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Berdyaev on Direct Knowledge/Primary Thinking

11/29/2024

I often use the terms direct knowledge and primary thinking on this blog, but I'm sure I do an inadequate job explaining and describing what these are and what they mean.

In light of this, I'll turn to Berdyaev, whose focus on the creative act approximates what primary thinking entails to some degree (bold added):

Truth is not objective, ordinary reality, reflected in the knower and entering into him from outside, but rather the enlightenment, the transfiguration of reality: it is the introduction into the world's data of a quality, which was not there before truth was revealed and known. Truth is not conformity with what we call being, but rather the kindling of a light within being. I am in darkness and seek the light; I do not yet know truth but I seek it. By this very fact I affirm the existence of Truth and light, existence in another sense than the existence of the world's realities. My seeking is already the dawning light, and truth already beginning to reveal itself.
-- Truth and Revelation

Truth is not something given objectively, but rather a creative achievement. It is creative discovery, rather than the reflected knowledge of an object or of being. Truth ... is the creative transfiguration of reality.
-- Truth and Revelation

I wish to know, not actuality, but the truth about actuality. And I may learn what this truth is, only because in me, the knowing subject, there is a source of truth and because I may communicate with this truth.
--The Beginning and the End

The discovery of Truth is a free act of the will, not alone an intellectual act; it is the turning of man's whole being toward creative values. The criterion lies in this very act of the Spirit. There is no criterion of truth outside of the witness of truth itself, and it is wrong to seek absolute guarantees, which always demean the truth.
-- Truth and Revelation

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Logic "Proves" Creation From Something...Or Something

11/28/2024

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Premise 1: Nothing can be created from nothing.
Premise 2: The universe is something.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe was created from something.

The argument is a valid deductive argument because the conclusion logically follows from the premises. In this case, the conclusion logically follows from the premises based on the rules of deductive reasoning.

Determining whether the argument is sound involves assessing both its validity and the truth of the premises.

Okay, let’s do that.

Validity: As mentioned above, the argument is valid because the conclusion logically follows from the premises.

Truth of the Premises:

Premise 1: "Nothing can be created from nothing." Okay, the Law of Conservation of Energy supports this as a philosophic principle because energy cannot be created or destroyed but only transformed. You gotta love those laws, eh? Thus, this premise is reasonable and widely accepted.

Premise 2: "The universe is something" is a straightforward, widely acknowledged observation. At least I hope it is.

So, given that both premises are generally accepted as true and the argument is valid, we can conclude that the argument is both valid and sound.

Which means it must be true!

There you go. Aren’t I a clever boy?

Good-bye creatio ex nihilo, hello creatio from something!

Now, would I use the above to “prove” my assumptions?

No, because assumptions cannot be proved.

Would I want to spend hours defending this argument, utilize it in an attempt to sink the assumptions of another, or make it a foundation of my faith?

No, because the philosophy of God draws me closer to philosophy than God.

Secondary thinking has clear limits. Knowing the truth of the above syllogism requires intuitive direct knowledge, not logic word games.

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More Moonlight, Courtesy of Carus

11/26/2024

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Carl Gustav Carus - Stone Age Mound - c. 1820

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Thankfully, I Was Among the Slow Ones in Religion Class

11/25/2024

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I attended a Catholic school until I was fourteen. In the eighth grade, we spent most of our religion classes preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation.

The school’s deacon, Mr. Rowe—the unacknowledged winner of a non-existent Ward Cleaver look-alike contest who pandered to the predominantly Italian-descent school body by insisting that he too was Italian; all you had to do was flip the “W” in his name around; See? Mr. RoMe! — presided over the first religion class that year.

With gravity befitting a funeral, he solemnly instructed us to engage in what he termed “a vital lesson in thinking about God.”

The thrust of the lesson was simple enough. He gave everyone a blank sheet of white paper and instructed us to draw how we imagined God.

“I want you to go beyond how you have imagined God until now. Reach deep down into your faith and see what you find there,” he said evenly.

I drew an adult man. Not a venerable man with a Michelangelo-esque flowing white beard reclining on a cloud, but a nondescript man with a gentle face and a short, dark beard standing with one hand outstretched toward the viewer.

Mr. Rowe made his rounds in the class while we worked. When saw my drawing, he paused and cupped his chin with his right hand.

“Is that supposed to be Jesus?” he asked.

“Yes. I guess it is.”

Mr. Rowe’s eyes narrowed a tad, and I listened awkwardly to the tense breath he inhaled through his tight lips.

“He’s wearing pants.”

“Well, a lot of time has passed since he went to heaven,” I answered meekly.

After another tense inhalation, Mr. Rowe nodded and continued making his rounds.

When everyone finished their drawings, Mr. Rowe selected a few to present to the class. The drawings he chose as exemplary depictions of God featured things like crosses floating in the solar system, clouds emitting all sorts of strange rays and beams, amorphous blobs of energy suspended in nothingness, or three crackling orbs of ball lightning united within one seemingly translucent sphere.

“These,” said Mr. Rowe, sweeping his hand dramatically past the drawings he had pinned to the corkboard, “display a mature awareness of the complexity of God as pure spirit, a vision of the Almighty glorious and absolute, rising above more underdeveloped notions of God as a man that a few students produced.”

He paused and leveled a brief, pitying glance at me before turning it upon the other “God-as-man" artists in the class.

“It’s not that those ideas are wrong. They’re just simple. They lack complexity. The sort of complexity you should all meditate and pray upon as you prepare for Confirmation.”

I felt my face redden a little, and I averted my eyes to the floor. When I raised them again, I focused on the amorphous energy blobs and orbs of ball lightning on the corkboard.

I silently wondered how anyone could ever hope to pray to those things.

The incident made a deep impression on me. I ended up withdrawing from the sacrament of Confirmation altogether.

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Nearly Done

11/23/2024

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Although I spend most of my free time promoting an insane anti-Christian, anti-human culture and cult of death, I also enjoy engaging in other, humbler pursuits, specifically, renovations around the house.

This summer I initiated three projects, and I am happy to report that the third and most daunting of those -- the complete overhaul of the unused pig barn in the yard -- is nearly done.

Here is the what the pig barn looked like after I removed its roof and began working on it in July.

And this is how it looked a couple of weeks ago.

I have added some finishing touches since then but am now focusing almost entirely on the interior, which now has brand new wiring, lights, and connectors. The heating/cooling system will be installed next week. The electrical work, heating/cooling installation, and concrete pouring are the only jobs I contracted out. I did the rest alone, which wasn't always fun or easy.

Anyway, I hope to have the whole project completed by Christmas.

Note added: The lack of windows is intentional. The building is bombarded by sunlight all year round, and extra windows on the front would make the interior unbearably hot and bright in the summer. To compensate, I installed windows in the back.

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Fear Induces Spiritual Retardation

11/22/2024

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I refer primarily to the actual definition of the word retardation—a slowness in learning that induces problems in development, leading to hindered growth—although my use of the word is also somewhat pejorative as it also conveys my overall disapproval of those who promote fear as a spiritual virtue.

Promoting fear as virtue lies in the injunction to serve God in fear and rejoice in trembling. How this squares up with Jesus’ teaching of God, particularly in the Fourth Gospel, is a bit of a mystery to me.

Of course, it’s no secret that organized Christianity has and, to some degree still does, employ the injunction to fear as a motivational tool to keep the pews and coffers full, but that is not the issue I want to focus on here.

Many put a positive spin on the notion of fearing God by claiming the fear is rooted in the anxiety of unintentionally turning away from the Divine. Others cite the word fear as a mistranslation and suggest the word is closer to something like reverence, devotion, or worship.

Either way, I posit that the injunction to fear God and regard such fear as a spiritual virtue is woefully misguided. As Dr. Charlton recently pointed out, the Christian God is not a God of Fear but a God of Love, and when Christians think about God, they should be doing so from the perspective of love rather than fear.

Why?

Fear is a poison that inhibits, impedes, and thwarts all spiritual thinking and activity. This includes all fear, not just the fear of God.

People gripped by fear immediately surrender their spiritual center and grounding to the external world, which is governed by fear. Human civilization is founded upon fear. All governments and organizations utilize fear, as do all marketers, advertisers, and propagandists. The sad truth of human society and the individuals who comprise it is that nothing—nothing in the world—entices, persuades, influences, sells, controls, manipulates, or commands as effectively as fear.

Whenever we allow fear to influence and govern us, we alienate ourselves from our spiritual core and disrupt and obstruct our spiritual awareness and learning.

At the most fundamental level, fear is an enslaving force. It strips away all sense of spiritual freedom and renders one vulnerable to impositions and demands of external forces.

One needs to look no further than the events of 2019-2022 to recognize the spiritual devastation and havoc fear can wreak on individuals and society. What we were all privy to during those years was fear-induced spiritual retardation on a grand, dare I say, epic scale.

Far from being a virtue, fear is a sin—a sin that must be repented rather than embraced.

Fear slices through freedom and restrains the capability of love. Far from aligning with God, an individual gripped by fear, any fear, is an individual misaligned with God and the divine purposes of Creation.

Berdyaev noted that fear is never a good counselor and went as far as to cite victory over fear as the first spiritual duty of man. Victory over fear can only be achieved through freedom and love. One cannot love if one is not free, and one is not free if one cannot love.

Thus, fear must be faced and overcome. And if it cannot be overcome, it must be repented, for that alone counts as spiritual victory to a great degree.

Perfect love casts out fear. Unfortunately, the converse is also true—perfect fear casts out love.

Mortal life, however, is about orientation and alignment, not perfection. Thus, we should aim for perfect love and eschew perfect fear.

And those who preach fear and trembling should consider making the switch to love and repenting.

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Have You Ever Heard About the Flying Penguins?

11/21/2024

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A few weeks ago, I featured a song by the Wallners, a vitually unknown but good little indie band from Austria.

Today, for your listening pleasure, I will feature another obscure indie act hailing from the small, landlocked Alpine country .

Not quite the Wallners, to be sure. No, I would categorize "Flying Penguins" by "Lil Julez" as *good* in an entirely different sense of the word.

Enjoy?

Note: If you find yourself unwittingly singing the song in the shower this evening, well...all I can say is, you're welcome!

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The Uncreated Freedom Inherent In Uncaused "Created" Beings

11/21/2024

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I have always struggled to accept the way traditional theology defines and explains freedom within Creation (note: freedom does not exist outwith Creation except in the case of God) and could never get over the hump of created freedom being false and somehow unfree.

My intuition informed me that authentic freedom could not be created by God or anyone. Nor could it simply be an inherent part of God creating “actual” beings. Real freedom had to be, well, free.

It does not originate from some external source and exists entirely independent of contingency or necessity.

In a nutshell, I concluded that freedom must be uncreated to be true. An unorthodox position if there ever was one.

Fortunately, I eventually encountered the works of Nicholas Berdyaev and, to my surprise and relief, discovered that I was not the only person in the history of the world to hold to the unorthodox assumption of uncreated freedom.

Berdyaev argued for the ultimacy of freedom -- to the point that his vision of reality places freedom before being. Berdyaev’s views on uncreated freedom stemmed primarily from the mystic Jacob Boehme, who envisioned the existence of something called the Ungrund, unground or ground without ground, a primordial void of consciousness and spirit from which God creates all being.

Berdyaev took Boehme’s Ungrund, a step further and placed it outside of God. Now the Ungrund was not merely something from which God created but also something from which God emerged, pulling all of Creation with him.

Berdyaev’s rationalization of placing the Ungrund outside of God is triple-pronged—to explain the presence of an uncreated attribute man and God share, to define and protect freedom as authentic freedom against the limited doctrine of free will, and to absolve God from the existence of evil within Creation.

Berdyaev outlines his thinking succinctly in The Destiny of Man:

Out of the Divine Nothing, or of the UNGRUND, the Holy Trinity, God the Creator is born.
From this point of view, it may be said that freedom is not created by God: it is rooted in the Nothing, in the UNGRUND from all eternity. The opposition between God the Creator and freedom is secondary: in the primeval mystery of the Divine Nothing this opposition is transcended, for both God and freedom are manifested out of the UNGRUND.

God the Creator cannot be responsible for freedom which gave rise to evil. Man is the child of God and the child of freedom - of nothing, of non- being, (greek equivalent). Meonic freedom consented to God's act of creation; non-being freely accepted being.

God the Creator is all-powerful over being, over the created world, but He has no power over non- being, over the uncreated freedom.

The myth of the Fall tells of this powerlessness of the Creator to avert the evil resulting from freedom which He has not created.

For the sake of clarity, it is worth noting that creation from the Ungrund, as Berdyaev conceptualizes it, is not merely a reinterpretation of creatio ex nihilo because the meonic freedom inherent in the Ungrund is not no-thing.

It contains something God did not create—freedom—and that freedom unavoidably seeps into Creation via God’s act of creating; hence, Berdyaev’s declaration that God is master over all being but not the uncreated freedom that is innately within the beings he creates.

Uncreated freedom is also an attribute God shares with all other beings, dispelling the strict insistence on classifying and regarding God as a different category of being altogether.

As far as theodicy goes, I find Berdyaev’s explanation of evil far more convincing than traditional theodicean justifications; more convincing because it places the existence of evil beyond God’s powers of creating, absolving God of the presence of evil and protecting traditional tenets of God’s omnibenevolence.

At the same time, by placing the Ungrund outside of God, Berdyaev tramples ever so lightly on other traditional assertions of God as omniscient and omnipotent.

In any case, glad to no longer be adrift alone upon what seemed like an endless ocean, I adopted Berdyaev’s views on uncreated freedom for a few years. Nevertheless, I could not shake the intuition that his conceptualization of uncreated freedom contained many loose ends and gaps.

For starters, I could not wrap my head around the idea of freedom preceding being, at least not in the fundamental sense as implied by God’s self-emergence and simultaneous act of creation.

Yes, the will to be must precede the being, but the will to be had to be rooted in something, otherwise it remains a case of mere potential actualizing into being.

I also struggled to understand how the Trinitarian godhead emerged from the Ungrund, already distinct yet unified in eternal purpose, ready to create from the get-go.

As of now, I have settled on Berdyaev’s conceptualization of freedom as uncreated as true but within the framework of already existing beings in the form of consciousness and spirit.

In this sense, Boehme’s Ungrund is more than a bubbling cauldron of mere potential and becomes a place of chaotic, unrealized potential.

In my mind, God’s forming and organizing of this unrealized potential from chaos into Creation offers far more penetrating and coherent explanations for the motives of why God created in the first place while still maintaining the uncreated-ness of freedom already inherent within beings (pre-existing, temporally-eternal consciousness and spirit). It also underscores the virtually indescribably significance of freedom within Creation--specifically, the honing of uncreated freedom toward love.

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Traditional Christianity is Like a Dethroned Boxing Champion

11/20/2024

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Like a dethroned boxing champion, traditional Christianity just wants to get its belt back.

What's the belt?

Secondary thought. More specifically, the narrative.

Traditional Christianity insists it will set the world right again when it regains its belt and rules the world via its system of secondary thought.

So it trains really hard in secondary thought, but it is aged, flabby, and past its prime.

That the current reigning boxing champ is a young, raging steroid monkey who fights only in rigged matches arranged and judged by complicit conventional, everyday System Christianity doesn't help the cause of Traditional Christianity at all.

But all of that is besides the point because it overlooks the fact that the narrative "belt", the grand prize of all secondary thinking, is not worth having anymore.

The narrative never was and never will be reality.

The real grand prize is elsewhere, in a different sport altogether.

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Cause and Reason Do Not Overrule Motivation and Purpose

11/20/2024

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“Nicene Christianity perhaps needs to posit a motive for creation – a motive for God creating rather than not.”

The suggestion is Dr. Charlton’s, and I believe it draws attention to the gaping chasm present in what falls under the umbrella of classical/traditional/conventional Christianity.

The reasons for Creation in traditional Christianity expound upon causes and their related ontological considerations and remain eerily silent when it comes to explicating the motivations for those causes and reasons.

Simply put, traditional Christianity was designed to render all questions about the motivation for Creation obsolete. Traditional Christianity is hardwired against the audacity of supposing God has any motivations for Creation at all. Creation is just something God does. He could not do otherwise.

In this sense, traditional Christianity is happy to inform you about the whats and hows but adamantly avoids considerations of the whys of Creation because it rejects the possibility of any why nots.

The supposed whys it does offer—God displaying his glory, creating all the good that can be created, etc—are merely what and hows in disguise.

Traditional Christianity offers no insights into potential motivations for Creation because it is grounded in secondary thought.

By its nature and limitations, secondary thought precludes all considerations of motivation because it can offer nothing more than causes and reasons, which inevitably all culminate in the one and only big eternal cause and reason.

Asking for anything beyond that point is considered absurd.

Secular materialism is also grounded in secondary thought. Like traditional Christianity, it offers its own explanations of causes and reasons, and like traditional Christianity, it essentially rules out the possibility of comprehending any sort of underlying motivation for the physical universe.

Secular materialism can tell you all about the Big Bang but will scornfully smirk at you if you dare ask it why the Big Bang occurred. The Big Bang (or string theory, or multiverse, or quantum this-or-that) is the only big cause or reason. Asking for anything beyond that point is absurd.

In the end, traditional Christianity and secular materialism offer remarkably similar non-answers when it comes to the matter of why or positing motives for Creation.

Neither acknowledges the question as a valid question.

And how could it be otherwise? After all, both are firmly grounded in secondary thought.

Both implicitly deny the reality of direct knowledge and primary thinking.

However, denials of reality do not negate reality.

Primary thinking and direct knowledge are real, and it is through them, and only through them that we can access the whys, the motives for God creating rather than not.

Note added: By extension, primary thinking and direct knowledge is the direction Christianity or, at the very least, individual Christians need to go.

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