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Im trying to work through a more complicated theological difficulty without inundating the forum with a very long discussion that requires pages of my own text to even begin contriubuting. Part of this can be done by interpreting Isaiah 50, so I thought I would create a post that does just that. The goal then is to here put forward my own interpretation of this passage and hope that other people can comment either in favour or in contradiction. Thank you in advance.
In verse 1 the Lord says that He has not forsaken His people. The only way to makes sense of the indicative sentence at the end in light the preceding rhetorical questions is to assume it is sarcastic. The point is similar to 'Can a woman forget her suckling child. . .' Verse 2-3 then says if you have not been abandoned why when He came to redeem did no one bother showing up. The apparent reason being that they did not believe He could help them. God's response is that He has direct power over the mightiest of natural forces? He can and should be expected to suspend the natural law. The passage then shifting back to the person of Isaiah describes him as someone who has been given 'the tongue of one who is taught' and the capacity 'to hear as those who are taught'. (I use here the rsv because it is the only version I have found which takes into consideration that the Hebrew has one word which it renders "taught": "לימודים". I recognize that it gives to some degree an opposite reading but i am convinced that this is correct) The point being that he has the epistemological capacity of a scholar without having gone to school. Then in verses 5-8 we see that what he learned through this process was the cross – really. And in 7-9 that this is not a problem because of the strength of God. Despite his accepting of poor treatment it is others who will 'wear out like a garment'. Again the chapter turns epistemological. In 10 the hearer is admonished to 'obey[] the voice of his servant' while 'walk[ing] in darkness and ha[ving] no light, yet trust[ing] in the name of the LORD and rel[ying] upon his God'. In 11 it is stated that those who 'walk by the light of [their] fire' will, as a result of God's action, 'lie down in torment'.
It seems then that this passage is suggesting something not unlike St. Paul's flesh-spirit distinction in 1 Cor., that is a trusting in God to grant a supernatural capacity over and above a natural one, to the point that the natural one becomes sinful to some degree, not in itself but because it represents a lack of faith (something I call the Don't-Trust-In-Princes Principle). The passage covers this with regard to the natural desire for self preservation on both an emotive level but also a practical one, if not in other ways. However what I am most interested in is the way the passage treats this topic on an epistemological level. It seems to suggest that Isaiah has a supernatural capacity to learn, but also that to some degree this capacity is found not only in him but in the people that passage is detected towards. For they are instructed not to 'walk by the light of [their] fire'. That is not proceed in light of their own lesser logical capacities.
The reasonable conclusion as to how this is seems to be that rather than attempt to gain knowledge from studying the world around us we ought to be gaining knowledge from public revelation after all Isaiah instructs us to 'obey[] the voice of his servant'. Here is the problem: No means other than natural ones is given for interpreting this revelation and determining what is this revelation. If one needs to be a scholar to understand revelation and to recognise which revelation is most reasonable, then one is in a sense defeating the purpose and undermining the don't-trust-in-princes principle. This is in a sense the point that Augustine is making in the De Magistro. So it seems the supernatural capacity which Isaiah had which made him like a scholar must be imparted in some degree to the hearers as well.
In verse 1 the Lord says that He has not forsaken His people. The only way to makes sense of the indicative sentence at the end in light the preceding rhetorical questions is to assume it is sarcastic. The point is similar to 'Can a woman forget her suckling child. . .' Verse 2-3 then says if you have not been abandoned why when He came to redeem did no one bother showing up. The apparent reason being that they did not believe He could help them. God's response is that He has direct power over the mightiest of natural forces? He can and should be expected to suspend the natural law. The passage then shifting back to the person of Isaiah describes him as someone who has been given 'the tongue of one who is taught' and the capacity 'to hear as those who are taught'. (I use here the rsv because it is the only version I have found which takes into consideration that the Hebrew has one word which it renders "taught": "לימודים". I recognize that it gives to some degree an opposite reading but i am convinced that this is correct) The point being that he has the epistemological capacity of a scholar without having gone to school. Then in verses 5-8 we see that what he learned through this process was the cross – really. And in 7-9 that this is not a problem because of the strength of God. Despite his accepting of poor treatment it is others who will 'wear out like a garment'. Again the chapter turns epistemological. In 10 the hearer is admonished to 'obey[] the voice of his servant' while 'walk[ing] in darkness and ha[ving] no light, yet trust[ing] in the name of the LORD and rel[ying] upon his God'. In 11 it is stated that those who 'walk by the light of [their] fire' will, as a result of God's action, 'lie down in torment'.
It seems then that this passage is suggesting something not unlike St. Paul's flesh-spirit distinction in 1 Cor., that is a trusting in God to grant a supernatural capacity over and above a natural one, to the point that the natural one becomes sinful to some degree, not in itself but because it represents a lack of faith (something I call the Don't-Trust-In-Princes Principle). The passage covers this with regard to the natural desire for self preservation on both an emotive level but also a practical one, if not in other ways. However what I am most interested in is the way the passage treats this topic on an epistemological level. It seems to suggest that Isaiah has a supernatural capacity to learn, but also that to some degree this capacity is found not only in him but in the people that passage is detected towards. For they are instructed not to 'walk by the light of [their] fire'. That is not proceed in light of their own lesser logical capacities.
The reasonable conclusion as to how this is seems to be that rather than attempt to gain knowledge from studying the world around us we ought to be gaining knowledge from public revelation after all Isaiah instructs us to 'obey[] the voice of his servant'. Here is the problem: No means other than natural ones is given for interpreting this revelation and determining what is this revelation. If one needs to be a scholar to understand revelation and to recognise which revelation is most reasonable, then one is in a sense defeating the purpose and undermining the don't-trust-in-princes principle. This is in a sense the point that Augustine is making in the De Magistro. So it seems the supernatural capacity which Isaiah had which made him like a scholar must be imparted in some degree to the hearers as well.
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