“Please unpick this gem from a popular teacher in the charismaniac movement. Sorry there is no context, but this kind gentleman doesn’t seem to bother either.

“’Sin is often justified when a persons awareness of God’s heart is replaced with the emotional gratification of self will.’”

-Commenter, Store in a Cool Dry Place

*

Picking up where we left off from the previous post…and, off topic, I would like to say that I am committed to finally, for once, completing an entire series of articles in uninterrupted succession.

And this time I mean it.

I think.

🙂

Anyway…

I have many times in the past argued that the single and absolute context/frame of reference any person has for knowing or doing anything at all is the SELF, defined as:  man’s individual existential singularity.  Meaning that in order for anything to happen to you–any interaction with man or God or anything else which exists, in order that you might be “caused upon”…that is, taught anything, shown anything, effected, affected, etc., etc., so that you, in turn, might manifest those same actions in the direction of some “OTHER”, be it God or another person or another object–you must possess the inherent ability to to BE YOU.  YOU as YOU, as a direct function of YOU, is the axiomatic and categorical prerequisite for anything at all which exists to you and interacts with you, and you to it/them,  including God, Himself.  If YOU is not a direct and absolute function of YOU–meaning, your physical existence, which must also include your mind, because your mind is a direct function of your brain, which is an absolute component of your physical body, with no rational distinction then being made between body and mind–yes, if YOU is not a direct function of YOU, then YOU cannot be said to exist as YOURSELF at all.  For whatever is a direct function of something IS that something.  Thus, if YOU, for example, are a direct function of God, or God’s creative power, meaning that prior to the existence of YOU there was nothing, no material from which you sprang, but you sprung directly out of the Being of God (which is the natural implication of the doctrine of ex nihilio), then YOU don’t actually exist.  You are merely some manifestation of the absolute source which caused you directly.  If an absolute caused you–as in God is “infinite” and “absolute” and is the “un-caused first cause”, whatever the fuck that means–and that there was NOTHING prior to Him creating you and the rest of the things in the universe which we say are NOT him, then there can be no rational argument for an efficacious distinction between the absolute, God, and “you”.  Which means there is no YOU:  You as a SELF are nothing.  You are whatever created you; and this must include your mind, making whatever it is you happen to be thinking about right now (like the stakes and dunking poles and gallows,for all you neo-Calvinists) a complete lie. “You” are thinking of nothing at all, because there is no distinction to be made between YOU and whatever created you “out of nothing”.

YOU don’t exist, which makes anything you think and say and believe likewise non-existent by default.

See the problem then?  If we deny that the actual first cause of anything is the root ability to BE of whatever exists, like man for instance, this “ability of being” which is the direct source of anything’s ability be caused upon, or to bring cause upon others (to do and to act and to interact with “others”, objects or agents)….yes if we deny that this ability to be caused upon, to act and to be acted upon, is the infinite material substance of the SELF of anything which exists, and that this infinite material substance of the SELF is the root absolute source and context of all we know and do, then we cannot rationally argue for the actual existence of human beings.  Human beings must be rooted in an infinite material SELF, which is now and always was utterly distinct from God, in order for any legitimate relationship to exist between man and God, or man and anything else.  If man does not exist as man, and infinitely so at his material root, then man cannot be said to exist at all.

This is why I argue that the infinite and absolute frame of reference you or I have for anything at all is our SELF, and why I argue that individual human lives are the absolute and only objective standard of TRUTH.  Without the SELF actually BEING, and absolutely BEING the SELF, there is no way for man to make a rational case for his own existence, which means that there is no way for man to make a case for his own efficacious epistemology…his ability to know anything.  Without an absolute and absolutely distinct vessel of himSELF from which to know it, a case for human existence is impossible to make.  And thus, without the SELF being infinitely the SELF first, there is no way to please God as the Calvinists define it:  by denying SELF.  Because there is no way to actually deny SELF, in service to God’s “will”, unless SELF is the infinite frame of reference for man to act.  You cannot deny SELF in service to God if SELF doesn’t exist in the first place.  And if it does, then it exists absolutely and infinitely, which makes it impossible to deny by definition.  Which makes the notion of “denying self” a purely metaphorical idea in service to some very specific philosophical premise, rather than some kind of broad literal imperative designed to command an entire world view.  For the SELF which is absolute is impossible to deny, except at the peril of man’s rational epistemology, which is the only means man has for knowing his God, and defining Him thus, which makes a literal denial of the SELF also a denial of God.  The literal denial of man and the futile and destructive attempt to live thereupon, based on neo-Calvinist/Reformed theology, means the functional death of God.

More on that in a bit.

*

We know nothing outside the infinite frame of reference of our infinite, absolute material SELVES.  For any one of us to argue that we are not ourSELVES because our “faith” teaches us that we must be a direct function (extension) of what is NOT us is a rank impossibility.  It is total nonsense.  Because what we are arguing then is that somehow we are ourselves by not and never actually being ourselves.  Which is laughable in its absurdity.

And this is the single greatest reason why determinism, which is precisely what Calvinism (and Protestantism in general) is, cannot possibly be true.  No matter what kind of determinism we preach, atheistic scientific determinism or “God’s sovereign control and will”, or whatever other line of  collectivist opium the pseudo-intellectuals, Calvinists and other “Christian” mystics, false prophets, despots, psychopaths, Islamic terrorist shitheads, communists, fascist nationalists, group-think tribal devotees, and ignoramuses spin on their charkhas, it all utterly falls apart when we realize that for determinism to be true man cannot exist; and if man cannot exist then who can make the argument that they just know that they know that they know (whatever the fuck that means) that their abominable deterministic theology is “truth”.

No, it’s not.  Not. Even. Close.

*

All that being said, when we as human beings define anything, it must be defined TO the SELF.  For there is no other rational definition of whatever thing or agent is in question, but that everything which man observes to actually exist, including God, must be said to exist in utter service to the TRUTH of the SELF.  This, yet again, is why individual life is the only standard of TRUTH.  That is, for any concept to be efficacious, it must be defined in such a way that it can be observably useful for the affirmation, perpetuation, propagation and succor/comfort of the SELF.  Blue is blue and red is red and up is up and sand is sand and one inch is one inch and Montreal is Montreal and God is God because these material things are cognitively organized, via an integration into a conceptual framework which man creates out of his own mind in the interest of pursuing his own existence; that is, these concepts, rooted in actual objects and agents man observes, and relying upon them (the concepts) to be rational and efficacious servants of the SELF, are how man survives.  Man uses his brain, particularly his ability to conceptualize his material reality, in order to promote his own LIFE.

Why?

Because the SELF is the absolute entirety of his existence.  It is the sum and substance of his being, and it is infinite.  Without the actual SELF, as I have already explained, man is utterly incapable of being or doing or knowing anything at all.  That is, without the SELF, man can make no claim whatsoever to the actuality of his very existence.  Which makes God utterly pointless to him, and there goes all of “faith”.

Thus, since the distinct SELF of man is the only way, and the utter way, he interacts with God and/or anything else, the point of ALL concepts, of ALL man knows (for the entire cannon of man’s knowledge is conceptual…this is what makes man so different from the rest of the world’s species) can only logically be to categorically confirm his own SELF, which is his existence; its perfect moral innocence, its indefatigable TRUTH, its absolute nature and right to be what it is, forever.  And since this is the only logical perspective–all contrary ideas being fatally flawed in accordance with the only legitimate device of truth which is fit to defend man’s existence and the nature of all reality, reason–any concept which denies that the SELF is necessary to TRUTH, even the very truth of God, is a lie.  For to preach that the SELF is metaphysically flawed, and therefore epistemologically insufficient to understand “God’s ways”, or “God’s truth”, or the “mysteries of God”, or the “questions of life and the universe”, or whatever other false presumption, is a dreadful interpretation of the nature of human existence, and must logically conclude with the destruction of human beings in service to “specially revealed understanding” brought to you by “God’s” spiritual proxies, which is exactly what the American neo-Calvinist movement is force-feeding all of us denizens in an all-you-can-eat style abundance.

And so, all of this being true and reasonable, to preach that the gratification of the SELF, or the “emotional gratification” of the SELF–which is the exact same fucking thing…for “gratification” cannot possibly exist outside emotion; it IS an emotion (I mean, what the fuck is non-emotional gratification?, I defy anyone to explain it)–yes, to preach that gratification of the SELF is somehow an unholy thing, disdained by God and contrary to His “will”, is, in fact, an irrational evil.

Further, it is a direct offense against God, Himself, as He is the Creator of the very thing neo-Calvinist truncheons claim is the single most despicable thing on Earth; the very source of evil itself: human life.  They hate the human SELF, and therefore, they must hate its God.  You cannot declare that one is evil without likewise declaring the other.  If the SELF shall not be gratified in the interest of the very SELF which man was specifically created to BE…or rather, if the gratification of the SELF is a very evil thing, how much more evil is the gratification of the One who is ultimately responsible for its creation?

If it is an unspeakable evil for man to gratify himself, then how much more unspeakably evil for God, the Creator of man, who singularly holds the very power by which man is able to be manifest at all, and is the One most responsible for man’s efficacious existence, to either gratify HIMSELF, or to be gratified by the human SELF which Reformation theology teaches is infinite in its depravity?

Along with the SELF of man, Calvinism hates God; and it must, for it declares that the pinnacle of God’s Creation is precisely His fatal mistake.  The total depravity of man must be the death of God.  And this is why Calvinists, and almost all of Christian “orthodoxy”, worship death to the disturbing degree they do.  For in creating man, God has denied Himself, and has purposed His own destruction.  The creation of man ushers in an evil of which God cannot be absolved.  The denial of existence as preached by the Reformed then is a divine ordinance, applying to both God and man.  By creating man in the full knowledge and determined purpose of his fall into total depravity, God has denied that His own existence is either good or efficacious.  By creating he (man) who must by virtue of his own absolutely determined SELF deny that he was created at all–because he denies his very existence by virtue of his absolute depravity as a direct function of God’s sovereign all-controlling power, God has no legitimate means of defining Himself as God TO man whom He created.

Man cannot know God because he is blinded by his depravity, which is, again, a direct function of God’s sovereign will; and therefore God cannot know that He is God to man because He created man who is unable to rationally define his Creator because he possesses no rational epistemology, being merely an extension of his depravity (whilst being also a direct extension of God).  Thus, God cannot rationally proclaim Himself as the God (the Creator) of man.  He cannot point to man as proof of his God-ness because man does not actually exist as a distinct SELF; therefore, God did not create him, He merely extended (manifested) Himself as totally deprave evil.   According to Calvinism, man is not himself, but rather is a determined evil, and this determined evil has nothing to do with man as a distinct agent, but is an absolute and direct extension of God.

This is why Reformation theology, its unsettling apostasy culminating in the neo-Calvinist movement, must be condemned as a rank and total evil.  There is no equivocation possible; none arguable.  The “sound doctrine” of Calvin’s devoted spawn is as far from Christ as one can philosophically get.

And determined evil, being absolute, mitigated by nothing according to Reformed theology, not even an efficacious and actual SELF of man, cannot point to God as being God, by definition.  Absolute evil (or any evil) cannot know God, nor proclaim Him.  Man then, being absolute evil, demands the death of God in service to its own absolute existence.  God then, in creating man, created an absolute and infinite evil which then competes with His own absolute existence.  Of course, the idea that God is the direct source of this absolute evil (man’s totally depraved SELF) can only mean one thing:  God IS Evil and Evil is God, thus eliminating any competition or conflict between God (good) and Evil at all.  We are then inexorably left with this conclusion:  all things, man and God and everything else, is the sum and substance of absolute, infinite, all-encompassing Evil.

This is the very idea embodied in the contemptible quote which commenter Store In a Cool Dry Place sent me to critique.

Behold Calvinism and neo-Calvinism; behold they that are the roots of all Protestantism.

Behold the doctrine of the anti-Christs.

Commenter, Store In a Cool Dry Place (one of the best internet monikers ever) said this on the thread of the last post:

“Can you please have an article or 2 for Dummies 101, Dummies 201 and 301 regarding Calvinism, neocalvinism, epistemology etc. that I can make reference to. Perhaps more clarity instead of just rants. I love the rants and colourful adjectives.”

Here is my response:

SCDP,

I like to think of my articles as philosophical treatises in rant form. 🙂 Because really, the ranting is just the tone of the argument (for damn good reason), but the points are beyond mere outrage and frustration.  I believe that I  challenge the root assumptions which undergird Reformation theology/neoCalvinism, as well as other Platonist schools of thought.

Epistemology is simple: it is the study of how we, that is, human beings, know what we know. It is rooted inexorably in metaphysics, which studies the nature of human existence; from a philosophical perspective, it looks at the question (and the pursuant inquiries which it naturally begs) “What is man?”. If the answer to that question is a shrug or a mystery, man cannot logically claim an efficacious epistemology; it is impossible.  If man has no relevant meaning, then he cannot be certain of ANYTHING at all, even his own existence, because irrelevancy cannot by definition breed truth…what is irrelevant has no efficacious objective, and such an objective is required for truth to exist.

Epistemology is a DIRECT function of man’s metaphysic.  Therefore, if man is nothing, lacking any relevant definition (as seen in the Reformed Christian hermeneutic, for example, particularly in the doctrines of Total Depravity and Original Sin), then he, by definition, must know nothing, as knowledge is a direct extension of man’s existential, essential SELF.  If man cannot answer the question “What is man?”, then he by logical extension cannot answer the question “What does man know?”.   This should be obvious, and I think it is for most of us.  Put simply, if man isn’t man, then man cannot know anything, because there is no one to know anything in the first place.

This basic contradiction (that man is NOT, and yet is somehow aware) is a big problem for many schools of thought, not just Christianity and other religious credos.

For example, science, and especially physics, claims that the material universe is a product of laws of nature which “govern” the existence of everything, and which manifest themselves in mathematical theorems, fondly thought of by many scientists as the “language of the universe/the heavens/the cosmos/God”…this last one being a particularly egregious presumption.  If God speaks in Math, then who do you think his priests are?

Notice the pattern?  Those of you familiar with the tyrannical machinations of Reformed theology (Protestantism) will recognize it almost instantly.  The language of the Cosmos (translated “God” by the scientific determinist, or as I call them “fake atheists”) is that which only a few very gifted people (divinely called and revealed upon proxies), usually haunting the stuffy rooms of trendy universities, are privy to.  Thus, they are the ones who get to stand in “God’s” stead and command the power and nature of truth, which is reality, for everyone else.

Anyone who thinks science is somehow absolved by its”objective” and “observable” and “testable” methodologies from flawed and irrational philosophical assumptions is sorely mistaken.  No one gets to claim ownership of man’s body and mind by appealing to some kind of divine revelation or external-to-man causal power, ever, no matter how many numbers they can add in their head, ivy league institutions bearing their class rosters, articles and theorems boasting their names, and no matter how many supercolliders they have helped construct.  And if they attempt to do this, you can be sure that any argument they make for their epistemological claims–their claim to “know what they know is true”–is going to be rooted in a false metaphysic, which makes the claim patently false and rendering an explanation of it entirely superfluous.  And further, history bears out the fact that the assumption that “God/the cosmos/the language of the heavens” reveals (as opposed to teaching) knowledge to a specific group of men for the purposes of leading the unwashed and blind masses into right thinking and behavior always leads to despotism in the end if it is allowed to run its logical course by the support and succor of a complicit government which wields the authority of force (violence).

When science claims that man’s body and mind–which are singular in their existence; there is no distinction between man’s material SELF and his consciousness…both are the IS of man–is a function of outside-man’s-existence laws of nature, it falls prey to the same contradiction in terms which spawns every other despotic world view.  Making it, like them, nothing more than mysticism materializing into, as John Immel so perfectly puts it, a cult of death. If man is a direct function of a law of nature which exists outside his material SELF (his body and mind), then man has no rational claim to himself.  That is, he has no definition for SELF except:  that which is NOT him; that is, the laws of nature which govern (determine) his very material being.

You see, the laws of nature do not merely organize the material universe into its coherent (observable) components. If indeed they are causal in their power and their purpose then they must be directly responsible for the very existence of the material itself, which makes the material universe’s existence a direct extension of the laws which govern, with no rational distinction to be found between the two entities.  Which means that the material universe IS the laws of nature, according to Argo’s Universal Truth Number One:  Anything which is a direct function of an absolute is the absolute.  If we say that the laws of nature merely organize the material universe into its various components, then the natural implication is that the very existence (existential being) of the material itself is not dependent upon any law of nature which governs it.  This means then that the supreme ROOT of why everything forms the way it forms and does the things it does and interacts the way it interacts and causes and effects what it causes and effects is NOT the laws of nature but the very root BEING of the material, which does not exist because of a law but because, and only because, and for no other reason, than it is what it is.  Period.

We cannot have our metaphysical cake and eat it too.  We cannot claim a rational existence which is a direct function of some external law or laws of nature and then declare that we are not, in utter existential and material actuality, those very same laws of nature, and absolutely so.  There can be no rational interaction of these two  absolutes: laws which govern, and material which is.  For absolutes, being infinite, cannot co-exist, by definition.  If the law(s) absolutely govern, which science indeed argues it/they do/does, then it must govern the material universe’s very existence, which means that the universe has no SELF to its material essence; has no actual root IT to itself.  It then literally is nothing more than the law itself, period.  Full stop.

Likewise, using the same logic, if the material itself exists because it is what it is…meaning that its existence and being are a reality because IT is ITSELF, absolutely, then there is no way to logically attach a law of nature outside of it, to it, in order to claim that its existence is governed by this law.  Existence of the material itself is absolute, which precludes any causal relationship with any law to govern it; there is no actual thing, object, entity, agent, or whatever else which can be the source of its existence, because its very existence is absolute in its SELF.  It needs no law to govern its interactions; it merely needs an observer to make abstract conceptualizations which describe how these material objects interact in order that the observer can define these conceptualizations as TRUTH, using himself as the singular frame of reference for their practical and efficacious application (applied to promote the existence of him SELF) and thus, by logical extension, declare himSELF as the only rational standard of what is TRUE.

And so this is really what science’s “laws of nature” are; they are nothing more than part of a cognitive conceptual framework which is  expressed in theoretical mathematical proofs.  Man creates these proofs in order to articulate the relative movement of objects he observes; a sort of sheet music for the universe.  They aren’t the universe itself, but they allow human beings to create (organize) an environment to serve an efficacious purpose (the human SELF), without having to re-invent the wheel every time we turn around.  The same way a musician can take a piece of sheet music and play a song, a scientist can take a series of mathematical proofs and construct something out of his material environment.  But these proofs are not what CREATE the material environment any more than sheet music is what creates the movement of air particles which strike your eardrums in a specific pattern.  They are not causal.  The air particles, and the substantive objects from which science creates tools or technology or buildings or guns or telescopes already existed before the music was ever written down or the mathematical proofs ever developed.  Thus, material, actual objects (which includes man) are not there because of laws of nature; they are there because they ARE.  Which means that the singular source and root of everything they do, and how they interact with man and other objects IS their very existence; and this is from themselves.  They exist because they have the inherent ability to do so.  Period.  Not because of some outside, invisible “law” or “language” of the cosmos.

Now, the hypocrisy then of scientists (fake atheists) who demand that the universe is a product of abstract laws which somehow cause its actual existence can be seen in how this exact same thinking applies to Christianity.

For the same reason science has no rational answer to the question “What is man?” because it concedes that man is nothing more than an extension of the laws of nature which govern, making man a direct function of what is NOT man, Christianity has no superior alternative metaphysic.  Indeed, the difference in the core philosophy between science and Christianity is purely semantic.  It is literally nothing more than a few different words .

By declaring man totally depraved at the root of his existence (which is why they deny man’s volition, even though some are liars and some are ignorant and deny this) what they, the modern day “orthodox” apologists, are really doing is making a metaphysical argument, and not, as they assume, an epistemological one.

Let me explain:

Almost every Christian denomination declares in their Statement of Faith than man is totally depraved.  This is known in Calvinism/neo-Calvinism as the Doctrine of Total Depravity.  They declare that man is blind to the truth of God because he refuses to believe…where “refuses” is a euphemism for “can’t”.  In other words, people believe the wrong things instead of the right things.  But it is not the belief in the wrong things which is the cause of their depravity (which then would not make it TOTAL), but precisely the opposite. They argue that it is man’s total depravity which causes him to believe the wrong things.  You see, wrong belief is a symptom of depravity, it is not the cause of it, which is precisely why those who accept this doctrine must deny man’s free will.  Wrong belief does not cause actions…wrong belief comes AFTER depravity in the causal chain of events.  It is in man’s nature to believe the wrong things (nature, meaning metaphysic) and thus do the wrong things.  It isn’t the belief that drives man’s choices and actions…which are then sinful.  No, no, no…for that would make man at his existential, material root innocent, and his sin thus a function of what he chooses to believe and thus chooses to do as a manifestation of that belief.  This is something no self-respecting Calvinist (contradiction in terms; Calvinists deny SELF) will EVER concede.  It is man’s depravity–his “sin nature”–which determines absolutely his beliefs which then determine his actions.  Remember, in the Augustinian/Lutheran/Calvinist construct, which is 99% of all Christianity (basically every Christian who has not yet realized that they’ve been exploited and lied to for most of their spiritual lives), there is no room for any choice at all, except as an obfuscation of the doctrine; and this for purely manipulative reasons…or out of ignorance.   You believe what you believe and do what you do because you ARE totally depraved, which is the same thing as saying you ARE total depravity itself, as if total depravity is an actual, material essence, which presents itself to the world as MAN…as YOU.  The simple meaning then of this entirely false doctrine is this:  YOU…your very material self is absolutely defined by your depravity. Therefore, there is no essence of you, no root material YOU, flesh and blood, at any level, which is not governed by your depravity.  Making your flesh and blood literally a direct extension of the concept of depravity; again, as though depravity IS an actual, tangible, material thing.

Is any of this sounding familiar?  We just talked about it a few paragraphs ago.

YOU are governed by your depravity.  THAT is the doctrine of Total Depravity, and why this doctrine is the salient and destructive seed of Calvinism’s utterly evil and anti-Christian theological assertion.  There is no YOU in the existential equation.  You ARE depravity, period.  The control in which “law of depravity” wields over your material SELF (mind and body) is absolute, and infinite, and thus, there can be no distinction between you and depravity.  There is NO place where depravity ends and you begin, or vice versa.

See the theme here? It is exactly the same root philosophy of the mighty physicist. You can’t be YOU because the very notion of an actual YOU which exists independently and autonomously implies that there is something which is not in fact governed by the law of depravity.  And if that is true, then depravity is not absolute…is not total.  If you are you, then you are not governed by depravity.  You are you, and that, not depravity, is the root and causal source of you.  Yourself is not of depravity but of your SELF.  Which means that the SELF is what is absolute, which means that depravity does not govern because it cannot actually exist.  It, like the laws of nature, is purely conceptual; a product of man’s mind.  For if YOU are absolute, then there can be no causal entity or agent or force which controls you.  For only one absolute cause of something can exist, and absolutes cannot be reconciled, by definition.  What is infinite cannot be bounded to or caused upon (in the non-conceptual sense) by something which it is NOT.

Now, unfortunately this is a hard fact for most Christians to swallow.  Even those who deny Total Depravity will not accept it because, though they might not like the idea that man cannot actually choose to sin but instead must sin, they still feel the need to believe that man is not inherently capable of being a direct function of himself…that is, his own cause (you can thank science, in part, for this).  So, instead of Total Depravity they appeal to “God’s Sovereignty” as the metaphysical substitution.  Man can choose, but only because God let’s him.

Whatever the fuck that means.

You see, even though you aren’t totally depraved, you are still utterly bound and restrained in your will and very being by God’s “Will”, and by this they mean that everything that happens and exists is manifest as a direct function of God’s choosing…God’s choice, never man’s.

This is nothing more than a regurgitation, with the requisite semantic differences and euphemisms, of the exact same philosophy of scientific determinism found in the declaration of laws of nature which govern, and spiritual determinism found in the despicable doctrine of Total Depravity.  Perhaps it is a kinder and gentler form of the same idea, but it is no less destructive.  And is only kinder and gentler in ostensible demeanor, perhaps, but not in force and not in violent outcome when the rubber meets the road.

No need to reiterate all the points; I’m sure you can make the connection by now.  If all is controlled by God, then there is no component of YOU which ever gets to be YOU apart from God’s absolute control.  God’s control is absolute, thus there can be no distinction between your SELF and God’s control, which means that YOU don’t really exist, but are a mere extension of God’s absolute Will; because there is NO place where God’s absolute Will ends and YOU, not controlled by God, begins.  Such a place doesn’t exist, which means that all of YOU is nothing more that God’s Will, period.

Do you understand how this metaphysic–you as a direct function of NOT you–destroys epistemology?  The easy logical connection is:  if you are not really you then you cannot make any claim to know anything.  It really is nothing more complicated than that.  If man isn’t himself, because he is a direct extension of some other absolute causal force, then everything man claims to know is a lie.  An illusion. There is no “How does man know what he knows?” in the absence of man defined by way of rational metaphysic.  And NOT MAN-as-man is NOT a rational metaphysic.

The common and altogether despotic political fallout (politics being another key tenet of philosophy…how man interacts with other men based on his metaphysical and epistemological assumptions) is manifest usually in an oppressive collective (like the theo-marxist neo-Calvinist church), and this occurs when these aforementioned faulty and irrational metaphysical and epistemological notions give rise to the necessary assumption that:  TRUTH and GOOD is not learned but is revealed (we discussed this a little previously in this article).  Revealed by what?  Why, the Primary Consciousness which is said to be the absolute source of everything (in Calvinism’s case, “God”), but which only a few priests, having received their “special revelation” of truth, have been “called” to represent, as Its proxy to the rest of us, of course.  And when you present with the audacity to utter criticism of their authority, your disagreement is declared proof that you have not been called to have the “wisdom” and “knowledge” (the gnosis…for this IS Gnosticism) that your rulers-in-the-stead-by-way-of-divine-revelation are privy to.

And so what to do with such a rascal?

Well, what is the easiest way to deal with people who can offer no logical claim nor rational argument for the presence and efficacy of their own physical existence as legitimate, autonomous SELVES?

Why, you FORCE them, of course.  And if they still refuse compliance, you murder them in service to the “absolute truth” which is, after all, outside of them, and yet utterly IS them.

And without an answer to the question, “What is man?”, who is really getting hurt anyway?

*

PS: As far as the roots of neo-Calvinism and Calvinism…have you checked out Paul Dohse’s blog paulspassingthoughts.com? He is all about that. He is the expert, and no article of mine could compare to the volumes Paul has written on the subject.

Continuing where we left off in the last article on this subject, ‘The Eight ‘Christian Steps to Psychological Recovery…’, here we will take a brief look at step three of this metaphysical atrocity:

3.  Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.  “Happy are the meek” Matthew 5:5

Okay, let’s play a game…a variation of something I, and you, probably, played in the car as a child on the long drive to grandmother’s house.  The game was called “I spy”.

In this case, we will play “I spy the contradiction”.

Ready?

Go.

Too slow.  I’ve already got it. But of course you are at a distinct disadvantage.  I have in front of me all eight of Rick Warren’s disastrous steps to “recovery”, and, alas, all I have given you in this article is one.  No matter…I still will concede that your epistemology is far more relevant and efficacious than Rick Warren does, I’ll bet.

So after reading this point my  mind immediately protested.  I’m looking at step number one, which reads, in part:  “I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing.”  Now, juxtapose that thought, which I criticized in detail in my last post on this subject, with point number three, again:  “Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s control…” 

Now, here’s the problem.  If man is, by his very sinful nature (his categorical existential failure) unable to control his “tendency” (a bullshit term…again, if humanity cannot control a tendency then it isn’t a tendency it is an innate characteristic), then man has no appreciable “will”to commit to Christ.

Rick’s first point makes clear that it is impossible for you or me to commit our will to Christ because it explicitly describes humanity as utterly unable to act in service to the right/good thing, which naturally must include committing our lives and will to Christ.  That’s the whole fucking point of step one, right? You have no will of your own.  All your will is subjugated to your “tendency” to do the wrong thing.

You cannot control your tendency to do the wrong thing, therefore in every choice you make, you always choose evil, which again makes “tendency” a deceptive euphemism for never doing ANYTHING good at all, ever.  Thus, you cannot commit your life and will to Christ because this presupposes that you are able to choose freely (and adding the word “free” to either “will” or “choice” is a proper redundancy…for there is no such thing as will or choice which is not free) to do the right thing on your own, which point one clearly explains you are not.  Thus, how on earth can you choose to do the right thing and commit your life and will to Christ when choice is precluded by your infinitely sinful nature, which completely holds captive any “will” to do anything good at all, to the point where the “will” of man is an utterly irrational notion in the first place?  Man has no will to do good, which means he has no will at all, but is a slave to the absolute determining force of his metaphysical essence of depravity…yes, THAT is the whole motherfucking point.  Man’s “will” is always in service to sin.

This means that choice is an illusion…and if choice is an illusion then so is volition. For the volition of man cannot exist if it is bound to a metaphysical absolute of:  EVIL.  Man IS evil is the underlying assumption of all eight points of this list and likely of Rick Warren’s entire theology.  Since man is evil, everything man does or what he thinks, no matter what it may look like to us or how we may define it, IS evil.  Which makes the idea of man possessing an ability to choose between a good action, like committing one’s life to Christ, and an evil action, like rejecting Christ, completely false.

Thus, the poor victims of this kind of “counseling” are left to wallow in the metaphysical and epistemological wasteland, hemmed in on all sides by Rick Warren’s commands and counsel, and yet they are utterly unable to capitulate.  They understand that since they are the root of all evil, being evil itself incarnate, they can no more hope to employ Rick’s counseling tips than they can hope to cook their own head and then eat it for dinner.

Thus, the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions which are at the heart of this evil theology create in man a passive acceptance of the totality of his own utter moral AND existential failure.  Or better said:  creates in man an acceptance of the totality of his own utter moral failure because there is no distinction between his moral failure and his metaphysical (existential) failure.

Man’s only hope is for God’s mercy…for there is literally nothing he  can do to assuage his torment.  It is as a result of his root existence, and thus, he is helpless against the tide of destructive consequences which God and the universe afflict upon him as punishment for his very birth.  And since, again, it is God who is sovereign and thus God who is “justly” punishing him for his own immoral existence, how much mercy can the defunct currency of his hope buy him?

The answer is:  probably none at all.

Which is why teaching Christians that there is no such thing as anyone committing any injustice against them, no matter how seriously or completely they are physically and/or psychologically abused, tortured and exploited, because they are so evil and thus whatever suffering and abuse they endure is par for their existential course as well as the well-deserved punishment for having the motherfucking audacity to be born at all, is the most popular means of curtailing any resistance amongst the laity in today’s Christian church, and of building a following of completely complicit and self-surrendering financiers and laborers.

What the church almost without exception STILL teaches today is that man’s only hope of any kind of remediation for the abomination of his own individual existence is through integration into the mystic body collective, which derives all its value and worth from the proxies of the Divine, the ecclesiastical leadership, who represent God in all His relevant forms to the unwashed and unenlightened masses whom God has given these pastors and priests, who are “standing in God’s stead”, to “shepherd”.  And their reward for obeying God’s calling is all the fucking mutton they can eat.

And thus we arrive at the most ironical of terms found in Rick’s stupid list:  “consciously”.  “Consciously choose” he counsels us…and likely without the slightest awareness of just what a colossal boob he sounds like.  And probably nary a blush of shame at his irrational imperative.  Since man is unable to control his sin, because “sinful” is the moral absolute which defines ALL of man’s thoughts and actions (what Rick cutely calls the “tendency” to do the wrong thing), thus creating the absolute objective of man’s life:  to be evil, there is no such thing as choice, as I explained.

Aaaaaand the logical extension of this idea is that there can be no such thing as consciousness.  Man’s consciousness is rooted in his awareness of himSELF, as a distinct object from the rest of his material universe.  Thus, the fact that man can refer to himself as SELF, implies that man is able to make such a distinction in the first place, and the ability to make this distinction in TRUTH…that is, as a direct observation of his tangible, material, actual existence, is a function of that efficacious (right, proper, truthful) observation.

But for man’s observations to be efficacious requires man’s rational epistemology…that is, he must be able to truthfully know what he IS from what he IS NOT.  This is rooted in the ability to make an observable distinction in objects, including himself, which are a function of material reality, not “moral” reality, which isn’t “reality” at all, it is purely conceptual…a direct function of man’s cognition.  For material reality is morally neutral, which makes “good and evil” thus a conceptual duality which proceeds from man’s ability to see what he materially is, and to declare it actual and efficacious and truthful and relevant, and then cognitively generate a  moral paradigm designed to promote himself (his life) as an actual object which is rooted observable material existence.  This ability is the root of man’s consciousness.

Man’s consciousness thus is founded upon and is a direct function of  his morally innocent material SELF.  But the notion that man’s material reality is a slave and utterly subservient to his moral proclivity (his “evil nature”) means that man’s ability to perceive himself as a material actuality (a SELF) is compromised by his abstract, conceptual moral failure.  Therefore, what man observes is no longer a function of a material context (flesh and blood life) but is a function instead of moral insufficiency.  That is to say, of the conceptual abstraction:  evil.

And if man cannot observe himself as a material SELF, but instead he observes himself from a place of absolute evil…then what we are arguing is that the moral paradigm (somehow, and irrationally) precedes the material SELF of man.  The absolute of evil is the place from which the material man, himSELF, is derived. Which makes, by definition, the idea of an actual, material SELF a total lie, being nothing but a direct function of man’s absolute evil nature, which therefore taints his entire epistemology.  His epistemology can never lead him to a place where he is able to recognize himself as an agent/object distinct from “others” because his epistemology is utterly bound in the moral concept of EVIL.  And if man’s entire concept of SELF is nothing more than a direct function of his absolute evil existential essence, then he can possess no efficacious (practical or functional or relevant) consciousness.  Consciousness itself is not a function of “man” as a flesh and blood agent, but is a direct function of his absolute evil; his moral failure, which again must precede material existence.  Thus, no matter what man thinks or believes, it is always and automatically evil.  Which means that man’s “consciousness” lacks any rational definition.  Consciousness itself is merely a direct function of man’s evil essence.  Consciousness, like body, and spirit, and mind and heart and choice and desire and belief etc., etc. is simply:  evil.  Period.

Which means that man cannot “consciously choose” to do anything.  Man can only act as a direct function of his absolute and inexorable sin nature, which can observe NOTHING outside itself, because it is absolute, and never mitigated by a rational and efficacious ability to observe any material SELF from NOT SELF, thus making consciousness impossible.

Therefore, point number three of Rick Warren’s steps to “recovery” is nothing more than a self-contradicting, impossible travesty of evil thinking and madness under the guise of compassion and rational consistency.  It is logic being burned at the stake of mystic tyranny.