Quote of the Week: Jacques Ellul on “The City”
Babylon, the great city, or Babylon the Great. The biggest in the world. No one can rival her, not even Rome. Not because of her historical greatness, but because of what she represents mythically. All the cities of the world are brought together in her, she is the synthesis of them all (Dan. 3 and 4; Rev 14 and 18). She is the head and the standard for the other cities. When the wrath of God is loosed, she is struck first. When she is struck, all the other cities are struck in here. The blame laid on her shoulders is applicable to every city. Each city has one aspect of the leprosy of the cities, but she has them all. Everything said about Babylon is in fact to be understood for the cities as a whole. As all the other cities, Babylon (representative of all the others) is at the hub of civilization. Business operates for the city, industry is developed for the city, ships ply the seas for the city, luxury and beauty blossoms forth in the city, power rises and becomes great in the city. There is everything for sale, the bodies and souls of men. She is the very home of civilization and when the great city vanishes, there is no more civilization, a world disappears. She is the one struck in war, and she is the first to be struck in the war between the Lord and the powers of the world. A city greater than a simple city — the finishing of a work that can in no wise be finished, which man starts over indefinitely with every the same purpose and the same access. Babylon, Venice, Paris, New York — they are all the same city, only one Babel always reappearing, a city form the beginning mortally wounded: ‘and they left off building the city.’
Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City. Trans. Dennis Pardee (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1970), 20-21.
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If you look at the tower of Babel, it was human construction trying to take the place of God’s creation, to get where God is through human means. If you look at the modern city, it is again, human construction taking the place of God’s creation. Babylon is man trying to replace God with his own creation, epitomized by the City. Like Lot, we are called out of the city towards God. Man cannot create Yosemite Valley, cannot create Glen Canyon, the Oregon Cascades. We create a poor imitation. Sin is ultimately creating a poor imitation of the glories that God offers to us, and this is the story of Babylon, a human creation.
Doug
Yes, one of the big things about Ellul’s book is that we find the foundation of the city as being related to sin (Cain), and that sin can be found throughout all cities. On the other hand, he also says God’s grace can be seen in the examples of Nineveh and Jerusalem. It’s an interesting book for sure.
“If you look at the tower of Babel, it was human construction trying to take the place of God’s creation, to get where God is through human means.”
Careful now. That better describes the Vatican than it does Detroit.
I do not think humans are trying to replace God in building cities like Babylon. I think that Babylon represents several aspects of human nature which relates to being made in the image and likeness of God. Man!, once again there is too much in here.
1) The spark of the Divine in us influences the desire to create and develop a purpose in life.
-Relationships
-Communities
-Social structures to support these communities.
-Provide safety and comfort to ease suffering.
The following definitions of sin are in wikipedia.
2) Sin then begins to override the spark of God.
What is the sin? Cheit is the Hebrew term for
which I think applies to this type of error. It
is unintentional and misses the mark.
If God is unknown the human being is influenced by an internal sense of being overwhelmed and vulnerable in an infinite universe, something like what happened with the woman and the man in the “Garden” of their innocence before self-awareness shocked them out of their ignorance. Awareness of death and vulnerability then takes over in a traumatizing experience of fear which creates the human relationship with self and others to be based on dependence and mistrust. Power then becomes the source of safety and those who are most powerful will attract those who are less powerful to create structures that give the illusion of protection and provide distractions from or solutions to the threat of the god of death.
The sin in Christianity seems to be the sin of “avon” which is lust or uncontrollable emotion. This is the sin which is now creating the backlash that so many Catholics and other Christians are whining about on EWTN and other Christian networks.
It is the lust for power that contaminates our faith and causes an equal and opposite reaction of resistance from those who are harmed by this lust. This is our “Tower of Babylon” that is built on unresolved fear and hatred that fuels the lust for power as the resolution.
Ronald
I do think Ellul goes too far in a Barthian direction and seeing all that humanity does is sin. However, I do think there is a value in this in his own exploration on the development of cities. He points out, however, that even in the degenerate creation, God can still work through them (Nineveh and Jerusalem), that God can add his grace to human creations. But he wants to point out the dark underbelly of our constructions, of how we tend to construct in that very lust of power which you so well reject.
Henry, I agree. I do think that the Church also goes too far in its interpretation of sin and this seems to reflect the lack of insight into an in depth understanding of one’s own sin which appears to lead to a rigid interpretation of human events.
I do not familiar with the Barthian explanation.
Thanks Henry.