Main Part 1 of 5
Old Testament violence brings out several peculiar lines in the proverbial sand. Some Christians ((and most narratives of Non-Theistic Critics)) construct a metaphysic as if God draws lines at Babies or at Women or at Non-Combatants rather than at All Human Beings All The Time in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds. For some others it is the case that “brutally bashing” or “killing” Adult Males “in war” ((…or whatever Sails the latest Normative Winds happen to be filling…)) is somehow found under the umbrella of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/Ideal” in these Moral Lines that God supposedly “Moves In / Affirms / Likes / Calls His Eternal Ideal” but, then, this same group of Christians ((not uncommon of course)) reaches up into “thin-air” and pulls down a second “umbrella” for more “brutally bashing” or “killing” at Women and at Children and at Babies and we are told that this “second” “umbrella” is somehow “different” than the FIRST Umbrella. The FIRST umbrella (we’re told) was of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/Ideal” while this SECOND Umbrella is (we’re told) of “The” “Morally Bad/Ugly/Lacking/Non-Ideal” and so this second umbrella has finally reached (apparently) the level of “Offensive” vis-à-vis our own frail and mutable world-contingent Moral Sentiments.
Even more mysterious, theologically speaking, is the following: When it comes to O.T. Judgement and Judgment in general we have these Umbrellas which are self-contradicting when we navigate the following question:
IS Christ / WAS Christ (Golgotha/Cross) in fact *necessary* to avoid the equivalent “bad outcome” ((Judgment // Final Loss of ALL things Adamic)) with respect to Judgements and the ontological Ends of Man’s Privation and the ontological Ends of Days and the Ends of Cities and Nations and the Ends of Worlds upon Worlds – literally? Had Christ NOT pressed through vis-à-vis Cross/Golgotha then what about all of those “NON-COMBATANTS & BABIES” in the “O.T. Judgment and/or Wars”? Are all of those human beings NOT a swath of “All Things Adamic”? Had Christ NOT pressed through would all of those human beings NOT be under the Umbrella of “Judgment” and “Final Loss”? WHAT are we really distinguishing when we press upon “OT War” and “Christ” and “Judgement” and “All Things Adamic”?
Can our Maps (our Umbrellas) here retain coherence through the Landscape of Pre-Eden through to Eden through to Sinai through to Christ through to Eternal Life? Recall that the Physical Body does not Begin/End/Define “Life”. Physicalism fails for many reasons and we must be careful not to equate the Physical Body to the Whole Person as we unfold our Maps from Pre-Eden to Eden to Sinai to Christ to Eternal Life. Is there a difference between Judging/Ending ANY life of ANY age of ANY sex in Israel or in Canaan and Judging/Ending AN ENTIRE WORLD? One more time: Had Christ NOT pressed through is it the case that all of those human beings would NOT be under the Umbrella of “Judgment” and “Final Loss”? WHAT are we really distinguishing when we press upon “OT War” and “Christ” and “Judgement” and “All Things Adamic”?
Another Catch or Nuance or Glitch: At bottom it is often “physical painlessness” that we need to see in order for our Moral Conscience to tolerate God as the Beginning and End of our Being, to tolerate God in Judging/Ending/Taking All-Things at every level of “reality” — from the level of the Individual to the Household to the City to the Nation to the Nations to the WORLD to ALL WORLDS. Notice what we just did: God can be “Being Itself” but only “If Physicalism” is the beginning and end of our Moral Map.
Now let’s take that further and see if the Cross of Christ is forfeited:
Akin to Enoch and Elijah ((some say eventually the Second Coming and/or New Creation etc.)) being “taken” but without traversing physical death there is something in us that intuits or that “is willing to tolerate God’s Judgement” if it takes that form such that the “Painless Death Of Non-Combatants In The O.T” is where the line is for this group of Christians and Non-Theistic Critics. Our intuition there is not wrong. It’s just incomplete. Why? Because Death *is* an Enemy and Death *is* something which God will *end*/*destroy*.
In fact:
[Death] is the #1 Killer in the World.
Therefore Eternal Life — *and* *nothing* *less* — is the #1 Dissolution of our #1 Problem.
IN FACT — BUT FOR Eternal Life there is no Ontic Resolution ((Closure)) of the #1 Killer in the World.
There is more on that brief syllogism in Part 3 but in the meantime, continuing here: Scripture defines Suffering and Pain as Evil ((Privation, A Lack of Good, and so on)) but notice the problem: we still have two umbrellas and, so, we are STILL okay with “brutally bashing” “Adult Male” “Combatants” as somehow part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/Ideal” and, so, with our Two Contradictory Umbrellas we are somehow okay with one group of Human Beings outside of Painless Deaths and/or outside of the archetype of Enoch and Elijah ((some say eventually the Second Coming and/or New Creation etc.)) because that group of Bashing is somehow part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/Ideal”. Keep reading:
Notice where our approval of War/Bashing/Judgment/Etc. for SOME Human Beings but not OTHER Human Beings places the Cross of Christ. In this odd Metaphysic there is Proper Judgement after all ((Adult Males, Combatants)) and it is upon those Souls – upon some Human Beings after all – and therefore for THAT “Group” of Souls ((Adult Males, Combatants)) the Out-Pouring of Christ brings mere Redundancy after all – for some Human Beings after all – and – so – notice – we have ended up with a disjointed (incoherent) set of ontological metrics.
Idolatry’s Key: There are four modes or “Maps” by which we displace Christ off of His Throne and reduce the Cross to Unnecessary and transform Christ to mere Redundancy and typically we find A1 and A2 happening together (but not always) or else we find B1 and B2 happening together (but not always). The “not always” feature is a fact of the matter and that is why they are instead subdivided into four “approaches” or “postures” towards unpacking the Old Testament rather than just two, in the hopes that we can capture more of the landscape:
(A1) We Approve of All Judgement/Etc. in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/The-Ideal.
(A2) We say OT Sinai/Law/Judgment is The Good/Lovely/Whole/The Ideal ((hence we are equating it to Christ/Cross)).
(B1) We Approve of SOME Judgment in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/Ideal AND ALSO we find SOME Judgement as The Bad/Evil/Non-Ideal.
(B2) We say we don’t need Law/Sinai/Judgement AT ALL / EVER ((hence we obviously don’t need Christ/Cross either)).
None of those are coherent. All expunge Christ. All define Brutally Bashing and/or War/Etc. of SOME Human Beings as “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal”. All make Christ/Cross either Unnecessary or else Redundant for SOME Human Beings.
In other words, they all sum to Idolatry. Notice that the typical arguments find some Christians and Non-Theistic Critics in, say, A1/A2 and the second group of Christians and Non-Theistic Critics in B1/B2 and they are typically fussing against one another. Notice that MOST “fussing” between Pro-Folks/Con-Folks is in that form of “A vs. B” there and so ends up incoherent and disjointed because both are guilty of affirming a Metaphysical Map which they both insist the other needs to repent of and/or correct. That is because they are both in the business of finding something Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal inside of what God||Scripture clearly defines as Privation ((Evil, A Lack of Good)).
Notice still more disjointed “A vs. B” postures in the following: Badly Bashing and/or War/Etc. can be part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/Ideal” but NOT IF it is found in motion among All-Ages and NOT IF it is found in motion regarding All-Of-Nation-X. We have to follow through because we are approaching the same Maps in “Genocide” which in the end (in most forms) reduce to the horrifically immoral maps of the B1/B2 batch of maps which in fact condones SOME “brutally bashing/etc.” for SOME Human Beings as “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal”. Some Christians ((and most narratives of Non-Theistic Critics)) construct a metaphysic as if God draws lines at Babies or at Women or at Non-Combatants or at Nations or at Tribes rather than at All Human Beings All The Time in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds.
Our Map of “All Things Adamic” must not forfeit bits and parts as we move from Pre-Eden into Eden into Privation into Sinai into Christ into Eternal Life.
One more time:
Our Map of “All Things Adamic” must not forfeit bits and parts as we move from Pre-Eden into Eden into Privation into Sinai into Christ into Eternal Life.
Our map must have room for a Trio, namely for Judgement and for The Adamic’s Pathology/Privation/Culpability and for Christ/All-Sufficiency. A rather long sentence about that Trio is as follows:
Scripture defines Sinai as the Ministry of Death wholly unable to deliver the Means to Moral Excellence nor the Ends of Moral Excellence and, then, we ALSO know that EVEN GIVEN that fact if we ever expunge Judgement from the O.T. we ALSO expunge the Necessity of Christ from our Metaphysic.
IF we “get rid of all OT Judgement” we get rid of Christ – BUT WAIT! Don’t we Map Christ as The Good/Lovely/Whole/The-Ideal? Yes, we do. But isn’t Mapping All Judgement in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/The-Ideal what forces us into Idolatry by making Christ merely Redundant? Yes. When we see OT Judgment and War and our lives ending what are we seeing? Is Sinai and all of that O.T “stuff” the same as the Cross? No. If Christ is necessary, and He is necessary, well then what of “All Things Adamic”? We have to keep going into the following:
Challenge: How is Judgment different than Judgment? That’s not a Typo. Does Judgement in the body vs. Judgment out of the body have different “Means”? Different “Ends”? For Adults vs. Babies? Of course not. In All Possible Adamic Worlds the Means/Ends of the Perfection of Being ((…meaning of Man’s Being, into/unto Man’s final felicity and true good…)) are the same whether we are moving exiting Eden into Eternal Life or whether we are exiting Privation into Eternal Life.
The Edenic is no different than Privation when we speak of Man’s/Adam’s full and final Need to Drink of All-Sufficiency and of All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring as the full and final Means/Solution by which the Ends of Man’s Wholeness are in fact actualized ((Perfection of Man’s Being / Moral Excellence / The-Ideal)). But we (Adam in Eden) did not move from The Edenic into Eternal Life. Instead we moved from The Edenic into Privation, and, so, while the Means/Ends are unchanged the location and nature of application do change. And, so, from within privation, briefly recall the following:
Idolatry’s Key: There are four modes or “Maps” by which we displace Christ off of His Throne and reduce the Cross to Unnecessary and transform Christ to mere Redundancy:
(A1) We Approve of All Judgement/Etc. in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/The-Ideal.
(A2) We say OT Sinai/Law/Judgment is The Good/Lovely/Whole/The Ideal ((hence we are equating it to Christ/Cross)).
(B1) We Approve of SOME Judgment in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/Ideal AND ALSO we find SOME Judgement as The Bad/Evil/Non-Ideal.
(B2) We say we don’t need Law/Sinai/Judgement AT ALL / EVER ((hence we obviously don’t need Christ/Cross either)).
Surpassing A1A2 / B1B2 And Leaving Them Behind:
There is a Third Option ((C1/C2 and so on to continue the same analogy)) to escape those Errors of Idolatry and to achieve Coherence/Lucidity/Moral Closure but first recall in those first two ((A1A2 and B1B2)) as already described, Christ is found to be either Unnecessary or else Redundant ((see previous discussion)). Also recall that in both of those ((both A1/A2 and B1/B1)) we find a horrific moral landscape in which SOME Bashing of SOME Human Beings (Adult Males??) (Combatants??) is supposedly part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/The-Ideal” and SOME Bashing of SOME Human Beings (Non-Male? Non-Adult?) is supposedly part of “The” “Bad/Evil/Non-Ideal”. For example:
Old-English Literalists get many things wrong which is why they not only think Genocide is actually “there” in the OT but they also in part affirm that Genocide ((the Genocide they mistakenly think they see there)) as Good/Lovely/The-Ideal.
Others insist “But not the Women and Children because THAT would be BAD but the Adult Men can be Brutally-Bashed / War / Judgment and so on because THAT is Good/Lovely/Beautiful/The-Ideal”.
Others try to FICTIONALIZE EVERY BIT OF OT VIOLENCE or at least “the really, really bad parts” and they too are obviously in the A1A2 and B1B2 groups as well.
Others insist that Brutal Bashing / Judgment/War etc. is part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal” but “Not If” we find it in “Genocide”. Notice that this too reduces to the horrifical moral maps of the A1A2 and B1B2 groups as well. Some Christians ((and most narratives of Non-Theistic Critics)) construct a metaphysic as if God draws lines at Babies or at Women or at Non-Combatants or at Nations or at Tribes rather than at All Human Beings All The Time in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds.
So, again that Third-Option to escape those Key Error of Idolatry vis-à-vis Christ/Cross and to achieve Coherence/Lucidity/Moral Closure:
(C1) We simply AGREE with Scripture and define Sinai and All Judgement in the OT ((…all vectors short of Christ…)) as the Ministry of Death, as that which Lacks the Means to Moral Excellence, lacks the Ends of Moral Excellence, lacks therefore The Good/Whole, lacks the Beautiful, lacks the Lovely, lacks the Ideal — as that which is [Bracketed] within [Privation] which is to say that which is occurring within the Ontological [Margins] of what just is [Evil] — as that which houses [Vectors] and in all possible permutations all available vectors come up short — as that which houses various [Contours] which God in fact [Hates]. And so then pushing that through we have this: Once the O.T. and N.T. both affirmed ((and they both did/do)) that Sinai’s 600++ Commands contain contours that God Hates we formally ((metaphysically)) lost all justification for lingering back in the Maps of A1/A2 and B1/B2.
The confusion comes because we believe something like this: “More and More and More Really Good Laws can in principle possibly mean/actualize the Resolution of Evil”. The Church makes the same error there as the Un-Churched and tries to define “Sinai” as convertible with/for “Christ/Cross/All-Sufficiency Himself Poured Out” when in fact Sinai is what God in part Hates. Recall that God is under no illusions that our Physical Bodies somehow Begin/End our Life and our Narrative. Recall that God is not a Physicalist. Recall that God is not a Legalist. Instead God is the Ultimate Realist ((C.S. Lewis?)). Hence God Comes In Christ reconciling the world to Himself. The OT looks at Sinai’s Floor and Ceiling and Margins and speaks of a Far-Better Up Ahead Yet To Come:
“In the OT, because Christ had not yet entered history to take the penalty of sin for us, every man bore the full penalty himself. Thus, whenever you see an OT crime punished with death, that’s God’s blunt way of telling us it’s a mortal sin. It is the archetype of moral teaching. Without the OT’s clear portrayal of sin and its effects, it is way too easy to forget why we need a savior and what He saves us from.” (from X’s @LunacyandClaret)
If one tries to make the argument that Sinai’s 600++ Commands and that whole landscape is the Means/Ends/Archetype of Moral Excellence, one contradicts scripture because Scripture tells us it isn’t. We cannot get there without a wider lens. Our shifting Normative margins are helpful and informative but they can never take the place of our Ontology – they can never be definitive. The error some make is conflating Sinai for God’s Eternal Ideal ((Best/Ideal)). Yet Scripture defines Life/Wholeness as from Another Source ((All Sufficiency Himself Poured Out)) while Sinai sums to an Ontology of Restraining Death not of Giving-Life. Scripture also tells us that God hates various parts of Sinai ((…and, sure, once THAT cat is out of the bag all definitions swarm against the oh-so-many anti-intellectual straw-men of Sinai-Full-Stop….)). Regarding Sinai, well there is a whole swath of metaphysical real estate that can be written about what Sinai IS and ISN’T and WHY God Hates parts of it and WHY that “Ministry of Death” lands as that which “Restrains Death” rather than “Gives-Life” and WHY that which can only Restrain Death never can Give-Life.
Off-Topic Digression:
Notice that Adam’s need to drink the cup of All-Sufficiency is the same regardless of his choice among Eden’s Two Possible Worlds ((Eternal Life / Privation)). The “Edenic” was not yet Eternal Life and the radical change in ontological status to move FROM Eden INTO Eternal Life requires the SAME “Means” of [Incarnation] and all of the language of Pour||Drink amid God||Man. That is why we find the SAME categories of radical change in ontological status as we move FROM Eden INTO Privation and/or also as we move FROM Eden INTO Eternal Life and/or as we move FROM Privation INTO Eternal Life – But that’s all a different discussion ((see Duns Scotus perhaps)).
End brief off-topic digression.
Recall that we are still in “Main Part 1 of 5” and we used “Main” to differentiate those five Main Sections from smaller “Sub-Parts” within them, for example the following:
Our Moral Intuition Affirms Scripture’s Meaning Makers. Here’s Why:
Sub Part 1 of 4:
The concept of “Meaning Makers” and perhaps in particular Scripture’s Meaning Makers may sound odd and so for some clarification which may help add a framework for this section on moral intuition see the following PDF:
Scripture’s Meaning Makers And Slavery And Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf
And so with that as a basic backdrop we can move into the following ~
Key Question on Christ:
Is/Was Christ necessary to avoid the equivalent “Bad Outcomes” of Death and Destruction with respect to Judgements and the Ends of all Privations and the Ends of Days and the Ends of Worlds and the Ends of All Worlds – and so on – as we discuss the OT? DO you simultaneously say (1) without God we don’t end well (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) Ending-Badly-Without-God? DO you simultaneously say (1) But for All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling we as contingent and mutable beings cannot avoid Fragmentation and Death (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) experiencing Fragmentation and Death when they do NOT have All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling?
A brief discussion between Is-Nuanced & Not-Nuanced:
- Is-Nuanced: “Does the Old Testament define Just-War as Good?”
- Not-Nuanced: “Yes. Justice is Good.”
- Is-Nuanced: “God then means to retain such War as part of Man’s Final Felicity, his True Good, his eschatological terminus?”
- Not-Nuanced: “No of course not.”
- Is-Nuanced: “But you said Scripture/God calls it Good, so…..”
- Not-Nuanced: “Yes but, well God can want war maybe?”
- Is-Nuanced: “Actually He hates Evil, and He tells us MT Sinai is is shaped around Hard Hearts and Restrains Death wholly unable to Give Life, even as Scripture describes God’s Law as Good.
- Not-Nuanced: “So it’s a contradiction.”
- Is-Nuanced: “It’s not and in fact it’s the Full-On All-Bad vs. Full-On All-Good you think you are defending but are in fact rejecting. To call His Law Good even as He calls His Law deficient, lacking, unable to give life, shaped around Hard Hearts, and far worse, well, there is a distinction there but those who don’t read “Whole” “Metanarratives” are unable to see what it is and how it is.”
Observation:
That’s the typical brief discussion and we find (there) that analytics which are not nuanced lead to Not-Nuanced’s inability to see the distinction that is inextricably embedded in the facts, and which Is-Nuanced is taking the time to delineate.
Notice again that we find that those who call for blame upon God are in the end themselves calling an X Beautiful when God calls that same X Ugly – and so those folks actually insist on a Heaven filled with Just-War – and all sorts of other (Ugly) “Eternal Ideals” (“Good“) which they unwittingly defend. Notice all of that reduces to Atheism/Non-Theism. Why/How mere atheism etc.? Well that’s straightforward:
Sub Part 2 of 4:
Scripture is clear in how it defines the Two Mountains one being MT Sinai and the other MT Zion — commandments surrounding Privation are said to be (1) bent around the odd shapes of Hard Hearts and that (2) they can only Restrain Death even as we are told (3) that they can never Give Life, and, we are also (4) told there is a Far-Better up ahead. It is at the distinction between MT Sinai vs. MT Zion where we come upon the Primacy of Christ.
Atheism comes into play at that juncture — the juncture where we discover that MT Zion is shaped around the Good and Life’s Eternal Stream while MT Sinai is bent around the shapes of Hard Hearts and Death’s Restraint.
That all converges into a subtle thorn which slowly morphs into an unexpected catastrophe:
Bear with me here as this is a long sentence but the chain of absurdities is unbroken:
Those who condemn Scripture’s Meaning Makers – or God’s Own definitions – end up condemning MT Zion in order to retain MT Sinai — because that Mountain holds Good & Just Carnage — because Just War is Good — and those folks want “the good” — and so they condemn God for providing the Perfect, the Beautiful, The-Good (MT Zion) — which is to say they end up condemning a Heaven that is free of both Just War and Unjust War (in a manner of speaking) even as they settle for the Ugly and for Privation and – it gets worse – they even fuss over swaths of the [zip code] God has named [Mud] in a bizarre competition to see which part of Mud is “Bad” because it is “More Muddy!” and which part of Mud is “Beautiful” because it is “Less Muddy!”
That unfortunate trainwreck of a scene inside of Mud is the Ceiling of Atheism/Non-Theism (Moral Ontology/different topic).
An unfortunate part is that we actually want to call some carnage Good (Just-War) when in fact scripture defines all of it as simply more of the pains of our Privation. To obsess that War be Just so that God can be Good is to insist God calls ANY war His Eternal Eschatological Ideal ((Man’s True Good, his Final Felicity)). But God calls all of it Ugly. It is only our Moral Hubris that seeks to call some carnage Beautiful/Good. Again:
God calls all of it Ugly. It is only our Moral Hubris that seeks to call some carnage Beautiful/Good.
God disagrees because He has none of it in His eschatological revelations.
Just-War is not part of Man’s Final Felicity.
Just-War is not part of Man’s True Good.
Notice the following result/problem of the aforementioned hubris on our part:
We can’t wrap our concrete un-nuanced thinking around the fact that MT Sinai is defined as both Good and Bad, as both Protective and Limiting of Moral Good and so we carry a Falsely-Dichotomous-Thinking into the Old Testament (and New Testament far too often). The result is obvious in that we fail to agree with the God of the Whole Bible Who defines all of war as being contained within the box called Evil/Privation. MT Sinai was never the Means. Only MT Zion can do the Ontic Work. God Himself is the Gospel. The criticisms against God “because Old Testament violence” are ontologically thin and survive only by avoiding Scripture’s wider metanarrative. The criticisms seeking to call some parts of carnage Good are ontological dead-ends ~ because ~ we can never pull that off ~ because ~ eschatology is going to force radical category changes in all of our definitions ~ which means ~ we would have been using the wrong Meaning Makers ~ which means ~ Scripture’s Meaning Makers align with our moral intuitions as MT Zion dissolves MT Sinai and eschatological closure approaches. Therefore our Final Meaning Makers are all found in Being/Existence as Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving ~ which is to say the Trinitarian Life and ~ thereby ~ we arrive at the affirmation of our Moral Intuitions:
God Himself is Man’s Final Felicity.
God Himself is Man’s True End.
God Himself is the Gospel.
God Alone always was our only Hope.
God Alone always has been the Only Good.
Recall from earlier the Key Question on Christ:
Is/Was Christ necessary to avoid the equivalent “Bad Outcomes” of Death and Destruction with respect to Judgements and the Ends of all Privations and the Ends of Days and the Ends of Worlds and the Ends of All Worlds – and so on – as we discuss the OT? DO you simultaneously say (1) without God we don’t end well (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) Ending-Badly-Without-God? DO you simultaneously say (1) But for All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling we as contingent and mutable beings cannot avoid Fragmentation and Death (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) experiencing Fragmentation and Death when they do NOT have All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling?
Meanwhile: Most of us find that our Moral Intuition affirms Scripture’s Meaning Makers and therefore condemns any metrics which call MT Sinai God’s Eternal Good/Whole/Ideal just as our Moral Intuition affirms MT Zion vis-à-vis the Primacy of Christ.
We KNOW Just-War is Evil, and we hope to NEVER see it EVER again, and, because we are not Atheists we rationally outreach all of it and rationally claim that MT Zion is shaped around the Good and Life’s Eternal Stream while MT Sinai is shaped around Hard Hearts and Death’s Restraint. That’s how Scripture defines the Two Mountains. To insist that that we are to find MT ZION inside of MT SINAI is to disagree with God which means we are left defining Swaths of War’s Carnage as Beautiful/Ideal and we are left defining Christ as Unnecessary and Redundant and defining Adam-In-Innocence as having NO NEED for that Other Tree and that Eternal Stream Who tells us that His Name is Life and Truth. The Two Trees of Life and Truth are our common Enemy’s best Play upon Adam — upon us and that enemy is till tripping us up with the WHAT and the WHO. Which Mountain is which? Which Tree is which? Who is Where?
Sub Part 3 of 4:
Adam stands in Eden as Innocent. Not Perfected yet, but Innocent. He still Lacks. He still comes up short of Eternal Life. Innocence is wonderful, and, yet, to claim that Adam in Eden only loses the Fullness of Man if and when Adam falls/sins in Eden, is to make a claim that leaves us valuing Man and/or Innocence as that which drives the Calculus into Eschatology’s Closure.
Therefore, a kind of test:
“…But I am not looking for what the lens of CHRISTIANITY says I am only looking for what THE BIBLE says….”
What are Scripture’s Meaning Makers? CAN one give a rational reply there? Arbitrary margins for where in the text one starts or stops looking for definitional meaning makers? The reply to that “But I am not looking for…” item is in Scripture’s Meaning Makers And Slavery And Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf
Let’s say Man Falls and Christ never comes and God’s decision is to withhold Redemption, Re-Creation, and so on. What happens to every single human being when God is subtracted from them?
Do they go to Heaven? If so: How? By being declared Innocent? The way Adam stood in Eden, Innocent, and void of Eternal Life? Think It Through:
In the hypothetical here God has freely chosen to withhold… what? A Legal Decree of Innocent? How does “Innocent” change the problem for Adam? Or does God withhold HIMSELF? Is it the case that God can and does say “I am Life, Truth, The Resurrection…” (etc.)? Well of course. He is what Adam needs. Not Innocence-full-stop. Why? Well because Innocence-full-stop can’t do the required Ontic Work of Eschatological Closure (…Deification, The Participatory, and so on…). Why? Because “My Innocence” is not “All-Sufficiency-Himself” aka God.
When we make Christ Unnecessary, or Redundant, or both we have fallen into a misguided Ontology of Man, God, and Eschatology.
Scripture defines MT Siani as a Taskmaster that is shaped and bent around Hard Hearts as it functions to restrain Death. There is nothing in MT Sinai that will follow us when we are brough to MT Zion.
And yet those who opine that God must grant “My Innocence” the Power to Create Ex Nihilo such that God is Unnecessary and Redundant (both in Eden and so again on Golgotha) are in fact pleading to have a little-h heaven filled with Some-Swaths of War’s Carnage both Just and Unjust even as they also plead to have a little-h heaven that values all of us based on Height and Sex and Age and Station such that in their little-h heaven’s War/Carnage there will only by Good/Just Carnage.
The folks making those complaints are unwittingly declaring Christ to be both Unnecessary and Redundant. They in fact declare that God can remove Himself from the Calculus and we will get along fine, as long as God first Decrees us Innocent before He leaves. That all converges and spills out in various forms of the following:
Atheists: “Why the Cross? Why not just forgive?”
Christian Reply: Oh, wow. Well, at least it’s a good question. And an interesting question. Basically, well, really it is all quite simple but the fact… that… you… have… to… ask… means…. So here is what we are going to do – let’s register you for the following:
- Logic 101
- Ontology 101
- Contingent-Mutable-Little-b-being-101
- Immutable-Necessary-Big-B-Being 101
- Little-b-bible 101
- Big-B-Bible 101
Sub Part 4 of 4:
Given all of the above so far, notice who CAN trust Moral Intuition and who CANNOT trust Moral intuition as we navigate Privation’s Many Pains. Notice ALSO what it means that SO FAR ALL OF SCRIPTURE’S OWN DEFINITIONS regarding those Two Mountains absolutely and fully comport with Christ and Christ Crucified and THEREBY our own Moral Intuition regarding Being||Existence Itself as Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving is ALL OVER AGAIN affirmed (Trinitarian Life). Just the same, notice who it is so far who has Moral Intuitions that CAN’T be trusted as all of the previous items converge.
Before moving into the next section it is worth repeating two short items:
“In the OT, because Christ had not yet entered history to take the penalty of sin for us, every man bore the full penalty himself. Thus, whenever you see an OT crime punished with death, that’s God’s blunt way of telling us it’s a mortal sin. It is the archetype of moral teaching. Without the OT’s clear portrayal of sin and its effects, it is way too easy to forget why we need a savior and what He saves us from.” (from X’s @LunacyandClaret)
And:
Terrible Outcomes: Is/Was Christ necessary to avoid the equivalent “Bad Outcomes” of Death and Destruction with respect to Judgements and the Ends of all Privations and the Ends of Days and the Ends of Worlds and the Ends of All Worlds – and so on – as we discuss the OT? DO you simultaneously say (1) without God we don’t end well (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) Ending-Badly-Without-God? DO you simultaneously say (1) But for All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling we as contingent and mutable beings cannot avoid Fragmentation and Death (2) BUT STILL we ought not find both Man & World (and all that is in said World) experiencing Fragmentation and Death when they do NOT have All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring/Infilling?
Brief Reminder:
“…But I am not looking for what the lens of CHRISTIANITY says I am only looking for what THE BIBLE says….”
What are Scripture’s Meaning Makers? CAN one give a rational reply there? Arbitrary margins for where in the text one starts or stops looking for definitional meaning makers? The reply to that “But I am not looking for…” item is in Scripture’s Meaning Makers And Slavery And Any Topic Whatsoever at https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf
NEXT SECTION:
Before looking at Genocide and how it is that we don’t find such in Scripture a brief look at Just War and Abortion:
Just War CAN be justified and YET simultaneously be a swath of Privation’s Pains (Lack/Evil). Is Just War something we want to see MORE of? Of course not. Is Abortion something we want to see MORE of? Of course not. Even Pro-Choice folks hope for zero abortion. If we do not have a metaphysic by which we can describe both items as items which will NOT be part of Man’s Final Felicity then we are left trying to handle things that are Ugly AS-IF they are Beautiful. Example Scenarios:
In a discussion there was the topic of Just War and also Abortion and we arrived in part at something like:
“Christianity says pro-life and also says just wars are possible and both of those premises equate to Oppression and therefore I am leaving Christianity and switching to Pantheism.” (by “Javow”)
In reply to Javow the following observations had to do with Pantheism’s Yield:
First, lets look at two false premises:
- Abortion is a swath of the Good and the Beautiful in the sense that we ought desire [More].
- To say we ought-desire-less Abortion entails ought-not-abort, and that equals Oppression.
Notice that our own changing legal codes pro or con are irrelevant to the metaphysical conclusion with/against those two premises. That is to say that those two premises are either true or false regardless of whichever legal code we posit. So then we arrive at the following:
Javow stops at the legal code and investigates no further: It is Oppression vs. Abortion Full-Stop. Javow cannot label them both as Bad/Evil — else self-negation || contradiction at the level of their own *metaphysic*. Unbeknownst (perhaps?) to Javow is the fact that Pantheism will lead them to conclude that Abortion (itself) is an Ought-Not or possibly to conclude that Abortion (itself) is a swath of All-Is-Good — and simultaneously —Pantheism will lead them to find that the “Freedom-From” “Ought-Not-Abort” is itself Good/Beautiful and therefore the inverse of Ought-Not-Abort is an Evil and Oppression.
Key: notice that in all of those swirling options we find eternally colliding ontological equals in what sums to a full-on permanence of metaphysical armistice. That is what Pantheism yields i.e. the terminus is the Trio of “All Is Good” “Because” “All Is God”.
Juxtaposing that analogy to the analogy of Just War:
Just War is both Just and also a swath of Privation/Ugly/Evil. It ends oppression but is itself Privation. We don’t “Desire To See More Just War” because even though it is Just, it is in fact a swath of our current Pains of Privation and by Privation we find of course [Evil]. Or we can say this: Just-War won’t be a swath of Man’s True Good — of Man’s Final Felicity.
It’s good to label oppression as evil, but one cannot coherently do so if one is unable to describe the other swaths as evil as well — else — one is forced into handling something Ugly as if it were Beautiful. One needs a metaphysic *quite *unlike Pantheism. The Christian Metaphysic funds the intellectual right to make that claim because All-Is-Not-God//Good//Ideal. At the end of the line Pantheism fails to get there.
Whereas:
David Bentley Hart describes the aforementioned eternally colliding ontological equals || Metaphysical Armistice in the following quote, but, first, to introduce that quote is the following observation:
Metaphysical Armistice:
All such Non-Theistic paradigms finally or cosmically leave us within what just is a metaphysical armistice amid eternally colliding ontological equals and thereby we’ve no means by which to find any (ontic) moral *distinction*. “Being” is conceived of as “….a plain upon which forces of meaning and meaninglessness converge in endless war; according to either, being is known in its oppositions, and oppositions must be overcome or affirmed, but in either case as violence….”
David Bentley Hart describes such views and notes that – on simplicity – on beauty – on goodness – it is not “Totality”, nor is it “Chaos”, nor is it distinction achieved only by violence among converging ontological equals, but rather it is the compositions of the triune where all vectors of being ultimately converge. “Nietzsche prophesied correctly: what now always lies ahead is a choice between Dionysus (who is also Apollo) and the Crucified: between, that is, the tragic splendor of totality and the inexhaustible beauty of an infinite love.”
His book, “The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth” in part explores such contours. A brief excerpt:
Begin Quote:
Within Christian theology there is a thought – a story – of the infinite that is also the thought – the story – of beauty; for pagan philosophy and culture, such a confluence of themes was ultimately unthinkable. Even Plotinian Neoplatonism, which brought the Platonic project to its most delightful completion by imagining infinity as an attribute of the One, was nonetheless compelled to imagine the beauty of form as finally subordinate to a formless and abstract simplicity, devoid of internal relation, diminished by reduction to particularity, polluted by contact with matter’s “absolute evil”; nor could later Neoplatonism very comfortably allow that the One was also infinite being, but typically placed being only in the second moment of emanation, not only because the One, if it were also Being, would constitute a bifid form, but because being is always in some sense contaminated by or open to becoming, to movement, and thus is, even in the very splendor of its overflow, also a kind of original contagion, beginning as an almost organic ferment in the noetic realm and ending in the death of matter.
Christian thought – whose infinite is triune, whose God became incarnate, and whose account of salvation promises not liberation from, but glorification of, material creation – can never separate the formal particularity of beauty from the infinite it announces, and so tells the tale of being in a way that will forever be a scandal to the Greeks. For their parts, classical “metaphysics” [rather than rigorous metaphysics] and postmodernism belong to the same story; each, implying or repeating the other, conceives being as a plain upon which forces of meaning and meaninglessness converge in endless war; according to either, being is known in its oppositions, and oppositions must be overcome or affirmed, but in either case as violence: amid the strife of images and the flow of simulacra, shining form appears always only as an abeyance of death, fragile before the convulsions of chaos, and engulfed in fate. There is a specular infinity in mutually defining opposites:
Parmenides and Heracleitos gaze into one another’s eyes, and the story of being springs up between them; just as two mirrors set before one another their depths indefinitely, repeating an opposition that recedes forever along an illusory corridor without end, seeming to span all horizons and contain all things, the dialectic of Apollo and Dionysus oscillates without resolution between endless repetitions of the same emptiness, the same play of reflection and inversion. But the true infinite lies outside and all about this enclosed universe of strife and shadows; it shows itself as beauty and as light: not totality, nor again chaos, but the music of a triune God. Nietzsche prophesied correctly: what now always lies ahead is a choice between Dionysus (who is also Apollo) and the Crucified: between, that is, the tragic splendor of totality and the inexhaustible beauty of an infinite love.
End quote.
Next Section:
Genocide and other topics converge and so the following Two-Streams discussion is helpful:
Joshua: Genocide Or A Tale Of Two Time Streams? – by Colin Green via https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/joshua-as-genocide-or-a-tale-of-two-time-streams-by-colin-green.pdf
Genocide again enters this essay and again we recall that Old English Literalists believe Genocide is found in the texts of the OT but most do not find it there, while others simply reduce it all to Fiction ((…Joshua is a fiction invented way back then by local Israel/Canaan factions in order to consolidate both Narrative and Influence in their favor way back then, and so on)). All of which is again to say Genocide did not happen but in THAT example it is for THAT reason, and so on. Meanwhile others find the historicity valid and aim for an exegeses informed both by history and by forensics focusing on linguistic/writing tools. Regardless, while most agree Genocide did not happen, the goal HERE is NOT to defend that conclusion/exegesis ((…see links at the end of essay for some items that may help with that topic…)).
Rather, the goal HERE is to press the “Okay What IF Genocide” and then point out a few key problems with Moral Metrics there. First, as already alluded to, if one is going to insist that SOME Brutal Bashing / Judgment/War etc. is part of or can be part of “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal” but “Not If” we find it in “Genocide” then one is going to insist on a Moral Map which itself also reduces to the horrifical moral maps of the A1A2 and B1B2 groups. Again some Christians ((and most narratives of Non-Theistic Critics)) construct a metaphysic as if God draws lines at Babies or at Women or at Non-Combatants or at Nations or at Tribes rather than at All Human Beings All The Time in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds.
Ending Evil:
Evil is a Deficiency of Being. A Hollow. The only thing that can fill a hollow void of Being is Being Itself. So too in Eden should Man find Eternal Life he will find that in his own Self there is but (Non-Culpable) Need and the only thing that can eternally fill that Self-Insufficiency (Need) is All-Sufficiency – and so on, and so on in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds. All Metaphysics but Christianity get those Key Metaphysical Truths wrong/muddied up. Hence Ending Evil/Death can only come into focus vis-à-vis All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring as the ONLY possible mode by which “Being Itself” can “Pour into” the “Vacuum/Hollow” that is “Privation” and recall that “Privation” is another term for “The Deficiency Of Being”.
WHAT are we supposed to be distinguishing here regarding Christ? Where does Sinai End and Christ Begin? Is Christ mere Redundancy? Is Christ the last 5% to finish the deal? The Christian Metaphysic DOES posit an ontological End of Privation. But what are we actually distinguishing?
Genocide becomes a snowball effect regarding our own Moral Tolerance because it STARTS with errors mentioned earlier and then snowballs. In that Snowball we start with SOME version of A1/A2 and B1/B2 finding SOME version of SOME Bashing of SOME Human Beings as SOMEHOW within “The” “Good/Beautiful/Whole/The-Ideal”. Meanwhile, contrary to the Snowball, God/Scripture defines every bit of it as the Metaphysic of Man in Privation and all the necessary floors/ceilings thereof.
The Snowball example that we typically see is a “False Dichotomy” where part of that Moral Tolerance for SOME etc. ((…which is error….)) is pitted against or juxtaposed up against some OTHER form of Privation/Evil and, then, the person who juxtaposes those two items stomp their feet “As If” the Moral Fault is located where it is not and “As If” their OWN Moral Map is NOT fatally found in A1/A2/B1/B2.
Example Of Snowball:
“If genocide is always wrong and if rape is always wrong then why is one-time genocide given a pass?”
Problem 1: Notice the aforementioned approval of SOME brutal-bashing as “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal” that was required in one of the earlier errors just to get to the point of even positing that (false) dichotomy. So the evolving Snowball is already immoral on its own premises — well not on its OWN premises but according to God/Scripture which finds ALL ((…not just SOME…)) Bashing beneath the Umbrella of “Privation”.
Problem 2: From there there’s the obvious Category problem in which God does in fact Judge All Lives and All Sexes and All Ages and All Cities and All Nations and All Worlds. As in — Literally. God is NOT a Physicalist NOR a Legalist BUT God is the Ultimate Realist. As in — Literally.
Problem 3: Notice in both 1 and 2 that God in Motion vis-à-vis Judgment against “A Man” or “A Family” or “A Nation” or “Israel” or “Canaan” or “World” or “Universe” ALL entail ALL the SAME metrics.
Problem 4: How is any of THAT in the same Ontic Category as Rape?
Most realize that Genocide is not “there” but the question is moot because (1) AT MOST we find God in Motion vis-à-vis Judgment against “A Man” or “A Family” or “A Nation” or “Israel” or “Canaan” or “World” or “Universe” and because (2) those ALL entail ALL the SAME metrics and because (3) to even make the complaint in the first place means one has already moved into the Immoral by embracing Brutal-Bashing of SOME Human Beings as The-Good ((see previous discussions)) and because (4) one is left thereby with a disjointed set of ontological metrics — almost akin to the Fundamental Indifference/Capricious/Chaos found in the Ultimate Meaning-Makers of various brands of Non-Theism/Atheism, and because (5) one’s own maps make Christ Redundant and/or Unnecessary for SOME Human Beings.
Briefly: See the following excerpt from www.Slavery.Bible which is Slavery In The Christian Metanarrative Is Defined As A Swath Of Privations Many Pains Therefore The Christian Metanarrative Cannot Have A Pro Slavery Verse Much Less A Pro Slavery Any-Thing at https://metachristianity.com/slavery-in-the-christian-metanarrative-is-defined-as-a-swath-of-privations-many-pains/ as it not difficult to understand what Scripture means by its own “utterly destroy” and the reason why is because Israel receives the SAME punishment from God and we observe the following:
Begin Excerpt:
“….Israel’s own occupation of the land was conditional; Israel too would be “..utterly destroyed..” if it engaged in the defiling practices of the Canaanites (Lev. 18: 25– 28 ). Indeed, later the Israelites would be judged— removed from the land through exile— because they violated the terms of the covenant….”
And yet notice that Israel is not “the-proverbial cancer” and, also, still again Israel is not “In-Genocide-Like-Fashion-Utterly-Destroyed-By-God” in that “exile”. But what about “Utterly Destroyed?” That happened to Israel? Well yes. “THAT” did happen and that Promise WAS kept in that God DID “utterly destroy” Israel and such was vis-à-vis that proverbial Exile. Israel is absorbed into other nations, alive and well, overcome, conquered, retaining their identity in many senses, losing it in many senses. Neither the facts of history, nor the actual metanarrative, nor ancient biblical and extra-biblical “linguistics” support any sort of “Full-Stop” appeal to “….like a cancer…” nor to any “Full-Stop” appeal to what any of us mean by “genocide” because, again, Israel gets the SAME PROMISE of “utterly destroyed” carried out ON THEM as they practice their Faith under their various rulers and have their various cities and so on all under their various rulers. That is why/how Canaanite populations and interactions are still in the later narratives of the Old Testament long after these earlier narratives. History, Scripture, and Fact affirm what modernity describes as “Regime Change” and not what modernity describes as “Genocide”. Regarding the “why/how” behind the fact that all such violence, even Justified War, is defined by Scripture as Ugly/Bad see www.BibleViolence.com which goes to Deficiency Of Being, Old Testament Violence, The Metaphysic Of Privation, And Christ Crucified https://metachristianity.com/old-testament-violence-the-metaphysic-of-privation-and-christ-crucified/
End Excerpt.
Briefly Perhaps Recall: Joshua: Genocide Or A Tale Of Two Time Streams? – by Colin Green via https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/joshua-as-genocide-or-a-tale-of-two-time-streams-by-colin-green.pdf
Briefly Perhaps Recall: Scripture’s Meaning Makers and Slavery and Any Topic Whatsoever https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/scriptures-meaning-makers-and-slavery-and-any-topic-whatsoever.pdf
Briefly: See the section inside of https://metachristianity.com/god-sending-lying-spirits-god-n-sending-evil-spirits-n-abraham-n-isaac/ which begins with” GENOCIDE? AMALEKITES? CANAANITES? — for a brief look at why Genocide criteria are NOT met.
Briefly: See “Part 4: Moral Dilemmas And No Good Options” at https://metachristianity.com/god-sending-lying-spirits-god-n-sending-evil-spirits-n-abraham-n-isaac/
Briefly: See the section within https://metachristianity.com/divine-command-theory-collapses-into-a-metaphysical-absurdity/ which begins with the bolded Back To The Moral Dilemma and continues a few paragraphs and does not “end” until the next (unrelated) “formal” section which begins with the bolded Meta-Christianity 101, day 1, lesson 1: God’s Will from A to Z
Before moving into Part 2 and Part 3 a brief reminder of four key errors:
(A1) We Approve of All Judgement/Etc. in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/The-Ideal.
(A2) We say OT Sinai/Law/Judgment is The Good/Lovely/Whole/The Ideal ((hence we are equating it to Christ/Cross)).
(B1) We Approve of SOME Judgment in the OT as The Beautiful/Good/Whole/Ideal AND ALSO we find SOME Judgement as The Bad/Evil/Non-Ideal.
(B2) We say we don’t need Law/Sinai/Judgement AT ALL / EVER ((hence we obviously don’t need Christ/Cross either)).
None of those are coherent. All expunge Christ. All define Brutally Bashing and/or War/Etc. of SOME Human Beings as “The” “Good/Beautiful/Lovely/The-Ideal”. All make Christ/Cross either Unnecessary or else Redundant for SOME Human Beings. In other words, they all sum to Idolatry. They DISAGREE with God Who does not draw lines at Babies or at Women or at Non-Combatants but rather He draws them at All Human Beings All The Time in All Possible (Adamic) Worlds. NONE of it is “Good” and therein ((discussed elsewhere)) none of it is actually condoned within the Christian Metaphysic.
—Main Part 2 of 5—
Before proceeding, see these for context: www.Slavery.Bible and at www.BibleViolence.com as well as https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity and then Part 2 of 5 as follows:
Justified ≠ Good Justified War ≠ Good. In absolute terms. At least in the Christian Metaphysic.
No one Hopes for MORE or Wants MORE “Justified War/Justified Killing/Etc.” WHY? Because Justified ≠ Good/Lovely. One can agree with Scripture’s definitions of War and Sinai as Privation and therefore ipso facto deficient in Good and therein ‘Evil’ ((Evil as Privation vis-à-vis the Deficiency of Good/Being)). It’s not like we “hope” for “more” “Justified War” merely because it’s Justified ((…obviously Non-Theism provides no ontic terminus for such closure…)).
Most don’t believe O.T. Genocide happened and so the Critic is eventually forced to resort to criticizing some version of Modernity’s sense of Justified War. The Christian narrative defines all of that as Privation (Lack/Deficiency) including Justified War. Notice in all wars we observe that “vulnerable non-combatants” are killed and so the premise that killing vulnerable non-combatants is evil reduces to the simple premise that all war is evil even if justified. So far so good. Scripture defines ALL Vectors “within” Privation as Evil – and we don’t like that – because hubris wants to rank and layer – but Privation just is Non-Whole, Non-Ideal, “The-Good-Minus-Something” ((…that is why Sinai/Law never can be the “Means” to Moral Excellence nor the “Ends” that are Moral Excellence…)).
“It’s Not The War It’s The Suffering” again leaves us off base as per the following:
So, for that hypothetical we take it one step up to a justified war but this time with some sort of ((for the sake of discussion)) “perfect and painless targeting” so that there is a hypothetically ‘Painless-War’ and we ask what we find there. Well? Well we find yet again that THAT TOO is still Evil as it is necessarily still stuck beneath the Ceiling of the Pains of Privation ((see earlier discussions)). STILL STUCK. One is STILL with those TWO Umbrellas described at the start and so one is STILL somewhere amid A1/A2/B1/B2.
And, so, GM’s Quote on Sinai/Law vs. Condone vs. Tolerate is helpful there/here— see attached picture here:
Quote:
“This is part of the problem of this whole conversation. One half is to accurately describe what was going on in the Old Testament…. and one is the moral vision of the Old Testament as a whole. It’s absolutely vital to understand that the Mosaic law was not God’s ideal, it was God working with a certain people group in a certain cultural context to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant of bringing a certain kind of blessing to the world (a savior and kingdom of God). That the law was not God’s ideal is apparent in the narrative of the development of the law, God explicitly saying so through Jeremiah and Jesus himself saying that they were granted laws, not because they are good in of themselves, but were accommodations to the hardness of their hearts, and asking more of them would have been futile. And so on. The perfectly egalitarian human relationships of Genesis 2 is the ideal moral paradigm of the Old Testament….. ……the overarching argument involves the necessity to point out that none of this is representative of God’s ideal. You make a huge jump from tolerance to endorsement from God’s perspective that doesn’t take into account the moral vision of the biblical narrative……. the job of the critic is to demonstrate the premise of God’s future-oriented, creation repairing agenda as a falsehood, and that the Sinai covenant represents His ideal for all mankind, forever. Until the critic does that, trying to force “endorse” into the key hole of temporary, forward looking tolerance [of things we’re told He hates] is dialectical wishful thinking……”
End quote (by GM).
Similar topography is discussed in the following: Biblical Argument Against Slavery, by Colin Green which is at both https://metachristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/biblical-argument-against-slavery-by-colin-green-post-copy.pdf and also at https://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.com/2020/07/gods-complaint-against-slavery-in.html
Once again — from Genesis to Revelation — the Metaphysic is Evil as Privation — and therein no one Hopes/Wants for More “Justified War/Killing/Etc.” WHY? Because Justified ≠ Good/Lovely.
It’s all Lacking because all Permutations/Combinations of Privation are Lacking. All available vectors deliver Moral Lack.
Given THAT Christian fact-set ((Justified is NOT Beautiful/Good/Etc.)), we find the following too often being said about someone:
“Bad Event X happened and So-&-So actually believes X is a GOOD outcome…how terrible of So-&-So to think X is “Good”!”
To say that about So-&-So when So-&-So believes Scripture ((and therefore rejects the aforementioned A1/A2/B1/B2)) is to speak something untrue about So-&-So. Because AT MOST what So-&So would/could say is that X is the result of a TERRIBLE situation with TERRIBLE OPTIONS. To not include all of the above when speaking of So-&-So one would either be Lying and/or 2. Straw-manning and/or Uninformed.
Some dishonest Non-Theists ((and at times Christians/others)) pretend with “But I just don’t “get it”….” when it comes to those hard ontological distinctions between Justified, Legal, Good, Lovely, Non-Ideal, Ideal, and so on. Perhaps because they don’t believe in the existence of those full-on ontological distinctions and so reject Christianity and if so that’s fine because then perhaps Cosmic Indifference is their only Currency — perhaps because Unintelligible Chaos and the Finally Illusory Self is their Final Terminus for all possible semantic intent. And so on. BUT informed folks CAN do better because of the following:
Informed folks CAN weight “Privation” and “Logical Necessity” and so on into the entire semantic body of all things Old Testament and/or Evil and/or Justified War ((Etc./Etc.)) as Justified ≠ Good/Beautiful/Whole. In God’s Economy the terms {Evil-Should-Not-Be} & {Could-Have-Been-Otherwise} are true broadly speaking regarding the pains of Privation and NOTICE THE RESULT: Justified War Ought Not Have Been / Need Not Have Been and “Event X” is NOT “Good” but ONLY a Logically Necessary TERRIBLE situation with Logically Necessary TERRIBLE OPTIONS which have Logically Necessary Floors and Ceilings regarding Yesterday, Life, Death, Tomorrow, and how it relates to the Perfection of our Being vis-à-vis Man’s True Good, Man’s Final Felicity.
That is in part why at every Evil witness we witness Vectors Short of Christ and we are right to Intuit/Say {Need-Not-Have-Been} & {Evil-Should-Not-Be} & {Could-Have-Been-Otherwise} & {Better Is Man Christ} and so on. The Two Possible Worlds streaming out of Eden ((Eternal Life & Privation)) are not the topic of this thread but in either case the “Means” to get “out” of either Eden or Privation are the SAME and the “Ends” of Eternal Life viz-a-vis the Perfection of Being ((Man’s Being in the sense of Creaturely Perfection)) are the SAME, although that’s a different topic. All of this is in part why Divine Command Theory or “DCT” or “Divine Command Theory” collapses into a logical absurdity as we track its own endpoints across Logical Impossibility and The Good and Reason’s Obligation and Reason’s final terminus and reality’s irreducible or concrete furniture vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. As per https://metachristianity.com/slavery-in-the-christian-metanarrative-is-defined-as-a-swath-of-privations-many-pains/
—Main Part 3 of 5—
((A)) Killing X Is Morally Wrong
((B)) Man Killing X Is Morally Wrong
((C)) God Killing X Is Morally Wrong
A = B = C if and only if conditions of evil persist through all three actualities. But a problem for “A = B = C” arrives:
[Death] is the # 1 Killer in the World.
Therefore Eternal Life — *and* *nothing* *less* — is the # 1 Dissolution of our # 1 Problem.
In fact — BUT FOR Eternal Life there is no Ontic Resolution ((Closure)) of the # 1 Killer in the World.
UN-Natural:
“Death is strange and unnatural. We desire permanence, as we should. But here, what should last doesn’t. People we know leave. The shock of it tells us that this shouldn’t be the norm but it is for now. But there is coming a day when even death will die…” ((from https://twitter.com/JackieHillPerry/status/1171595500254093312?s=20))
But for eternal life all termini fail to find closure. We begin to see one more reason how Atheism fails to justify Moral Objectivism as all available termini of all available possibilities/permutations begin and end outside of Life/Mind/Reason/Love and so on. More generally we find another reason why it is that “Taking Life” is necessarily wrong for ANY Contingent Being – which is simply because that agent cannot Fully Fund anything akin to The End Of Death Itself nor can that agent Fully Fund anything akin to Eternal Life.
Question: When Life is STOLEN/TAKEN what, exactly, is stolen/taken? What is the “Loss”? What is the “Harm”? If God cures one of cancer today and then that same person dies of “Natural” ((it’s actually quite UN-natural)) “Causes” in ten years, what was Gained/Lost?
To know what is lost, what is gained, and so on we must know something about “From where does the Right To Life come?” What is it about “Human Life” that has weight in our ontology? Recall that the larger question of whether or not A = B = C ? given ((A)) Killing X Is Morally Wrong and ((B)) Man Killing X Is Morally Wrong and ((C)) God Killing X Is Morally Wrong. As it turns out A = B = C if and only if conditions of evil persist through all three actualities. Where is there a Right To Life? The following quote/excerpt helps focus the lens:
Begin Quote:
Ben ((Non-Theist)) asked this: “How do you get from points #1-5 to concluding that “the capacity for future autonomous activity is then the criterion of the possession of a right to life”?
Here’s the closest Ben comes to a criterion of personhood. He repeated it a couple of times. Here’s the first rendition: “I’m hesitant to say it is a human being, though, because typically by that term we mean a human which has been born, and/or which possesses a mind.”
Like the other paragraphs from which I gleaned what I called “Bens List”, this is two parts red herring and one part mistake. Let’s look… for starters we should note that it is not the case that this is what we mean. If it were what **we mean, then **we wouldn’t be arguing.
Also, being born or unborn is a red herring. Here’s a goofy thought experiment to illustrate the point:
Suppose that in addition to humans, there were two other intelligent species on the planet. One, the Roomans, are marsupials. Rooman joeys are born very quickly after fertilization occurs. When born the joey looks/acts like a grub/maggot & latches itself onto its mother’s teat in her pouch where it continues to develop for a good long time, eventually poking its head out of the pouch at intervals to say “Hi” & then disappearing again.
The second non-human species are called the Titans, after the Greek legends. Like the Titans of legend, titan children stay in their mother’s womb (though not because their father refuses to let them out) until they are fully formed, able to speak, and make moral choices. Some titan fetuses even enter into contracts in utero.
Given current moral sensibilities, there would be significant debate about whether newborn rooman joeys have a right to life, and no debate at all about whether late stage titan fetuses have rights. Of course, pro-life advocates would support the right to life for all at all stages of development. But clearly, the mere fact of birth would have no bearing in any case.
So it is the possession of a mind that seems crucial here. But there are plenty of creatures that have minds, but that have no right to life (or to anything else for that matter). The common housefly comes to mind. Chickens also. So it is not just the presence of a mind that matters either.
Now, at this point, we could note that there is nothing left to Ben’s criteria. But let us be charitable. Let us suppose that Ben was thinking of a creature with a certain *kind* of mind. One that has a certain degree of complexity such that it can have moral rights. I had glossed that earlier by saying that we are looking for *autonomy*. I see no reason not to continue with that gloss. But the problem, as noted in earlier posts, is that the mere **presence of autonomy isn’t enough. Anesthetized people do not exhibit autonomy, but it is still murder to deliberately kill them without cause.
So what is it that allows us to say of unconscious people that, although we have no evidence of current autonomy, they still count? Now, if the heavens opened and the voice of God spoke telling me that a 2×4 is autonomous, I’d think twice about laying into it with my Skill-saw. But barring a divine revelation, there are really only two candidates I can use to tell me that a mind is present even though the being in question is unconscious and exhibits no signs of autonomy:
#1 They used to exhibit autonomy in the past
#2 Under normal conditions, it is highly likely that they will exhibit autonomy in the future.
But item #1 won’t work as a criterion for the simple reason that is true of corpses.
And item #1, even if it was of any value (which it isn’t) certainly could not work by itself. You’d still need item #2. The reason is that item #1 does not apply to one-year olds (for example). But no one wants to say that one-year olds have no right to life. If they don’t have a right to life then there is no such thing as a right to anything.
So it must be item #2 that allows us to extend the rights of autonomy to the unconscious. And it is also quite obvious that that is how we extend the rights of autonomy to one-year olds as well.
But item #2, as already noted, applies to unborn humans at all stages of development, but not to corpses, ununited sperm-egg pairs, still living detached human body parts, chickens and so on.
END QUOTE/EXCERPT ((…from the comment section of https://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/11/the-moral-pro-life-case.html))
That apparent logical necessity then runs into the following apparent logical necessity:
It’s Logically necessary that ALL people/bodies/souls are Harvested by “Being Itself”/God because EVERY Body/Soul/Life is by logical necessity going to traverse the end of itself AND because again by logical necessity God or Being Itself is the One Who alone contains and brackets that “traversal”. It can’t “not be” and that is because our own very being itself just does have its actuality/concrete-ontology in and from and by God / Being Itself. There is (necessarily) no such thing as a Person or Man or Woman or Child who does NOT come to the End of his/her own self/being with respect to Being, Time, & Circumstance and, there, traverse that specific boundary.
Death is a Problem on all fronts. What is different in the Old Testament regarding Ends & Death? Just as now so too we find that Sinai/Law/Commands are not “An End” nor “Ends” and do not bring us to Scripture’s point of closure. The Christian Metaphysic does posit an ontological End to “Man In Privation” but notice that God never Ends Life ((the body’s Deaths isn’t our End)). WHAT then are we actually “distinguishing” here when we speak of “Ending Life” and “Wrong” and “It’s Wrong To Take Life”? Where is the Evil/Wrong there? What can be Taken? What can be Given? Recall from the excerpt on the Right To Life “….#2 Under normal conditions, it is highly likely that they will exhibit autonomy in the future….”
Now Remove Pain: Recall the earlier hypothetical of the Painless War in which millions are killed and recall that that is STILL stuck beneath the Ceiling of Privation’s Pains. It’s not enough (given the Christian Metaphysic) because EVEN without Pain the entire state of affairs is STILL defined (in the Christian Metaphysic) as Insufficiency, as Lacking Moral Excellence, and so on. Non-Theism of course finds no closure while, further Upstream, all such Pains of Privation find not only dissolution but closure (in the Christian Metaphysic).
Also recall from the excerpt on the Right To Life “….#2 Under normal conditions, it is highly likely that they will exhibit autonomy in the future….” It’s a bit tedious to read but the esoteric contours of God, Omni, Concurrentism, Death, Life, Being, Harvest, and Continuity may converge as briefly described in, “Wasn’t There Pain And Suffering In Egypt’s First Born?” at https://metachristianity.com/wasnt-there-pain-suffering-in-egypts-first-born/
**IF we are assuming Non-Universalism THEN what are we distinguishing there between “War” and “Heaven/Hell” when it comes to first demanding and at last finding Closure/Coherence/Good?
**IF we are assuming Universalism THEN what are we distinguishing there between “War” and “Heaven/Hell” when it comes to first demanding and at last finding Closure/Coherence/Good?
**IF we are assuming Conditional Immortality THEN what are we distinguishing there between “War” and “Heaven/Hell” when it comes to first demanding and at last finding Closure/Coherence/Good?
[Death] is the #1 Killer in the World. Therefore Eternal Life — *and* *nothing* *less* — is the #1 Dissolution of our #1 Problem. IN FACT — BUT FOR Eternal Life there is no Ontic Resolution ((Closure)) of the #1 Killer in the World.
“Death is strange/unnatural. We desire permanence & we should. What should last doesn’t. People we know leave. This isn’t the Norm. There is coming a Day when even Death will die.”
BUT FOR Eternal Life there is no Ontic Resolution ((Closure)) of the #1 Killer in the World.
To close Part 3 of 4 is the following:
Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs* Saying “I Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/blame-the-victim-conservative-christianity-and-a-culture-of-shaming-women/#comment-4706516949 *NOTE that this specific link is from a discussion about a common pattern of some who are forever first asserting “But The Bible Condones Slavery” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “But The Bible Says Such & Such” and then when pushed on details and consistency they pull back to “Well okay but SOME SAY it says and/or but SOME SAID it says….”
—Main Part 4 of 5—
Christianity Lands In: “…in all possible worlds we cannot find the morally good vis-à-vis The-Good over inside of Sinai’s “means” and “ends” vis-à-vis executing homosexuals…”
Over 20 Centuries of linguistics in and of Christendom and nearly a century of linguistics in and of Messianic Judaism (etc., etc.) affirm that Trajectory regarding the Final Insufficiency of Sinai ((…what scripture defines as the “Ministry of Death” as it only can “restrain death” yet never can “give life”…)) and the anemic shouts of “Laws, Laws, & More Laws!” and regarding the ONLY logically possible resolution of ANY Privation of Good/Being — namely All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring ((…although that is a different topic…)).
Do you ((…the proverbial “you” as per, say, Non-Theist, Atheist, and whatever the case may be…)) think it was the morally good vis-à-vis The-Good to execute homosexuals? Yes or no? The Christian does *not*. Capital Punishment of folks for sex outside of marriage (which includes homosexual sex) or if we pretend ((…as in lie to ourselves/others…)) that ONLY Same Sex Sex is in that swath then this: Killing Gays and so on. The Christian disagrees with Sinai’s execution of folks for sex outside of marriage (which includes homosexual sex) because of the moral facts presented in Scripture’s Old & New Testaments. As in — the Christian metaphysic ((…see www.Slavery.Bible and also www.BibleViolence.com …)). WHY is it that Non-Theists per their **Non-Theism** do *not* factually ((…Ontic/Irreducible Moral Facts…)) disagree with the Old Testament’s execution of homosexuals while the Christian *does*? ((…obviously the Non-Theist in his heart/conscience WANTS to agree with the Christian here, but his “—ism” fails to give him the ontic reach…)) Before going further, the following context is too often missing from definitions:
“….I’m often asked why the sin of homosexuality is singled out. The answer is simple: it’s not. Scripture identifies it as merely one type of sexual activity that’s prohibited. There are several others. But it’s important to back up a bit to understand the context….” (Alan Shlemon)
There is that and, given all that has been said here so far, there is Non-Theism’s inability to reach that Irreducible Golden Thread of Being vis-à-vis Timeless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life ((…see https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity..)) and therein the Non-Theist *per* *his* *Non-Theism* ((…per his “ism” and NOT per his own conscience, in which he agrees with the Christian…)) does NOT disagree with the afore mentioned executions of Gays in any (ultimately) factual, ontic mode as we never find Non-Theism appeal to anything other than (ultimately) illusory transcendentals.
And, so, to the Non-Theist we ask: Why don’t you disagree with said executions? I mean except by your mutable, frail, and finally indifferent ontic? It’s almost as if you believe — at bottom — that indifference is the end or terminus of the rational reply — of reason’s reply.
For The Non-Theist Trying Hard To Believe In Your Own Non-Theism:
Do you think it was the morally good vis-à-vis The-Good to execute homosexuals? Yes or no? The Christian does *not*. Is Sinai the Means & Ends of Moral Excellence? Scripture states it is not and never can be. Moral Excellence isn’t found there – neither in Means nor in Ends. Now, since you want to agree with the Christian with respect to the metaphysical claim “…in all possible worlds we cannot find the morally good vis-à-vis The-Good over inside Sinai’s “means” and “ends” vis-à-vis executing homosexuals…” we can begin with a brief excerpt of a longer quote which will be provided in whole afterwards:
Begin Excerpt:
“….I’m not accusing you of taking something for granted without arguing for it. I am accusing you of something worse: deliberate intellectual fraud. I am accusing you of persistently deploying universal terms which have been rendered entirely problematical on your own account, as if they still meant what they once did in a moral universe populated by natural kinds and furnished with teleologically derived normative standards…. It’s just all too precious…..”
End excerpt.
We’ll leave to the side the Non-Theist’s insistence that there is NO such thing akin to “…reality’s irreducible concrete furniture vis-à-vis Timeless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Ceaseless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Irreducible Moral Facts…” and so on for of course they are correct GIVEN their non-theism. But that is not the topic here. Instead, the topic is the following quote from which the above excerpt was taken:
Begin Quote:
You stated this, “Isn’t the problem of justification always going to be a shell game? You can always find where I’m dropping a premise, taking something for granted without arguing for it …”
I’m not accusing you of “dropping a premise” or taking something for granted without arguing for it. I am accusing you of something worse: deliberate intellectual fraud.
I am accusing you of persistently deploying universal terms which have been rendered entirely problematical on your own account, as if they still meant what they once did in a moral universe populated by natural kinds and furnished with teleologically derived normative standards.
It’s just all too precious.
Now, I understand, as the relative newcomers here might not always, that the nihilist dance routine, and the refrain that it is better to huckster the crowd than to pester about the ultimate, is in fact your operating premise. But, and it’s a big ugly butt as they say, if you took your own claim of epistemic humility seriously, you would keep this truth about your method at the forefront, and refuse to engage in pseudo-arguments which are in principle incapable of any kind of resolution because of the built-in problems of equivocation; problems of which you are perfectly aware, and have in fact placed there.
Thus, when you launch off on these rhetorical diversions, one can only conclude that these speech acts of yours are base and cynical attempts to simply exhaust those who don’t quite get the meta-narrative which lies behind and informs and shapes your surface efforts.
What you need to do, in order to be “truly authentic”, is to admit to yourself and to everyone else, why that kind of consistent honesty is so dangerous to those taking your stance; and why, unless relentlessly pressed, you seek to avoid it.
By the way, and for what it is worth; I don’t wish to leave the impression that I imagine there is some functional equivalence between the concept of a tautology and a spandrel. I was – probably obviously – implying the prosaic image of a cluster of tautological statements giving an appearance of a meaningful structure or system when stacked and leaned up against each other at various angles … the resultant spaces providing the necessary illusion for pattern projecting subjects to go on to … etc …
You know, and in adverting to the paragraph two above, there is in fact, something profoundly “metaphysical” in that diversionary, dissembling tactic. Something, as you have I believe yourself admitted as anti-logocentric. Something which at the deepest and most profound level takes deceit, and manipulation, to be at the very heart of a “life strategy”
It almost reminds me of … well … the paradigm or myth escapes me at the moment. But I am sure it will come to me eventually…….
….. [ ] …….You replied, “This feels too all-or-nothing to me …”
You will be glad to know that you need not feel that way, since that is not what I was suggesting.
I was stating outright that given your epistemological bracketing of and placing aside systems of truth in favor of a kind of “pragmatism”, and given your adoption of a rotarian program of arguing rhetorically, rather than logically and categorically, you should try admitting this upfront, rather than having it squeezed out of you.
It would be an interesting experiment to observe what would happen if you were to say to someone: “Now, what I am saying is not to be taken as universally true, or even true in your case, but I wish you to accede to my request because it makes me feel better and serves my interests even if it does not, yours.”
It would be akin to the Churchlands whom I mentioned earlier, admitting upfront that they had no minds but that they nonetheless wished (insofar as there was a they that could “wish”) had registered an impulse which caused them to try and modify your brain state and thus affect your behavior. Not that there was, as they would be the first to stipulate, any real “purpose” to it.
I am challenging you to give up using traditional moral language in a deceptive and purely rhetorical manner and to adopt a more transparent and less time-wasting mode of interfacing: or, to at least always admit upfront that what you are doing is wheedling, rather than arguing in any traditional sense. I’m challenging you to drop the camouflage as a matter of principle, and not wait for it to be forcibly stripped from you.
I’m challenging you to admit that your “arguments” are not arguments in any reals sense but attempts to produce emotional effects in others, and thereby modify their behaviors in a way which you find reinforcing.
How far do you think you might be able to get in this project in that open manner and without the camouflaging rags of a habit you have long thrown off?
And if you cannot get by in that manner, what does it say regarding your essential life project, and the role of deception in it?
You mention the post-moderns. Perhaps you would like to share some of the broader implications of an explicitly anti-logocentric anthropology.
End quote. (by DNW)
—Main Part 5 of 5—
The nature of the “Perfect X” is contingent on [The Nature Of X]. So the argument from imperfection collapses into argument against temporal becoming, not against God. “…thinking of God as a moral agent and thus our father is wrong-headed…” (Brian Davies/?) When that one-liner is expunged of other lines and/or when that/any theologian is weighted over scripture’s “entire metanarrative” we realize the following problem when discussing the Fatherhood of God:
First: “The Good” is no more “a” moral agent than “Being Itself” is “a” “being”. Hence God as “a” “moral agent” and/or as “a” “moral agent father” is far too sloppy to be meaningful. Secondly: Moral Agent, Heavenly Father, Creator, and Earthly Father are four *different *categories. Neither is fully embedded in the other. So again using those as exchangeable is far too sloppy to be meaningful.
All Definitions must traverse and survive the Trinitarian Life, which is to say all Meaning-Makers, all Syntax, and all Definitions must traverse and survive the unique Christian Metaphysic wherein we find Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity || Ceaseless Self-Giving.
Ultimately Life is in self-giving, in reciprocity. Ultimately wholeness is in self-giving, in reciprocity. The Christian’s Metaphysical terminus in Being as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving affirms and comports with our metrics, concerns, and brutally repeatable moral experience even as Non-Theism’s embrace of Being as Timeless Indifference & Ceaseless Non-Distinction inevitably contradicts the Non-Theist’s own ((and our own)) metrics, concerns, and brutally repeatable moral experience.
It’s inexplicable — even pathological — that anyone would see a child with cancer and find nothing metaphysically / irreducibly / factually objectionable about that ((vis-à-vis Moral Objectivism vis-à-vis Ought-Not-Be)). That’s one of the many reasons the Christian metaphysic comports with reality. The starvation of the child is irreducibly evil and we all perceive said evil. Our perception here presents one of many proofs in an ontology of evil which Non-Theism cannot retain — with the horrific result that Non-Theism begins and ends all commentary here with Indifference. The horrific evil which exists is precisely that — it is irreducibly horrific and it is irreducibly evil. Anyone who has witnessed cancer knows/perceives this. It is, painfully, undeniable. Non-Theism’s terminus of Indifference? Well that fails, even internally. Reason’s terminus and Love’s terminus BOTH affirm that the Evil is not illusion but instead sums to an Ontic/Fact of Evil. Anyone who has witnessed such a sight perceives this. It is — on point of fact — undeniable. Yet the Non-Theist will, eventually, at some “fundamental nature” “somewhere”, deny that. Said denial is, well, horrific. Non-Theism at times attempts to appeal to Schellenberg but that thesis only has an ability to retain the temporal and mutable — while the Actual & Irreducible remain out of reach. On charity let’s grant to Schellenberg’s map the stuff of Enabling, Enabler, Rationalization, Self-Deception, Confirmation Bias, Etc., as all well documented — and on charity let’s grant — Schellenberg finding that God ought fix the gaps there. The result is that his map still fails as it rearranges old, well known pieces in the PoE because Temporal Becoming is the only complaint Schellenberg’s map retains — a *temporary *problem. But Temporal Becoming ((Space-Time/Etc.)) ((and thereby the many pains of our current privation)) is *emergent* — it is not *irreducible* — hence it is not *ontological* — hence it is not ontologically *binding* upon Christianity’s *Means* & *Ends*.
We are Social Beings for an ontic reason – as it is the case that our own being begins and ends within the contours of a full-on metaphysical Full-Stop as per the Necessary Being – that is to say within the contours of Being Itself. The term “Normal” and the term “Moral Excellence” cannot have a semantic intent which begins or ends outside of Reality as per Reality’s Concrete Furniture and in the Christian Metaphysic we find that we are to be the living Imago Dei created off of the Blueprint of Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life. The Christian Metaphysic is in the end a thoroughly Trinitarian metaphysic and, therein, we find that “Being” in fact “is” Being Itself in Timeless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Irreducible Diffusiveness of Being in totum. It is that Terminus at which we find The Always & The Already, that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above – namely Timeless Reciprocity & Necessity as on Ontic Singularity – that is to say – Love & Necessity as an Ontic Singularity.
It is there that we find in the Christian metaphysic the intellectual and moral grounds for affirming the term, “Love Himself” vis-à-vis the A and the Z of the Trinitarian Life with respect to the Divine Decree of the Imago Dei and all that necessarily comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there that we find nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being – and all that comes with “that”. That is to say, it is there in nothing less than Being that we find The Always and The Already constituting Being as Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis Ontic Diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum, and all that necessarily comes with “that”.
It is THAT explanatory terminus which is reality’s rock-bottom, reality’s irreducible substratum – the A and the Z of every Possible Ontic, of every Possible Sentence – of all Possible Syllogisms.
“[The] very action of *kenosis* is not a new act for God, because God’s eternal being is, in some sense, *kenosis* — the self-outpouring of the Father in the Son, in the joy of the Spirit. Thus Christ’s incarnation, far from dissembling his eternal nature, exhibits not only his particular *proprium* as the Son and the splendor of the Father’s likeness, but thereby also the nature of the whole trinitarian *taxis*. On the cross we see this joyous self-donation *sub*contrario*, certainly, but not *in*alieno*. For God to pour himself out, then, as the man Jesus, is not a venture outside the trinitarian life of indestructible love, but in fact quite the reverse: it is the act by which creation is seized up into the sheer invincible pertinacity of that love, which reaches down to gather us into its triune motion.” (David Bentley Hart)
Once again: All Definitions must traverse and survive the Trinitarian Life, which is to say all Meaning-Makers, all Syntax, and all Definitions must traverse and survive the unique Christian Metaphysic wherein we find Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity || Ceaseless Self-Giving.
Mapping:
The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words, and then the key to the meaning of any paragraph comes from the chapter, not just from the individual paragraphs, and then the key to the meaning of any chapter comes from the specific book, not just from the individual chapters, and then the key to the meaning of any individual book in Scripture comes from the Whole Metanarrative that is [Scripture] and not just from the individual books, and then the key to the meaning of the Metanarrative comes from logical lucidity vis-à-vis ontological referents in a specific Metaphysic, not just from [The-Bible], and then the key to the meaning of the Map that is the Metaphysic comes from the Terrain that is the Trinitarian Life and not just from the Metaphysic, and that Terrain sums to Timeless Reciprocity & Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-a-vis Processions vis-a-vis the Trinitarian Life even as robust explanatory power on all fronts teaches us that just as it is incoherent to say “Physics” somehow “Comes-From” that physics book over there on the shelf, so too it is incoherent to say that Metaphysical Naturalism or that the Christian Metaphysic either does or “can in principle” somehow “Come-From” ANY-thing that reduces to a World-Contingent Explanatory Terminus.
Overlapping Segues:
NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks within the following essays/comments and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but, not to worry as (1) the theme/content can stand on its own without those added items and (2) they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated.
NOTE: Some of the hyperlinks there and in a few other places in the content here will go to STR’s ((https://www.str.org/)) old format an read as “error” but, not to worry as (1) the theme/content can stand on its own without those added items and (2) they are being left in as “place-holders” because the threads are still in disqus format and perhaps when time permits they will be updated. Many of those specific links for that specific comment ((…Saying “Some Say The Bible Condones Slavery/Racism” *vs*…)) are from the following threads within their respective comment sections:
