All awareness and knowledge, revelation and enlightenment, demands a distinct and fully autonomous human SELF from which to extend; that is, the ability to KNOW is a direct function of the singularity of the HUMAN SELF. That ability cannot be the direct function of what is not man…because if man’s ability to ascertain TRUTH is not of himself, then man’s understanding of everything is always OUTSIDE of him. Which means that man has no frame of reference for himSELF. And without that distinct and fully autonomous reference point, it is impossible for man to define anything else, including and especially God. And it is this ability–the ability to BE an autonomous SELF–which is the very seed of man’s knowledge. So that when understanding is reached, man can claim the knowledge as a direct function of his own ability to possess it; which makes HIM the source of that knowledge. For without man and his innate ability to understand, which is of himself alone, then their can be no knowledge claimed. For without a proper repository for knowledge–an agent which can manifest that knowledge into action which ultimately serves a singular and infinite standard of TRUTH (that standard which all ideas are measured against to determine their veracity; which I submit is man’s LIFE)–then knowledge is irrelevant. And knowledge which is irrelevant isn’t knowledge, by definition. For ANY notion, idea, construct, or concept without an agent capable of defining it thus, in accordance with a standard of TRUTH, is utterly meaningless. Without man, knowledge has no purpose. And what is knowledge without purpose…what is knowledge without an objective (man’s life) which it can serve in order to prove itself true and effective? It is nothing at all.
The point is that man–his LIFE; his SELF–is the beginning of knowledge and understanding, and, as it is the very singular purpose of knowledge and understanding, it is not merely a stepping stone along the philosophical trail, it is the entirety of the trail itself. Nothing is true and nothing is real absent the SELF, the LIFE, of humanity.
And that just doesn’t sit well with most Christians. Because Christians are arguably the greatest proponents of Platonist “primacy of consciousness” philosophy the world has ever seen, and that is exactly why Christian interpretive assumptions beginning with Augustinian thought and metastasizing into various creeds of orthodox Protestant and Catholic theology have been the catalyst for almost every single war, revolution, uprising, human purging, brutal oppression, terrorist act, and mass slaughter of innocents in the entire Western world. Perhaps only a handful of conflicts have ever been spawned for “righteous” (i.e. reasonable) reasons . If you ever want to see just what the death of reason looks like, and the concession that ALL truth and ALL understanding lie inexorably (and impossibly) outside of human existence, go to Church. Any church. They all concede the same Augustinian root assumption: you are not yourself. YOU are but an extension of a determining force. They call this force God; but that name is derived only by tradition. It has actually nothing to do with God, as He is actually presented in Jewish canon.
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A SELF, in order to be a SELF–that is, understood as a distinct agent from whatever it is NOT (its environment)–must obviously be self-aware. That this is axiomatic should not require any explanation. If you are not aware of YOU as YOU, then you cannot be in a position to declare that YOU exist at all.
You must be YOU in order to truly be a SELF which can relate to God (i.e. exchange value), and to know Him. And if YOU are YOU, then God is by definition NOT you, and thus God cannot rationally be declared omnipotent or omniscient. Why? Again, because God cannot be YOU. And further, God cannot be anything He is NOT. If there is a God and there is a Creation then one thing is an absolute certainty: there is an infinite and absolute distinction between the two. Creation is NOT God and God is not Creation. Period. Full stop. And neither possesses the ability to be the other because to BE what one is NOT completely contradicts the agent in question. If God can BE Creation, then in that circumstance He cannot be declared God; because an absolute cannot be parsed into two mutually exclusive agencies….it cannot be what it is and what it is NOT at the same time. This is an obvious contradiction that not even God can suffer. And if God cannot be you then God cannot be omnipotent. He cannot be all powerful because all is no longer “all”, it is only part. His power is reserved for Himself, which means that it is constrained by His own particular frame of reference.
And if His particular frame of reference is limited to Himself, then He cannot be omniscient because what He knows is always going to be an inexorable function of His own particular frame of reference: Himself. He cannot know what is NOT Him knows because knowledge is always a direct function of the absolute of the individual agent which possesses the “knowing”.
You can never know absolutely what I know, and vice versa, because knowledge is exclusive to our own infinite frame of reference, which is our unique SELF. So HOW one knows what he or she knows comes directly from BEING themselves. Not from being anyone else, which is of course impossible. No two self-aware agents possess the same knowledge because the infinity of the SELF’s frame of reference cannot, by definition, be breached by anything or anyone outside of it. YOU are YOU infinitely, and so YOU cannot ever be in a position to see things as I see them. And the converse is also true. Thus, your knowledge is limited according to the infinite SELF of your own existence.
The same holds true for God. While God can affirm the same IDEAS as man does, and can reveal to man wisdom and truth (properly defined, that is, not defined as the Platonists do), this does not translate into “omniscience”. This does not translate into God’s ability to become what He is not and to act from it (do anything) and to realize from it (know anything).
So once again the same axiom dismantles yet more tools of the mystic tyrant. Omnipotence and omniscience are rendered false by the very existence of the autonomous, individual human SELF. The fact that YOU are YOU means that God is NOT. Which means that you, as yourself, individually, are able to act and do and be and think and know and learn and produce and earn and deserve and will and act in service to morality and to TRUTH; and you can know that the fruit of your existence and consciousness is real and valuable and worthwhile and represents everyday something new and fresh and beautiful; that is, it represents the manifestation of your life and your pursuit of it thus, to your comfort and pleasure, which is the very purpose of BEING, and why life is such a blessing from God.
And the existence of SELF is a very, very good thing. It means that real relationship can occur with the Creator. Real value exchange can be manifest. Real salvation can present itself. Real Divine help can be offered to those who suffer. Real joy can be felt by those who do not. And it can be stated unequivocally that suffering is NOT the purpose of life; for this is the fruit of a life lived for DEATH’S sake. And this is wholly contradictory to God’s purpose for his Creation. Being should be joyful…it should be a blessing; and you have the sole right to determine how “joyful” and “blessing” are manifest in your own life. And God is here to help you to that end, and to help others as well.