus on that power and define what it meant for Him to be Messiah by that power alone. The Dizzying Heights of Space (Star Wars) In Star Wars we have of course that power that rains down terror, literally, from the "heavens," the Death Star. The Jedi seem to take a more balanced approach to physicality. They will use technology in harmony with traditional symbol as in something like the lightsaber (something that takes the kind of skill born of long training). The sith, on the other hand, wants one of two extremes: either straightforward domination over the elements by their will (which is prefered) or a technology that can obliterate millions in one pwerful stroke. There are many smaller images that fill out the larger image but one of the most impressive is the use of technology with regard to the right hand - both Luke and Vader have a robotic right hand. In Herbaic thought especially, the right hand is the hand of judgement and the hand of power. In the perverse world engineered by the sith (often right under the noses of the jedi) this is fulfilled through raw technology, grafted and melded onto human body in ways I think you are meant to wonder abouth the prudence of. The Dangerous Heights of Knowledge (Harry Potter and Death by Divination atop the Tower) Tolkien: a Precursor Before tackling the Astronomy tower, I should note that there is an immediate precursor to Rowling's use of the high-tower, a precursor in probably the most famous of the "Inklings" in whose footsteps she follows. Forget not that the Tower of Barad Dur (Sauron's high place) was built with the one ring, and when the one ring and he himself were destroyed the tower crumbles. In David Day's book Tolkien's Ring we find recounted the legend of the use of Solomon's ring to build the temple, and in Rowling we see take place atop a high tower the culmination of the sacrifice DD made in destroying Voly's ring horcrux (provided we're right about the "stoppered death" theory). The Lightning Struck Tower From the first book of the Harry Potter series we have heard the themes noted above echoed, when Quirrell says that Voldy taught him that, "there is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." (Sorcerer's Stone, 291). But the real question connected with the height of that particular tower towards the end of book 6 is the central question of Hogwarts' very essence as a school - the power of knowledge. Of course, as Pauli noted (in his comment on the post linked to just above, in the Star Wars section), Tolkien's Orthanc tower is one prime example of a lust for knowledge turning into a lust for power, and Saruman gazing into his palantir is pretty much the dreggs of divination ( which astronomy is the height of, as we see when a real master like Firenze takes over in Order of the Pheonix). But in both the case of Saruman and of Denethor, Tolkien's characters are beguiled by twisting and perversions of facts which Sauron substitues for real truth. Likewise, Trelawney has had only two real predictions and the one only came true because Voldy believed it to be true and made it so. You get the serious impression that the centaurs take a seriously different approach to knowledge and reading the stars. I think DD dies for the greater good, but also that it is telling that he dies on top of the Astronomy tower, since so much of Astronomy is like that ... it can be a legit part of magic but it can go seriously awry too (much like the water element, the cunning of the serpent, potions etc). The knowledge can be abused. Hidden Clue: If somebody wants to beat me to this they can ... I want to look and see if in book 5, when they witness the attack on Hagrid's hut by Umbridge, if there are any notable distortions in their perception of it because they witness it from the top of the Astronomy tower.