Speaking Like A Dragon: Revelation 13: 11, and the Dialectic
Revelation 13: 11 says the second beast has two horns like
a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. "And I beheld another beast
coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."
A lamb, representing his trying to
appear as a Christian, has two horns? How does the dragon speak? In
Genesis 3 the "serpent" "was more subtle than any beast in the field,"
and he used the dialectic on Eve, saying in effect lets talk about you
eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "Lets have a
dialog." "And come to a consensus."
God's way of communicating has always been the didactic. When Satan
tempted Christ in Matthew 4: 3-11, the dialectic didn't work on Jesus.
It didn't move him one inch off his "thesis." He answered the devil
with the didactic, "It is written" (Matthew 3: 10).
But Hegel and then Marx and Freud decided that there is no God and
began to say there is no absolute
truth and no absolute morality. Everything is an opinion. Remember the
"Hegelian dialectic?" Remember "dialectical materialism" in Marxism?
Cultural Marxism came into the United States in the fifties in the
form of the Frankfurt School who posed mostly as psychiatrists and
psychologists. They operated from the major universities. And other
influences came in, again from psychology, in the forties and fifties
-the group dynamics movement made use of the dialectic. Then in the
sixties clinical psychologists and others in the encounter group
movement used the dialectic as an attitude change procedure. It soon
spread to the academic world, to government, to politics especially,
and by the media, and it was taken up by Christian
leaders - and by the Christian seminaries where it is taught perhaps
not totally intentional, but who knows? An interesting guy who is a
combination of intellectual and Remnant evangelist, Dean Gotcher, has
for a number of years been exposing the harmful effects of the
dialectic, which he calls the "diaiprax."
The absolute truth of the word of God, present as Jesus Christ, who
has the power to cast out demons, and more, is the thesis in this
Scripture. In Luke 11: 4 Jesus "...was casting out a devil, and it
was dumb. And it came to pass, when the
devil was gone out, the dumb spake: and the people wondered."
Then comes the antithesis, the opposition to the thesis that Jesus
Christ present in the form of human flesh, is God with all of God's
power. In Luke 11: 17-19
Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees who accused him of casting
out devils through
the power of Beelzebub. In Matthew 12: 22-24 when Christ had cast
out a devil
that caused the victim to be blind and dumb, the Pharisees said "This
fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the
devils." And in Mark 3: 11-22 when Christ had driven devils out of
people the scribes said in verse 22 "He hath Beelzebub, and by the
prince of the devils casteth he out devils."
Now there is a battle started between the thesis and the antithesis,
between
Jesus Christ as God having the power to cast out demons and restore
the man's speech, and the claim of the Scribes and Pharisees that
Jesus
was casting out demons through the power of Satan.
The clash of opposites between the thesis - Jesus Christ
as God having power to cast out demons - creates
pressure to begin a dialogue between the parties
supporting the thesis and the parties supporting the antithesis. The
antithesis, that Jesus Christ is empowered by Satan, is blasphemy of
the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12: 31-32, Mark 3: 29, Luke 12: 10)..
Someone in the group
tries to start the dialogue to reconcile these two opposing positions,
to arrive at a synthesis.
The synthesis comes in Luke 11: 27, when a woman in the group said
"Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast
sucked."
The Pharisees and the followers of Jesus could have agreed with this
synthesis which diverts attention away from Jesus Christ as God who
is able to
cast out demon spirits, to Mary, the mother of Jesus after the flesh.
One dictionary definition of the dialectic is from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
"In classical philosophy, dialectic is an
exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions
(antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or
at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the
dialogue."
Another definition of the dialectic is from:
http://m-w.com/dictionary/dialectic
"from Greek dialektike, from feminine of dialektikos of conversation,
from dialektos...
discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual
investigation..."
On the other hand, the didactic method of teaching is defined as: :
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Didactic
Didactic: "from Greek didaktikos, skillful in teaching, from
didaktos, taught, from didaskein, didak-, to teach, educate"
The didactic method of teaching is generally a monologue in writing or
in speech presenting
statements as being true. Its the traditional method of
classroom and textbook teaching. In teaching the Bible,
the didactic is a way of presenting "thus saith the Lord,"
which is the word of a sovereign God, as absolute truth.
It would be very difficult to teach basic math using the
dialectic attitude change procedure.
To learn what the dialectic method of communication, or argument, is all about
verbatim records of what has been said as examples of this attitude
change procedure are needed. In the conversation between Jesus Christ and the
Pharisees and Jews in Luke 11: 14-27.
We are given something close to a verbatim account of
what was said. But in this form of the dialectic, the woman in the
group who were the witnesses to the event of Jesus casting out the
demon from the man who was dumb, and the Pharisees saying Christ
casts out demons through the power of Beelzebub, or Satan, was the one
who provided the compromise. She did not deal directly with the conflict
between Christ's spiritual power and the gross unbelief and blasphemy of the
Pharisees. She sidestepped that issue - which could not be resolved unless the
Pharisees backed down - and said "blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps
which thou has sucked," referring to Christ in the flesh. The synthesis then
was a sidestep out of the spiritual conflict into the physical.
The dialectic can be understood in a face to face small group setting. In a seventies type encounter group,
a clinical psychologist like Carl Rogers was the facilitator whose role was to use the dialectic to change the attitudes and behavior of the group. The dialectic used by a trained facilitator works best
when the group members have a relationship with the group and with the facilitator. So
an important role slot in the dialectic is that of the facilitator. And the facilitator
can better move a target person in the group and/or the group as a whole in the direction
he wants them to move, in changing their attitudes, beliefs or behavior when the group
is cohesive and members have a relationship with the group. In a cohesive group where the members
have a relationship with the group, the members derive pleasure from acceptance by that group.
The facilitator's role is to use relationships to move group members off their absolute truths, or
absolute morality into relative truths and relative morality, in other words to bring in an antithesis to compromise the
thesis of the group members. The facilitator wants to bring the group members to a synthesis or group consensus, which moves them toward relative morality and relative truth. The facilitator relies upon feelings to move the
group members off their positions into accepting those of the facilitator. A relationship can be used by a dialectic
facilitator when the target person in the group, and the group as a whole, feels good about being accepted by the group and feels bad when rejected.
In a small face to face group the facilitator can use a number of different ways to move a target group member and/or the entire group away from that person or that group's starting positions into a compromise. The facilitator can start by agreeing in some way with the position of the target member and then once he has that person's trust, can begin to bring in gradually statements that do not agree with the target's initial position. The facilitator can ridicule, insult and be nasty with the target person in order to cause that person to feel rejected by the group with whom he or she has a relationship. The facilitator might sometimes misrepresent the position of the target person in order to cause him or her to become confused, or angry and want to resolve the confusion and anger and be accepted again by the group. The facilitator must have developed a relationship with the majority in the group for this more nasty procedure to work.
The dialectic can be used in Christian or secular Internet forums almost as well as in face to face groups, and without a trained facilitator. To some extent, having lived within a society and church system that uses the dialectic as its main form of dialogue, many learn something anyway about being a facilitator of the dialectic.
In Christian dialogue, the person who wants to cause others to accept his interpretation of scripture or wants to defend his position against another or others who do not agree, may use the dialectic.
And - so the Christian who uses the dialectic speaks like a dragon, but appears like a lamb, a Christian.
