Authenticity and Fear of God
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:date: 2022-09-03T11:12:14
:status: draft
:category: faith
:tags: tags


.. Bázeň před Hospodinem
   - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_God
   - https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6045-fear-of-god
   - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_responsibility
   - The Hebrew words יִרְאַ֣ת (yir’aṯ, H3374) and פחד (p̄aḥaḏ, H6343)
     are most commonly used to describe fear of God/El/Yahweh
   - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00035z4 whole development
     lead to existentialism and to the dead end (I believe),
     because they were missing that love and “fear of sin” from
     Saint Augustine (it was quoted as the early expression of
     authenticity). Heidegger was Nazi and Sartre 50ies
     French pro-Communist Marxist.
     Without the fear of God, authenticity leads to moral disaster.
   - Relationship between Authenticity/existentialism and the
     third level of the spiritual development by M. Scott Peck.
     Existentialism is great in destruction of the shallow blind
     rule following (“I haven’t lived yet, I was lived.”), but it
     never achieved the mystical synthesis.

Saint Augustin writes in his letter to Anastasius [#]_ this:
 
    He, then, is an enemy to righteousness who refrains from sin
    only through fear of punishment; but he will become the friend of
    righteousness if through love of it he sin not, for then he will
    be really afraid to sin. For the man who only fears the flames of
    hell is afraid not of sinning, but of being burned; but the man
    who hates sin as much as he hates hell is afraid to sin. This is
    the “fear of the Lord,” which “is pure, enduring for ever.” [#]_
    For the fear of punishment has torment, and is not in love;
    and love, when it is perfect, casts it out. [#]_

This is obviously a meditation based on the Biblical verse from
1. John 4:15-19 (NET):

    If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides
    in him and he in God. // And we have come to know and to
    believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one
    who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.
    // By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have
    confidence in the day of judgement, because just as Jesus is,
    so also are we in this world. // **There is no fear in love,
    but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with
    punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been
    perfected in love.** // We love because he loved us first. 

The quotation from Augustine can be start to multi-volume deep
inquiry into nature of our relation with God, oneself, universe,
but I would limit myself to just one part of it. The author here
equates love and the Fear of God. That sounds seriously strange.
What is even more strange, that what one would consider the
conventional interpretation of the term “Fear of God”, that is
the fear of God’s punishing us for our sins, is qualified as
a sign of enemies of righteousness. It doesn’t make sense
whatsoever! What’s going on?

.. strict definition of the Fear of God

.. [#] https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.vii.1.CXLV.html#vii.1.CXLV-p20

.. [#] Ps. xix. 9.

.. [#] 1 John iv. 18.