Summary of text [comment] page 22

[I now want to consider these “objects” that “bring individual in to relation” or “bring individuals into organization”.

All objects follow the logic of Lacan’s point de caption.  I suppose that point de caption is very similar to the shoelace analogy.  Like shoelaces, point de captions can become either knotted or undone.  In the former case, the garment has no give.  In the latter case, the garment comes apart.

I prefer to use a similar analogy: buttoning.  The advantage is that objects may constitute either the buttonhole or the button.

For suprasovereign religions, the object exists in the realms of normal context₃ and possibility₁. The object is thus inspirational; that is, inspiring creativity₃ and desire₁.  The object is relational.   Creativity and desire support relations.  One can think of the “buttonhole₃ (say, a think^divine₃)” as bringing “an actuality₂ (say, a virtuous act₂)” into relation with “the possibilities inherent in the button₁ (say, an exercise in conscience^free₁)”.  This actuality is “an act of buttoning₂” that does far more than meet some organizational goal.  It builds character and relations.

For infrasovereign religions, the object exists in the realm of actuality₂.  The object is thus dictatorial.  It dictates a result.

So let me go backwards and consider “the buttoning₂” as “an organizational goal₂” and “the actions required to accomplish the goal₂“.  The buttonhole no longer reflects a context.  It is merely an actuality.  The button no longer reflects a possibility.  It is merely an actuality.

Technical creativity and occasionally hard work are required.  But these feel like “conformity”.

Conformity?

The think^group established what the buttonhole and button are.  One is not brought into relation.  One is brought into organization.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

[I suspect that a similar pattern eventually established Enlil as the sovereign god of Nippur (addressed in chapter 1 of An Archaeology of the Fall).

Shamans of the waters-above god and of the waters-below goddess established a sovereign to meet one of the proper exercises of sovereign power.

This humble establishment served as a site for contesting power.

Eventually, the old shamans (who built character, not organizations) were displaced as an infrasovereign “devotion to Enlil” pursued sovereign power.  This infrasovereign cult appealed to many because it accomplished organizational objectives.

Canals had to be dug and cleaned out.  Monumental architecture had to be built.

Crucially, both palace and temple owned the organizational objects of the Public Cult of Nippur.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

[The Old Testament depicts – in a plain honest fashion – the appearance of a suprasovereign religion that, over time and due to changing circumstances, anointed a sovereign.

Ironically, its impetus for establishing a sovereign was one of the four justifications for government: defense against other kingdoms.  However, once the sovereign became a seat of power, various factions arose, justifying themselves on the basis of various organizational objects.

What were those objects?  Here is one:

A foreign god guaranteed a truce between warring kingdoms.  This truce brought the whole of society into relation with organizational goals (that is, security and peace).

Prophets spoke against these other-kingdom-loving sovereign^infra cults.  The prophets were correspondingly accused of an anti-object ideology (defying the gods that brought a truce) and conscience (hating peace).  The prophets spoke on the basis of the suprasovereign religion.  They put the sovereign into context.

In time, the sovereign^infra collapsed from the elite’s inability to see the consequences of appeasing foreign gods in order to attain peace (after all, the worshippers of any foreign god would eventually become an infrasovereign faction grasping for sovereign power).

Thus the prophets were proven true.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

[A State Religion,  Public Cult, or sovereign^infra will ignore the natural philosophical consequences of (1) its exercise of sovereign power plus (2) its projection of anti-object attributes onto perceived antagonists.

The concrete expression of the horizontal nested form is:

denial of law^essential₃(pro-object relational actions₂(dispositions₁))

The manifestations of this nested form will depend on many variables, including the manner in which sovereign power is confused with law^essential, the brutality of the actions, and the dispositions of the pro-object actors.

These variables assure that the one person most likely to attain the position of sovereign in a mass movement will be the one who is most poker-faced, most brutal and most ruthlessness.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

[From the prior blogs, 1.4D through J, I have proposed a way to identify (perhaps, define) “religion” on the basis of two criteria:

A religion views the individual according to the model of the intersecting nested forms where the horizontal axis is natural philosophical and the vertical axis is moral religious.

The vertical axis is divided (in our current Lebenswelt of unconstrained complexity) into parallel exclusive yet interpellating nested forms.

All religions have a nested relation to sovereign power.  Suprasovereign religions put the sovereign into context by expressing an object that brings individuals into relation.   Infrasovereign religions are called into being as individuals establish an organizational object (or the object that brings the individuals into organization).  Infrasovereign religions are then situated by sovereign power.

Occasionally, infrasovereign religions seek sovereign power.  Occasionally, they have sovereign power thrust upon them.  When religion^{infrasovereign} gains sovereign power, the sovereign^infra will substitute its organizational object into the position of “divine” (of think^divine) and project an anti-object into the position of “group” (of think^group).

Summary of text [comment] page 22

[Take a shoe as an analogy.  The shoe is a situation where a single string interlaces and ties together two different sides.  The single string comes out as two different contexts (the left or right sides of the shoe).  Both sides (normal contexts) tie up the situation (single).

The two normal contexts of the intersecting nested forms seem to “tie into one another” rather than “contextualize one another”.

In addition, the string itself reminds us of the monadic aspect of the intersecting forms, where disposition and conscience^specified belong to a single world of possibilities.  At times they appear indistinguishable.  At times they are clearly contrasting.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

Schoonenberg continued by weaving two themes together.

Here is one: Sin is the violation of norms of the concrete world of creation, that is against God’s will and wisdom expressed in our nature.  Sin is against the essential laws of natural and supernatural reality.

Here is the other: Sin is a violation of the norms of the Covenant, the laws given to us by Moses.  These laws come from without and define our nature.  Sin is an offense against the positive laws of God’s will.

He ties these themes together by asserting that the “positive” laws (theme two) are justified by the “essential” laws (theme one).

[The statement that one type of law is justified by the other implies that one type of law puts the other into context.  Is this really the case?

Schoonenberg’s stylistic method of interlacing and tying together suggests otherwise.  “Justification” does not “interlace and tie together”.  The model of the intersecting nested forms performs this trick quite nicely.]

Summary of text [comment] page 22

The “No of sin” shows itself in two forms: refusal and usurpation.  Each form includes the other.

[I mention this text in order to show how slowly I’m moving: This same sentence starts blog 1.4D.

Ancient Israel was the first civilization on record to clearly document the historic pattern of a suprasovereign religion establishing a sovereign, that then became a locus of power and a site of competition for infrasovereign religious factions.]

According to Schoonenberg, some [infrasovereign religious] factions aimed to “be like unto God” (Gen 3:5) and to dispose (as if they owned) God’s free gifts.

Of course, they had to destroy whoever complained.  They did so by projecting the anti-object, claiming that dissenters (and whoever else might accidentally stand in their way) held despicable ideologies (that God could not give gifts) and were bad people (for hating God and God’s gifts).]

The sovereign^infra Cult of the Royal House (of the First Temple) projected an ideology of disobedience and a persona of disrespect onto the prophet.  This was manifestly the opposite of what God (and practically everyone else, for that matter) witnessed.

I pause to put a diagram of the general intersecting nested forms for an infrasovereign religion.

[This leads to a question: Who pays the price of think^group?

“Denial of law^essential” or “ignoring the consequences of the imposition an object relation” is symptomatic of think^group.

Often, sovereign power is confused – confounded – with law^essential.  “The law” is defined as “the capricious actions of sovereign power”.

Most often, unintended consequences are attributed to the projected other.  I suspect that Rene Girard’s models of the scapegoat may be deduced from this arrangement.  Notably, Girard’s tradition does not develop the other side of the model, what I call “the golden calf”.

Scapegoating protects the golden calves only so long.  Eventually, all subjects become aware of the high costs of think^pro-object.  They come to realize that think^anti-object is merely a projection.  The guilty ones (scapegoats) do not really hold the religious ideology and moral attitudes attributed to them.

When people no longer believe, think^pro-object must rely more and more on the brute force of sovereign power in order to maintain power.  Think^pro-object stupidly clings to its organizational object.  They cannot let go.  In particular, they must suppress the appearance of individuals who critique their religion from the perspective of think^divine.

They must prevent the appearance of a think^divine that dares to put their sovereign^infra into context.]