Monthly Archives: September 2015

“Existence Exists”: The axiom which fails its own assertion, and why the “Law of Identity” and “Law of Non-Contradiction” collectivize reality, and thus do NOT identify and DO contradict

Metaphysics, , , , , ,

A simple Google search using this criteria “existence exists” yielded this result at the top of the page, from Importance of Philosophy.com.

“Existence exists is an axiom which states that there is something, as opposed to nothing.  At the core of every thought is the observation that “I am aware of something”.  The very fact that one is aware of something is the proof that something in some form exists–that existence exists–existence being all that which exists.  Also, to grasp the thought, “I am aware of something” you must be conscious.  Existence is axiomatic because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth.  To deny existence is to say that something doesn’t exist.  A denial of existence is only possible if existence exists.

To exist, an existent (an entity that exists) must have a particular identity.  A thing cannot exist without existing as something, otherwise it would be nothing and it would not exist.  In the statement “something exists”, the something refers to the axiom of identity and the exists  refers to the axiom of existence.  They cannot be separated and are like two sides of the same coin or two ways of understanding the same axiom.”

At first cursory glance, this notion of “existence exists” is rock solid.  So much so that scarcely anyone tries to disprove it, let alone succeeds.  The question begged then is: If this metaphysical axiom is so thoroughly rational, and so thoroughly complete, why has its effects not been felt more distinctly (if at all) upon the world today, in all aspects of man’s life, and particularly  his ethics and his politics?  Why does the world seem to slide faster and faster with each passing moment into the abyss of collectivist ideologies which demand a categorical refutation of such a metaphysic, whereby nothing at all can be said to exist except it be thus declared by a few men who have been “called”, somehow, to lead the unenlightened (un-elected) masses into right thinking and behavior by appealing not to reason, not to notions of “existence”, but to their right to possess a monopoly of violence, granted them via their authority as a function of their priestly position? For it seems that at the root of every major political, social, or economical school of thought today is the idea that the human individual belongs first to some collective–an abstraction–by which he obtains his identity:  the Race, the Religion (the Saved, the Called), the Sovereign Will, the Laws of Nature, the Party, the [select your flavor of socio-economic category], the Nation, the Gang, the Club…etc., etc.  You get the idea.

For truly if man is first and foremost his collective then he cannot ever really consider himself apart from it.  For the collective (or in actuality, those who are somehow infused with the “enlightenment” of the abstraction in order that they may speak for it, as the mediator between the Ideal and the Masses) is in charge of not only what man does but who he is, and therefore, of what he thinks.  Which means the individual cannot have a unique and distinct existence, which means that he cannot claim that any particular thing exists, because he cannot possibly be in the epistemological place to know, having no unique SELF by which to reference the definition of what it is being claimed to exist. In such a collectivist metaphysic then, it is impossible to make the claim that “existence exists” because “existence” is the sole jurisdiction of an abstraction of which man the individual can have nothing to do.  Because there is really no such thing as “man” proper, himself.

Keeping that in mind, to claim that existence exists we must proclaim that man, the individual, is capable of apprehending that which is said to exist, in and of itself, because he, himself, has his own distinct existence.  So, by this, he is in a position to know.  Since he IS, he can know his environment and all the things in it, by the context of him SELF, which is not collective, but is, in fact, distinct and singular.

In short, if we say “existence exists” we must concede that each individual possesses, and is sufficiently capable of, his own autonomous existence and therefore cannot first and foremost be the extension of a collective which functions by the “enlightenment” of a select ecclesiasty on behalf of the abstract Ideal which is said to be the source of all reality.

Therefore, it would seem, at least if you take the Aristotellian’s and Objectivist’s and Empricist’s word for it, that existence exists = individual identity = the individual as the moral and rational reference.  And this sounds very good, and indeed, the conclusion that the Self of the individual is the Standard of Truth and thus Morality is the only rationally consistent metaphysical, epistemological, and moral conclusion.

So…er…why is this not the overwhelmingly prevailing metaphysic today?  Why, if “existence exists” is so gosh darn impenetrable and flawlessly cohesive an absolute, as the smug little blurb posted above implies, do so many people obviously reject it?  Are they all imbeciles?  Are they all indoctrinated or programmed by their Marxists handlers?  Are they all willfully depraved?  Are they too committed to the lie? Do they have too much of their life’s blood at stake in the Marxist game to concede the genius and irrefutable reasoning of Aristotle and all his progenies?

Or…could it be something else?

Could it be that the assumption that “existence exists” is woefully inadequate at best as a metaphysical axiom?  Could it be that for years that what has been thought to be the final word on metaphysical truth is actually not, in fact, the final word.  Or, even worse, perhaps is fundamentally an appeal to the metaphysical “reality” of abstract Ideals in disguise, which demands a collectivist existence for each and every one of us and thus dooms us to a life of exploitation and annihilation?

For me, I aver that it is this last one.  That “existence exists”, because it groups all things into a fundamental abstract category of “existence”, must itself be inadequate when it comes to defining the very “things” it claims exist.

Look at it this way:

According to the notion that “existence exists”, what defines things is their collective, not individual, existence. However, notice that the notion also appeals to distinct or individual identity.  This poses a problem because it incorporates a fundamental contradiction.

You see, what exists individually, if it truly has a “nature” or “identity” which is fundamentally distinct from all other things, cannot actually co-exist with those other things unless its “existence” ultimately subordinates said nature/identity.  And thus the contradiction is this: A thing cannot exist absolutely distinct from other things by its “nature” and yet at the same time posses absolutely equal and indistinguishable “existence” as that of all other things which are said to exist.  In such a case, we are forced to somehow reconcile distinction and inclusion; collective existence with singular identity within a given context: the object in question.  This…just doesn’t work.  A is A, so goes the claim.  However A cannot be utterly A if A shares existence collectively with B, C, D, and so on.  And if it doesn’t share its existence…meaning if its existence is not fundamentally identical, and thus fundamentally indistinct, from all other objects then the claim that existence exists cannot be universal to all objects.  Since all objects only possess existence as a function of their own distinct nature, they cannot actually co-exist since the distinction is absolute.  In which case, existence as an axiom is impossible.  However, if the distinction of identity is subordinated to collective existence, then A is only A subjectively so; meaning A cannot be A unless A is also B, C, D and so on, inexorably connected by collective, indistinguishable existence.

And this is what I mean when I say that the metaphysic of “existence” is simply inadequate, and that’s being kind.  In its attempt to define existence by appealing to fundamental distinctions of nature it commits a moral logically fallacy…an irreparable contradiction in terms which renders the metaphysic a complete failure.  Certainly, it is in no way an axiom.  For any idea which relies upon contradiction in order to validate itself as “true” becomes irrelevant, and therefore, not true by definition.  For that which is utterly irrelevant (meaning it cannot possess even a contextual relevancy) cannot have any objective purpose in reality or in actuality.   Even according to the Aristotelian standards upon which it is based the idea “existence exists” is a failure.

Laws of Identity and Non-Contradiction are Not Compatible with the Metaphysic of Existence:

Once one claims “existence”, one must answer the question “what exists?”  And as soon as the that question enters into the equation, the notion of existence as the irreducible metaphysic collapses.  Because what is distinct, absolutely, by individual “identity”, cannot be integrated by absolute collective “existence”.  The metaphysic thus fails Aristotle’s Law of both Identity AND Non-Contradiction.  It fails the law of Identity because the object which is collective by its existence must be equal and indistinguishable from all other objects in order for existential interaction and integration to occur, and therefore it can have no individual or distinct identity, because it is always and fundamentally sharing the collective existence.  Further, it fails the law of Non-Contradiction on both the ontological and semantic levels.  An object is not ontologically distinct if it shares existence; and it is not semantically distinct if it is conceptually X because it is NOT Y.  Meaning, an object, like a rock, cannot be defined as a rock in a vacuum of itself.  A rock, in a vacuum, has no relevant nature…no relevant identity.  It becomes infinitely a rock, in which case, “rock-ness” is meaningless.  Infinite rock is functionally equal to NO or ZERO rock.  A rock is only relevantly, and thus rationally and truthfully, a rock if it can be juxtaposed to something which is NOT a rock:  This is a rock: that is a sandwich.  Only in this context can a thing’s nature…a thing’s identity, be relevant and therefore true.

So, in essence, “existence exists” is really a collectivist platitude, which demands that all things which are said to individually exist ultimately share, collectively, both existence and identity. Which means that fundamentally there is no such actual thing as either.

And this is why the metaphysic of “existence” has failed, is failing, and will always fail.  It fails the very test of its own assertion.  That is, it claims one thing but demands something else.  It claims the truth of the individual but demands obedience to the collective.

Truth Can Never Serve Under the Auspices of Authority

General Philosophy, , , ,

Read the title to this essay one more time.

I asked you to do this because it is very important to understand; and it is also important to understand that for all the words of this essay, it really is that simple, and it really does come back to that basic point.

Truth can never serve under the auspices of authority.

What does this mean?

Well, it means precisely what it says.  Truth does not serve, nor can it it serve, authority.  And this is because the two concepts are antipodal.  They are entirely opposite.  One, truth, is reasonable.  The other, authority, is violence…and violence by its very nature rejects reason because once it is injected there is no more discussion–for discussion ultimately becomes moot.  And once discussion is moot there is nothing left to talk about.  And naturally if there is nothing left to talk about then reason, which uses concepts, which uses words, is irrelevant.

Let me put it another way, this time in the form of a question:

Is appealing to authority the same thing as appealing to truth?

The answer of course is “no”.  And this is because truth and authority are entirely difference concepts, and, again, I aver that they are antipodal concepts.  If we attempt to integrate them we are attempting to integrate complete opposites.  To say that authority can incorporate truth on the practical level (like, say, in the neo-Reformed, neo-Calvinist Church) is like saying that left can incorporate right or that up can incorporate down on the practical level.  It’s a logical impossibility simply because one is considered the very opposite of the other.  That is, practically realized, if we empirically observe one we cannot, at the same time, observe the other from our frame of reference.

In the same way, no one can appeal to their authority whilst claiming to wield that authority by being in possession of truth.  This is because truth cannot be a function of authority, and vice versa. Just like up cannot be a function of down and left cannot be a function of right.  If someone appeals to authority to direct your behavior, he can never appeal to truth as that by which he also directs that behavior.  And the opposite of course is true.

What is authority?  Well, I have heard it said best by John Immel of SpiritualTyranny.com:  Authority is force.  And in this case, the reality is that authority is nothing more than a euphemism for threatening.  To claim authority is necessarily to threaten your life.  If you do not obey authority, you forfeit your existence.  Period.  For without that implicit (or explicit) understanding, there is no such thing as authority in the first place.  There is no appealing to authority ever, past, present, or future, anywhere in the world, where obedience to authority is optional.  If it’s optional, then the authority has no inherent right to compel outcomes in service to itself.  Or put another way, if authority is not authorized to compel outcomes in service to itself then it cannot, by definition, claim to be an authority.

What this means is that if I tell you that you must do X or Y because I am in authority over you, what I am actually saying is that I claim the right to force (violence) you to do X or Y. My authority grants me the right (and the “moral” right is implied) to compel your behavioral outcomes by force, whether you want to do them or not.  And of course, if I can force you into the behavior I desire then there is no sense in reasoning with you.  There is no sense in convincing you that you should do what I ask because its the more rational thing to do.  Again, reason, which is the formulation of truth, is beside the point.

I understand that there are those who will disagree with this assertion. However, I maintain that under the scope of someone’s authority any attempts to reason with those he claims are subordinate to his authority cannot possibly be ultimately reasonable.  Now matter how reasonable the argument may be in and of itself, once it is coupled with authority it becomes subordinate to force.  Meaning that the only reason one who is in authority over you might appeal to a rational argument in order to convince you to behave in a manner he desires is because in the present context, whatever it may be,  it is more expedient or efficacious to use ostensibly benign words and ideas to compel your behavior than physical violence or threats of violence. Thus, reason, when existing under the auspices of authority, becomes an artifice, nothing more.

Why is this?

It is because authority has only one rational practical outcome, and that is to compel obedience independent of and rendering inert the individual’s will; while reason (and its logical conclusion, truth), also has only one rational practical outcome, and that is to to affirm the morality, utility, and efficacy of the individual will as necessary to his identity as a human being and thus as necessary to human existence both individually and collectively.  Reason exists only to serve the individual–who, because he possesses an absolute and singular frame of reference for life, himSELF, must be the Standard of Truth and Morality– in order that he may manifest his own life as he chooses, to the promotion, profit, and perpetuation of that life.

The equation, for clarity’s sake, can be rendered something like this:

Authority = Force, while Force = Violence.  Violence compels outcomes, and these outcomes are then described as acts of “obedience” to the authority (though this is, in fact, merely a bastardization of the idea).   Violence to compel outcomes in service to authority necessarily disregards the will of the recipients of that violence.  Meaning that once violence is sanctioned as a moral tool to coerce an outcome, human volition is irrelevant.  You will obey or you will be forced to obey.  And if you cannot be forced, well…the only logical conclusion is your death.  If your purpose is to serve the authority whether you want to or not, simply because he is the authority, and you refuse to fulfill your purpose, the logical extension of the right to compel by violence is the right to murder those who will not be compelled, even by violence.

If your will is subordinated then to authority–which it is, otherwise authorities could not claim authority in the first place, as appeals to authority are ALWAYS and ALWAYS an appeal to force–then your very life, your very existence, which is dependent upon your own will in order to render and make choices to determine the outcomes of your life as an individual, moment by moment, becomes subject to the claimed authority.  And not just some of your life, but all of it.

It is impossible for an authority to claim the right to your will only contextually.  As a function of your very nature, at any given moment you are acting under the capacity of your own volition, and this entirely.  Or, said differently, your volitional decisions affect the entirety of your existence at any given moment.  Thus, to claim the right to compel your actions by force via an appeal to authority, and thus the right to disregard your will at a specific moment in time is to, if we take the premise to its logical conclusion, claim the right to disregard your will at all times.

I might render this idea this way:  To command your will by force is to command your mind by force.  And if your mind can be commanded by force then your cognitive assumptions by which you exist, and exist entirely, can be commanded by force.  And and since the entirety of your actions are dictated by the fundamentals of what you believe, and these fundamentals, like the rest of you, are subject to the authority, your entire life in all respects and all contexts becomes sacrificed, necessarily, to he who claims the right to compel you by his authority.  Anyone who claims the right to force the outcomes of your existence claims the right to govern, redefine, and/or eradicate your basic assumptions.  And since these assumptions are universal to your entire existence, he who claims authority in a specific context of your life must in reality be claiming it in all contexts.

Therefore, you must understand that when you place yourself, under an “authority”, you have committed functional suicide.  If someone else places you under authority, he has committed functional murder. You have ceased to exist, because your independent volition–your free will–governed by your own assumptions, has been eradicated and replaced by a proxy who claims, at his fundamental philosophical root, the right to murder you at any place, time, and for any reason.

And this is the real point of authority.  Authority is force and force is control, and that control can only be in service to that which claims ownership of you.  And to own you is to dispose of you.  Whether that dispossession is literal or figurative, as far as you are concerned, the outcome is the same:  eradication of SELF.

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Because HE, the authority, decides you should do something, and YOU are utterly subject to his authority, you must do it, and when you are doing it you are doing it because, and for the sole reason, that he has claimed to the right to force you.  Whether you want to is beside the point.  Your choice is irrelevant, and so your will is irrelevant.  You act only–and for no other reason than because he can make you act.  For YOU are irrelevant because YOU have no actual say in the matter. Even if you agree, agreement is irrelevant when self-ownership is irrelevant.  The slave who agrees to do his master’s work because he “loves” the master is no less a slave than the slave who does so grudgingly because he fears the whips and shackles.

Willingly obeying appeals to authority it is the death of SELF in the practical, pragmatic sense; while refusing to do it is the death of SELF in the literal sense.  But the practical sense is the corollary to the literal sense.  In other words, to you, the outcome is the same:  the absence of YOU.  As I said earlier.

My friends…my readers…please, please remember this.  Anyone who claims authority over you, for any reason, cannot possibly be appealing to truth.  And if they are not appealing to truth there is no possible way they can have your interest in mind.  To accept an authority is to accept death.  Period.  Full stop.

All legitimate ideas will be ideas that are paradigms of consistently integrated concepts all affirming the right of the only legitimate Standard of Truth and Morality, the Individual SELF, to be promoted, affirmed, and prospered.  Truly there are GOOD universal mores to follow…truly there are moral actions which demand praise and imitation, and evil ones which demand justice and recompense and rejection.  But these are always a function of reason, and reason is always a function of the right of the individual to own his own life, fully and freely, full stop.  Truth, goodness, and meaningful outcomes are NEVER a function of authority.  Ever.

Whatever you believe and do, believe it and do it only because it serves you, practically, in the way in which you desire, and freely so.  Do not believe it and do it because someone threatens you with violence or pain or misery or death for not believing or doing it.  In such a case, you can be sure that there is NOTHING actually there to believe or do in the first place, because in such a scenario there is NO YOU to believe it or do it at all.

Where “Begging” Means Threats and “Imploring” Means Force: Collectivism masquerading as the Christian Orthodox Ideal, Part 15

Calvinism/Philosophy, Epistemology, , , , , , ,

I quote the following from  pages 32, 33  of  the booklet “Community: Your pathway to progress”, published by North Point Ministries, 2008:

“Let’s face it; we’re all prone to wander.  Commitment and conviction just aren’t enough to keep us from drifting.  If they were, we would be far skinnier and richer…Two out of three functioning legs on our proverbial spiritual stools just aren’t enough to support the weight of our lives.  We need the third leg of connection if we’re to remain upright.

‘See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:12-13)’

We are corporately commanded to encourage one another.  The Greek word that’s translated into English as “encourage” is not the equivalent of a slap on the back…Rather, it’s an urgent appeal, an exhortation–a begging even.  The author implores us to join with a group of people willing to do whatever it takes to keep each other faithful.  It assumes a connection where accountability is welcomed and reciprocated.”

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Aaaaaaand…we’re back.  Welcome, my friends, to another episode of “How Many Presumptions, Contradictions, Deceptions, and Spurious Explications Can We Pass Off as Sound Doctrine”, brought to you by our esteemed mystic sponsor, straight from the hot and sunny nether coast of Hell itself, North Point Ministries.

*[Applause]*

Back to our show.

First things first. Let’s get the ostensible contradiction out of the way, and then we’ll deal with the larger issue.

Notice this portion of the quote:

“It [encouragement] is not the equivalent of a slap on the back…Rather, it’s an urgent appeal, an exhortation–a begging even.”

Now notice how the author(s) italicize the word “begging” for emphasis…that is not something I added.

Now, here’s the next part of the quote I would like to bring to your attention:

“The author [of Hebrews] implores us to join with a group of people willing to do whatever it takes to keep each other faithful.  It assumes a connection where accountability is welcomed and reciprocated.”

Let me give you a few minutes to use your impressive powers of observation and reason (and I’m not being sarcastic here…I understand well the rational faculties of my readers) to note the ostensible contradiction; and then to discern why contradiction is not really the problem, it is how they render the verse with respect to the Reformed epistemology of:

Encouragement = Accountability = Authority = Force (“whatever it takes”) = Obedience = “Real” Faith = “Salvation” = Encouragement = Accountability…and the cycle simply repeats itself (this is known in today’s counter-movement, The Truth About New Calvinism, fronted by the ineffable Paul Dohse from paulspassingthoughts.com, as the heretical, yet never expressly named, doctrine of “progressive justification”).

Okay…I’ll assume you’ve completed your examination, and commence to explicate what you’ve very likely apprehended already, but perhaps not in so many words.

The first issue this article will explore is, again, the ostensible contradiction.  If the “sinner” is in a collective of people who all, including the hypothetical “sinner” in question, welcome and reciprocate “accountability”, then why does the “sinner” need to be begged and implored to keep himself from sin’s allure VIA collective accountability within his community group?  Refraining from sin is a function of collective accountability, which, North Point Ministries says, is a function of small groups full of people who “welcome” and “reciprocate” such accountability.  So why all the begging?

As I understand it, to “welcome” and “reciprocate” something specifically indicates a prominent willingness to engage in that thing.

For example, you don’t, by definition, need to beg me to go to the coffee shop with you if I’ve already welcomed your invitation.  In the same way, if I then reciprocate the invitation, you don’t need to iterate or reiterate the practical, absolute, and/or relative benefits of coffee shop patronage.  This is what we colloquially call “preaching to the choir”.  I’ve already conceded the the value of coffee shopping with you, and welcomed and reciprocated the idea.  So why beg and implore? To beg someone who’s already said yes is actually counterproductive to the issue.  If you beg and plead in the face of rank acquiescence then you certainly show yourself a madman…one of which should be avoided at all costs, up to and including a restraining order.  Which means that your encouragement to a given end is beside the point.  You are insane and so must be, by logical extension, your ideas and avocations and group affiliations.  You don’t need to beg for something you already possess, is my point.  For all you Reformed Christians, you should save your begging for Judgement Day, because on that day, since your salvation is completely arbitrary, you might need it.

Then again, I suppose by the fact that Reformed “salvation” is by God’s arbitrary whim, and has nothing whatsoever to do with you, because you are evil personified according to your very own metaphysic of Total Depravity, you probably won’t.

At any rate, notice that the contradiction is, again, purely ostensible.  It’s not really what the author(s) are saying here.  And this is why we must be so very careful not to get involved with this movement (Reformed theology, especially new Calvinism). Because, for all of their sophism and the buckets upon buckets of cognitive dissonance, they are very good at presenting their appeals to their absolute authority and divine right to coerce you into their will by FORCE and VIOLENCE and INTIMIDATION as something to which you must personally agree and something which somehow involves your voluntary participation and permission and valued contribution.  They have had years to perfect their surreptitious approach, and they wield their subliminally seductive style as masterfully as a snake wields its technique of hiding perfectly still, with prodigious patience, until its prey is within striking distance and is utterly, utterly helpless.

You see, North Point Ministries is not actually engaging in contradiction here.  They are not suggesting that you be begged and implored to walk the straight and narrow path of righteousness and holiness.  They are begging and imploring you to affiliate with a North Point Ministries “community” group (also known variously as “care”, “small”, or “home” groups depending on which neo-Calvinist church you attend)…and in that group is where you will find a group of consciously or subconsciously indoctrinated thugs who intend to “do whatever it takes” to keep each other “faithful”.

And this phrase “whatever it takes” should naturally terrify us.  A cursory glance at the internet reveals just what “whatever” includes.  Specifically, I invite you to read John Immel’s article on spiritualtyranny.com which examines the history of former Sovereign Grace Ministries pastor, Larry Tomczak, and the terrifying horror show of his split from his employer.  A Hollywood script-writer could scarcely envision a more sinister and dystopian plot…one which involved, among other things, the abject crime of blackmail, whereupon Tomczak’s very child was used as leverage.  Indeed, Wes Craven, God rest his soul, would have been hard pressed to conjure up a greater form of evil in his prodigious imagination.

And these are the men who are going to beg you to do anything?  As if! You will all obey or you will, sooner or later, suffer the consequences of your temerity.  And so will your family and anyone who dares call you “friend”.

This is not to exonerate Tomczak, mind you.  As far as I’m aware he is a fully unrepentant Calvinist in his own right, who appealed to the very same right of pastoral authority as those who sought his excruciating demise until that authority was turned upon him.  And much like the serial killer who ironically begs for his life before being forced, bawling and blubbering and dripping with snot and spit, into the electric chair, Tomczak begged for absolution from his own Calvinist ideas without ever substantially rejecting them, and which demanded his treatment at the hands of SGM, and demanded that he affirm their actions as just.  The irony is just so glorious, and yet so overlooked by these people.

The point I am making is that when these mystic tyrants declare that they will do “whatever it takes”, they mean “whatever it takes”; and we would do well to remember this.  When you get down to the root of it, belonging to a church in America today is almost certainly not about salvation…or love, or peace, or prayer, or charity, or compassion, or encouragement, or acceptance, or benevolence, or counsel.  It is about Authority, and Authority is Force, and Force is always and fundamentally DEstructive.  It is NEVER CONstructive.  I promise you this:  should you involve yourself in the Reformed movement, with its appeals to the metaphysic of man’s Total and Pervasive Depravity, you will be removed from yourself, one way or another.  The point of the ministry is not to exonerate you before God, but to set you before Him–which means THEM, as they are “standing in His stead”, eradicating the difference from your point of view–for the purpose of abject, summary, and categorical destruction; and this after they have taken from you as much free labor and mammon as they can possibly get into their grubby little hands.

So…once you have been love-bombed into the church, and then “begged” and “implored” (which…hilarious choice of words because, as a church member, you have no real choice in the matter; you WILL join the community group or you WILL be ostracized, at best, and quite possibly thought of and pitied as an unsaved, devil-worshiping apostate)…yes, once you are in the church and then “begged” into your quaint little harem of “community”, the question which remains is: Why is it that you feel so obligated to “welcome” and “reciprocate” the “accountability” (sin-sniffing/relentless skepticism) within that “community”?

The answer by now should be self-evident.

Fear.

The fear of violence.  The fear of intimidation.  The fear of ostracism.  The fear of excommunication.  The fear of their Authority to pronounce you hell-bound for all eternity, whilst God and His proxies rejoice and eat s’mores over the perpetual combustion chamber which is your ass.

*

“…it’s an urgent appeal, and exhortation–a begging even.”

Now, this is where the suspension of disbelief is absolutely necessary.  For if we concede the metaphysic of man’s Total Depravity, we must concede the fact that man is entirely insufficient to existence.  He can DO no good because he can KNOW no good.  And he cannot KNOW good because he cannot DO good.  Knowing and doing—-assumptions and actions, are corollaries.  If man can know good then he must be able to observe the outcomes of good assumptions, for assumptions do not exist in a vacuum of themselves.  And the only way good assumptions can, in fact, be understood as good is to observe them efficacious to a good end.  And to observe good outcomes man must concede that they are good with respect to his own inexorable existential frame of reference: himSELF.  Which means that the outcomes of those good assumptions are such that man must directly and materially (meaning, in his body) benefit from those assumptions.  Which means at the very least man must be able to actively engage in said outcomes, even if he is not the direct cause.

In order for you to receive a good gift, for example, you must be able to enjoy it.  And enjoying something requires a material, behavioral interaction with it.  The emotional satisfaction one gets from a gift is only possibly if that gift can be physically engaged in some form or another.  And if this is true, and it is, then man’s body cannot be totally depraved because it is precisely man’s body which is the means by which man manifests practically and relevantly the good things he is given.  All of this is merely to say that there is no such thing as a man who can KNOW good but can never actually, practically, DO good.  For even simply enjoying a gift of God must involve not just the mind, but the body. That is, recognizing the goodness of a gift is only possible if man can physically receive it; and to willingly receive a good gift is, in fact, to DO a good thing. That good thing is: acknowledging the goodness of the gift and to physically accept it, or to emotionally or intellectually accept it (as in receiving the “good news”) and then apply its implications practically, which requires the action of the body…or doing, in the very physical and material sense.  I have said it before and I will say it again:  There can be no assumption without a corresponding behavioral action.  If there is absolutely no corresponding action, then the assumption is not, in fact, assumed.  This is axiomatic (and complex…and warrants several articles, if not more, in its own right).

But if we concede that man is totally depraved, then neither acknowledging nor doing anything good is possible.  Since man is governed entirely by his sinful nature (his depraved metaphysic), he possesses no capacity to choose between a good thing or a bad thing, be it an actual object or a message, and then to act upon that choice because he is entirely a product of his depravity.  Moral choice is precluded in such a case.  Man IS his evil.  There is NO distinction between man and depravity.  And since what IS depraved MUST always choose depravity, there is no such thing as choice at all.  If you must always choose coffee over tea, because your cognition (“consciousness”) is a product not of your capacity to be self-aware and to rightly evaluate your environment with respect to the absolute reference of your own SELF-context, then the very notion of “choice” becomes ineffectual.  It becomes moot.  A total contradiction; practically and relevantly impossible.

And since this is the case when we concede Total Depravity, what is the point in begging?  What is the point in imploring?  You cannot implore the rock not to fall any more than you can implore the wave not to crash.  You cannot beg the ice cream not to melt in the summer heat any more than you can beg the cream not to ice in the sub-zero temperatures of a winter’s day.  You cannot beg the flame not to devour the match or the shark not to devour the wounded sea lion. They do not respond to begging or exhortation because they are not capable of choosing.  It is in their nature to do the very thing you implore them not to do; in which case there is no such relevant thing, to their absolute frame of reference, their nature, as begging.

The only effective action is FORCE.

We must force the flame not to devour the match by snuffing it out.  We must force the shark not to devour the sea lion by either killing it, making a pretense of killing it and thus appealing to its survival instinct, or placing a barrier between it and the sea lion.  We force the ice cream not to melt by sticking it in the freezer.  We force the rock not to fall by moving it, or by stretching a steel net across it.

In the same way, the ecclesiastical leadership at North Point Ministries absolutely know that begging and imploring are useless tactics against the unwashed, depraved masses.

And even more, we must understand that in the context of the Reformed doctrine held by North Point Ministries, begging and imploring are not reasoning.  They, themselves, become a very means of force.  A cajoling by deception; a manipulation of man’s instinctual and base emotions.  It has absolutely nothing to do with appealing to man’s capacity to recognize good options from bad ones, and rationally so, in order that they may display a Christ-like charity which values the individual human being, and his exultation over his slavery to death and misery.

On the contrary, it is merely another manifestation of their assumption that you don’t really get to choose.  That your “salvation” must happen in spite of you and your time and your money.  You belong to them; and if they could use abject state violence and/or threats of violence to force you into the pews on Sunday, just as the Puritans did, they would.  And trust me, they are seeking state power like the dog which has gotten a taste for avian blood seeks the chicken coop where that blood was first taken.

And then, once they’ve manipulated you into the the small groups by their “begging”–by their ostentatious, obsequious, overtures of “love” and “understanding” and “compassion”…the small groups where accountability is “willingly” “welcomed” and “reciprocated”–they will do WHATEVER it takes.  And, trust me, that will by no means be limited to “begging” or “imploring”.

The pretense will eventually vanish; and behind the fog you will find not begging, but threats and fear; and ultimately, the greatest panacea to their constant striving for absolute authority:

Pain.