Stephen Charnock (1628 - 1680), Puritan divine, was an Engllish Puritan and Presbyterian clergyman. He is most renowned for a book that was likely published after his death. It is titled: The Existence and Attributes of God. Apparently it was originally a series of sermons.
In this book that I mentioned, he has a very profound pair of quotes that I think are rather significant. They read:
“Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty.”
“His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction is `holy.’”
The most significant of the two is the second, because it may be an important part of the foundation for later thinkers, like Charles Spurgeon, who loved the Puritans, for being convinced that holiness is wholeness. God's name and God's holiness were seen by Spurgeon as being parallel to each other in particular biblical texts and that is one of his reasons for believing that holiness was holiness. It was because it was "all of his attributes in conjunction." That was understood to be the basic idea of a name in Hebrew thought.
Having understood this idea of a conjunction of attributes the following quote about Stephen Charnock himself may prove interesting. To understand his character as a whole, the following quote may best summarize it.
It reads:
But that which gave the finish to Charnock's intellectual character, was not the predominance of any one quality so much as the harmonious and nicely balanced union of all. Acute perception, sound judgment, masculine sense, brilliant imagination, habits of reflection, and a complete mastery over the succession of his thoughts, were all combined in that comely order and that due proportion which go to constitute a well-regulated mind. There was, in his case, none of that disproportionate development of any one particular faculty, which, in some cases, serves, like an overpowering glare, to dim, if not almost to quench the splendour of the rest. The various faculties of his soul, to make use of a figure, rather shone forth like so many glittering stars, from the calm and clear firmament of his mind, each supplying its allotted tribute of light, and contributing to the serene and solemn lustre of the whole. As has been said of another, so may it be said of him—"If it be rare to meet with an individual whose mental faculties are thus admirably balanced, in whom no tyrant faculty usurps dominion over the rest, or erects a despotism on the ruins of the intellectual republic; still more rare is it to meet with such a mind in union with the far higher qualities of religious and moral excellence."
Charnock's concept of a person's name and the idea of holiness being connected with both beauty and a combination of all of God's attributes seem to have played out in his life. They also seem to have been, from my reading elsewhere, part of the foundation for holiness means wholeness, because of the idea of a combination of attributes. This idea is more than a mere folk theory. Even among some scholars today, it is recognized as having this significance in the world of Hebraic thought. When we approach another culture, we must remember that their thoughts may not be our thoughts. So understanding Hebrew culture regarding names is important.
In Christ,
Jon
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3 comments:
Hello,
I have been doing some study on holiness and came across your site. I am a bit confused. It seems you base your claim for "holiness" meaning "wholeness" entirely on English language studies. Seeing as your application of the word is within the context of Christianity, wouldn't it make more sense to pursue the word/idea within the context of Christianity's sacred book's original languages?
Certainly it would be more relevant to a minister what the Greek and Hebrew root words mean than what the English derived from it has meant. One could argue endlessly because the English words usually carry more than one meaning and those interpretational options are not in direct correlation to the Greek and Hebrew root word's range of meaning. In this case, I simply don't see anywhere in the Greek that "agios, agion [hagios, etc.]" from which we translate "holy" in our English New Testament is ever referred to as "whole" or any similar idea. No, rather, it has to do with purity, being set apart and distinct. That is the common consensus of all Greek lexicons that I have access to at the moment. If I get a chance to visit the local Bible college library, I will comment further. Below are links to lexicon entries. Again, I would say that holiness is 1)"pure" and 2) "sacred", but not "whole."
http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=39
http://www.archive.org/stream/englishgreekdict027453mbp#page/n411/mode/2up
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=a(/gios
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0073:entry=a(gno/s
In Him,
-timothy
I appreciate you saying it "seems" I base my claim for the meaning of holiness on English language studies. It seems that where the confusion lies is in the idea that I rely "entirely" on those studies. A portion of my argument is based on English language studies, because of the history of translation. Early English translators chose the word holy, because they thought the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek indicated a concept of whole. I think that is relevant, even if it is not my entire argument. You have to be cautious with using a consensus argument from present lexicons or translations, because they mainly come from the same fairly recent scholarly tradition. My argument is based as much as possible on the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and that is why I am not afraid to disagree with recent lexicons and go back to the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek sources myself with required humility. For example, earlier Ancient Hebrew arguments I think are far more relevant and reliable than arguments from later Ancient Near Eastern Languages like Arabic. I also think I need to take seriously anyone who strove to be a biblical theologian. They also relied on biblical scholars in their day. That is why I am not afraid to include people like the Puritan in this entry who strove for a biblical theology. This argument may not be so relevant to you as to others. Beyond that I also use two language tools that are not used by many biblical languages scholars: the TEAR method and the Cultural Process method. Both of these come from the field of linguistics, the study of language. These support the idea that holy means whole as shown by the example of scholars in the tradition of Mary Douglas, a famous anthropologist. So I could not agree with you more on the standard of the original languages. It is just that I am taking a more multi-faceted approach in my argument. Maybe I need to clear this up elsewhere more effectively. Thank you for your comment.
A rough translation of the first comment in Chinese is: "Strives for the thing which not imppossible to obtain, was not better than from friendly treasures oneself has to utilize." I could not agree more once I undestood the gist of the comment. My striving is very much dependent and will only be as good as the friendly treasures I have to utilize. It points to both the value of friendship and the value of treasures. I need everything from my Bible, to friends, to family, to education, to language tools, to financial resources to do what I am doing, including everything in between. Maybe a somewhat parallel quote in English would be when Churchill said: "Give us the tools and we will win the war." I greatly appreciate this comment and it makes me more appreciative of all the friendly treasures I have received over the years to make the impossible all possible.
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