The lost virtue of naiveté

'Gosh, I never realised….10'. 'Really? I knew that ages agone—it'due south pretty common noesis you know!'

I wonder if you've always had that kind of conversation—at work, or church, or among friends or family. You take causeless that things are as they were claimed to exist, or presented, but all the fourth dimension 'everybody' 'knew' that that wasn't really the truth, and you were naive to assume information technology was. As I reflect back, I realised that it has happened to me quite a lot, and it happened to me again very recently. When information technology does happen, information technology leaves usa with a mixture of (sometimes) quite potent emotions. I feel foolish; I am also made to feel powerless since, after all, knowledge is power. I have missed out on the conversations effectually the outcome which others were clearly having. And it affects relational dynamics; anybody else was in the know, but I was on the outside.

Nosotros live in a circuitous earth, and this complexity seems to reward cunning. Cunning doesn't always win out, as the latest episode of the large-scale soap opera we call 'politics' demonstrates. Merely in many contexts we are given the subliminal bulletin: don't take everything at face up value; read between the lines; watch for the signs; forge alliances and make sure you know how to 'operate.' In such a context, the virtue of naiveté has been lost; there is no value in beingness 'innocent'.

The term 'naive' has both a negative and a positive sense to information technology. My dictionary points out both of these:

naive (alsonaïve ) adjective (of a person or action) showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgement

(of a person) natural and unaffected; innocent:

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: fromFrench naïve , feminine of naïf , fromLatin nativus 'native, natural' .

It can accept connotations of immaturity, of lack of judgement—but also a sense of beingness straightforward, natural and unaffected. In our want to lose the former, we end upwardly losing the latter, and nothing is as straightforward every bit it seems any more.


I remember it is possible to argue that, in many ways, the Jesus nosotros meet in the gospels was naive. Into the complex and turbulent political context of kickoff-century Judea, Samaria and Galilee, with the ambiguities of Roman ability, the struggles for dominance between the local rulers, and the rival Jewish groups, Jesus only proclaims 'The kingdom of God is here!' Repentance and belief sweep abroad all the other competing loyalties.

Jesus acted naively in the way he conducted his ministry, non least his healings. He must take known that healing on the Sabbath would have upset the religious authorities, and that would atomic number 82 him into trouble—but he did information technology anyhow. When he healed the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5), he might take guessed that the man's restoration would upset the sense of social ordering of the community ('the mad belong on the fringes')—and that episode with the pigs didn't really help—but he did information technology anyway.

Gerd Theissen, in his landmarkShadow of the Galilean,captures Jesus' apparent ignorance of the consequences of his ministry rather well:

One 24-hour interval a Gentile centurion living hither in Capernaum came to [Jesus]. He asked him to heal his orderly. Of course you take to assist Gentiles. But why this one? Everyone knows that almost of these Gentile officers are homosexual. Their orderlies are their lovers. But Jesus isn't interested in that sort of thing. He didn't ask anything about the orderly. He healed him—and the thought didn't occur to him that later someone might think of appealing to him in back up of the view that homosexuality is permissible. (p 106).

Although this passage has been used to other ends, the full general point is that Jesus acts in some sense naively, rather than in a calculated and knowing way, because in detail the possible consequences of his activity.

It has occurred to me that Jesus was naive in one of the most important decisions he made: the appointment of the 12. This was not washed without deep thought and prayer (all night in fact, Luke half-dozen.12), merely one of the slap-up puzzles of Jesus' ministry is why we hear and so footling of near of the Twelve apart from Peter and John, and why Jesus chose someone who ended up betraying him. Many readers take the comment of the gospels every bit a hint at a post hoc rationalisation, that Jesus knew from the starting time that Judas was going to betray him, but I don't think that interpretation is very convincing. And why don't nosotros hear of all the trail-blazing pioneering church-planting by the others? Why does it get left to Paul to transform the known world? Jesus is depicted every bit having profound insight into people's motives (Marking 2.eight), and at times the gift of supernatural knowledge (John 4.17) but he was clearly not all-seeing (Matt 24.36; the textual variant shows that the early church building had a trouble with this notion). But I am very tempted to call back that Jesus just took the Twelve every bit proficient men on face value—he fabricated a naive decision to take people as they presented themselves.

Whatsoever nosotros brand of these decisions, information technology is clear that Jesus taught the value of naiveté. 'Exist wise every bit serpents and innocent as doves' he tells the disciples every bit he sends them out on mission (merely only in Matthew, Matt 10.16). It'southward funny how we always detect the beginning of these more attractive than the second. 'Hither is an Israelite in whom there is no guile' he observes, as he commends Nathanael to anyone who would listen (John 1.47). 'Permit your 'aye' exist 'yeah' and your 'no' be 'no'; everything else comes from the Evil Ane' he teaches, in his new covenant version of proverbial wisdom (Matt 5.37), sufficiently of import for his brother to echo it nigh word for word (James 5.12). No reading between the lines hither, no nods and winks and nudges and gestures (Prov 16.30), no 'knowing' looks—only offer and receiving speech and activity at face up value. Naively.

And mention of The Evil Ane takes us right back to Eden. Information technology's possible to see God's command to Adam and Eve not to 'swallow of the tree of the knowledge of practiced and evil' as the command to remain naive, to trust God, and to take his word at face value, without supposing any sort of hidden motive. That is surely why other interpretations of the episode have been put forrad—that the 'autumn' is non so much nigh the loss of innocence as the growth into a maturity of discernment. God does want us to exist mature and understanding, only it is a maturity which somehow manages to recapture the innocence of naiveté and a straightforward dealing with the world we detect and the people we chronicle to.


French philosopher Paul Ricoeur uses the concept of naiveté as key in his thinking about how we know things, and how we relate critical analysis to our ways of knowing. When nosotros showtime come across something, we empathize it in a naive, pre-disquisitional style. Our natural arroyo is to interpret things equally they commencement appear to be. But and then we start to engage in a process of criticism and evaluation (our word 'disquisitional' comes from the Greekkrisiswhich ways 'sentence' or 'evaluation'). This is a necessary procedure, since reality isn't always as we think it to be—merely if we live in that mode of criticism, so we lose the ability to trust and commit. In Ricoeur's words, criticism creates a 'desert', and it is not a happy or satisfactory land to live in. Ricoeur particularly relates this to the way nosotros read texts, and in particular biblical texts. Anyone who has engaged in a course of written report of academic theology, thinking that it might strengthen their faith, has experienced this process as a rude awakening. 'Don't study theology at university' some have been told 'considering you will lose your religion.' This is the desert of criticism.

Merely Ricoeur goes further: 'Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be chosen again.' Ricoeur says in that location is a possibility of naiveté, but it is a '2nd naiveté', 1 that is constitute on the far side of the disquisitional process. In spite of all the questions nosotros accept, and the judgements we render, at the stop of the process (if we are actually going to live our lives rather than just thinking most them) we need to take a 'wager of faith' and commit to believing in a particular significant for what we read. Without this kind of naiveté, nosotros are powerless to construct meaning and live our lives with significance.

So, despite all the pressures to be 'knowing' and deploy cunning, I desire to encompass this kind of innocence. Telephone call me naive, just I'd rather be known as someone who is trusting than equally someone who is cunning.


Follow me on Twitter @psephizo


Much of my work is done on a freelance basis. If you take valued this post, would you lot consider donating £i.20 a calendar month to support the production of this weblog?

If you lot enjoyed this, do share it on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Like my page on Facebook.

Much of my work is done on a freelance footing. If you accept valued this mail service, you tin brand a single or echo donation through PayPal:

Comments policy: Good comments that engage with the content of the mail service, and share in respectful debate, can add real value. Seek first to sympathise, and so to be understood. Make the well-nigh charitable construal of the views of others and seek to acquire from their perspectives. Don't view fence as a conflict to win; address the argument rather than tackling the person.

saephanfradenurry.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/the-lost-virtue-of-naivete/

0 Response to "The lost virtue of naiveté"

Post a Comment

Iklan Atas Artikel

Iklan Tengah Artikel 1

Iklan Tengah Artikel 2

Iklan Bawah Artikel