Limitlessness, Leviticus, and Finding Humility
As I sat down to write this article I was struck by an advertisement that popped up in my browser. In pronounced bold, green typeface it read ‘No Limits’. Behind the words was a picture of a very fit athlete running in full stride. The ad was for a protein supplement that would apparently cause the human body to go faster, run farther and become stronger than ever before. The words appeal to a deep desire in the modern human psyche to push beyond all limitations, to be held back by nothing and to achieve anything we set our minds to.
The problem with the ad, and with our desire for human limitlessness, is that it encourages a false doctrine of unlimited human expansion. It fosters the belief that justifies our unrestrained consumption. Limitless growth, limitless production, limitless technology, limitless energy—all become foundational ideals for a limitless humanity. Every human, many believe, is entitled to the pursuit of limitlessness no matter what environmental destruction or social desolation they leave in their wake.
In his article ‘Faustian Economics’ farmer and poet Wendell Berry writes, ‘The problem with us is not only prodigal extravagance but also an assumed limitlessness.’[1] Berry recognizes that our view of limitlessness implies the ideal that every person can pursue whatever their heart desires. It offers free license to take, plunder and consume as much as we see fit for the sake of progress, growth and the fulfillment of human destiny. Berry contends that when this belief becomes normalised in a technological society our industries become driven by efficiency to make possible maximum gains at any cost. Yet unlimited profits and success result in the ‘minimization of neighborliness, respect, reverence, responsibility, accountability, and self-subordination—this is the “culture” of which our present leaders and heroes are the spoiled children’.[2]
Berry goes on to compare our culture to the tragic character in Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Faustus makes a bargain with the devil to sell his soul for the possession of all knowledge and power. He wants to be limitless. He wants to experience the vastness of humanity’s potential in himself. He wants to be everything that the ordinary Doctor Faustus is not. In the course of events he is assigned a subdevil, Mephistophilis, who eloquently explains what is truly limitless:
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed / In one self place, but where we [the damned] are is hell / And where hell is must we ever be. [3]
Though Mephistophilis warns Faustus of the sorrow and pain he will endure in hell, the man is determined to acquire extraordinary powers even if it be for only twenty-four years. Yet like Icarus, like those determined to construct a tower in Babel that reached the heavens, the end of Faustus is that he is doomed to suffer for trying to grasp those things beyond his limits.
One problem with Doctor Faustus, and the problem with the doctrine of human limitlessness, is the underlying presumption that we cannot be truly free if we function only within the limitations of our human experience and within the particular places we inhabit. Limitlessness assumes that enforcing boundaries on human activity is the equivalent of binding and shackling the human spirit. When we associate our understanding of ‘freedom’ with limitlessness we begin to justify our consumption, expansion and control over the natural world as an exercise of our God-given rights.
The modern industrial and technological world has convinced us that life without expansion and ‘progress’ is not worth living—that to live within the natural limits of our environment is to fail as human beings and to settle for second best. The very concept of self-restraint for the sake of others in our local communities, or for the care of our families, or for generosity in how we use our resources, might very well be labeled communist propaganda by some. To others the thought of temperance and being satisfied with what we can produce in a world of limited resources is a direct attack on one’s ‘freedom’.
This doctrine of limitlessness particularly rings true in our relationship with technology today. The principles of the industrial revolution undergird the digital revolution that we have experienced over the past decades—expansion and growth are only limited by our imaginations and the technology that we can create. If there is a problem, then it can be solved through a new and better machine. If we need greater efficiency, then new programming and faster computers are the answer. This ideology now extends to our very human bodies with recent movements towards computer or other machine implants. If the human body is ‘weak’, then we can build it better through technology. Neural cognition and the power of the mind is reduced to digital codes that can be reprogrammed or re-engineered if we have the right technology. The goal of some tech companies is to enhance our minds by connecting them to the power of supercomputers and thereby creating ‘advanced’ human beings.[4] Underlying these projects is the drive towards limitlessness and the exercise of our human freedom to go beyond what anyone has done before.[5]
Freedom in Leviticus
A significant counter argument to the doctrine of limitlessness can be found in one of the most neglected and misunderstood books of the Bible—Leviticus. To most modern readers, Leviticus presents a strange and impenetrable world where blood, sacrifice, cultic purity and legislation around morality seem like relics of an ancient past that has little, if any, relevance to the digital world. Yet within the commands given to Moses at Mt. Sinai we find limitations and restrictions that are given to the Israelite community to help them live in relationship to God, to one another and to the creation. To flourish as a human being in Leviticus is not to pursue limitlessness but, rather, it is to pursue holiness—to be holy as God is holy (Lev 19.2).[6]
To pursue holiness requires the knowledge that God’s holiness penetrates all aspects of creation. In Leviticus God’s holiness is made fully manifest in the tabernacle, or the tent he commands the Israelites to construct which will serve as his home on earth. Like a nuclear powerplant in the midst of his people, God’s holiness radiates outward to the community, to the land and to all creation creating distinct boundaries and restrictions on how to approach his holiness. The whole world is sacred according to Leviticus because God is fully present in the world. And it’s because of his presence and order in the world that Israel is given instructions on how to live within this reality and how to grow in holiness.
There are any number of examples that we could use from Leviticus to demonstrate how we can follow the patterns of holiness that God gives in his instructions to Israel. In each one there is always the underlying assumption that Israel’s place in the world is one that comes by grace.
There is no room for arrogance, hubris or self-conceit since God is the one who saved them from death and slavery in Egypt and because he is Lord of the land where he will plant them. And it’s in relation to the land that we find many of the commandments concerning how Israel should live in order to experience the full blessing of God’s promise.
In the prescriptions around the Jubilee and the redemption of all Israelites in the fiftieth year God reminds his people, ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants’ (Lev 25.23). The most striking words here are ‘alien, stranger’ (Hebrew gēr) and ‘tenant, sojourner’ (Hebrew tōshāb) because God has previously referred to Israel as his ‘first-born son’ (Exod 4.22-23). Why has the language of Father/son been replaced here by alien/sojourner? It seems likely that it’s use in this context is to prevent Israel from using their chosen status as a means to abuse the land or their neighbour. They are still God’s children, but that does not give them license to do as they please either to the land or to those within their community. God reminds his people that they do not have inalienable rights to the land but that they are like tenants limited by the prescriptions of the Lord of the land.
Within this framework we come to a series of commands that seem like they emerge from ancient superstitions rather than a call to holiness. Immediately following the commandment to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Lev 19.18), which Jesus cites as the second great commandment (Matt 22.39; Mark 12.31), we find three injunctions dealing with three aspects of agrarian life.
You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials (Lev 19.19).
The first restriction on breeding animals deals with the natural boundaries created between species. You might breed different types of horses together, but we somehow transgress the natural order of creation if we try to breed a horse with a camel or a cow with a sheep. This relates back to Genesis 1 where God orders all life ‘according to its kind’. Every species, both plant and animal, are commanded to be fruitful and multiply, but they must do so with others of their kind. The idea is that God’s established order offers a framework or boundaries in which the farmer might work. Israel should not try to improve what God has created by mixing certain species together. Instead, they should preserve the wholeness and holiness of the plant and animal kingdom by maintaining the proper divisions God has established. Loving our neighbour extends to the respect we have for the integrity and preservation of the complex web that exists between all life in God’s creation.
Ellen Davis highlights the fact that mixing between similar species (plant or animal) has been a part of agrarian practice for centuries. ‘Whereas traditional hybridization mixes genes among varieties within a species or between closely related species, transgenic engineering devises crosses between kingdoms: plant, animal, bacterial, and viral.’[7] The question we might ask is whether some modern uses of DNA manipulation go against natural genetic compositions that preserve the integrity of individual organisms.[8] Davis rightly argues that Leviticus offers us a paradigm that ‘should guide us in determining what might constitute holiness with respect to our culture’s scientific, agricultural, and eating practices.’[9] Rather than allowing technology to dictate how we use the tools developed in the modern world, Leviticus reminds us to live in humility, taking our place within the world and working within the boundaries of God’s creation rather than forging our own paths simply because we can.
The second restriction on sowing two types of seed in the same field is concerned with husbandry and how the farmer manages his crops. In some instances, planting two types of seed could be beneficial, like planting corn and pole beans together.
The corn stalk can provide support for the bean vine and the beans add nitrogen to the soil needed for the corn to grow. There is the additional benefit of reducing the risk of pests and diseases that may attack some plants and not others. The question of hybridization between seeds is not the problem since they would retain their own distinction even if planted next to each other. So why the commandment.
In this case we see that the physical mixing poses no threat to integrity of the species, but the symbolism seems to indicate that mixing two types of seed in the same field is closely related to the mixing of different types of animals. Earlier in Leviticus the priests are commanded to ‘distinguish between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean’ (Lev 10.10). In the same way, the average Israelite farmer is to maintain distinctions and purity in the land. The analogy between farmer, priest, and the land is not accidental. God’s command to till and keep the land (Gen 2.15) is treated as a sacred act. The prophet Isaiah also commends the wisdom of the Lord that is reflected in the farmer’s orderly sowing and reaping from the land (Isa 28.23-29). Despite the potential benefits of mixing crops, the symbols of purity and distinction are to be maintained in Israel’s fields to remind them that they are a distinct and holy people. In this regard, they are also reminded that the land is not theirs to manipulate as they please even if it might increase their yields. They are still aliens and sojourners on the land.
The last command prohibiting the mixing of fabrics likely has to do with mixing that takes place in the divine realms.[10] Jacob Milgrom points out that some of the high priest’s garments, and portions of the tabernacle, were made of linen and wool (see Exod 26.31; 28.6, 15; 39.2, 5, 8, 29). We also find this in the cherubim (a mixed divine creature) on top of the ark (Ezek 1.5-11).[11] We are reminded again of the symbolic categoriesthat form a framework around these restrictions. Mary Douglas argues that these symbols express, “the relation between parts of society, as mirroring designs of hierarchy or symmetry which apply in the larger social system.”[12]
The outward sign of wearing something made of one material may have been yet another reminder of Israel’s call to purity and not trying to improve on God’s creation. This might not make pragmatic sense to us today but within the symbolism and teaching around God’s holiness it may have offered another physical reminder of Israel’s call to purity and holiness and their submission to life within God’s order.
These three examples governing daily life on the farm offer simple, paradigmatic commands that situate the Israelites in their call to be a holy people and their role as tenants who care for the Lord’s land. The concept of human limitlessness is curtailed by God’s prescriptions but this does not result in the limitation of freedom. In fact, obedience to the commands with the humility to accept divine governance over creation leads to holiness, life and the blessing that God promises in his covenant. In the mind of the authors of Leviticus, transgressing the commands for the sake of human ingenuity or ‘progress’ leads to chaos and threatens the very life that God intends for his people. As Berry writes, ‘Our human and earthly limits, properly understood, are not confinements, but rather are inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning.’[13]
The argument against human limitlessness is not merely some Luddite opposition to new technologies. Scientists should be the great artists of our age and technology experts should be among the great dreamers of society. But both science and technology must find their place within the created order and be at the service of human relationships and our relationship to the land. Science and technology can help reveal the wonders of creation but must do so with respect to betterment of the land and society.
Living within the natural boundaries of God’s creation, as seen through the lens of Leviticus, is a life where human beings can celebrate the blessing, fertility and fullness of his creation. We are also reminded that we are ‘aliens and tenants’ on the land, abiding under the authority of God’s command. Living as a tenant on the land requires humility and a vision of ‘smallness’ as we care for what has been entrusted to us. Smallness in the sense of knowing our place, rooting ourselves in the land and community right outside our doors. Smallness in the sense of recognising, and being connected to, the rhythms of our particular locale. Only when we truly understand our limits within the vastness of creation will we have the freedom to explore the limitlessness of God’s blessing in the places where we are. Then may we begin to discover the fullness of William Blake’s famous words, ‘To see a world in a grain of sand, or heaven in a wildflower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.’
About the Author
Mark W. Scarlata is lecturer in Old Testament at St. Mellitus College, London. He is also the vicar-chaplain of St. Edward, King and Martyr and the director of the St. Edward’s Institute for Christian Thought. He has recently published, A Journey through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice and the Rock Badger(Cascade, 2021) and will soon publish The Theology of Leviticus in the Cambridge University Press Old Testament Theology series. He has also written on the Sabbath (Sabbath Rest: The Beauty of God’s Rhythm for a Digital Age, 2019) and a theological commentary on Exodus (The Abiding Presence, 2017).
Notes
[1] Wendell Berry, ‘Faustian Economics’, in The World-Ending Fire (London: Penguin Random House, 2017), 209. Also found in Harper's Bazar, 2008.
[2] Berry, ‘Faustian Economics’, 211.
[3] Berry, ‘Faustian Economics’, 213. Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, scene I, lines 77, 85-6.
[4] E.g. see Elon Musk’s Neuralink company that researches the interface between human minds and machines. Musk has said that the technology will ultimately be able to help with all sorts of neural diseases: ‘These can all be solved with an implantable neural link. The neurons are like wiring, and you kind of need an electronic thing to solve an electronic problem’. The idea that the brain can be ‘fixed’ like a computer is the type of reductionism that occurs when we fail to see the vast complexity of the human body and senses in our experience of the world.
[5] There is also a Transhumanist agenda which moves beyond trying to improve the physical body to forsaking it all together. The goal of transhumanism is to go beyond the limits of death through technology and the expansion of consciousness and intelligence. For more see the Transhumanist Declaration. See also Norman Wirzba, This Sacred Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 34-60.
[6] For more on Leviticus see Mark Scarlata, A Journey Through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice and the Rock Badger (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2021).
[7] Ellen Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 88.
[8] See the discussion on genetic manipulation of seeds in Vandana Shiva, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Economy and Politics (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2016), chapter 2.
[9] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 90. Another example might be found in the recent transplant of a pig heart into a human being. This seems to be a clear transgression of Levitical principles and we might question the end result. Is it right to extend life through an animal transplant into a human being simply because we have the technology to do so? Especially in the light of heart transplant research that demonstrates muscle memory and changes in personality in those who receive transplants.
[10] Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1660-65.
[11] Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1656-65.
[12] Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: The Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966; 2002), 4.
[13] Berry, ‘Faustian Economics’, 217.