Breakfast with Dave (3 of 5)

Original Post Date:  November 30, 2010


Yesterday we were following the similarities between the Ancient Greek concept of fate and the Hindu caste structure. Both of these systems imprison people in a rigid, unalterable lot during their appointed time on this earth. The Greeks saw a man’s segment of time as an enclosure. The borders of this enclosure were patrolled by the Furies. The Fates decided the appointments of a man’s life. The Furies made sure that he kept within them!

For a person to beak out from his decreed allotment of life was to incur the anger of the Furies and to tempt fate.

The crossing of the borders, which were drawn at birth, was called a transgression. In our modern parlance we understand this word to mean sin or moral violation. To the Greeks transgression meant that a man had rebelled against fate and had moved beyond the pre-set boundaries of his life. In doing so he had “transgressed”. Progress, the thought of moving forward or upward was a forbidden concept. PROgression must sooner or later lead to TRANSgression and that meant punishment.

We in our Western world, so deeply influenced by the gospel of Christ, that promises freedom and constant, transforming grace, find this philosophy of life to be both irrational and intolerable. And so we ought.

More and more of the lower castes in Hinduism are coming to the same conclusion. As the influence of Christianity is spreading in India, thousands of lower class Indians are abandoning their castes and embracing another faith that offers freedom and forgiveness.

Incidentally, this allows their children to enroll in university, a privilege that formerly belonged only to the upper castes.

When Jesus said “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” there were no specifications or boundaries to that freedom. It superseded both Fates and Furies.