Summary of text [comment] page 82
[For Augustine, the (situation-level) flesh was redeemable because (content-level) reason could rule.
But, reason could not rule on its own.
As St. Paul implied, reason was just as corruptible as the flesh.
Reason was redeemable because it was open to the (perspective-level) gift of grace through Christ.]
[Speculative reason was obviously superior to practical reason.
Augustine started as a Manichean because it was the philosophy of those who considered themselves better the common folk.
Then, Augustine experienced a change of heart.
In doing so, he ultimately placed the speculations of the Manicheans in the same inferior position as Manicheans put common folk.
The interscope of Manichean speculation became the intersection of Augustine’s heart.]
[Manicheans regarded themselves as intellectually superior to the common folk. Certainly, common folk were just as intelligent as any Manichean philosopher. However, common folk could not explain why they were not inferior.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The prior interscopes also suggest this: The Manichean solution arrived after the stoical common folk interscope turned into an intersection.
Speculative reason resolved the intersection.
Thus, the speculative reason of the Manichean was born through detachment from the practical reason of stoical common folk.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The identical situation, where our good spiritual being was trapped within the matrix of evil material, emerges from two types of reason.
The stoicism of the common folk rely on one type of reason.
The enlightenment of the Manicheans rely on the other.
In both cases, reason serves as evidence for the spark of spiritual good.
Both types of reason produce content that could be situated within the situation.]
[The faculty of reason solved practical problems.
The same faculty of reason allowed the possibility to escape slavery to the material world.
Reason could learn (recognize) the secret knowledge (gnosis) that would liberate the spirit from its material impediments.
Reason could learn the incantations to recite after death, when the spirit migrated back to the source.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[Common folk practiced a brutal style of Stoicism.
Reason was one of the characters that indicated the spiritual spark within this material being.
Yet, reason was confined to finding practical solutions to keeping the flesh alive.]
