Questions on Patron/Client relationships

[Teluog]

JPH, you really need to clearly outline the dynamics of how we really relate to God in an essay or book, because I'm getting more confused. I might even research this relationship model for my term paper if I take my college's God and Humanity course.

Question for clarification: is the reason why God is not close to us in the buddy sense because we are supposed to be image bearers of Him--Him being self-sustainable, and concerned about the well-being of others and ready to serve others? IOW, did God make us originally to be focused on the well-being of others so we can serve them, in contrast to focusing on others to fill OUR dependency needs or in contrast to focusing on how I benefit from being close to someone else?

It seems to me that if God is self-sustaining and doesn't need other people for emotional fulfilment, and if we are made in that image, then perhaps we were created to mirror this?

Am I making sense?

[jpholding]

JPH, you really need to clearly outline the dynamics of how we really relate to God in an essay or book,

That might be in the one after this one on the Resurrection....

Question for clarification: is the reason why God is not close to us in the buddy sense because we are supposed to be image bearers of Him--Him being self-sustainable, and concerned about the well-being of others and ready to serve others?

I think that's a very good idea.

IOW, did God make us originally to be focused on the well-being of others so we can serve them, in contrast to focusing on others to fill OUR dependency needs or in contrast to focusing on how I benefit from being close to someone else?

I like that too. And naturally, if that is done right, there is no need for "self" to fulfill "needs".

It seems to me that if God is self-sustaining and doesn't need other people for emotional fulfilment, and if we are made in that image, then perhaps we were created to mirror this?

Am I making sense?

It makes some sense, though I'd have to add in what I know about "image" language having to do more with representational authority than being "like" God.

[Teluog]

That might be in the one after this one on the Resurrection....

It makes some sense, though I'd have to add in what I know about "image" language having to do more with representational authority than being "like" God.

Hmm, I'd like to know what you know about the Imago Dei. I did a paper on that for my Intro to Theology course and remember clearly noticing that a mirrored authority figure seemed to be the main thing.

Perhaps on top of how we relate to God you could include how we relate to others in light of this client-patron thing?

[jpholding]

Hmm, I'd like to know what you know about the Imago Dei. I did a paper on that for my Intro to Theology course and remember clearly noticing that a mirrored authority figure seemed to be the main thing.

My research on "image" language was done years ago when I did my work on Mormonism....it's all in The Mormon Defenders, Ch. 1.

Perhaps on top of how we relate to God you could include how we relate to others in light of this client-patron thing?

Possibly. Though that may go better in another volume, a much later one, on practical living, as opposed to the doctrine one.

[fiddlin-john]

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I have to ask this question in a way that me-small-brain understand it. Is the client/patron argument basically this: since people 2,000 years ago really didn't have deep interpersonal relationships, and since even family members weren't close personally, and since these cultures were used in delivering the inspired inerrant word of God t mankind, then therefore God is top be viewed through their cultural lens, and is therefore not personal with us?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Teluog. I would say however that there is a distinction with God being relational in himself in the Trinity. We're not triune so we are to be interdependent with one another.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

I would say that they honestly confused being blessed by God with having a personal friendship relationship.

To add to Eru's comment, we should also throw in that for me, it's not the idea of "God is my buddy" that gives me comfort, but thinking about who he is and considering his attributes and what he's really like that's a source of joy. Get me talking about the Trinity and what it's like and it'll usually cheer me up if I'm depressed about something.

[Manwë Súlimo]

Get me talking about the Trinity and what it's like and it'll usually cheer me up if I'm depressed about something.

I never looked at it that way. The Trinity is an awe-inspiriting idea, once you begin to understand it.

[Manwë Súlimo]

JP, would you say that the honor-shame, client-patrol models are superior to every other cultural model because it most closely reflects our relationship with God?

[jpholding]

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I have to ask this question in a way that me-small-brain understand it. Is the client/patron argument basically this: since people 2,000 years ago really didn't have deep interpersonal relationships, and since even family members weren't close personally, and since these cultures were used in delivering the inspired inerrant word of God t mankind, then therefore God is top be viewed through their cultural lens, and is therefore not personal with us?

More like, it is the burden of modern, Western people, who represent a mere .00001% of people who have ever lived in being substantially different, to explain why we should NOT view God this way, especially since God did nothing to reveal that the terms would change.

[jpholding]

JP, would you say that the honor-shame, client-patrol models are superior to every other cultural model because it most closely reflects our relationship with God?

That would be too generalized a conclusion. It is certainly more helpful in understanding that relationship, however. It remains for me to see whether it is overall superior. Each can be misused, but I will want to discover at some point which one in general leads to better psychological health and the greater good, when applied as intended in its best incarnations.

[fiddlin-john]

Is this client patron existent in the Hebrew Culture? I just did a little reading on the Clientela of Roman culture, bu did not see any mention of the Hebrew version.

[NeilUnreal]

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I have to ask this question in a way that me-small-brain understand it. Is the client/patron argument basically this: since people 2,000 years ago really didn't have deep interpersonal relationships, and since even family members weren't close personally, and since these cultures were used in delivering the inspired inerrant word of God t mankind, then therefore God is top be viewed through their cultural lens, and is therefore not personal with us?

This touches on two of my issues with the whole thing.

1) I dispute the idea that “people 2,000 years ago really didn't have deep interpersonal relationships, and since even family members weren't close personally.”

1a) People in various cultures show more or less affinity for personal relationships, but at the end of day, humans are mammals, and emotional relationships are as built into our biology as are milk and hair.

1b) People, when interviewed or when they expose cultural behavior to outsiders, are notorious for upholding dominant cultural metanarratives. All anecdotal reports should be viewed with this in mind.

1c) Many surviving ancient documents are various species of technical literature. It’s akin to archaeologists in our future finding the law and theology sections of one of our libraries and concluding that, because they found no romance novels, interpersonal relationships didn’t exist.

2) Even if the peoples whose cultures are recorded in our scriptures did have only non-personal, technical relationships, to argue that this represents God’s only (or even preferred) method of relationship to human beings is to argue for a privileged status for that culture. It may be that the cultural facets outlined in the scriptures are not normative of humanity’s relationship with God and reflect either an incomplete view of God by those cultures or an attempt by God to work within those cultures. There are threads in both the New Testament and in Rabbinic thought that reflect this possibility.

We have to be very careful about ascribing the absence of basic human traits to outsiders based on our own views of them or even reports to outsiders from within their own culture. I once read an account by an American during World War II of Japanese families mourning their dead. The gist of it was, if the American observer didn’t “know” that Japanese lacked our emotional, interpersonal view of familial relationships, he would have sworn they were really grieving… just like us.

So this idea that the other is not “just like us” in terms of personal, emotional intimacy is a common metanarrative in the West. In the current instance, that same metanarrative is being turned on its head, saying: we in the West are the oddballs. But here’s the rub: a reversed metanarrative contains all the salient features of the original, but the problem with a metanarrative is not usually what it says, but with what it doesn’t say.

So perhaps the surviving documents we have from the ANE no more speak to the idea of personal relationships than does the code of Bushido speak of what the Japanese mother felt when she buried her soldier son. She may have felt, in homage to her son’s memory, some internal obligation to follow that code, until her grief grew too strong and swelled past it. But an external observer (the American), having outsider concepts of Bushido but not feeling the woman’s grief, has difficulty understanding the situation.

If only he didn’t “know” from internal cultural reports that Japanese do not feel grief like us…

And all that confusion in contemporary cultures, how much more so when studying an ancient culture.

I think the best approach is one of balance:

1) Acknowledge that cultures of the ANE had stronger notions of patronage that do we. That will be reflected in their thinking, but more especially in terms of reports and technical documents.

2) Acknowledge that it’s unlikely that emotion was as absent from their personal relationships as #1 makes it seem. We know this both from the basics of our biology and from contemporary reports like the WWII story.

3) When using ancient literature to think about the relationship between God and humanity, keep both of the above into account. Don’t ignore what the ancients had to say about patron/client relationships as a metaphor for human interaction with God, but don’t automatically accord such views a privileged place. This is particularly true in light of the difficulty of understanding those documents at all at our cultural remove.

-Neil

[jpholding]

Is this client patron existent in the Hebrew Culture? I just did a little reading on the Clientela of Roman culture, bu did not see any mention of the Hebrew version.

There it is more like vassal-suzerain. I use "client-patron" generically to refer to reciprocal relationships of this sort.

[jpholding]

1) I dispute the idea that “people 2,000 years ago really didn't have deep interpersonal relationships, and since even family members weren't close personally.”

1a) People in various cultures show more or less affinity for personal relationships, but at the end of day, humans are mammals, and emotional relationships are as built into our biology as are milk and hair.

Please. Typical Western cultural imperialist drivel. You have no place to dispute any of this; you are not even a reader of anthropology, much less a scholar in the field.

Your desperation is evident in that you're now resorting to such expedients as accusing them of lying:

1b) People, when interviewed or when they expose cultural behavior to outsiders, are notorious for upholding dominant cultural metanarratives. All anecdotal reports should be viewed with this in mind.

And pulling the old "they burned the Library at Alexandria" canard:

1c) Many surviving ancient documents are various species of technical literature. It’s akin to archaeologists in our future finding the law and theology sections of one of our libraries and concluding that, because they found no romance novels, interpersonal relationships didn’t exist.

You may as well declare for the "Jesus didn't exist" argument right now, because you're producing the same kind of arguments Acharya S and Earl Doherty produce.

2) Even if the peoples whose cultures are recorded in our scriptures did have only non-personal, technical relationships, to argue that this represents God’s only (or even preferred) method of relationship to human beings is to argue for a privileged status for that culture.

And as I already pointed out, but to which you have no reply, YOU do this very thing, arguing for your own modern Western norms as "privileged," in spite of the fact that they represent the tiniest minority of persons who have ever lived. Who's more likely to be demanding privilege that is not warranted? Take a guess!

We have to be very careful about ascribing the absence of basic human traits to outsiders based on our own views of them or even reports to outsiders from within their own culture.

Oh sure -- but by all means, feel free to ascribe the presence of OUR unique Western neuroses to outsiders based on our views; feel free to accuse insiders of lying or misrepresenting themselves, yes?

I once read an account by an American during World War II of Japanese families mourning their dead. The gist of it was, if the American observer didn’t “know” that Japanese lacked our emotional, interpersonal view of familial relationships, he would have sworn they were really grieving… just like us.

COUGH -- what did you just say about using anecdotes, you hypocrite???

I think the best approach is one of balance:

No, the best approach is to gather data and reach conclusions. That of course is precisely what you prefer NOT to do, because it turns your little self-centered world upside down. Instead, you prefer to speculate, impose presumption, and remake the world in your own feeble image just to turn God into a comforting nanny you can live with.

When you have actually done as I have and read the serious literature -- THEN you can speak to the matter with authority.

Until then, you're just Acharya S in another suit.