Marriage And The Perfection of Reciprocity

SECTION 1 of 6

Is the proper End of Man something akin to an ontology of love’s fullness?  Is the proper End of all things Adamic in something akin to an ontology of reciprocity’s perfection? If love’s fullness & reciprocity’s perfection is in fact “The Adamic’s” Final Felicity || True Good then is it possible for Marriage amid many men and many women to find Closure therein? What about Marriage amid simply [One & One] regardless of whether or not the fully Masculine||Feminine finds Closure therein? What about Marriage amid [Male||Female]?

Reciprocity’s peculiar realization of singularity amid the Masculine / Feminine arrives within the egalitarian milieu of the syntax of all things Edenic per the Christian metaphysic. Can reality’s landing zone of singularity within the perfection of love’s reciprocity in fact justify a landing zone amid the Masculine||Feminine?

Can we in fact define such a thing as “a” human nature?

Define “a” Human Nature via Define Human as per 1. http://disq.us/p/1myouin and 2. http://disq.us/p/1myow7u and 3. http://disq.us/p/1mypdb9 and 4. http://disq.us/p/1n1pe0o  Most of those are within the content of “Imago Dei and Closure In An Actual Human Nature and Rejecting The Eternally Open Ended” at https://metachristianity.com/imago-dei-and-closure-in-an-actual-human-nature-and-rejecting-the-eternally-open-ended/

On Non-Theism such a question lands, obviously, in that which is necessarily and eternally open ended. Biology is one slice of that and, in isolation, affirms that same eternally open ended topography. Then, just as obvious, the metaphysical topography of the Imago Dei avoids that lack of closure in and of the illusory and, instead, arrives at ontic-cloure as irreducible transcendentals press in.

All of that is simply the two landscapes of Non-Theism and Theism, of the failure to traverse (…on the one hand…) and of the successful traversal (…on the other hand…) of the ontological convertibility of the necessary transcendentals (…as per https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity/ which looks at the means and ends of that Golden Thread of Reciprocity…) and is, on its own, enough to end the conversation with respect to whether or not we can in fact speak of ontic-closure.

Precision with respect to the Questions/Premises on the table:

A. Do We Genuinely Believe, Know, & Affirm That Love Is Reality’s Irreducible Ethic?

B1. The Non-Theist must be willing to open up his own premises to actual scrutiny for whether we travel upstream or whether we travel downstream, where love is concerned all Non-Theism(s) find that love itself is by necessity lost, finally, to non-being at some ontological seam somewhere. As per B2 & B3.

B2. Reality’s Irreducible & Concrete Furniture sums to the Fundamental Nature of Indifference via the Singularity that is the Metaphysical Wellspring of all ontological possibility — namely The Quantum Wave Function Full-Stop.

B3. Reality’s Irreducible & Concrete Furniture sums to Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life.

C. The question on the table is with respect to the realities within the contingent being, with respect to the frail and the mutable vis-à-vis all things Adamic. The illusory just won’t do.

D. Both the Non-Theist and Theist here mean to speak, not of Non-Being, but of Being. Nowhere does this press upon us more relentlessly than in the elemental and irreducible processions constituting Love and Logic, or Reciprocity and Reason. Therein the “Non-”of Non-Theism becomes manifestly infinite.

Intimacy speaks of that which fully reciprocates and, in all its forms, the fuller the love the fuller that giving-away of one’s very life and being amid the “other” and, just the same, the fuller the love the fuller that receiving into one’s very life and being amid the “other“.  Two brief observations with respect to the semantic intent in all of that:

a. …the syntax of such can of course carry a conversation into the interfaces of God & Man as per the proverbial self/other, and so on, and….

b. …the syntax can also carry a conversation into the current topic, namely the interfaces amid the proverbial “Adamic” in the setting of Marriage…

That said, it is obvious that in all its forms (…parent, child, friend, spouse, and so on…) love houses such progressions – *however* – there is a fullness of intimacy amid the entirety of being which is one thing or reality and which is not some other thing or reality, and that “form” of love’s intimacy is what Scripture’s singular metaphysic terms Marriage. We arrive necessarily in a discussion of nothing less than Ontology, Heavy Metaphysics, Knowledge, and Divine Communique as all Necessary Transcendentals stream from the metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility – from the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis reality’s only Blueprint for love’s timeless reciprocity – termed Imago Dei.

We are speaking, then, here, not of God and Man, but, rather, of the fullness of love within marriage here inside of our own contingent and mutable lives as that concept of fullness of love carries us into the concept of and reality of the perfection of reciprocity. With God we find *no* limit to His Self-Giving in the sense that for “God” to in fact “do so” is for that which is in fact “The Necessary & Sufficient” in all vectors to “do so”, that which is The Always & The Already therein sums to Absolute Being as Timeless Reciprocity as Ceaseless Self-Giving as Singularity as Pure Act as the Metaphysical Wellspring of all Ontological Possibility. But “that” is more a discussion of “God” and of “Imago Dei” in the fullness of “Imago Dei” which is not quite THIS topic, although this topic does overlap in part with contours of the Imago Dei-In-Full.

So, again, we are speaking here not of God and Man, or of God-In-Man / Man-In-God (…that *is* a discussion within the Christian metaphysic, but it is not (exactly) *this* discussion…), but, rather, of another ontic-category of Fullness vis-à-vis the term and metaphysic of “love & marriage”.

Therefore here, then, the syntax of, “…..Intimacy speaks of that which fully reciprocates and, in all its forms, the fuller the love the fuller that giving-away of one’s very life and being amid the “other” and, just the same, the fuller the love the fuller that receiving into one’s very life and being amid the “other“…..” is syntax which speaks towards something “like” the following which begins to take shape in our semantic intent:

There is a limit to my own self-giving. I have myself to give. The maximum “…giving-away of one’s very life and being…” which I can pour out, of my own self, is my whole self.

There is a maximum “…receiving into one’s very life and being…” in the other self or in another self should that self in fact be the (genuine) recipient of my own giving of my whole self.

& therefore….

The fullness of reciprocity necessarily entails, then, One + One. Not only that, but, also, given the non-expendable transcendentals of the Whole of the Adamic, all such transcendentals necessarily convert into contours of all that is the fully Feminine and the fully Masculine. We cannot deny the reality of Privations & Degrees & Decrements & Dilutions but we mean here to speak of Means & Ends and Closure with respect to fullness vis-à-vis the perfection of being vis-à-vis the perfection of reciprocity vis-à-vis the Blueprint of all things Adamic vis-à-vis Reality’s Irreducible & Concrete Furniture which necessarily sums to Being Itself as Timeless Reciprocity vis-à-vis Ceaseless Self-Giving vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life.

& therefore….

Should perfect reciprocity be a proper end of man then we immediately perceive the incredible and misplaced ego in the Man who declares himself able to give away that proverbial “one-whole-self” – namely himself of course – to many other selves and yet still expect to find love’s fullness of reciprocity fully realized. The reason the New Testament syntax begins to echo Eden’s syntax with the One + One there becomes glaringly obvious as all other combinations & permutations & progressions can only survive in the company of some degree of self-ish-ness. The inevitable Fruit/Yield of such formulas begin to surface, eventually, as sums within the arenas of Privations & Degrees & Decrements & Dilutions in the immediate and express and final fullness of reciprocity.

Reasoning through to lucidity: If love is the highest ethic (…and it is…) and if perfect reciprocity is a proper end of man (…and it is…), then – it is true that the highest intimacy lands in *two* who in the perfection of reciprocity become *one*. A and B ceaselessly beget C. To put it another way: self and other ceaselessly beget the singular us or the singular “one-another“. It is uncanny but A is not B and B is not C and C is neither A nor B even as ontological singularity arrives. Again we are speaking here of the contingent being, of the Adamic and *not* of Trinity but nonetheless it is, still, uncanny how we find such an Image of the Triune God “therein”.

That *form* of love is what Scripture’s singular metaphysic terms Marriage and we find that only *dilution* of fullness awaits all other combinations, all other progressions, all but that uncanny Blueprint of *two* becoming *one*. The ontological topography there reflects an image as it were of love’s necessary, irreducible, and timeless reciprocity vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life in Whom it is also the case that A is not B and B is not C and C is neither A nor B – in nothing less than an Ontic-Singularity. […Mapping Reality via https://metachristianity.com/thoroughly-trinitarian-metaphysic/ ..]

In fact D. B. Hart and many others in various ways allude to the Trinitarian Life with referents such as the “…eternal one-another…” in mapping reality’s concrete furniture in and by Being Itself / God.

A Problem Arises:

Part of the “Eureka” which is given as a “metric” by which to “find-our-way” by some is that there is now a new ethic emerging which displaces an old ethic, because it’s new, and, then, on the other side of that blind-foist, we find another blind-foist as all of it is turned 180 degrees by some proverbial Theists and, so, this or that old ethic is the “metric” by which to “find-our-way”, because it’s old.

The proverbial Non-Theist foists “What-Is-Said-Today” while too many (proverbial) Theists foist “What-Was-Said-Yesterday“. However, each in their own right do no better than the other as both of those sum to nothing better than Command-Full-Stop as the definition of The Good and of The Beautiful, and so on (…wait for it…).

Shouting “New!” and shouting “Old!” both equate to intellectual dishonesty and ethical laziness. The Shout of Because-Old! cannot avoid the fact that Scripture defines Sinai as FAR LESS than God’s Eternal Ideal for Mankind is coherent with the fact that Scripture defines The Whole by something far, far beyond Sinai. Whereas, the Non-Theist’s shout of Because-New! cannot avoid the fact that all of its explanatory stopping points are forever immersed within the illusory and therein all “factual distinction” is eventually subsumed within the illusory shadows of non-being.

As it turns out, “New” is not so new after all. Added to that is the fact that neither the fact of and shout of “Old” nor the fact of and shout of “New” merit the rational mind’s embrace.

Each still may or may not have a valid argument, however, reality’s irreducible substratum — God — or what some refer to as The Always and The Already — necessarily precedes and outdistances all such contingent Start/Stop points (…as per https://metachristianity.com/absolute-reference-frame-pure-act-incarnation-time/ ..). Hence all such contingent Reference Frames or Start/Stop points are, if left in isolation, merely carrying us to a place in which the premise is again a replay of earlier concepts embraced by the norms of various “days” ad infinitum. Hence “new” isn’t justified given the history of human peaks/nadirs and even more “ontic” (…so to speak…) is this: “new” with respect to any slice of Privation is a logical impossibility. We must be more careful for “It’s New” isn’t enough to justify any X and for all the same reasons that “It’s Old” isn’t enough to justify any X.  On pain of circularity – on pain of the illusory – our metrics must both precede and outdistance all such normative shifts. Reducibility, contingency, and mutability just won’t do as any ontic category of a cosmically and finally illusory Good contradicts and therein offends observational reality and therefore offends reason, logic, and love.

The necessary transcendentals which permit us to even suggest that “Man” has any such proper ends as The Perfection of Reciprocity at once compels Traversing the Trinitarian Life in Defining Love’s Ontology and that therein, at some ontological seam somewhere, disqualifies all Non-Theistic paradigms in that proverbial Reach for that Golden Thread of Reciprocity (…as per the earlier link to https://metachristianity.com/reason-reality-golden-thread-reciprocity/ ..). “IF” such irreducible transcendentals exist “THEN” it is God from start to finish for the obvious reason that any sort of Half-Narrative and/or Half-Ontic becomes impossible (….the reason why is simply because to attempt to claim the reality of an “ontological cul-de-sac” is to attempt to claim the reality of a metaphysical absurdity…).

In all of this we come upon reality’s only Blueprint of love’s timeless reciprocity and upon reason and upon the fullness of ontic-means and ontic-ends as the eternal Processions of the Trinitarian Life (God / Trinity / Being Itself ) provide us with the following ontology:

The irreducibly rational just is ontologically seamless with the irreducibly beautiful which just is ontologically seamless with the irreducibly moral which just is ontologically seamless with love’s indestructible self-giving — which is itself seamless with the Divine Mind — which is itself seamless with Infinite Consciousness amid Divine Simplicity – which compels us into a thoroughly Trinitarian Metaphysic – and we are thereby compelled into an Adamic landscape wherein the perfection of Reason just is the perfection of Consciousness, which just is the perfection of Love, which just is the perfection of Being.

The Perfection of Reciprocity carries us into Love’s Ceaseless Self-Giving within all things Adamic — and such carries us, whether we travel upstream or downstream, into the Imago Dei, and such carries us, whether we travel upstream or downstream, into the immutable contours of the Trinitarian Life, into the very means and ends of Being Itself — into God.

SECTION 2 of 6

“…..if reason’s primordial orientation is indeed toward total intelligibility and perfect truth, then it is essentially a kind of ecstasy of the mind toward an end beyond the limits of nature. It is an impossibly extravagant appetite, a longing that can be sated only by a fullness that can never be reached in the world, but that ceaselessly opens up the world to consciousness. To speak of God, however, as infinite consciousness, which is identical to infinite being, is to say that in Him the ecstasy of mind is also the perfect satiety of achieved knowledge, of perfect wisdom. God is both the knower and the known, infinite intelligence and infinite intelligibility. This is to say that, in Him, rational appetite is perfectly fulfilled, and consciousness perfectly possesses the end it desires. And this, of course, is perfect bliss…

…the concept of being is one of power: the power of actuality, the capacity to affect or to be affected. To be is to act. This definition already implies that, in its fullness, being must also be consciousness, because the highest power to act — and hence the most unconditioned and unconstrained reality of being — is rational mind. Absolute being, therefore, must be absolute mind. Or, in simpler terms, the greater the degree of something’s actuality, the greater the degree of its consciousness, and so infinite actuality is necessarily infinite consciousness. That, at least, is one way of trying to describe another essential logical intuition that recurs in various forms throughout the great theistic metaphysical systems. It is the conviction that in God lies at once the deepest truth of mind and the most universal truth of existence, and that for this reason the world can truly be known by us. Whatever else one might call this vision of things, it is most certainly, in a very real sense, a kind of “total rationalism.” (D.B. Hart)

We come, then, to the question on the table with respect to the realities within the contingent being, with respect to the frail and the mutable vis-à-vis all things Adamic as per something in the ontic-zip-code of this: Love’s Timeless Reciprocity ↔ Self/Other ↔ the convertibility of the Necessary Transcendentals.

Being vs. Non-Being & Reality vs. The Illusory

Those affairs of Non-Being / The Illusory are quite contrary to our own observations, our own concerns, and our own ethic. The path to lucidity just is the path to unicity wherein both the irreducibly rational and the irreducibly moral are in fact an ontic-singularity with respect to Love, Reason, Reality, and The Golden Thread of Reciprocity. 

Paradigmatically speaking, such is a radically different explanatory terminus than we find in any Non-Theism. The Golden Thread of Reciprocity is affirmed by natural theology, is perceived by reason, is seen by Non-Theism, but Non-Theism must foist a metaphysical impossibility in order to claim her given that in that paradigm irreducible self-giving trades on irreducible indifference and the convertibility of the transcendentals is finally illusory. Whereas, in the pursuit of coherent definitions with respect to the fundamental nature of reality it is the Christian metaphysic whereby reason affirms that the “A” and the “Z” of reality in fact carries the rational mind into an ethic of irreducible and self-giving reciprocity – such that it is the case that “GOD” or “Ultimate Reality” is in fact love.

“…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…” (D. B. Hart)

Reductio Ad Absurdum ↔ Reductio Ad Deum

An immutable and cruciform love housed within the ceaseless and Self-Giving diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum vis-à-vis Infinite Consciousness logically forces an unavoidable Reductio Ad Deum. Such contours carry reason towards reality’s irreducible substratum within love’s timeless reciprocity amid those uncanny Trinitarian processions housed in “Being Itself” (…again as per https://metachristianity.com/thoroughly-trinitarian-metaphysic/ ..). Timeless Self-Giving with respect to “Being Itself” forces our hand. The “term” and “definition” with respect to “GOD” thereby referents, in fact, nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being vis-à-vis love’s timeless and self-giving diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum.

That is the proverbial umbrella beneath which all other definitions in fact live and move and have – obtain – their “being”.

The many variations of Non-Theistic and Deistic brands do not merely lack the following ontology in their search for closure, but, rather, such metaphysical landscapes in fact necessarily expunge it — whereas — in relation to the following ontological closure — there is only one genre — ever — which has entered the consciousness of mankind and which has satisfied reason’s demands for lucidity from A ↔ Z — as per the following:

Timeless Self-Giving is not the Contingent, but the Necessary, just as that same Ceaseless Diffusiveness of Self is not the Mutable, but the Irreducible. That thoroughly Trinitarian Metaphysic finds Reason’s Terminus in and with the Non-Malleable topography of the Christian’s A ↔ Z ~ which just is the Trinitarian Life.

In and by and through *those* paradigmatic explanatory termini we find amid love’s timeless reciprocity the peculiar syntax of Self-Giving as the referents of “Ontic-Continuum” and “Metanarrative” weigh in and, again, thereby referents nothing less than the immutable love of the Necessary Being vis-à-vis love’s timeless and self-giving diffusiveness of the Ontic-Self in totum —

“…..the cross of Christ does not determine the nature of divine love, but rather manifests it, because there is a more original outpouring of God that – without needing to submit itself to the order of sacrifice that builds crosses – always already surpasses every abyss of godforsakenness and pain that sin can impose between the world and God: an outpouring that is in its proper nature indefectible happiness…. 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…” (D.B. Hart)

Again: That is the proverbial umbrella beneath which all other definitions in fact live and move and have – obtain – their “being”.

The Egalitarian One-Another

Within and of all things Adamic it is in and by and through the express paradigmatic explanatory termini explored so far that we find the egalitarian “one-another“, an egalitarian “self/other“, an egalitarian realization of singularity in “self/non-self” and the form of love’s “begetting” through reciprocity’s embrace there in “The Edenic” with respect to all things Adamic.

All such vectors there (…in “The Edenic“…) are declared to be good (…condoned and a slice of the Good but not the Whole of the Good…) even as we find reciprocity’s peculiar realization of singularity termed Adam/Eve vis-à-vis an uncanny unicity amid Self/Other. Such streams from the Trinitarian Life in and through “Let Us Create Man in Our Image…” ↔ But wait ↔

Eden is neither Privation nor God’s Eternal Ideal and, therefore, we find in Eden *two* outward facing Doors / Trees (…the one into Privation and the other into God’s Eternal Life, His Final Good for all things Adamic…).

Well what then?

Said Imago Dei first becomes and then awakes and all within an ontology which finds *two* outward facing doors with respect to “ontic-change”, one into God’s Eternal Ideal (…Tree / Life, the “Whole” Good and not that earlier condoned slice of the Good which Scripture referents as ‘Eden’….) and the other into various landscapes of another Tree (…less than Ideal, slices of Privation, that which is Privation itself, that which is tolerated, that which finds His Wide Open Embrace in and through yet another *two* outward facing Doors/Trees all over again as all lines converge in Christ yet again….).

The Immutable Trinitarian Life ↔ Reciprocity ↔ Self-Giving converge in the Egalitarian One-Another. We find that in fact love begets yet more love as all definitions of the Imago Dei begin and end in the triune God as love’s Self-Giving subsumes reality’s irreducible substratum.

A Few Areas of Overlapping Ontic Real Estate:

Reciprocity’s peculiar realization of singularity amid the Masculine/ Feminine arrives within the egalitarian milieu of Edenic syntax. That milieu, according to the definition of Scripture’s metanarrative, of course undergoes a radical “ontic-change” in traversing Genesis 1 ↔ Genesis 3 ↔ John 3 as such contours are fractured and vectors of enmity emerge, and, also, it is the work of *Christ* — of All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring — by which we find an Open Door through which He begins restoring not only that egalitarian syntax but far more.

…There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’ But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. ‘In the image of God created He them.’ Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes… (C.S. Lewis —from A Grief Observed)

It is not an entirely unexpected realization that the only lucid path from A to Z without the willful annihilation of love’s necessary metaphysic is the path which we find, in unmistakable clarity, defined by Christendom’s thoroughly Trinitarian metaphysic vis-à-vis Trinity. That is to say that if Pantheism or if Allah or if Non-Theism – and so on down the “ontic-line” – then the singular metanarrative of “Love and Necessity” literally cannot be written, and – in fact – cannot be at all.

While the explanatory termini of Ruse, Hume, Carroll, Rosenberg, and others speak to the finally illusory vectors of “Moral Facts”, what wew in fact mean to referent is not Non-Being but, rather, of Being.  Therein when we speak of Truth “qua Truth“, as they say, we don’t referent such illusory trades and equivocations as found within the explanatory terminus of Non-Theism. In the Christian metanarrative we find in and by and of and through the Trinitarian Life nothing less than love’s timeless Self-Giving and irreducible Diffusiveness of the Ontic Self with respect to …being itself… and — thereby – The Always and The Already, that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above – namely “Love & Necessity” arrives as an ontic *singularity*.

To be Truly Human is to be, or to become, by whatever means, Fully Human. Non-Theism has no such means, no such closure. It is that pesky and weighty bit about *Fully* wherein all lines converge or else diverge. There is talk of such Truly/Fully when we begin to speak of *Christ* of course, however, that brings in all sorts of other topics (…in part as per https://metachristianity.com/absolute-reference-frame-pure-act-incarnation-time/ ..).

The Divine Decree of the Imago Dei 

The Immaterial (whatever that is) is not, and cannot be, made up of, and therefore reduced to, covalent bonds vis-à-vis Material (whatever that is).  Perseveration with/upon Biology-Full-Stop when discussing the Imago Dei is (therefore) entirely misguided. “God-Breathes” does not means God has lungs, and so on. It’s a curious thing to observe A. so many of our Non-Theist friends carefully set up all of his or her Metrics and Calibrations there in a sort of Physicalism (or whatever) and then B. go about trying to fit the Christian’s entire metaphysical landscape into those Metrics and Calibrations only to then C. find it surprising or else odd that there is “difficulty” within “lining up” their respective “surfaces” (…of course a select few are knowingly doing so and therein such intentional re-defining of another’s premises amounts to nothing more than the proverbial Dog and Pony Show…).

Therefore: The Corporeal’s ontological history of becoming and the Imago Dei’s ontological history of becoming are not and cannot be wholly ↔ interchangeable given the sorts of ontic real estate each respectively traverses.

There’s a reason the Corporeal is found lifeless outside of Eden. Made of the ground.

There’s a reason the Breath of God births Life, the Imago Dei. Still outside of Eden.

There’s a reason it is only then that the Adamic and the Edenic converge.

There’s a reason Eden cannot remain, is not God’s Ideal, and has two *outward* facing Doors/Trees, each necessitating a radical “ontic-change”.

Overlapping real estate once more:

Reciprocity’s peculiar realization of singularity amid the Masculine / Feminine arrives within the egalitarian milieu of Edenic syntax. That milieu, according to the definition of Scripture’s metanarrative, of course undergoes a radical “ontic-change” in traversing Genesis 1 ↔ Genesis 3 ↔ John 3 as such contours are fractured and vectors of enmity emerge, and, also, it is the work of *Christ* — of All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring — by which we find an Open Door through which He begins restoring not only that egalitarian syntax but far more.

SECTION 3 of 6

Marriage In Ephesians: The Submission Competition

Andy Stanley of Northpoint Ministries has a series called “What Happy Couples Know” (…four parts at http://northpoint.org/messages/what-happy-couples-know/ ..) and the following is an excerpt from part two:

“….submission to one another bothers us…… [submit to one another]… I’m so glad it bothers you and …I’m just going to leave it up here to bother you. In fact, some of you would say “Aha, that’s why I quit going to church. That verse, right there, is why I quit going to church. That whole idea is why I don’t like Christians.“ I am so glad you are watching or listening or in church today… this is so transformational and I love talking about this. Our English Bibles are translations from Greek text and there were groupings of Greek text all over the East. And the oldest text, the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, the oldest manuscripts of the Apostle Paul’s letters, interestingly enough, if you took this verse and you translate it literally here’s what it would say. It would say: “Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord.”

There’s no verb in this statement, in the oldest Greek manuscripts. There’s no verb. The word “submit” isn’t there. Now, before I explain why it’s not there, I want to explain something else, and this is so important. When the Apostle Paul’s first century audience heard him teach about women submitting to their husbands, and I’ll tell you where the verb came from in just a second, when the first century audience heard the Apostle Paul talk about women and wives submitting to their husbands, where as we go “What?” and “Huh?” Their response was “Duh,” not “Huh.” They weren’t like “What?” They were like “Well yeah, tell us something we don’t know.” They had no choice. This wasn’t new information. This wasn’t even a big deal, this was common ground. This didn’t surprise anyone in Jesus’ audience and ladies, believe it or not, no one was offended because men in that culture, both the Roman culture and Greek culture, and then the Jews had a version of this, men in that culture had something that’s referred to as “Patria Potestas”. These two words put together meant they had legal jurisdiction over their children and they had legal jurisdiction over their wives. Essentially their wives belong to them.

So, why no verb  in the oldest Greek text? Why isn’t there a verb  in this verse? And the answer is, the verb  comes from the verse before. And this was a typical kind of Greek grammatical way of doing things, that you make a statement with the verb  and then in the next statement you just infer the verb. You don’t include it, you just take your verb  from what came before. That submit, the verb submit, is actually inferred from the verse that came before. So, we should ask “What was the verse that came before that gives us the verb for this verse?” And my friends, you’re looking up here, this is a game changer. Here’s what Paul said before he told “Wives submit to their husbands.” Here’s the verse that sets the tone for everything that follows, here’s our verb  “Submit to one another out of,” and there it is again, every time the Apostle Paul tells us to do something he points us back to Jesus.

So when Paul says “Wives submit to your husbands.” That’s like “Right, because if we don’t he’ll sell us, he’ll trade us, he’ll have us arrested, he’ll accuse us of some crime and there won’t be any witnesses, eye witnesses to show up to dispute the claim. And of course we submit to our husbands.” So this was not a big deal to them, but here’s the cool thing, it’s a big deal to us. And the reason it’s a big deal to us is what comes later in the text.  Not the Old Testament, not the 10 commandments. Jesus.

“As God through Christ has done something extraordinary for you, you are to demonstrate that same kind of love in your relationships with each other, including romantic relationships, including marriage. You are to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.”

In other words, the submission (guys get ready) is mutual. And this word “reverence” is a sense of awe. In other words, in light of all that God has done for you, in light of the awe that comes with “Oh my gosh, you forgave me, you’ve died for my sins, you’ve forgiven me in spite of myself, and all the times I’ve gone back on my promises.” All that awe is to be translated, not simply to church attendance and not simply to singing worship songs to the invisible God in the sky, that energy is to be translated into love for others people.

This is why Christian marriage is a submission competition….

SECTION 4 of 6

Obtaining The Actual “The-Metric” In Any Narrative

or

The Part, The Whole, The Sub-narrative, & The Meta-narrative

In this section the lens is on the Egalitarian Metrics of Scripture’s Metanarrative wherein we find an Ontology which in fact outdistances any “map” which sums to biological markers “full-stop”.  Most misinformation in this arena stems from failing to see the obvious: In both the OT and the NT landscapes we find things such as Judges (…the leaders of Israel…) and Prophets and Teachers populated by both Men and Women and, therein, it becomes immediately apparent that, on Scripture’s definitions, on Scripture’s termini, we cannot Start/Stop at [Male/Female Full-Stop].  If that were the case then God could not and/or would not move through [Female-Full-Stop]. Another key nuance which is beyond the topic here is that we cannot define The Necessary, the Immutable, the Timeless (and Etc.) by the metrics forced by Privation nor by the Contingent & Mutable.

The actual Start/Stop termini clearly, then, precede and outperform one’s sex (male or female) just as, per the OT narrative, the Non-Jew, the Prostitute, the Outsider, and so on are all included in the lineage of Christ and therein we find that Race is, also, unable to function as any sort of Meaning-Maker (…at least according to Scripture’s Metanarrative…).  And, so, given such Metrics with respect to various termini we can then move into “one-verse” arenas with that far wider lens. Such as:

“A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man… in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God…..” (1 Corinthians 11)

What is too often left out is A. the affairs of Privation (…on the one hand…) and B. the affairs of the fact that nothing in Scripture lives and/or dies on ONE verse or on “a” verse (on the other hand) and C. the specific cultural/historical happenstances, problems, and temporal metrics within which semantic intent begins its trajectory.  Just as Privation is “Context” that cannot be expunged, so too is the Whole of Scripture also “Context” which cannot be expunged.

Race and Sex are, in the OT and NT, unable to provide us with Meaning-Makers vis-à-vis Start/Stop points as both are in unmistakable fashion tossed aside by God when something else, something higher presses in.

1 Corinthians 11:7 there needs to keep going and carry things to the A and Z of how Scripture defines the Male/Female relation with the following sorts of questions:

1. How is the Logos of God not also God?

2. Without the paradigm of the reality’s only Blueprint of ceaseless self-giving amid self/other (…the Trinitarian Life…), how is one to demonstrate a justification of both irreducible value and irreducible equality?

3. “….neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God…. (I Corinthians 11:12)

Even more enlightening is the fact that Paul tells Christen Women to prophesy with authority in church in one verse while in another verse Paul is telling Christian Women not to talk in church.  Women are A. Prophets of God in Church and can say to all the Men, “Thus Says G-O-D” and, also, B. Women cannot talk in Church.  Here we find the same OT lines of Judges / National Leaders alluded to earlier.  One must simply stop and think for about five seconds. This isn’t complicated. The concept of [One-Verse-Metanarrative] just is the concept of [One-Verse-Theology] and as such is rationally rejected.

A peculiar observation in all of that is what the “Most Restrictive” margins of Scripture in fact reveal:

Whether Or Not we affirm the Form of Male-Pastor-Only (…and so on…) we are faced with the fact that we can say “Yes” to “that” but we cannot tack-onto its end anything that is a “Full Stop” or a “Period” and the reason is that on Scripture’s narrative in both the OT and NT we find that there simply are Times/Circumstances which do not permit “that”  (…for whatever reason…) and therein upon the World Stage it is necessary that God reserves THAT “tacking-onto of ends/periods” for Himself and in fact “HE” does out-reach “IT”.  And we expect that for all of the aforementioned reasons — namely that Biology & Race and so on are not the Full-Stop Meaning-Makers of the Christian Metaphysic.

A very basic outline of all of that could go something like this:

God is not going to Not-Speak within any set of counterfactual / factual /circumstance (…etc…) should this or that Male be un-ready but will instead Employ/Speak-Through His Willing Child there on-scene whether such is Male or Female.  Again we are casting this as the “Most Restrictive” we have any intellectual right to insist upon given Scripture’s actual Margins/Narrative (…given the most verses in summation with the least amount of strain and the most connecting of the most dots…). While there are others who aim for far more, they may be correct, or not, but that is not the topic “here”. Rather, the topic here is the “Margin/Bracket” of “Reach” which we find within Biology and Race as “Meaning Makers”.

But then doesn’t all of that Church-Office stuff also impact the nature of marriage?

The Male-Pastor-Only folks need not find concern/worry with respect to the Nature of Marriage which such Church-Office metrics can reach Notice that the Ontological Map we are discovering points us to topography which prevents us from Conflating or Equating A. the nature of Church Ministry/Office to B. the nature of Marriage as all lines begin to comport with Eden’s initial topographic map. Notice that that same map finds Union & Marriage amid the aforementioned fully Masculine & fully Feminine even as that same map finds a metric of shared Duty with respect to Ministry/Office regarding the affairs of “Go Out And Subdue” (…and so on…).  To Conflate/Equate “A” vs. “B” there is to forfeit coherence.

There are no “contradictions” given the fact that the context both of Privation and of Scripture’s Metanarrative carry all vectors through to coherence.  More-Than-One-Verse carries us forward into such things as: What is the Corinthian culture of shame and honor? Do we even care?  Or do we just stop thinking, stop reading, and boldly declare some sort of silly comment such as, “See! Paul is confused! Proof of Woman-Rule! But then Proof of Woman-Be-Ruled! See! That’s proof of No-God!” All such Hard-Stops merely reason “As-If” there is no such thing as History, Culture, Conceptual Ceilings, Sub-Narrative, Narrative, and Meta-Narrative.

But, the actual question is this: Is that a reliable Start/Stop point which arrives from pulling in all data from all points?  Of course not.

Tedious and, so, a better way:  We read the whole book, from A to Z and recall that each [“a” verse] premise is in fact a slice of a much larger, wider, narrative and hence of a much broader Metanarrative as all sub-narratives are from the get-go unable to outreach or out-define the definitions of the far wider Metanarrative.  Without the right *metanarrative* the verse which such fallacies are quoting actually cannot “say” anything at all.

Scripture’s [~Pro-ABC Metanarrative~] cannot – by simple force of logic with respect to round squares – contain any [~Anti-ABC content~]. In the OT and NT we find that the affairs of one’s Sin and of one’s Race and of one’s Sex are both preceded and also outdistanced by Start/Stop termini which themselves clearly precede and outperform all such frail and contingent lines, lines which are in and of themselves unable to function as any sort of Meaning-Maker.  And we are not surprised by Scripture’s convergence at such a locus/focus because that is what we expect given that, by force of logic, Meaning necessarily flows downhill, streaming from the Necessary and Immutable and into the Contingent and Mutable.

A Few Examples Of All OF That:

There is a bit of levity intended here but its helpful in that the following dialogue between “A” and “B” helps reveal a few key layers:

[A] It is true that my wife’s body is my property.

There is this question: Is that a balanced and proper “read” of “Scripture’s reply” to the question of, say:

[B] “What is the relational milieu of Husband/Wife? Whence all the premises which reveal that my own body is my wife’s property?”

Well, to start, is [A] in fact *true*? Sure. Yes. Okay. Is [A] a proper reply to [B]? Well no – Of course not.

Are there female Prophets, Judges, Teachers, and Mouths-Of-God in both the OT and the NT? Yes, of course.

Do the Masculine & Feminine each carry, house, and deliver *identical* transcendentals? Of course not.

The “read” inferred by [A] is anemic and misguided with respect to [B]. It states a truth while leaving out many truths (…wait for it…).

Recall that given the question in [B] of “What is the relational milieu of Husband/Wife? Whence all the premises which reveal that my own body is my wife’s property?” – the reply in [A] of, “It is true that my wife’s body is my property” must add the rest and go on and keep speaking. We must add of course the obvious: It is true that I am my wife’s property. We must add of course that there female Prophets, Judges, Teachers, and Mouths-Of-God in both the OT and the NT. And we must recall that we are speaking here of things as per the “Lens” of Conditions From Within Privation which will of course impact our contingent & temporal means & ends & metrics.

Why? Isn’t [A] *true*? Well, sort of, and for obvious reasons [A] is NOT any kind of “answer” to the question which [B] asks, which is the relational milieu of Husband/Wife. “Sort-Of” must add the rest vis-à-vis the fact that “Sort-Of” must go on and keep speaking.

What Does Adding “The-Rest” Actually Look Like?

Again a bit of levity here but a brief dialogue between the “Part” and the “Whole” or we can say between Mr. Part & Mr. Whole, so to speak:

Mr. Part: The-Metric is that Scripture tells wives to submit to their husband. Scripture states that it is Being-Female which places the The-Limit and is The-Metric ↔ therefore ↔ there are no women prophets nor women teachers nor women judges nor “Non-The-Metric” dispensing “God Says X” to the world in any Formal Role assigned by God.

Mr. Whole: False.

Mr. Part: But….but that’s true.

Mr. Whole: No, it is not “true” in the sense you’re implying. Scripture tells the Man to submit and serve ↔ and ↔ it tells the woman likewise, and the OT and NT are populated with speaking-women dispensing “God Says X”” in Formal Roles assigned by God. “The-Metric” escapes your lens.

Mr. Part: Well yeah but that still says implies sexism: the woman has to submit, women cannot say “God Says X” in any Formal Role assigned by God. *That* is The-Metric.

Mr. Whole: Only if you take the proverbial one-verse lens, or the proverbial one-chapter lens. You have to take the Whole that is the Singularity of Scripture’s A ↔ Z. Once again, “The-Metric” escapes your lens.

Mr. Part: But… well yeah but…. but…

Mr. Whole: No buts.

Mr. Part: No, what I means is, but…. But…

Mr. Whole: No buts. There is no such thing as a “half” or a “part” of “a”narrative which is “True” in the sense you’re foisting. There is no such thing, in that sense, as a “part” of Scripture. “Sexism” is non-entity. Once again, “The-Metric” escapes your lens.

Mr. Part: But…. but woman is the glory of man… that’s why her body is the husband’s property…!!

Mr. Whole: actually ↔ the husband’s body is the property of the wife ↔ as glory outreaches glory ↔ as in Christ ↔ man is not independent of woman ↔ as woman came from man ↔ so also man is born of woman ↔ leaving all Glory in something *else* as our Ontic of A ↔ Z. Once again, “The-Metric” escapes your lens.

Obtaining The Correct Lens Between Part vs. Whole:

The Non-Theistic fallacious “Part” is forever falling down because of its difficulty with a. the concept of sub-narrative vs. meta-narrative and b. its premises are forever doing the following:

[1] They fallaciously equate what the Christian metaphysic defines as a. Privation to what it is not, namely b. Wholeness.

[2] They fallaciously equate a. the Privation of God’s Will to what it is not, namely b. the Actualization of God’s Will.

[3] They fallaciously equate a. the Privation of The Good to what it is not, namely b. the Actualization of The Good.

Again — Obtaining the Correct Lens:

Notice the obvious: the “Whole” rationally refuses any “answer/reply” which does not make the intellectual effort to add in all ↔ vectors ↔ vis-à-vis “submit one to another”, and, for all the same reasons, the “Whole” rationally refuses any “answer/reply” which does not make the intellectual effort to add in the Entire ↔ Speaking ↔ Women ↔ [SET] ↔ populating scripture ↔ and to add in the [SET] of ….and the [SET] of ….and so on ↔ and so on.

That is the Why/How of obtaining Scripture’s ↔ Actual ↔ “The-Metric“. One must read all lines through the proper *Lens*.

Overlapping real estate once more:

Doesn’t the OT say that the man’s seed, menstruation, and the birth of a child are all “dirty” and require “sacrifice”?

First of all, the fallacy of “Sinai Full Stop” is laughable in that it treats Sinai “as-if” it is in some spooky way God’s Literal & Eternal Ideal for all of Mankind – forever. Enough said. Meanwhile, the following quote/excerpt sheds light on that specific question.

Begin Quote/Excerpt:

The Christian New Testament sheds some light.

The sin which Adam committed in the Garden of Eden had resulted in his separation from God’s life. That is, Adam was condemned to death (Gen 2:16-17). His immediate separation from God resulted in spiritual death, i.e., his access to the tree of (eternal) life was terminated according to Genesis 3:22-23. So Adam’s spiritual death eventuated in his physical death: thus we read, “. . . ashes to ashes, dust to dust” (Gen 3:19).

When human beings are born, this spiritual death is transmitted to each human being, and thus each human is born spiritually dead (Rom 5:12). Of course, like what happened to Adam, all human beings eventuate in physical death also.

In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) death is “dirty.” Thus dead bodies (whether animal or human) are “dirty.” Any creatures that thrive on dead waste –for example scavengers– are also “dirty.”

So when human beings are born, the transmission of spiritual death is “dirty.” Therefore sex is not dirty in the Hebrew Bible, instead what is “dirty” is the spiritual death, which is transmitted from parents to children.

For example, the emission of the man’s seed (Lev 15:16-17) and even women’s menstruation (Lev 15:19-24) are “dirty” not because they are functions of the body fluids of sexual organs, but because spiritual death is procreated through these activities of the human body. Sex therefore is not “dirty” in the Bible. What is “dirty” is spiritual death. As noted above, spiritual death eventuates in physical death, which is “dirty” as we noted. Death is “dirty.”

In the Christian New Testament, spiritual death is washed away clean with eternal life (water). This living water is available, because sins/transgressions were removed through the sacrifice for sin.

That is, the eternal life of God was incarnated in flesh, but without the transmission of spiritual death–that is, the “father” of Jesus was not a spiritually dead mortal man, but the living God. As the sacrificial lamb for sin he was therefore not “dirty” because he was NOT spiritually dead. He was born the eternal life of God incarnated in human flesh, thus as the lamb he was without spot or blemish (1 Pet 1:19) — he was not “dirty.” When his body was made to be sin, it was then that he therefore had died.

But while his body was sufficient to be judged for sins, it was his eternal life that had “abolished” spiritual death (2 Tim 1:10 in NASB) and therefore his subsequent physical resurrection had followed. That is, his body was the sacrifice for sin, but his eternal life was at one and the same time “indestructible” (Heb 7:16 in NASB) — it was therefore “impossible” for death to hold him (Acts 2:24). So the sinner, whose sins were judged through the body of Jesus, could also receive the “washing” of the living water of eternal life through him. The birth of spiritual life through him is thus termed to be “born again” (Jn 3:3-7 and 1 Pet 1:3).

This birth however is not “dirty” like the birthing of the flesh, but is clean because the birthing is eternal life through the Spirit of God, who removes spiritual death with the water of eternal life (Titus 3:5). This baptism (washing) in eternal life removes the spiritual death of Adam.

As a closing observation, when seminal emissions occurred, or when menstruation occurred (unrelated to any birth), then interestingly enough it was only “water” which was the means of cleansing (cf. Lev 15:16-17 and Lev 15:19-24, respectively). But when an actual birth occurred with the woman, there was an offering for sin (Lev 12:1-8), because the “sin” is Adam’s disobedience, which creates spiritual death in the newborn baby. The condemnation of Adam’s sin (spiritual death) is therefore transmitted to each and every human being (Rom 5:12). Jesus died to take away sins and transgressions, and in turn, to provide eternal life, which removes the spiritual death.

Thus the Christian New Testament sheds light why a sin sacrifice was required after the birth of a child in Leviticus 12:1-8.

End quote (…from a comment on Stack Exchange…)

Overlapping real estate once more: 

Reciprocity’s peculiar realization of singularity amid the Masculine / Feminine arrives within the egalitarian milieu of Edenic syntax. That milieu, according to the definition of Scripture’s metanarrative, of course undergoes a radical “ontic-change” in traversing Genesis 1 ↔ Genesis 3 ↔ John 3 as such contours are fractured and vectors of enmity emerge, and, also, it is the work of *Christ* — of All-Sufficiency’s Own Self-Outpouring — by which we find an Open Door through which He begins restoring not only that egalitarian syntax but far more.

SECTION 5 of 6

The following is a paraphrase of a discussion which has obvious relevance to the wider topic under review with respect to the interfaces amid Masculine/Feminine and where such contours arrive within the topography of the ontology of all things Adamic with respect to Reciprocity’s Perfection:

One article commented: “….sexual activity between minors and adults is condemned because children or minors’ brains are not developed enough to fully understand sexuality….” But then the next article comments: “….teens & even toddlers have the right to gender reassignment surgery because they can understand the nuances of sexuality…..”

A third article comments: “….over fifty years of science confirms the conclusion that children do better when raised by a male and a female as each brings a unique set of influences to bear upon the child in her formative years….” But then a fourth article comments: “….when deciding about which parenting environment is better for the child it is unethical ask if we are placing the child with two Moms or two Dads or with a Mom and Dad……”

When I worked as a teacher in kindergarten we insisted the students eat their healthy snacks first because when left to their own devices they would eat only junk food. We made this decision for them since we assumed they weren’t capable of making it themselves.  And yet, we are now saying that they can choose their gender? When they can’t even choose their healthy snacks?

It is frustrating that the science of the brain is used in one case and then thrown out in the next. I’ve noticed that science and fact used to be the Go-To for Secularism, dictating how one should operate in the world with no questions asked….. but now secularism rebels against science and fact depending on the agenda. I suppose that is not surprising in that we tend towards doing whatever suits us. In fact just as secularism struggles not to rebel against science and fact so too we as Christians struggle not to rebel against our God….. it’s a dual problem grounded in our own tendencies….”

There are a few relevant segues between that last quote and the following quote which provide some context with respect to convergence. It is a bit long so it is bracketed between “begin / end quote/excerpt” to help identify its start/stop:

—Begin Quote/Excerpt→→

Many of our teens have lived through the harm of the absence of their father, just as, many of our teens have lived through the harm of the absence of their mother. For those who have, the emotional and intellectual impact of our humanity’s essence is, simply, painful and immediate and tangible. In short: it’s real. In the same way, many teens have had to suffer through the absence of people’s grace in their own journey should they themselves or perhaps one of their parents have struggled with same-sex attractions. This dichotomy is informative for our teens – who will and do encounter these sorts of experiences. And if they have not experienced such, they will have friends who have and perhaps are right now walking through such experiences.

Therefore, for our Teens who have had to live through any of the above, or have friends who have had to live through such, recall that in all of our interfaces with each other there are the unavoidable realities of Essence and of Grace and we must honor both if we are to mature into the image of Christ – Himself full of Truth, full of Grace.

As we will see, Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to our humanity’s essence (one can read about “essentialism”) and informed the world stage that ignoring the fundamental truths of our human essences led some to claim a “difference” between Blacks/ Whites, between African Americans and Caucasians. We cannot expect to fully actualize Mankind’s Good when we thusly ignore, out of fear, out of an uninformed mindset, out of a felt-degree of anger or hatred, or out of all of the above, the elementary truths of Mankind’s essence, and that is why Pastor MLK got it right – his essentialism finally out-distancing such misguided thinking.

But there is also this: Pastor King lived in and by Grace towards all – Hard Stop – even to his own hurt.

What does this all “look like” in the real world? Here’s a bit of “unpacking” with respect to such contours amid Essence and Grace:

I visited a grade school (1st and 2nd grade) in an impoverished area and recall the (all women) teachers essentially pleading with me to return. That felt good until I learned why the request came. The children in that class were, for the most part, fatherless and me, as a male, had, these teachers felt, a certain “some-thing” which their young impressions painfully needed, but were lacking. They didn’t need me to be a rocket scientist. They needed something far more expensive – they knew their young students needed a generator, an image, a model of appropriate and consistent male-impressions, as it were. And the community in question in this impoverished area knew all too well the unfortunate reality of gambling away the greater for the lesser. It still “felt good” to be asked to return as often as possible – though for unexpected reasons.

We’re forever seeing hints of this leaking onto the floor in all sorts of places.

Not long ago while watching the BET awards there was, buried in the midst of the pageantry, a comment on the (factual) problem of the absent father – which (apparently) seemed important enough to drop into the mix of a live recording. Everyone understands or gets that reality – as it’s just palpable, measurable. All the affairs of our children’s masculinization and of our children’s feminization carry us unavoidably into the inescapable problem of the absent father over there and the absent mother over here, and so on. All of that is clear, observable, and all of that is so unfortunate that communities champion those who fight to untie such painful knots in the next generation of young parents. All of these are robust lines of hard data in an arena which is championed by all sides here and such (unfortunate) data presents us with something from which nearly no one dissents.

For intelligent, data-driven reasons — because it’s true — The social sciences consistently echo that data when we look at other combinations and permutations.

The child’s potential need not be fully actualized as it is painfully and unfortunately obvious that we all enter our world already in possession of potential which our world, the world we enter, is, quite often, unsuccessful in fully actualizing. When it comes to the maximal potential of a child’s plasticity as such relates to the fullest actualization of the child’s emotional intelligence amid the sexes, we come to an uncanny observation:

Early submersion within an ongoing, stable, and emotionally perceptive environment insightfully exhibiting that which is fully human inside of the robustly feminine milieu amalgamated with the robustly masculine milieu measurably provides the sort of stimuli and personal interfaces which are in the end necessary to maximally elicit the child’s embryonic (plasticity) intuitiveness. Mechanistically speaking, such caring reciprocity recurrently interfacing amid those distinct milieus (feminine/masculine) are then applied to, or impact upon, the child’s highly plastic potential and that (as it relates to the child’s future capacity for emotionally intelligent adult interfacing amid the sexes) houses our most credible, repeatable, and balanced consistency.

It seems that we have two approaches which allow us to arrive at that location – that of final causes (the God paradigm) and that of the latent potentiality of an already-present and deeply embedded neuro-biological network (reductionist, no-god paradigm) as the “end of the line”, as it were. In both we find an uncanny degree of convergence. The reductionist (no-God paradigm) who appeals to neurobiology as the end of line where our humanity’s employable substrate is concerned finds all the evidence of his stimuli-outcome trajectories converging in all of the same locations as those trajectories predicted by final causes (the God paradigm).

We find no effective difference in what provides the child’s plasticity the greatest opportunity of fullness in a robust development of the child’s emotional intelligence across the full range of the robustly feminine to the robustly masculine as the child progresses to a fully functional adult. The relational landscape which provides that early childhood plasticity with the highest degree of actualization is the stable, ongoing, emotionally intelligent, and caring environment of submersion in the singular atmosphere which is itself constituted of the fully feminine milieu amalgamated with the fully masculine milieu.

That singularity sums to the relational milieu which is the factual some-thing found in the real world as granting our children the most predictable degree of success. As already noted, none of this is to say that other combinations or permutations don’t get by, often quite well – they do – but we are speaking here of the fullness of range of what just is our humanity’s fundamental essence as it relates to childhood’s early plasticity and a robust emotional intelligence amid the sexes.

The data on children raised with one parent is relevant in a few ways here. Children raised by the single father are found to be less aware of, and more likely to possess some degree of maladroitness in, many relational contexts where the feminine is concerned. And the reverse is seen in those raised by the single mother. This of course does not amount to simple dysfunction, but rather to degrees of awareness, to degrees of ability to fully interact in and with and by our humanity’s full range of potential, of capacity as all the affairs of masculinization and of feminization come to the forefront. Obviously this can be in part overcome by emersion – from day one – with a wider circle of close – daily – contacts (it takes a village, so to speak). However, we still, even there, do not seem able to find that which factually equals that which is yielded by the daily intimacy of the home submerged in the masculine/feminine of father/mother as our own humanity’s fully feminine to fully masculine range weighs in on childhood plasticity.

This is why everybody champions those in this generation who make real efforts to spare the next generation from that fragmentation of the whole. Ignoring the fundamental truths of our human essences led some to claim a “difference” between Blacks/ Whites, between African Americans and Caucasians. We cannot expect to fully actualize Mankind’s Good when we thusly ignore, out of fear, out of an uninformed mindset, out of a felt-degree of anger or hatred, or out of all of the above, the elementary truths of Mankind’s essence, and that is why Pastor MLK got it right – his essentialism finally out-distancing such misguided thinking. We cannot evade reality and expect to find something worth having and Pastor MLK Jr. pressed in on that fact. It is a peculiar danger that (perhaps) of late that same intentional shunning of, willful neglect of, even disenfranchising of, key fundamental essences of our humanity where our children are concerned may be evolving, and the price there can only sum to those which Pastor MLK taught us so well. Such a repeat of yesterday’s unfortunate approach to Mankind can, and ultimately must, bring equal forms of genuine psychological harm and human misguidedness and those then must in return bring some new layer of emotional harm, and those then must bring yet some new layer of….. and so on. Such is the danger of ignoring what we’ve learned from our past mistakes if and when we claim “sameness” among a collection of different milieus found in-play atop early childhood plasticity. Ignoring the essence of our humanity didn’t help mankind amid “Black / White” issues and, in fact, it ended in the actualization of the antithesis of the Good – that is to say – it was ultimately unloving. Repeating now with our children that very same fear-driven mistake, that very same dis-invitation of yet another key slice of our elementary essence, cannot, ultimately, end in that which sums to loving our children.

Not factually, that is.

Dis-inviting truths about our humanity from the assembly cannot serve humanity in the long run. No one, none of us, can move forward in a degree of auto-hypnosis or in some degree of wish-fulfillment and expect to succeed. We simply cannot commit the same emotional and intellectual crimes of the past and expect to find our fullest humanity.

As already noted, adoption is wonderful, and two parents there seems to be more promising than one. *Any* stability is better than none, and so on in said degrees and where there are degrees there are, painfully for our children should we repeat the mistakes of the past, the grave potential of wasted opportunities – opportunities excluded or dis-invited or marginalized merely out of fear, out of an uninformed mindset, out of a felt-degree of anger or hatred, or out of all of the above. Once again, the early plasticity specifically under review is with nearly across the board consensus most fully actualized by the early submersion within an ongoing, stable, and emotionally perceptive environment insightfully exhibiting that which is fully human inside of the robustly feminine milieu amalgamated with the robustly masculine milieu because such measurably provides the sort of stimuli and personal interfaces which are in the end necessary to maximally elicit the child’s embryonic (early plasticity) intuitiveness. Mechanistically speaking, such caring reciprocity recurrently interfacing amid those distinct milieus (feminine/masculine) are then applied to, or impact upon, the child’s highly plastic potential and that (as it relates to the child’s future capacity for emotionally intelligent adult interfacing amid the sexes) houses our most credible, repeatable, and balanced consistency. There are (unquestionably) *degrees*, that is to say, there is so-so, there is okay, there is better, and then there is the “best chance for the highest degree of actualization” or the ideal milieu relative to the child’s plasticity and his or her future emotional intelligence amid the sexes as a functional adult.

Of course, just because “X” for various reasons offers the highest possible chance for actualization of that robust emotional intelligence amid the sexes does *not* mean that good functionality is not obtainable with “X-minus-some-thing”. We all get by with various levels of discomfort or unawareness or uneasiness, or what have you, amid something less than fully healthy interfaces as adults. But being functional has gradations, or layers, or degrees, as it were. We find here an unfortunate reality on the part of one certain narrative in the denial of such layering in our humanity as it develops. Where that narrative of late is (perhaps) concerned, as Pastor MLK taught us all so well, dis-inviting truths about our humanity from the assembly cannot serve humanity in the long run. No one, none of us, can move forward in some degree of auto-hypnosis or in some degree of wish-fulfillment and expect to succeed. We simply cannot commit the emotional and intellectual crimes of the past and expect to find our fullest humanity. The very essence of what makes us fully human was ignored and that made-up-reality was used to show a supposed “difference” amid Black and White human beings. Just the same, genuine opportunity for the child’s best shot at actualizing the full range of masculine/feminine emotional intelligence is always awaiting the child upon his or her entry into the world and, for all the same reasons which Pastor MLK taught us, dis-inviting truths about our humanity from the assembly cannot serve humanity in the long run. No one, none of us, can move forward in some degree of auto-hypnosis or in some degree of wish-fulfillment and expect to succeed. We simply cannot commit the emotional and intellectual crimes of the past and expect to find our fullest humanity. The very essence of what makes us fully human cannot be ignored as we just cannot seek a reality that is “as we wish it were” and attempt to (thereby) show “sameness” amid factually different milieus of robust emotional opportunity in-play atop early childhood plasticity.

As noted elsewhere, where the child’s future is concerned, *any* stability is better than no stability, and that less/more merges unavoidably into palpable degrees of opportunity for the child. But similarity is not sameness and (unfortunately for all of us) we have a wide array of converging data from which very few dissent which affirms what every school teacher and single parent know, which is that we simply cannot find elsewhere that which factually equates to the daily intimacy of the home submerged in the masculine/feminine milieu afforded by the singularity of father/mother as our own humanity’s fully feminine to fully masculine range weigh in on childhood plasticity and future emotional intelligence amid the sexes.

As noted, other combinations or permutations do well enough – but we are speaking here of a sort of identity claim – that A and B are identical realities where early childhood plasticity amid the full range of masculine/feminine emotional intelligence weighs in vis-à-vis the child’s opportunity. Observational reality seems to be declaring such to be (in at least some vectors of crucial import) a factually flawed identity claim. We must proceed slowly, with eyes wide open, if and when we make appeals to childhood stability vis-à-vis the family.

Marriage is one thing, and, indeed, Thomas Aquinas on “Tolerance and Law” may apply. But marriage is not “the whole show” – that is to say that marriage is not the whole show if and when we mean to invoke the essence of early childhood plasticity. That essence has (unfortunately for all of us) eons of data which are simply unavoidable.

Essence yes, but, still, we must be moving towards Grace:

The crimes against African Americans which were fueled by our own willful dis-invitation of the fundamental realities of our own human essence created a painful, genuine, and preventable shortfall in the very substance of our humanity and, fortunately, we were gifted with the likes of Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. to brilliantly help lead us out of such error as he, thankfully, got it right. That is to say, Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. taught us with unmistakable clarity that when false narratives built atop fear, an uninformed mindset, a felt-degree of anger or hatred, or all of the above, begin to succeed they are themselves fated to come down on the wrong side of history – time and truth just do have that peculiar sort of relationship. History is both our teacher and a kind of proof in this arena. Narratives built atop our own self-deception or our own hope to have reality live up to what we wish it to be, rather than what it actually is vis-à-vis humanity’s essence just cannot endure over time. Eventually the truth of our humanity rises and we’ve seen these principles of Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. play out over and over again on the world stage – for millennia.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons many of us find ourselves embracing the metaphysical paradigm which converges in Christ – simply on the grounds of grace’s embrace of every last one of us – and – simply on the grounds that reality does in fact have a true narrative, perhaps up ahead of us, perhaps within us, or perhaps both – and – simply on the grounds of reason’s categorical imperative to embrace reality’s true narrative – to experience His unquenchable instantiation.

Many of us need to beware here, lest we offend grace, and, for all the same reasons, others of us need to beware here, lest we offend various truths of our own human essence. On whatever topic may arise we press – it’s difficult – to use caution in our own interior navigations of our own tendencies both towards and away from grace, and, just the same, in our own tendencies both towards and away from truth. We cannot offend grace towards our own selves and towards one another and think our narrative will – ultimately – flourish. We cannot offend truth towards our own selves and towards one another and think our narrative will – ultimately – flourish. Such shortsightedness has been found wanting upon the world stage – over and over again. History seems to reveal our final causes vis-à-vis our humanity’s essence surfacing – ever spying somewhere within us – ever spying somewhere up ahead of us – the unquenchable instantiation of the God Who is love. On such navigations amid grace and truth I’ve proven to be an inept sailor. Fortunately though, He holds all things and outdistances me. We are, it seems, not on the side of any Will-To-Power in any ipso facto sense, nor are we on the side of any Temporal Brand per se, but rather we are on the side of reality’s singular metanarrative, that is to say, we are on the side of Grace in all directions – towards all – Hard Stop – and – in the same sense – we are on the side of Truth in all directions – towards all – Hard Stop. Grace and Truth as an actual singularity. That is the Narrative Whose Name is The-Real as we find all such lines seamlessly converging in Christ.

Ⓓisclaimer: This need not be, and indeed is not, at all, a statement on legality, rather, this is merely an observation of our own human essence and of the contours of grace.

—End Quote/Excerpt— 

Before moving to Section 6 of 6, two brief observations:

Quote: “My personal choice is to point to the way that a family of a mother and father is that which is most optimal for a child. By a man and woman unit, we affirm that being a man and being a woman both mean something. Of course, that’s further philosophical work that is for another time.” End quote ((…from https://carm.org/absolute-morality-and-homosexuality …))

And then also:

Quote ((italics added)) “In Matthew 19, Jesus is confronted by some Pharisees about Moses allowing divorce. Jesus made an argument that God’s original intention for marriage was for it to be permanent. His argument was based on how God originally made Adam and Eve. He said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Since Jesus grounded his argument in Adam and Eve being made male and female and becoming one flesh, this would not only rule out divorce, but it would also rule out same sex unions because God originally made them male and female to form a complimentary pair. That was God’s original intention for marriage. So Jesus was implicitly condemning same sex unions in this passage, too.” End quote ((italics added)) ((…from http://philochristos.blogspot.com/2019/11/does-bible-condemn-homosexuality.html …))

SECTION 6 of 6

In closing we will (…intentionally so as to retain what each step has discovered…) state once again those initial contours of love’s perfection of reciprocity mentioned at the start:

The syntax of, “…..Intimacy speaks of that which fully reciprocates and in all its forms the fuller the love the fuller that giving-away of one’s very life and being amid the “other” and, just the same, the fuller the love the fuller that receiving into one’s very life and being amid the “other“…..” speaks towards something “like” the following which begins to take shape in our syntax:

There is a limit to my own self-giving. I have myself to give. The maximum “…giving-away of one’s very life and being…” which I can pour out, of my own self, is my whole self.

There is a maximum “…receiving into one’s very life and being…” in the other self or in another self should that self in fact be the (genuine) recipient of my own giving of my whole self.

& therefore….

The fullness of reciprocity necessarily entails, then, One + One. Not only that, but, given the non-expendable transcendentals of the Whole of the Adamic, all such transcendentals necessarily convert into contours of all that is the fully Feminine and the fully Masculine.

It is from within the margins vis-a-vis the whole wherein we find the necessary Ontic by which the relevant Epistemic in fact emerges and it is that Traversal or that Transposition (…as per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html …) in and by and through the convertibility of the necessary transcendentals where we come upon the affairs of that syntax of whole/wholeness.  

Given the reality of this or that whole we therefore unavoidably arrive — at some seam or at some point or at some ontic-array of loci — at the syntax of  Degree.  It is there where we begin to discover closure as the epistemic of degree flourishes only upon the proverbial coattails of the whole.

Therein we come again to Genesis’ uncanny Trinitarian Life vis-a-vis the Ontic of Ceaseless Reciprocity and, also, therein we come necessarily yet again to Genesis’ reflection of that very Image vis-a-vis the Imago Dei arriving in and by and through the fullness of reciprocity which necessarily entails the entire arena of One + One and, not only that, but, given the non-expendable transcendentals of the Whole of the Adamic, all such transcendentals necessarily convert into contours of all that is the fully Feminine and the fully Masculine.

& therefore….

Should perfect reciprocity be a proper end of man then we immediately perceive the incredible and misplaced ego in the Man who declares himself able to give away that proverbial “one-whole-self” – namely himself of course – to many other selves and yet still expect to find love’s fullness of reciprocity fully realized. Should the Man love her fully, perfectly, well then he cannot have another. And so too in the reverse. And, just the same, and for all the same reasons, we begin to find the same category of that misplaced ego in the Man who declares himself able to give away that golden thread of reciprocity’s fullness in and by Degrees vis-a-vis Fullness as we approach fully Feminine and the fully Masculine.

All of Me I Give To Thee — It is uncanny as we begin to discover all over again the reasons behind the New Testament syntax unmistakably echoing Eden’s syntax amid the One + One and, just the same, and for all the same reasons, the landscape there becomes obvious as all other combinations and/or degrees can only survive in the company of some degree of something akin to some form of self-ish-ness.

Reasoning through to lucidity: If love is the highest ethic (…and it is…) and if perfect reciprocity is a proper end of man (…and it is…), then – it is true that the most distal reaches of love’s perfection — of love’s intimacy — lands in *two* who in the perfection of reciprocity become *one* and, just the same, in all such progressions we find that Clarity’s reach pushes through to her final terminus in and by her own beautiful lucidity with respect to the fully Feminine and the fully Masculine.

A and B ceaselessly beget C. To put it another way: self and other ceaselessly beget the singular us or the singular “one-another“. It is uncanny but A is not B and B is not C and C is neither A nor B even as ontological singularity arrives. Again we are speaking here of the contingent being, of the Adamic and *not* of Trinity but nonetheless it is, still, uncanny.

That *form* of love is what Scripture’s singular metaphysic terms Marriage and we find that only *dilution* of fullness awaits all other combinations, all other progressions, all but that uncanny Blueprint of *two* becoming *one* amid love’s fullest transposition amid all things Adamic. The ontological topography there reflects an image as it were of love’s necessary, irreducible, and timeless reciprocity vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life in Whom it is also the case that A is not B and B is not C and C is neither A nor B – in nothing less than an Ontic-Singularity. […Mapping Reality via https://metachristianity.com/thoroughly-trinitarian-metaphysic/ ..]

In fact D. B. Hart and many others throughout history have in various ways alluded to the Trinitarian Life and the Good in and of and by an  Eternal Diffusiveness of Self with referents such as the “…eternal one-another…” in mapping reality’s concrete furniture in and by what some term as The Always and The Already, that which is ceaselessly Beneath and Above — namely “Love & Necessity” as nothing less than a singularity — that which carries us into the very means and ends of Being Itself — that which carries us first towards and finally into God.