Scriptural reasoning: How faith can unite us

Michael Wakelin Welcome to this the next set of scriptural reasoning sessions hosted by the Open University under the direction of Dr Jessica Giles. I'm Michael Wakelin, and I'll be acting as facilitator, but the real expertise will be provided by our scriptural reasoning practitioners, who will introduce themselves shortly.

But before we begin, just a word about the practice of scriptural reasoning, it's a relatively recent addition to the crucial work of interfaith dialogue. Three texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Qur’an and the New Testament, are chosen on a specific theme. They are read out loud, recited in the original language where possible, relished by all participants, and then discussed in turn and in depth with representatives from the three faiths. The atmosphere is one of hospitality and respect. Differences are acknowledged and welcomed. There is no persuading of others or denying another's view. We learn to improve the quality of our disagreements.

For our session today, we have selected texts on the subject of being created human, against the backdrop of the huge developments in artificial intelligence and people's fears of being taken over by robots.

But before we get to the texts, I'm going to ask the panel to very briefly introduce themselves, if I can come to you first Monawar.

Imam Monawar Hussain Hello. I'm Iman Monawar Hussain, and I'm the Muslim chaplain at Eton College.

Michael Wakelin Adam,

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet I'm Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet. I'm the Rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue.

Michael Wakelin And Catherine,

Very Reverend Catherine Ogle I'm Catherine Ogle, a Christian priest, and my ministry has been in parishes and cathedrals.

Michael Wakelin Aliya.

Aliya Azim MBE I'm Alia Azim, the Interfaith Coordinator of the Al-Khoei Foundation.

Michael Wakelin Trey

Reverend Trey Hall I'm Trey Hall. I'm a Christian minister and the Director of Evangelism and Growth for the Methodist Church in Britain.

Michael Wakelin And finally, Miriam.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie I'm Miriam Lorie, and I'm a rabbi at Kehillat Nashira in Borehamwood.

Michael Wakelin Thank you all very much and, especially thank you for being here.

So, to our text, shall we begin with the words from the Jewish Scriptures found in Genesis, chapter one, verse 26 to 28. Rabbi Miriam, will you read the Hebrew? Monawar, will you read the English translation? And while he's doing that, I'd like you all initially to pick out just one word or phrase that looks particularly interesting to you, and then Rabbi Adam will give a short introduction.

So, Miriam, first of all.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie כו וַיֹּאמֶ ר אֱֹלקים נַעֲשֶ ה אָ דָ ם בְּ צַלְּמֵ נּו כִּ דְּ מּותֵ נּו וְּ יִּרְּ ּדּו בִּ דְּ גַת הַיָם ּובְּ עֹוף הַשָ מַ יִּם ּובַבְּ הֵמָ ה ּובְּ כָל הָאָ רֶ ץ ּובְּ כָל הָרֶ מֶ ש הָרֹּמֵ ש עַל הָאָ רֶ ץ. כז ִּוַיבְּ רָ א אֱֹלקים אֶ ת הָאָ דָ ם בְּ צַלְּמֹו בְּ צֶלֶם אֱֹלקים בָרָ א אֹּתֹו זָכָר ּונְּקֵבָה בָרָ א אֹּתָ ם. כח וַיְּבָרֶ ְך אֹּתָ ם אֱֹלקים וַיֹּאמֶ ר לָהֶם אֱֹלקים פְּ רּו ּורְּ בּו ּומִּ לְּאּו אֶ ת הָאָ רֶ ץ וְּ כִּ בְּ שֻׁהָ ּורְּ דּו בִּ דְּ גַת הַיָם ּובְּ עֹוף הַשָ מַ יִּם ּובְּ כָל חַיָה הָרֹּמֶ שֶ ת עַל הָאָ רֶ ץ.

NB: Please refer to the attached Scriptural reasoning translated PDFs on The Open University Law School website.

Michael Wakelin Thank you very much. Monawar, will you read the English translation while everyone selects their word or phrase.

Imam Monawar Hussain And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth." And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth."

Michael Wakelin Thank you very much. And now, Rabbi Adam, would you give your short introduction to the text?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet It sure is a challenge. I think with this text, for those who know its role in Judaism, will know it's hugely significant for a variety of reasons. One is that it introduces to us the whole notion that human beings, in particular, are created in God's image, and we could spend hours on what that means, what that word means, what it even suggests to us - that we in some way resemble God, whether that's physical or visual or something completely different.

But it's also not just about the individual human being - it's not about what it means to be a human being - it's also about humanity as a whole. And, at the moment, when we use words like Anthropocene to talk about our time, and we talk about anthropomorphism, another terrifyingly big word in theology, this is really the root of that whole conversation. Are humans the centre of the universe? Are humans the most important species? If so, is it because of this? And what's our relationship like with the rest of the creatures that make up the natural world? And as a result, with God. We have God. We have ourselves. We have everything else that exists, and it doesn't really spell out to us as precisely as we might like, what that nature looks like, what our nature looks like, and what our relationship with nature is meant to be. So, it leaves us, as is typically the case of the Hebrew Bible, with more questions than answers. But I think they're the right questions to be asking.

Michael Wakelin Fabulous. Thank you. And I want, just before we dive in deeply into the text, I want everyone just to say what their word or phrase was that they picked out to see if there's any synergies in the group. Miriam, what did you land on him?

Rabbi Miriam Lorie ‘Him.’

Michael Wakelin Okay. Trey.

Reverend Trey Hall It's twice in the text. It’s got to be ‘Rule’ for me.

Michael Wakelin ‘Rule’, okay. Monawar.

Imam Monawar Hussain ‘Earth.’

Michael Wakelin ‘Earth.’ And Trey.

Reverend Trey Hall It's got to be ‘image’ for me.

Michael Wakelin And Catherine,

Catherine Ogle ‘them’.

Michael Wakelin Them, okay. And Aliya,

Aliya Azim It was ‘rule’ for me as well.

Michael Wakelin All right, okay. You stuck very much to the one word rule. I actually picked out ‘male and female, He created them’. Which I think is interesting. So, who wants to dive in then and examine their word? Why don't you head in first? Miriam,

Rabbi Miriam Lorie Okay, well, I mean, this is a text that I think feminist readers of the Torah and the Bible, for Christian readers as well, have really poured over alongside a parallel text from Genesis two, the next chapter. And in some ways, this is the better text for feminists, because, as your phrase was, Michael, God created male and female at the same time. But it's interesting how the translator has put ‘Let Us make man in our image and him’, and that's why I picked that out, because really, the Hebrew ‘Adam’ could also be translated as ‘human’. But then that gets us into tricky water in chapter two, where the same word Adam clearly is referring to a male.

Reverend Trey Hall Yeah, I mean Adama means of the Earth, right? Mud, mud creature. Earth, earth person. So, there's a real humility there around being a creature. So, it's what I find really interesting. This this creature from the earth is then given - it sounds like permission, this humble creature to rule or reign over the other creatures of the earth. So, I find that really interesting, like those connections between humility - made from the raw matter of the earth and then given responsibility to reign or rule or have dominion, I find that really a challenge in today's Anthropocene, time around, like how are we different from the other creatures? Are we animals too? You know, animals the non-human animals and us human animals. What is our relationship with other creatures and non-sentient beings, and how do we come to see ourselves as different from them, or different or better, different, and yet still connected? So, as I'm swimming in the sea, I don't just think about this text. I feel this text as the water moves around me and all the other animals. So that's that sense of connection to the other.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet I have to say, I think translation doesn't do us any favours here. That's true of every text, but especially here, because that word, [Inaudible: Hebrew word for conquer it], right, ‘you shall conquer it’. How might it be translated? We can also mean ‘you shall take care of it’. ‘You shall have responsibility for it’. The nuances that can be implied by those words in English are so diverse, but the world that we live in is one where we see humans destroying, conquering, demeaning, the earth, we actually read it backwards. We read our experience backwards into what this says and assume it's telling us that we're meant to do what we're doing. But that's not actually a given.

Imam Monawar Hussain I sense that the text goes beyond, above gender, that, in fact, it's talking about something holy and divine about the human being, you know, men and women, and absolutely right in the sense that if we're creating God's image, then we have that freedom/autonomy, but it comes with huge responsibility too. And so, I suppose, in a sense, questioning, to what extent are we actually living out the image of God in ourselves? Because clearly, we've been made or have been given the power to rule over other things, and to what extent are we being faithful to God in terms of living that power out and the control over the rest of creation.

Michael Wakelin Do you want to come in here, Catherine,

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle I think it's fascinating, this beautiful text, which means so much to us, and lots of us practically know it off by heart, yet it's freighted with controversy. And, actually, I can imagine even greater controversy at the moment, about gender and male and female and sexuality, and how exactly this text has been so used by people in power against people with less power. And, certainly I responded to you, Miriam with the language of ‘him’ and ‘they’ that was my word, because where are women in this text? And I cannot believe that women are not also made in God's image, so we're not just an afterthought. So, actually, the translation I'm used to, I don't know it's more accurate to the Hebrew.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Probably not. I'm afraid.

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle And God created humankind, and I think there are some interesting things with the gender in here, in the Hebrew. So somehow God is/has all that within God's self, male and female, and together, men and women are in the image of God. But there's so much controversial potential in this text now that we might not have been aware of 10 or 20 years ago. So, it's extraordinarily freighted, this short piece of scripture.

Michael Wakelin Aliya, do you want to resonate with that?

Aliya Azim Sure, yes, I think the Hebrew word for mercy is rachamem and so that's has a sort of a feminine aspect of God providing for his people. And the attributes of God are ones that we could inculcate to be God like and I don't see a problem between the male and female in this verse, because they're both mentioned, male and female. He created them, and I think the sole aspect is treated equally.

Reverend Trey Hall Yeah, I was just thinking about, ‘made in the image and likeness’, after our own likeness, which is quite a beautiful, sort of high and glorious thing, to be a human made in the image of God, them, him, her, it, you know. And just thinking about in this day and age where we do have responsibility to steward the earth, and what a wonder it is to be a human and yet the mess that we get ourselves into and others into. And so, how do we hold, you know, the obvious evidence for the mess we've, you know, perpetrated on the earth and other species with this really beautiful, glorious humanity. I mean, after the image and likeness of God, that's saying something, isn't it? It's not like God is totally other.

Michael Wakelin Can I bring in Adam? Because you picked out the word ‘image’, didn't you?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Yeah, to me, I mean, there's so many things here, but that's the thing. I feel like that's at the crux of everything else. We talk about gender, we talk about a relationship with nature. What does it mean when it says, ‘In the very beginning, we're made, or human beings are made in the image and likeness of God’? Both those words in Hebrew are difficult words to render accurately. The key one is selam, which is repeated many times, not just here in the book of Genesis, and it's so many things. It's like the best translation, I think. And Miriam correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like, it's the after image. You see something, and you close your eyes and you see the shape of it, but you don't actually see it. It's like something that resembles a real thing. It's a visual, for sure. It's probably closest to like a ghost, right? It looks like the thing, but it's not the thing, and that's such a useful element here, because actually, I do think the Torah is telling us we look like God in some ways. What does that mean? Right? That we look like God, that our physical body maybe has resemblance to some degree of divinity. It allows us to see ourselves differently, perhaps. But it doesn't mean we are God, right? It means we have a resemblance, the way that an after image, a shadow, a ghost, looks like the thing it used to be, but it's not the thing. It's a bit of an illusion. So, we fall into that illusion if we don't take this carefully that we think ourselves to be God, when we're only just the image.

Reverend Trey Hall Is there anything beyond the physical? Like, what's the nature of God beyond the physicality. So, what does it mean? Is it about will? Is it about intelligence? Is it about creativity? Is it about power?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Well, rabbis are annoying and basically because, there's two words here, yeah, they have always insisted, the judicious insisted they mean different things. Because there's no such thing as synonyms in the eyes of the rabbis, if there's a word and another word, each of them describes a different aspect of the meaning. So, Selim is understood to be actually largely a visual in some way, which is obviously treacherous territory for us. But demut, the second one, is more about character, right? About how one behaves, how one acts, and that's the one where the rabbis say, what it means to say we're made in God's likeness, which is demut, is that we behave the way God behaves, where we imitate God's behaviour, and we act in a way, hopefully, in the good ways that God acts in the world.

Michael Wakelin Can you be an annoying Rabbi Miriam and respond to that? Did you agree or not.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie Am I allowed to agree? Yeah, I think that. I think Adam put that really well. Yeah. I'm struggling with the idea of the body as like God having a body. I think you know, later in the mediaeval times, our philosophers said that God has no body, and you know that that would be heresy. And yet, I came across this really lovely idea recently. I just spoke about it on pause for thought, that Rabbi Hillel said, ‘just as the kings of the Roman Empire were made into sculptures and statues, which were washed and adorned and taken great care of, so to us, who are almost like statues, after image of God, we should look after our own bodies, because our body is an image of the creator.’ He created us in the image. So that's another aspect, you know, we've got nature, we've got gender. We've also got the body and now we've got to respect ourselves.

Michael Wakelin Catherine, what was the word you picked out? Was it him?

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle They Yes. Yes. It was the ‘theyness’ of God's image, really, that we're so used to seeing in Christianity, depictions of God as an elderly man with a white beard, that sort of came into life at some point and captured the imagination. But I think that's it's so inadequate obviously trying to depict God in any way with a body, but that the image and likeness of God is ‘they’, rather than ‘him’, and that just seems to just open up a great deal of creativity and imagination that's possible. Then, about what is God's image and where do we see it? I'm also really interested about the first verse saying, ‘Let us make humankind in our image’. That's how I'm used to seeing that translated. Let's make humankind in our image, suggesting the animals are not in the image of God in the same way. And so, what is the difference then? It relates a little bit to what you were saying. What is the difference then between humanity and the animals? That means that God's image is in humanity in a different way to the rest of creation, and what is the difference, then, between us and the animal kingdom that makes that difference, and maybe that's what makes us particularly human as well. Those differences, which I imagine has something to do with thought.

Reverend Trey Hall There are all kinds of wonderful stuff, theological intersections with theological studies and animal studies right now, around consciousness, the capacity to mourn, the capacity to ritualize, learn, and you know, that's not to say that, it's the same. But there is perhaps less of a hard, bold line between non-human, animal consciousness and human consciousness. I mean, I'm not a biologist, but when I, when I come up with my Labrador on the couch, I'm aware that I feel like she's more than just a clump of will and nature and tooth and claw. You know, something else is happening there.

Michael Wakelin I think some people would say their pets are closer to God than some humans.

Imam Monawar Hussain Well, this is such a fascinating conversation, because coming from an Islamic background, we have a verse from the Quran which says, ‘There is nothing like Him’, (laisa kamislihee shai’un 42:11), that God is nothing like his creation. And so, if God is nothing like his creation, how do we understand this verse? And for us, it's a metaphorical understanding, you know, Rumi Jalāl, Rumi, the great Persian poet, says that we're not a drop in the ocean, but we are the ocean in the drop, you know, and so there is something greater about ourselves, and that greatness really is manifestation of the Divine Names in the human being, because we understand God through His divine names. And he, of course, is beyond gender. And so for us, it's a metaphorical understanding, and understanding, you know what it means to actually be God like because that's the whole point about the journey to God, is to try and manifest as many of those names of God - realise them in ourselves, his beauty, his generosity, kindness, justice, all of those things.

Michael Wakelin Aliya, can I bring in your word at the stage? Because what was the word you picked out?

Aliya Azim ‘Rule’

Michael Wakelin Oh yes.

Alia Azim So just to follow on from what Monawar was saying as well, we have what's called a Hadith. Kudsi, where God speaks and the Prophet recites what is not in the Quran, but it says that ‘man draws closer to me by doing supererogatory prayers until I love him. And when I love him, I become the hands with which he does, the tongue with which he speaks, and the eyes with which he sees, and the feet with which he walks.’ So, it's about how close one can be to God by fulfilling what he's asked us to be. And it just shows the sovereign nature where you have ‘rule’. God rules over us, and we have the right to rule over nature, but also thinking about being a steward as well.

Michael Wakelin Okay, rule was your word as well as my word as well.

Reverend Trey Hall Yeah. I mean, I think Adam has pointed out in the Hebrew that it's a multi layered verb, it could mean so many things to have dominion over power, be good stewards of, shepherd, tend, be good husbands of all the things. So, I think I'm personally interested in, I mean, this is the whole thing about, are we reading ourselves back onto the text? This is one of the difficulties reading the text like I would like it if rule meant, you know, have wonderful, creative, generative, non-violent relationships with. You know. Is that what it meant then? Does it? Can the text mean more than it meant 3000 years ago?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet That's a great question. I mean, we can't be too bound by trying to guess at what a text that was written 3000 years ago means, because we don't have the context. We have a system of interpreting and, we have ideas of how do we take some meaning from it? But we also have to remain sceptical of our own perceptions, it's telling, I think we're at risk of going off-piste a bit, but it's telling that, you know, we don't write the Hebrew Bible with the vowels that you see written down here with the dots and the marks and whatever. And as a result, that word that we're spending this time discussing could actually be many different words depending on what vowels are put in there. And it's something that we really value, that our tradition allows for a multifocal reading of the text. Rabbis play with this all the time. When they go ‘actually don't read it that way. Read it this way’, often in very radical and, sometimes very fun ways. And so, we do have a liberty to reread and to read ourselves into it, but we have to remain cognizant of the fact that we're doing that. I think the danger is when we forget that we're doing that, and we think this is what it means, and I'm right and everyone else is wrong, as we all acknowledge, that actually can mean many things, we can have a lot of fun with it.

Reverend Trey Hall Does this feel like a rabbinic conversation today?

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Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Always a little bit more fighting in there, more fight.

Reverend Trey Hall Yeah, in the rabbinic or this one

Rabbi Miriam Lorie In this one

Michael Wakelin We're coming to the end of our time on this particular text. Is there anything that anyone wants to add that hasn't been brought into the conversation so far. Monawar?

Imam Monawar Hussain I suppose the reason I chose ‘Earth’ is because earth, Mother Earth, serves us, nourishes us, gives us sustenance. And whether we can learn from the Earth, whether we can be earth, like in a sense, as humble, and have as much humility as the Earth does, because it's feeding us, and yet what we do to the Earth is so awful.

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle I'm really glad you said that, because I was thinking about Trey's first point about Adam from the earth, and that it's all very well, trying to master the earth, and we've done terrible things to it, forgetting that we are of the earth. What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. So, actually, although I think that the mastery is being really misused by humanity, actually the key is at the beginning, where we are of the earth, and maybe just realising the power.

Imam Monawar Hussain And we have abused that power.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie And the abuse will be at our own expense.

Imam Monawar Hussain Yes, yeah, we're seeing the manifestation of that now, aren't we, in the lives of the climate emergency and so on.

Michael Wakelin Okay, let's now turn to our reading from the Qur’an, which is from The Throngs, which is Surah 39, verses six to seven. And Imam so glad you're here with us and I'd love you to read the Arabic text and then Trey will read the English translation, giving us all a chance to pick out a word or a phrase that we like the look of and then Aliya will do, a short introduction. So, thanks, Imam.

Imam Monawar Hussain Qur’an, The Throngs Sura 39: 6-7:

6 He created you all from a single being, from which He made its mate; He gave you four kinds of livestock in pairs; He creates you in your mothers' wombs, in one stage after another, in threefold depths of darkness. Such is God, your Lord; He holds control, there is no god but Him. How can you turn away? 7 If you are ungrateful, remember God has no need of you, yet He is not pleased by ingratitude in His servants; if you are grateful, He is pleased [to see] it in you. No soul will bear another's burden. You will return to your Lord in the end and He will inform you of what you have done: He knows well what is in the depths of [your] hearts.

English translation: Abdel Haleem

Michael Wakelin Thank you so much, that’s so beautiful. And Trey, if you do the English translation for us, and we'll pick out our words and phrases.

Reverend Trey Hall He created you all from a single being, from which He made its mate; He gave you four kinds of livestock in pairs; He creates you in your mothers' wombs, in one stage after another, in threefold depths of darkness. Such is God, your Lord; He holds control, there is no god but Him. How can you turn away? If you are ungrateful, remember God has no need of you, yet He is not pleased by ingratitude in His servants; if you are grateful, He is pleased [to see] it in you. No soul will bear another's burden. You will return to your Lord in the end and He will inform you of what you have done: He knows well what is in the depths of [your] hearts.

Michael Wakelin Thank you and Aliya, your short introduction, please.

Aliya Azim So, the verse talks about the creation of human beings. Ordinary painters have to paint in a well-lit workplace, but the Creator of mankind, the supreme artist, paints such fascinating paintings in such a strange, dark place. The threefold darkness is also an allusion to how the foetus is formed, wrapped in amniotic fluid, that the uterus and the belly, the same human on the physical side is so insignificant, preserved in absolute darkness, but has the potential to reach a station that can design artificial intelligence.

God punctuates the discussion with rhetorical questions such as, how are you turned away? An expression of amazement as to how one could possibly turn away from the worship of the one who is responsible for all the realities. So, it is still God who bestows human beings with the capacity to fashion technology, but we can be a bit cautious. Earlier in the Qur’an, we look at the story of the golden calf in the absence of Moses, when he made a lowing sound, and that connected it to the idol having real power. And by comparison, we've created AI which has the power to imitate human speech and reasoning. And there's a real risk that we stop using our God given capabilities and rely on artificial means, much in the same way as the Israelites turned away from the one God and began to worship the golden calf in the absence of Moses.

Michael Wakelin Great. Thanks very much. So, I'm going to go around the table again, and you're going to pick up a word or phrase that might have synergy with other people's thoughts as well. Miriam, what was yours?

Rabbi Miriam Lorie ‘They felt ungrateful.’

Michael Wakelin Ungrateful. Yeah. Trey,

Reverend Trey Hall ‘No soul will bear another's burden.’

Michael Wakelin And Monawar,

Imam Monawar Hussain I have the Arabic word ‘nafs’, which is ‘single being’, nafs, ‘soul’.

Michael Wakelin Where is it? Where is that?

Imam Monawar Hussain So, the first line, خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ He created you all from a single being, from a single soul.

Michael Wakelin Okay. Adam?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet ‘The depth of your hearts.’

Michael Wakelin Okay. And Catherine?

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle Yes, I've also chosen ‘depth’.

Michael Wakelin Right, and Aliya.

Aliya Azim ‘The heart.’

Michael Wakelin All right, why don't we start with the depths then since two of you picked that out. What would you like to dive into in there?

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle I wasn't familiar with this text before, and I was really taken with how it takes us in a very short space from this depths of darkness, which I thought would be the womb within the body, it takes us from the womb, where we begin to judgement at the end of our life. So, in this short space we're sort of zoomed through all of our whole lives. Yeah, it just seemed beautifully, extraordinarily written, that journey of our life from the depths of darkness to our own depths, really, to the depths of God. Yeah, extraordinary.

Michael Wakelin Adam. Did that mean the same to you?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Yes, similar. I think I was reflecting on this in particular, in light of the previous texts we look at. And there's a sense from the beginning of this to the end that though we talk about depth, we're talking about, like, almost like nesting dolls, like one thing inside of the other, the three-fold depths of darkness, really interesting, the way you explained it, Aliya, but it's also with the starting about, nafs, enough about a single being is, you know, every single human being is embedded within the previous one and the previous one and the previous one, and you have this sense of depth that's not about going inwards to ourselves, rather about going kind of almost back in time and, you know, turning the clock back to where it began, hard not to think about that sense of this unfolding of history through human action.

Michael Wakelin And what is this a crucial passage in Muslim

Imam Monawar Hussain Oh, absolutely, it's crucial in so many different ways. I mean, in one sense, it's taking all this rich diversity to one source. And in a sense, there is human diversity, but there is also unity as well. And often, sometimes, certainly in our world today, we seem to forget that there's more trying to divide and separate rather than unify. And I use this verse actually, just to remind people that we're all part of the same human family, and so in that respect, but also the sense of gratitude. How grateful are we for what we have, whether it's good, health, friendships, relationships, family, the water that we can just suddenly turn the tap and have water, as so much of our world and our fellow human beings don't have access to water or food and so on, but things that we just take for granted. And so part of faith actually is being grateful, having gratitude, and then ultimately, that sense of, you know, we discussed in the previous text about ‘rule’ that ultimately we're going to have to account for how we act now in the world, and that there is that sense of being in front of God and saying, and having to answer for that control or power or position or wealth or whatever we've been given. How did we actually live that out?

Reverend Trey Hall I think that was what was really interesting to me. There are so many interesting things about this text. And as you said, Catherine sort of this zoom from the origin to the end. What starts with this deep connectedness we come from one soul, the nesting dolls.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Wonderful. Not just in ourselves now, but back through time. But I was really interested in how the text seems to sort of move from that unity towards this hyper-individualism. So the word that came out for me was ‘no soul will bear another's burden’, which felt to me as the first time reading this text like a little weird, given if we come from one place, why are we all judged hyper-individualistically, you know, why doesn't my soul bear some of your burden and vice versa? So, I found that really, really interesting. And I'm sure there are nuances in the Arabic that I'm not getting, but I found that curious juxtaposition.

Michael Wakelin Miriam, you picked ‘ungrateful’.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie Yeah. And Monawar opened up the idea of gratitude so beautifully. And I don't know if anyone's seen the cartoon of two twins in utero having a conversation and saying, ‘Do you believe in the mother and do you believe in life after birth?’ And it really reminds me of that - this idea that we and, you know, again, in the three-folds, you know, padding that we have around us. How easy it is as humans not to kind of take a step back and look at the big picture and think about how, you know how, miraculous it all is, how small we are in the scheme of things, and to see ourselves as the centre of our own universe. So, the idea of on gratitude, and it also really opened up in connection with the previous text, the idea of our connection to God. God has no need of you, whereas in the previous text, there seemed to be quite a kind of needy connection that God has made these mini ‘me’s out there starting to open up together.

Reverend Trey Hall That definitely stood out to me as well. The contrast that, like the first text, God has assigned us a role. We've got a job to do, or however we do it, you know, well or poorly, we're agents of the Divine, and as a result, God very much seems to need us, at least in the superficial meaning. But it really stresses here in the Arabic, and it says this as a rhetorical question, right? If you're ungrateful, remember God doesn't need you. And I wonder how that's meant to inspire gratitude, that if you feel ungrateful, you're meant to reflect on the fact that God doesn't need you, and then you feel and to think, well, I need God, or is it meant to make you reflect on your actions? I'm not sure.

Imam Monawar Hussain There's also a sense of agreeing to disagree, that there are certain theological or doctrinal questions that we as people of faith will have different perspectives, but ultimately, that's fine, you know, God will tell you at the end of the day where you differed on and the idea of sort of not carrying anyone else's burdens is that sense of personal responsibility that we really are responsible for our own personal action and must take personal responsibility. So, you know, whatever different positions and so on that we might have on the earth, ultimately, we will have to face the consequence of how we act. And so, you know from the very start as kids, the sense that even if you waste water or food, all of that you're going to have to account for, you know, and so do not be wasteful, is another aspect to this. And it's really just saying, ‘Look, you know, gratitude, but also just remember that all of the goodness and all the things that you enjoy, you're going to be held to account for it.’ And that means that your kind of action and work in the world is more responsible.

Michael Wakelin Trey is trying to come in.

Reverend Trey Hall So, the accountability you mentioned. First of all, I think the difference is really interesting. So, I'm always like, let's talk about the differences, because I find them really fascinating. Not just the sort of lowest common denominator, if we can all get together on love, but let's talk about the difference - fascinating. It's what ‘the judgement’ or ‘the accountability’ is, not just according to the text, but what we've done. Adam had mentioned, ‘He knows well what is in the depth of your hearts.’ So does that not only refer to action, but also attitude, intent, quality. So, it's like you could have done everything right, but if in your heart is hatred and vitriol and whatever - is that part of the judgement? Maybe accountability.

Imam Monawar Hussain You’ve touched on something so crucial and significant in Islamic theology, which is that actions are by intention. That, for example, if I'm a very wealthy person, a philanthropist, and I'm giving lots of money out now, what am I doing that for? And on the Day of Judgement, the philanthropist will say, you know, God will ask him, ‘What did you do with all the wealth I gave you?’ And he or she will say, ‘I gave it to charity and all these good causes and so on’, but it will not be accepted because he or she gave that money for the pleasure of other people to show off and to display their good actions or whatever. But ultimately, they weren't doing that for the pleasure of God. God knows what's in our hearts. Aliya, could you, would you like to add to that?

Aliya Azim Yeah. So, you will be judged by your intentions, all your actions that you do will be regarded in that manner. And, also, the heart is something that people can relate to. And you could say someone has a heart of gold, for example. So gold is the only metal, the elixir of all the metals that's found native in nature. So, we've got to try and purify our hearts and make sure that all our actions are with the right intentions, and then that's reflected in you – you sort of remove the rust away from your heart and reflect godly attributes from looking at the previous verses. So that's something we should be wary of.

Imam Monawar Hussain Basically, we can fool each other, but we can't fool God.

Michael Wakelin Amen, yeah, we practically all agree on that.

Reverend Trey Hall Does that mean, though, I'm curious. Does that mean that you're judged on your thoughts, on if you intend something but don't do it? Is that right?

Imam Monawar Hussain That's a really good one, Adam, because if you, if you intend a good, you will get a reward for that, even though you might not have done that. But if you intend an evil, and you don't do it, you don't still get into trouble. You're not in trouble. No. So the point is that for a good intention, you get a reward. But for a bad intention, there is no accountability unless you do that act, and also ..

Aliya Azim If you do a good action, you get a tenfold increase in reward. If you do one bad action, you only get that one sort of..

Reverend Trey Hall Definitely not equally weighted. Good counts for a lot more than bad.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet What's the difference between an intention and a thought pattern?

Imam Monawar Hussain Well, ‘niyya’, ‘intention’, is something that is central to our religious practice, because it gets us to clarify why we're doing something. So, before we actually do our formal prayer, we make an intention and before we give donation, charitable donation, we make an intention that this is solely for the pleasure of God. So ‘niyya’, intention is something that's really critical, and ultimately, it's about trying to create sincerity in all our actions, that everything that we do is to gain the pleasure of God.

Michael Wakelin So, Aliya, you thoughtfully introduced the idea of artificial intelligence into your introduction. What does this text say about artificial intelligence?

Aliya Azim So, man has the capability to develop that artificial intelligence, but we've got to always be aware that it is God who's given us the grace to do it? And if you look at anything produced by AI, for example, you can easily detect sort of the lack of compassion in the wording. And we need to be wary of the more. You know what, what are you going to do with saving time and having more. So many people are losing their jobs at the moment because of AI. And, you know, is that really the kind of world we want? I'm a teacher, and I notice that so many of my students are using AI to do their homework. You know, where's their critical thinking going? And if we're so dependent on technology - we should really just be depending on what God has given us - intelligence.

Imam Monawar Hussain The other thing that struck me about this verse was when I mentioned the heart. So, this is the heart that really opens up the human being to the metaphysical, and that's unique to human beings. We can have artificial intelligence and so on, but it can never replace that spirit, that God breathed into Adam and that we receive as well in the womb of our mother. And it's that spirit that makes us uniquely human and unique as well amongst all creation, that there's a receptacle within us to kind of experience that Divine Being.

Michael Wakelin Catherine wants to chip in

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle Yes, I'm wondering how that relates. I think I maybe chose the wrong word, because I've actually become more and more fascinated with ‘bearing one another's burdens’. ‘No soul will bear another's burden’. And I love it because it's really honest about the fact that we will have burdens in life, and it's our responsibility to carry our own. I think that's what I'm, but that equally, people's burdens will be different. Will their burden be formed from the womb throughout their life. What is that burden? I don't know whether machines have burdens, but often burdens are the thing we act out of inappropriately, but it might be the thing that fuels it. Might be a burden of longing for justice or whatever the burden is. Maybe that's also about our human uniqueness, is our actual burden?

Imam Monawar Hussain Well, the first thing we teach in leadership development is personal responsibility. And if you want to bring about change and realise your dreams, it comes from you taking personal responsibility.

Reverend Trey Hall The question around artificial intelligence, then is – is it created in the three-fold depths of darkness? Can it be held accountable for the things that it does? Is it responsible? You know, can artificial intelligence show the leadership you're talking about? Monawar, I think these are the questions. I mean, I would say, No, you know, but others might disagree with that.

Michael Wakelin And do you … an artificial intelligence can pretend to, I imagine it can sort of copy.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet I mean, to briefly take us back to the first text. I've been reflecting a lot separately about what AI means for us as Jews, because I think we've done what Genesis described God as doing, largely, which is created something that resembles us but isn't us. And that distinction of like, what does it mean to be now in the role of creator and not created vis-a-vis something which is like our own shadow. It can actually fool many people and seem human, and the so-called Turing test is nearly a thing of the past. But is it the real thing? Is it like a statue of the god, or is it like an image that occurs afterwards, or ghost or something that once lived. Is it just us doing the same thing that God once did to us? And if so, what does that put us in that chain of being that we've been talking about throughout, from the beginning to the end, from the top to the bottom, we now are not just the end result, but we maybe are taking part in creating something else - so kind of terrifying and exciting. I think it's easy to be very down on AI, and there's lots of reasons to, but it's also kind of exciting. Like, what does it mean for us to be in that position? What power does that give us when it comes to what it means to be responsible for it?

Michael Wakelin So, let's now turn to our Christian text, which is from the New Testament. We don't tend to read the passage in Greek, since most Christians don't really use Greek in our regular worship. So, Miriam will you read the English translation for us so that we can select a word or a phrase we like the look of and then Trey will give a short introduction to the passage.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie From 1 Corinthians 15: 42 to 49.

It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus, it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Michael Wakelin Thank you, Miriam. Trey.

The Reverend Trey Hall Right, so, this is from a letter that was written by a guy called Paul, who was a convert from Judaism to Christianity. He was a theologian and also a church planter. He started churches across the Roman Empire and Asia Minor. He started this church himself in Corinth and Greece, and he is writing to them with pastoral and theological advice.

The question we ask these days a lot is, ‘Do I have a body, or am I a body?’. And this was a question that was really part of the early first century kind of conversation. There was a saying in Greek, ‘sōma sēma’, my body is a grave, or my body is a tomb. So, sort of popular conventional wisdom would have been in Corinth that Paul is writing and sort of saying, well, actually, perhaps it's more complex than that, that the physical body is deeply, deeply connected to the spiritual body. They are a unity. They are held together, somehow not split, but held together. And he talks about these different representations, or archetypes, the first Adam, the earth, muddling that we've been talking about earlier in Genesis, which is our origin as humans, but also looking to the second Adam, or the final Adam, who is known by Christians as Jesus, and is talking about us as human beings, our destiny or our goal. So, this whole sense of mud and spirit being held together, not just in these two figures, the first human and the last human, so to speak, but also for all of us. That this reality is all of us. Later writing to his church, he says, ‘Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not die, but we shall be changed’, and this is the essential mystery of those things being held together.

Michael Wakelin Thanks very much, Trey, so let me first glean your word or phrase that stuck out for you. Miriam?

Rabbi Miriam Lorie ‘Sown.’

Michael Wakelin Monawar

Imam Monawar Hussain ‘Physical body?’

Michael Wakelin ‘Physical body’ Adam,

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet ‘Life giving spirit’

Michael Wakelin Catherine

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle ‘Body’.

Michael Wakelin Same as Monawar, Aliya?

Aliya Azim ‘Spiritual body’

Michael Wakelin And Trey

Reverend Trey Hall ‘Also.’

Michael Wakelin ‘Also’. Okay, so let's as we start off with ‘physical body’ and ‘body’ and dive a little bit into that. What struck you about that?

Imam Monawar Moffet Well, I think it's, in a sense, talking about the great miracle of the body itself. It just struck me as that's yeah. I probably have to think about that a bit more.

Michael Wakelin Let's, …., let's talk about it around it. Catherine, do you want to say?

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle As you might know, St Paul is the most extraordinary radical thinker, and this is really early Christian theology, some of the most, the earliest theology, Christian theology, in the Bible before the Gospels are written. So, this is St Paul working with really kind of plastic, fluid ideas.

I always think, and I often think, Paul, I wish you'd had a second draft, you know, because this is quite hard. At other times, Paul seems quite negative about bodies and about the physicalness of being human. At other times, absolutely welcoming it, just as sometimes he seems to not really know what to do with women. But at other times, is incredibly radical, saying there are no barriers between any of us. We're all one in Christ. So, for me, I've always got a complicated relationship with Pauline writings, but here this is a genuinely moving, this talk about physical bodies and spiritual bodies and what that means for humanity made in God's image. So well done, Paul. Other times, he's really odd about bodies, isn't he?

Michael Wakelin As the Christian in the room, Trey.

Reverend Trey Hall I know someone like that myself, you know? So, I see him as someone who is, we say, in the church, undergoing the good news, undergoing the gospel. He's in transition. He's showing us he's testifying to his change as he writes all these different letters in real places. The whole thing about the body, physical and spiritual. We were talking earlier about God having a body, which is a challenge theologically in some religions, but for Christians, obviously God does have a body, at least some part of God, or some way of talking about God showing up in the physical body of Jesus, you know, so it's interesting that Christians have sometimes been really disembodied when we have as part of the centrality of our faith, is around the human body.

Michael Wakelin Do you think Paul should have had a second draft?

Trey Hall Well, I couldn't say I like this. I like this text quite a bit.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Can I ask a question of it?

Michael Wakelin Of course.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet I genuinely don't know what a spiritual body is. It seems like an oxymoron. The body is the body, and spiritual is not the body. So, what's a spiritual body?

Reverend Trey Hall Well, as with rabbinic texts, there's lots of thought about this, you know, and generally refers to the body after the resurrection. Okay, so there is the earthly body, mortal, and then the body post death raised into..

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet This is chronological, now and later

Reverend Trey Hall Now and later, okay, yeah.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet They're not coexisting at the same time. You don't have a physical body and a spiritual body simultaneously. Or you do.

Reverend Trey Hall Well, time is also a weird thing, because this thing that happened, the resurrection, sort of set into reality, metaphysically, Christians would say something that is timeless. So, in some sense, even now, I am a human being, with what's to come in me already because of what's happened in Jesus Christ. So, it's quite mystical, which is one of the reasons I like Paul. It's not only chronological, like one day I will resurrect in the spiritual body, though I believe I will, but that is also somehow now present in me.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Triple darkness,

Reverend Trey Hall Triple darkness, triple light. Altogether.

Very Reverend Catherine Ogle It's a brilliant question, and I think it's also that Paul says - this is our future, but we're to try to live it now. So, what will we be like in heaven? We're not sure, but somehow bodies are also part of heaven. It's all impossible, but we have glimpses of it.

Reverend Trey Hall There is the Feast of the ascension, where Jesus's body, resurrected body, went to heaven. So, sort of you're saying Catherine like now, there is materiality in the heavenly realm, there is a body there. So, Christians would say we believe in the resurrection of the dead as part of one of our creeds. And that's not just the resurrection of Jesus, but we believe somehow the resurrection of all of our bodies.

Michael Wakelin Okay, I want to come to Monawar because you picked up on physical

Imam Monawar Hussain Yeah. I mean, there's something about the physical body. It really is a living miracle and, I suppose it relates to our sense of identity. You know, are we the same in a spiritual body as we were in the physical body? And to what extent does the physical define us? And to what extent does the spiritual define us - if we're both on separate planes. So, for me, it's more the physical body, and without the physical, you cannot have the spiritual. And that's an all-in-one kind of thing.

Rabbi Miriam Lorie That's why the word that jumped out for me was ‘sown’. It was the idea that when we're in a body, we're almost like a seed in the ground that's growing what's going to come afterwards. And I love that idea. I'd always kind of been schooled in the dualistic idea of the body, as in the soul, and the soul is the casement in the house, and hadn't gone as far as the grave, but, you know, souls in bodies. But this is really different. It's very intertwined. And it's saying that actually, our soul is really impacted by its time in the soil of the body, or, you know that in the seed that's growing, and we grow as souls through the bodies we're in - really loving this. And I don't know about the rest of Paul, so I've got no baggage.

Michael Wakelin Do you want to bring in your life-giving spirit thought here Adam?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Yeah, there's so many incredible phrases. I mean, I guess, I suspect it is helpful … your introduction Trey. I wasn't actually sure at first reading whether I was meant to read the last Adam as a reference to Jesus as a non-reader of the New Testament. I'm never really sure what's the reference and what is it, but it's interesting that, to the point we made on the previous text in the Qur’an, that Jesus goes from being a created thing, a man of dust, to being a creator thing, right? A man, a man of heaven, right? And a life-giving spirit. Something that was created becomes something that does creating. And it's that interesting switch about what it means to be human. I know there's been literally wars fought in the Christian Church, right about is Jesus human? Is Jesus divine? Is he both? Is he neither? Is he somewhere in between? And I don't pretend to know or understand the distinctions, but it's clearly the crux of this whole issue about being human is - how much are we a thing of dust and dirt and earth, and how much everything of God and spirit and heaven. And you know, where's the balance in that.

Michael Wakelin Aliya would you bring your thoughts into the mix?

Aliya Azim Yes, so I chose the spiritual body as it's completely infused in the physical body. And you know, one can't live with, well - the spiritual body can live without the physical body, because it will then go on into the afterlife. And it's almost immortal, in a way. But in this phase, it has to have that physical body, which is interesting. And the fact you chose ‘sown’, I thought, that also emphasises darkness and how a seed grows, for example. Its also got that slow development.

Michael Wakelin Yes, and Trey, I noticed that you picked up on also.

Reverend Trey Hall Yes, I just love also, the conjoining, born of the image of the man of dust and also bearing the image of the man of heaven at the same time. It's not that when one is more, the other is less. So, when you're more, born of the image of men, an image of dust, and you're less spiritual. They are at the same time, 100%, which is this mystery, right? And it is. It is a mystery. What does that mean? It's not scientific. Can you put two pounds of coffee into the same coffee. No, but you can in this kind of thing. So, also together at the same time. I think it's really interesting. Jesus, we believe, was born of the Virgin Mary. This is the old, old language, right? So, born in, to use the language from the Qur’an, the threefold darkness surrounded by the amniotic fluid of Mary, you know? So, in a human, he was born of Mary, human. But also, we believe the spirit was with Him, the Holy Spirit. And it made me think of the other texts in Genesis two, I guess, where the mud creature is formed, and then God breathes into the mud creature, God's breath. So even from the beginning, we would say there is spirit and mud together. So, more of the mystery of those things. So, it's not only like at the beginning, just mud and at the end, just spirit. From the beginning, Christians would say spirit and mud together.

Michael Wakelin I wonder if this in terms of thinking about artificial intelligence, whether this really is the division between humanity and machine, because machine can't have spirit. It is nuts and bolts and chips.

Reverend Trey Hall And I guess it depends on what you mean by spirit. You know.

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Maybe the question is, at what point does a machine have spirit? And if that's the case, is there a moment where we acknowledge that this is now different than it was before? Can we breathe life into it the way that life is breathed into us? I'm not suggesting we can. But think it's a valid question, considering the way in which things are developing.

Imam Monawar Hussain I think the fear is that AI will begin to, if it doesn't already, have consciousness. And once that happens, then you know - is that the spirit?

Reverend Trey Hall I heard a lecture on this last week. I am not a scientist, but I heard a lecture that Aliya also heard about how, basically, Adam, having reflected on it,

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Probably not

Reverend Trey Hall Basically a series of algorithms that sucks in all the information, and puts out like nice nuggets of information. So it's not really, there's no sense of consciousness at all, and the guy who was talking about it said, that would be a huge leap theologically, so it feels like a huge leap theologically to imagine – is it sui generis? Or would there have to be some sort of bestowal of a gift from above, from us, from God?

Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet Well, yeah, scientists can't answer, right? That's one of the great questions science, where does consciousness come from in ourselves? And at the same time, we're trying to answer that, we're trying to answer, you know, these other things: consciousness, and the two questions are interdependent. I'd just say it's maybe a little bit, you know, we've gone away from the text, perhaps, but there's a well standing Jewish legend of the ability that rabbis, through bit of magic and the right words, can create a being out of dirt. A Golem, a creature made out of mud. And it's our playing with this story of saying, ‘can we do what God did’? Can we take some mud and shape it into a human shaped thing and use some letters to give it a form of activity or consciousness. And it always goes badly - right? All the stories are about the Golem going haywire or something happening that needs to be interrupted. And all of them ultimately reinforce the distinction between a living thing which has a spirit of God in it and something which happens to look like a living thing. And there's probably some wisdom in that for us - that is we're getting confused, maybe between things that resemble a living thing, things that resemble us. But maybe, like you said, Trey, maybe they're fundamentally just a bunch of algorithms that, you know, do a good job of imitating us the way that we might do a good job of imitating the divine if we listen to the instructions given.

The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle But maybe, also, the text holds something of an answer for us, because the reason St Paul is writing to the Corinthians, well, there'll be many reasons, but one of them is he's heard that they're behaving badly, interesting. So, they've already not being the kind of Christians he thinks that they ought to. They're not behaving in the way they should. So, rebuke, there's always rebuke, but, it's but again, it's what you said is actually reassuring that the church has never got it right and is in constant need of being recreated, remade, reborn, as are we all. So, what I wanted to say really, was that as human beings, the spiritual aspect of ourselves, which enables us to connect with the holiness God, whatever language we use, can also recreate us as human beings. We are able to be recreated if we're listening, if we're willing, if we're asking God, if we're seeking to be obedient to God. So, when we go wrong, we can be put right again. We can be remade always - that's always open to us as human beings. That's very different to a programmed artificial intelligence that learns but, is only ever the sum total of what's been put into it by human beings. So, it's the god-like quality of human beings, spiritual bodies, I think. But there's always a lesson in St Paul, because he's always having to rebuke people for something or the other.

Michael Wakelin It's true.

As we draw these conversations to an end around all three of the texts. I wonder if there's anyone around the table who has a particular way of kind of linking the text together. And what does this say for humanity as the artificial intelligence grows and becomes ever more scary for some people, or exciting, as Adam said, for others. But can we draw any wisdom from these ancient writings for the modern day?

Reverend Trey Hall I think there are questions in all the texts around dependency, independency, interdependency. So, our own power is that from ourselves? Is that from God? How we depend on others' power? So those kinds of questions, so which is about being a person? Am I a person by myself? Can I only be a person in relationship with others, other beings? So, I think that's when we talk about artificial intelligence. I think it brings in those questions of, like, interplay, exchange. So, I see that sort of working in all the texts in different ways.

Imam Monawar Hussain I sense that what the texts are telling us is that we're much more than our physical selves. There is something else deep within us that is open. It's beyond our physical body, it’s metaphysical, and it opens us to a something far greater than we can imagine, and that our fulfilment lies not only just in the physical, but also something beyond which is spiritual.

Michael Wakelin Is there a Jewish summary as well?

Rabbi Miriam Lorie I agree that the God bit and the spiritual bit unites all these texts and is something that is hard to see with AI. Can AI ever believe? Could AI ever have faith? Could AI at first feel spiritual? The other thing that I noticed that is a thread between the texts, a kind of, not just human beings, but human ‘becomings’, the idea that, you know, the seed growing and the physical body that becomes a spiritual body, the threefold darkness that comes out into the light, the idea that we are given responsibility to fill the earth and to rule it, master it, however you see it. So, we're not just learning like robots, but we're becoming something very human way.

Michael Wakelin Well. Thank you all very much for taking part in this scriptural reasoning session, and it's a grateful thanks to all of you. Imam Monawar Hussain, Aliya Azim, Reverend Trey Hall, Very Reverend Catherine Ogle, Rabbi Miriam Lorie and Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet. Thanks all for being with us. I'm Michael Wakelin, and until next time, goodbye