Summary of text [comment] page 67
[Is it not odd that Progressives substituted “the possibilities of liberty, equality and fraternity (or, perhaps, entitlement, fairness and community organization)” for the Christian “possibility of God Recognizing Himself (or, perhaps, all creation)”?
It is as if the theological horizon has contracted.
It no longer contains the cosmos.
The cosmos has no say.
It merely votes “present”.
What does that imply?]
[The Progressive anthropology consists of Bureaus in communion with the God of Progress and Social Justice. Through Bureaus, organizational objectives find their place in the Progressive pantheon.
“Progress and Social Justice3” brings “the good ones and the bad ones2” into relation with “the possibilities of liberty, equality and fraternity1“.
The good ones are victims of the bad ones. The good ones (or their representatives) must identify and destroy the bad ones.
Progressives think that “falsely accusing others of thinkanti-object” will fill the apparent emptiness that is the relationality of their enlightenment god. “Falsely accusing others of thinkanti-object” will propitiate the Progressive Godhead. It is the equivalent to throwing virgins into the volcano.
Pro-objects are the idols of their various creeds. If we do not love them, at least we will fear them.]
Summary of text [comment] page 67
[But Christendom has been surpassed, has it not?
Today, Progressives locate their own symbolic elements in the space where the Holy Spirit, “Recognition as a Triadic Relation”, invisibly mediates. It is sort of like worshipping the flowers that someone put on an altar.
For example, freedom, equality and fraternity are the flowers of Christianity. They only make sense when viewed through the eyes of the Father, looking though the Son. They belong to individuals in communion with the Triune God.
They only make sense when displayed on the altar during a re-enactment of the Last Supper.
They make no sense as divine entities situated by sovereign power.]
[Now, let me propose, along with most Progressives, that God does not exist.
Unfortunately, the relational structure of the spontaneous order of our times (that is, our current Lebenswelt) requires us to posit a symbolic element that stands for “the object that brings us into relation”. Without this symbolic element, no symbolic order can support social construction (plus subsequent sensible construction).
For Christians, this object includes the Triune God, the One God that encompasses all three realms of existence. Three Persons dwell in One True God.
My selection of “recognition” as a key descriptor is suggestive, but not exclusive. This may seem strange, since normal contexts follow the laws of exclusivity. But then, the divine triadic relation encompasses “the existence of of all triadic relations”, if that makes any sense.
For Christendom, “Recognition of Jesus as the Son of the Father” brings us all into relation.]
Summary of text [comment] page 67
[If “our lives are potentiated by God Recognizing Himself”, then “sin may be more than what it appears to be”.
Sin is not merely its own punishment. Nor is sin only self-destruction. No person can annihilate ‘himself’.
Both heaven and hell are caught up in the theodrama of God Recognizing Himself.
His Recognition penetrates our core, our very being.
Whatever we imagine heaven and hell to be, that image is insufficient.]
Summary of text [comment] page 66
[What does this mean for the sinner? Every human lives within a spontaneous order, comprising both God’s creation and the divine act of God Recognizing Himself. We live. We realize ourselves (as creatures). Then we die.
The spontaneous order brings us into being, challenges us, pushes our limits, makes our deathbed, and adapts to our initiatives and responses. When we die, the spontaneous order adapts.
But that is not the end of us. In God Recognizing Himself, we face a second life (or a second death). The dramas of our lives are embedded in His Judgment. His Judgment cannot be separated from His Own Recognition.]
[How does this work?
All existence is more than instrumental cause and effect.
All existence is more than secondness.
Secondness is one of three categories. The other categories are thirdness (the realm of normal contexts, mediations, signs, judgments and other triadic relations) and firstness (the realm of potential, possibilities, images, intuitions, intentions, and meanings).
The Christian description of the Father and the Son indicate secondness. But, these actualities belong to the relation of God Recognizing Himself.
The relation pays tribute to thirdness and firstness. Neither thirdness or firstness can be measured. However, both are revealed when secondness, which can be observed and measured, comes into play.]
[Similarly, in biology, no creature can be reduced to cause and effect with respect to either its own entirety or the entirety of other creatures.
This is readily apparent when one creature is free to respond to another.
Some modern gnostics contextualize these responses as divine, “the ecology”, or more comprehensively, “Gaia”.
In technical terms:
Gaia3(spontaneous order and creature2( potential of creatures freely responding to one another1))]
[The term “one” designates the realm of possibility. One is purely monadic. Firstness is a category of existence. Firstness is inclusive and allows contradiction.
Any resolution of the inherent contradictions in “God the One”, immediately brings “God the One” into the realm of actuality.
Yet, one party’s resolution may not agree with another party’s.
Consequently, two or more “God the One” (plural) may be manifest at any moment. Each manifestation has its own advocates.
The immediate solution may be to attack and murder the opposing resolutions (or parties). This solution does not mitigate the potential for further independent resolutions. All manifestations of “God the One” are heretical to all other manifestations of “God the One”.]
Summary of text [comment] page 66
Schoonenberg claimed that sin is not omnipotent. God’s creative power surrounds and limits sin.
We may ascribe the continuing existence of a sinner to God’s redeeming grace. But that is not enough. The sinner’s continued existence is not only an exhibition of grace, but also of judgment.
Hence the cry of the sinner, “It would have been better for me that I had not been born” (Matt.26:24).
[Both judgment and the continuing existence of each person is intrinsic to the triadic relational structure of God Recognizing Himself. Eternal life is a deductive outcome of three persons in one God.
The Father and the Son are Persons in the category of secondness. Secondness is the realm of cause-and-effect. But note, the divine cause and effect is not instrumental. It is relational. The Father recognizes. The Son is recognized.
Creation is potentiated by the Father through the Son.
Both persons become apparent in the context of a third person, the divine Recognition, the Holy Spirit.]
