|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||
|
Sin, Orlog, Wyrd &
Karma
|
|
I have never liked the doctrine of Original
Sin, which is the belief that humanity
has existed in a state of sin or imperfection ever since Adam and Eve
disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. As a
result, we inherit a sinful nature from birth and live in a state of
mortality and death. The degree of this state of sin varies between different
schools of thought and Church denominations; ranging from a slight deficiency
to a total depravity. Furthermore, we can do nothing ourselves to overcome
this Original Sin. We all rely entirely on the freely given grace of God and
the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to free us from sin and death. The
doctrine itself was formulated by men (mainly St Augustine of Hippo in the 4th
century) and is not stated in the Bible. It is therefore an exercise in human
speculation rather than any clear divine revelation. It also needs to be
pointed out that it is very much a western thing. The Orthodox Churches
reject any notion of inherited or collective guilt, although they do teach
that death for all humanity is the consequence of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. I
can understand that this doctrine was developed to try to explain why humans
do bad things, but there are several reasons I don’t like it. Firstly, it
assumes we are all bad. In its most extreme forms, it assumes we are all
utterly bad. This is a very negative view of humanity. It is also a form of
‘collective guilt’, that we all share in the sin of the first couple rather
than any notion of being responsible for our own actions. Personal
responsibility is important in Saxon and British Christianity. This
lack of personal responsibility led Pelagius, who was a British Priest living
between 354 and 418, to condemn the doctrine and emphasise human choice in
matters of salvation. He saw it as an extreme form of fatalism which led to
lax morals. His reasoning was that if people believed they could do nothing
to overcome their sinful natures by themselves, but that they would be
perfected anyway through divine grace, they would not bother to live decent,
honourable lives. Pelagius taught that humankind has free will and that
rather than being the inevitable outcome of fallen human nature, sin is a
result of people making wrong choices. Through repeated sinning, a person
could corrupt their own nature and enslave themself to sin, but they were not
born to it. I am with Pelagius on this one. Sin, which
literally means missing the mark, is a failure to live in accordance with the
natural law of God, either by a bit or by a lot. There are consequences to
our sinful acts and some of us may be more inclined to sin than others. Most
readers will be familiar with the term ‘Karma’. But we are not born into such
a state and we can mitigate at least some of our past, sinful actions by
changing our ways and living more in accordance with the divine law. In this piece, I want to explore some of these
ideas a little further and compare two fundamental concepts of our
pre-Christian religion with similar concepts from the Vedic religion. These
are fundamentally different to the western Christian notion of Original Sin. |
||
|
Orlog Orlog, or Urlag, is a word found in Low
German and Icelandic languages. It is derived from the word ‘Ur’, which is a
Germanic prefix indicating a primitive or primal state. This principle is
embodied in the ‘Ur’ Rune which uses the symbolism of an aurochs, or
primitive ancestor of the wild ox. ‘Log’, or ‘lag’ in other Germanic
languages, means law - or a set of governing rules. These laws are created by
layers of events and outcomes, rather like our ‘Common Law’ is created by
layers of precedent. Orlog, then, is the underlying
primal law that exists within and through all creation, the ‘rules’ by which
the game of life should be played. One may see this primal law as the
underlying nature of God. Wyrd Wyrd is an Old English word derived from the
verb weorthan, meaning “to become”. It is related
to the Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt and the Old Norse urür. It
is the ancestor of the modern word ‘weird’ which originally implied something
supernatural rather than just strange or odd. It is also related to the
concept of Orlog and can be seen as both the
underlying primal law and the consequences of our interaction with that law. Wyrd roughly equates to the concepts of fate
and karma and was central to our ancestor’s view of the world. It is
represented mythologically as a great web, rather like a spider’s web,
constantly being woven by the ‘Sisters of Wyrd’ who are synonymous with the
‘Three Fates’ of the Roman tradition and roughly represent the past, the
present and the future.
Wyrd (Urd) herself represents that aspect of
time which has already happened or ‘become’. She is depicted as gazing into the well of
Wyrd, which contains the sum total of actions which have happened. These
actions influence the unfolding of time, or the way in which the web is
woven. Werthende (Verdandi) represents that aspect
of time which ‘is in the process of becoming’ and Sculd
(Skuld) ‘that which should become’ given what has already happened. The word ‘Sculd’ is
linked to our modern word ‘should’ and implies a sense of ‘debt’ or
consequence resulting from previous actions. Our Wyrd (or collective store of
previous actions) has an effect on what ‘should’ be in store for us.
Therefore, our past actions will influence the possibilities of our future
which in turn will influence actions we are yet to take. Wyrd is in effect the product and the
expression of the unfolding nature of creation as it relates to Orlog.
Positive synergy with Orlog helps the evolution of creation towards
wholeness. Negative synergy with Orlog results in the opposite. Another way
of thinking about this is that if our actions are in accordance with the
nature of God we are drawn closer to God whereas if
they are at odds with the nature of God we drift away. Wyrd permeates all
aspects of creation, including ourselves. As such, our thoughts and actions
reverberate throughout the web and contribute to the unfolding evolution of
creation. Consequentially, the Web of Wyrd influences our own lives,
individually and as communities. Dharma & Karma In the Vedic religion, God is called Brahman;
the Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality and Truth. There is to this
Universal Principle, a natural law to which God wishes the creation to be
governed which is called Rta (Reetah)
a term which refers to law, order and truth and is etymologically related to
our modern word ‘right’. Ṛta is a dynamic,
cosmic flow of energy that progresses the process of creation. In the Vedic
tradition, the word ‘satya’ means truth – the
expression of a thing as it really is. The term ‘An-rta’
is often used to mean ‘untruth’, deception, falsehood and so on and literally
means ‘not-right’. A related term is Dharma, which refers to the behaviours required to live in accordance with this law
and thus with Rta, the practice of truth and
righteousness. The term Dharma means something like ‘firm’ or ‘to hold’ and
implies a sense of those actions that support a right way of living. These
include the duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues that support a ‘right way
of living’ and if our actions do not follow the cosmic order, nature will
correct them.
There are clearly strong similarities between
these Vedic concepts and those of Orlog and Wyrd
and much to be learnt and gaps filled in by studying them. But what is
particularly interesting from a Saxon Christian perspective is how similar
these concepts, which are fundamentally Indo-European in character, are to
that of the Logos, the divine law of God taught by Jesus and other holy men
through whom the Logos spoke. Making these connection gives us an opportunity
to think of Christ in a very different and more Indo-European way to that of
orthodox Christianity which is focused on his divinity, his uniqueness and
his atonement of sin on the cross. |
||||
