vol VII: Notes
1999
Notes
[Notebook DB 52A Mathesis]
[Sunday 21 November 1999 - Saturday 27 November 1999]
[page 108]
Sunday 21 November 1999
Avis page 87: Theology as a science of god is therefore only possible as a science of historical religions, and Christian theology accordingly becomes the study of Christian religion, the science of Christianity.' Avis, Pannenberg
page 89: 'He is strong on openness and weak on coherence; he needs to develop his principles to give his method cohesion.'
Perhaps you do not mean method, you mean theology.
page 90: Frederick Robert Tennant (1866-1957)
'Incisive criticism of the two main options in modern theology - the methods of Schleiermacher and Barth.
page 92: 'For Tennant, knowledge of God - like knowledge of the world - is mediated and can only be attained by scientific and metaphysical study of the natural realm.
page 95: 'There is for Tennant, an unbroken procession from the basic reading of sense data to the construction
[page 109]
of natural theology, which is itself presupposed in 'revealed' theology.
Avis page 97: 'Tennant, on the other hand asserts that the alleged uniqueness od moments of religious experience is simply the result of interpretation according to the theistic beliefs already held on other grounds.'
page 98: 'He adds, for god measure, that if religious institution guaranteed the reality of all that is experienced, then "all the powers ad deities of all the mythologies and religions from the crudest nature worship to monotheism are real. (PhSc 176, 172) Tennant
page 99: 'The true task of theology is, therefore, to establish by philosophical argument and in the light of all our knowledge the validity of theism and its superiority to rival views of the world.'
page 101: What Tennant, with his stress on metaphysical thinking, apparently fails to see us that there are no pure theories either.' [WRONG: try mathematics]
page 102: 'Tennant's openness of method is vitiated at the noetic level by the exclusion of insight and with it the real givenness of religious experience' [????]
[page 110]
Avis page 102: 'We need to postulate the transcendent capacity of mind, working in the tacit dimension, - to invoke Plato's "leaping spark", Coleridge's "reason", Polanyi's "personal knowledge", Lonergan's "insight".'
Christianity is a 'memetic disease', to be understood by analogy to genetic disease [a software problem].
page 103: 'here, however, we seem to approach the limits of purely philosophical inquiry into the nature of religious experience, for when Christian theology itself speaks for the givenness of our knowledge of God, it is speaking the language of grace.'
[Such crap has to be seen to be believed - we know something you don't, ha ha]
page 104: Karl Rahner (1904-84)
'Rahner is notoriously difficult to understand.'
'Spirit in the World, written in the grotesque terminology of transcendental Thomism.' [????] Rahner
page 105: '. . . in Rahner [Christianity] has [found an interpreter]
<> [page 111]who has anticipated the problems that our pluralist, secular, humanist culture poses for the Christian faith,
Baigent: The Messianic Legacy Baigent
Baigent page 136: 'The most crucial element in any understanding of Nazism is the extent to which it deliberately actuated the religious impulse in the German people.'
page 137: 'It was not long before the people of Germany began to see Hitler as a Messiah of Germany.' [Langer, The Mind of Adolph Hitler. London 1973] Langer
page 141: SS = Hitler's priesthood.
Avis page 105: 'Rahner's influence has been much greater than any other modern theologian — much more extensive than Barths. for example.'
[page 112]
'He has succeeded in advancing, persistently, remorselessly and with great diplomatic skill and tact, views that are extremely radical in themselves and actually logically subversive of official Roman dogmas and policies.
Avis page 107: contra 'dogmatic positivism'.
page 108: Rahner: 'The secular understanding of existence and the world must be the subject of critical theological reflection.'
'Rahner . . . [locates] the working of divine grace precisely in the area of human questioning wondering and exploring.'
More Christian imperialism.
page 109: 'Human nature without the secret hidden influence of divine grace is an abstraction, a purely hypothetical case.'
This is ok as long as you do not claim it for Christianity.
Rahner behind the Vatical II appropriation of spirit to the Roman Catholic Church?
[page 133]
'anonymous Christianity.'
Avis page 110: 'Rahner postulates nature as an inner movement of grace and philosophy as an inner movement of theology.
'eclectic'page 111: 'Since the Enlightenment, Rahner believes theology has lagged further and further behind the level of other disciplines, especially scientific ones.
'Theology and the sciences are actually "irreducibly distant" from each other,' [???]page 112: '. . . Rahner's defence of his own method can be seen to rest on a particular understanding of man, a theological anthropology.'
Each synapse is a lonk, a processor.
page 113: Rahner: 'What is man . . . man is the question to which there is no answer'. . . (Christian at the Crossroad, page 11.) Rahner
'conversion to the phantasm'. Lonergan Verbum
[page 114]
Avis page 115: Rahner has attempted to show, on philosophical grounds that man is such a being as to be able to receive a revelation of God, if one should be given.'
"Transcendental revelation is the universal, tacit, taken for granted presence of God and his grace to his creatures,'
page 116: 'It is true of Rahner, as of other modern method conscious theologians, that his methodology has crystallized through a posteriori [empirical?] reflection on the way that he has felt compelled to articulate his theology.
Axioms:
1. universal salvific will of God
2. universal effective operation of grace
3. innate human capacity for God.
page 117: 'The so called transcendental method makes these assumptions methodologically explicit.'
Rahner: knowledge of the a priori conditions which make knowledge possible in the subject necessarily constitute also an element in the actual knowledge of the object itself.
[page 115]
Joseph Marechal - transcendental Thomism Joseph Marechal - Wikipedia
Avis page 119: '. . . [transcendental method] makes severa major philosophical assumptions, principally that of the unity of knowing and being.'
Ultimate unity of knowing and being is Rahner's fundamental principle (Carr, A, Theological Method of Karl Rahner) Carr
page 120'; Aquinas: 'Whatever can be can be known' (SCG II 98) - doubtful
Logic is a pipe: it does not make meaning, it carries it (?) [sounds groovy]
page 121: Revelation is 'an historical dialogue between god and man.' and its vehicle is his self understanding expressed in his culture.
page 122: 'God has positively made himself known to all mankind, in and through the religions of the world though supremely and definitively in Christianity. [UGH!!]
page 123: 'There is no purely objective, abstract revelation,
[page 116]
uncontaminated by human response.' True of all communication - message is a product of encode - channel - decode.
Avis page 125: 'In this created world even truth has a history: [???] we can only know absolute truth through its appearance in history.
. . .
page 126: 'Every advance achieved in this world of the finite, of shadows and images, always has something final about it and inevitably marks a restriction on future possibilities. The fuller and clearer the truth becomes, the more strict it becomes, and more thoroughly excludes possibilities of future errors. Looked at from this point of view, progress in the development of dogmas must in a certain respect become progressively slower, which is not to say that it must ever come to a standstill.
This is exactly wrong - we are not approaching an asymptote but a transfinite leap.
[page 117]
Avis page 127: 'A plurality of theologies in the church will undermine the ability of authorities to issue doctrinal statements.'
'Like Schillebeeckx, Rahner implies that future developments will take the form of retrospective critique, and if necessary demolition, of past dogmas and become entangled in outmoded theological forms and word views.'
hermeneutic of dogma
page 128: 'Rahner's definition of fundamental theology is that it involves scientific and systematic reflection on the grounds of credibility of Christian revelation and the obligation of faith.'
page 131: 'The individual thinking Christian cannot expect to be able to reconcile his faith with the secular knowledge he has to make use of in daily life.'
Obviously ditch Christianity, at least the delusory parts of it,
page 133: 'Like all theology, Rahner's work is continuously aware of the limits imposed on theological enquiry by the
[page 118]
unfathomable mysteries of God. [what crap, how can a mystery limit something?]
Avis page 134: Bernard Lonergan, (1904-84).
'that the aim of intellectual activity is the understanding of objective reality.' [NO, aim is fitness, and objectivity sometimes helps, sometimes hinders this.]
page 135: classical vs empirical culture.
page 137: 'pure desire to know' [more crap, want to know for some purpose - here to liberate the world from the burden of ancient religion.]
page 139;
Method adds:
be attentive
intelligent
reasonable
responsible
Intentionality analysis - an examination of the drive to know, it potential theory.
[page 119]
Avis page 140: 'transcendent operations of insight'.
page 146: 'objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity.'
page 147: 'The philosophical inquiry needs the religious context provided by theology for the full attainment of its goal.'
page 149: 'Like other human sciences, theology investigates a cultural past to guide its future.'
page 150: 'Like Rahner, Lonergan's later thought s dominated by the problem of pluralism.'
'While theology used to be defined as the science about god, [Theology] , today I believe is to be defined as reflection on the significance of a religion in a culture. . . . It follows that theology is not some one system valid for all times and places . . . but [is] as manifold as the many cultures within which a religion has significance and value.' (Philosophy of God and Theology, 33 f). Lonergan
page 154: Paul Tillich (1886-19650
page 257: 'On the idea of a theology of culture.'
[page 120]
Avis page 158: 'He believed that the post war situation offered an unprecedented opportunity for the reconstruction of a unified culture, conceived in the light of transcendent reality [eg Nazi delusion].
'Theology is the concrete and normative science of religion.'
page 160: '.. . it is worth noting that the history of religions approach came back into the centre of Tillich's thought in the last years of his life with the growing conviction that theology must be a theology of world religions.'
. . .
[page 121]
Avis page 167: 'Theology is the normative science of religion.'
page 168: Tillich: philosophical inquiry is completely unrestricted.
'Religion, on the other hand, . . . rejoices in the possession of the truth and is suspicious of any attempt to subject it to rigorous analysis.
so
Tillich: 'Religion believes it can dispense with philosophy, since it possesses the truth and there has no need of enquiry, while philosophy believes that it must avoid religion, since by its assumption of the ruth religion hinders radical inquiry, [The Fundamental Relationship between Philosophy and Religion, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, in J Pelikan ed Twentieth Century Theology in the Making II London 1970] Pelikan
page 269: meaning → being
page 170: Tillich: When philosophy tries to answer ultimate questions is becomes theology.
Philosophy and theology are cults of personality because they have no real truth to offer [until they embrace scientific method].
[page 122]
Avis page 171: 'Religionsphilosophie' attempts to resolve conflict between religion and philosophy.
Philsophy of religion does not study what is but what ought to be.
Main problem in knowledge is distinguishing possibilities from realities. Mathematics gives us a space of possibilities, some of which are realized in history. Entropy - information.
All the theologians etc think they are talking about the ultimate, but really they have just got a grasp of the local, their node in the net.
page 172: Tillich: 'Every spiritual act is an act of meaning. (What is Religion, ed J L Adams, NY 1970, 56.)
There can be no import without form, except as an abstraction. So from the point of view of its form, every religious act is a cultural act.
The absurdly arrogant position that the world is not really real has held sway for
[page 123]
2500 years. Why? Politics - it is a means of survival for the ruling class, ie those who feed off the 'masses'. Those with the leisure to read and write have always been the 'ruling class' and their servants. The few who would do it independently usually have to suffer poverty for their whim.
Avis page 173: '[Tillich] believes that a articular individual meanings are grounded in the universal logos and that a synthesis of theology and philosophy is in principle therefore attainable, In other words, Tillich the philosopher and theological postulates a correlation between thought and being.
page 174: 'I am an idealist if idealism means the assertion of the idea of thinking and being as a principle of truth. (Interpretation of History, 1936, 60), Tillich
'individuality of being is resistant to thought.'
page 175: 'the being with the most reality is not the most rational being but the most irrational being' (T), (see Chaitin) Chaitin
'Some commentators have seen the importance of Tillich's work as lying above all in his attention to
[page 124]
method.'
Absolute truth and the Titanic
'Dorothy Emmet commends him for insisting on theneed to justify the grounds on which we make theological assertions before we make them . . . '
Avis page 176; 'A ful account of Tillich's method would amount to a total exposition of his system.
The Problem of Theological Method 1947.
'methodological considerations are abstractions from methods actually used. In this connection, J P Clayton has alerted us to the possibility that Tillich may not have been consistent in his use of the method he espoused and furthermore, that his explicit methodology may be a distorted and inferior account of his actual practice. (page 18)
There is no tenure in religion, All those who disagree are deprived of life and/or livelihood.
page 177: 'The distinction between object and method is fluid.'
[page 125]
Fundamental method = consistency.
Tillich: system; 'a unique and creative comprehension of meaning' [Ie one that actually works?]
page 178: 'The ultimate aim of method in theology, as in any other human science, is the construction of a system.'
essay : one problem
summa : all problems in the field, actual + possible
system : actual problems in interrelation.
page 179: Power of system:
1. Highlight inconsistency
2. suggest insight
3. wholeness of vision
'Tillich's system reflects the circular character of theology, in which every aspect is allowed to interact with every other (the theological circle').
Tillich: 'A system is a totality made up of consistent but not deduced assertions."
'Whether a non-deductive system is not a contradiction in terms remains an open question.' [Really ??]
Non-Abelian → order counts.
[page 126]
Avis page 180: Method of correlation.
page 181: 'A theological system must provide "the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth or every new generation." Theology therefore takes place in the tension between two poles, "the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received".'
mediate = encode isomorphism
Rahner, Lonergan, Pannenberg and Tillich are the theological executors of the idealist tradition in western theology.
The Roman Catholic Church is flying blind with no feedback.
page 182: 'the theological circle' 'Theology formulates the questions implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence.'
[page 127]
Avis page 183: A N Whitehead: 'Religion collapses unless its main positions command immediacy of assent.'
This remark overlooks the fact that religion is downloaded into uncritical minds from birth.
Overlap integral Orbital overlap - Wikipedia
page 185: 'More than any other practitioner of systematic theology, Tillich has made his presuppositions regarding the methods, norms and sources of theology explicit.
Sources : Bible : History of religion
Tradition: History of culture
Medium : experience [channel]
page 188: 'Revelation is the self manifestation of ultimate reality in ecstatic experiences, expressed in symbols.'
page 189: 'Revelation conveys to those who receive it not information but salvation.'
'Symbols, of which the symbol of new Being in Jesus as the Christ as our ultimate concern is the norm, are the form in which the Christian message is expressed.'
[page 128]
Avis page 190: Polarity and paradox - dualism.
Process theology : Whitehead.
'In man's existential state of estrangement . . .'
page 192: Myth and Metaphysics
myth: Tillich: 'divine being in spatio-temporal affairs.'
All this crap gives me a dose of odium theologicum.
page 195: 'The central myth of Christianity is invulnerable to historical criticism.'
'method is a procedure for obtaining an object' (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)
'In theology this means that method assumes the phenomenon of Christianty — the actuality of divine self-disclosure and the fact of huan response in faith.
'a means of continuous progression from the
[page 129]
known to the unknown.' [meaningless in a quantum world]
page 198: 'As Mary Hesse has pointed out, while we do indeed have an accumulation of instrumental knowledge - relating to procedure and control, ie to technology - we do not have a continuous progressive grasp of the nature of things.'
Are today's theologies better than yesterday's? For us?
Church dogma is an instrument of political control.
'we want to be extremely cautious about going on to claim that they speak more truthfully about God.'
Method fulfills need.
Polanyi: 'We know more than we can tell.' Polanyi
Every designer must be aware of classic failures in his or her field: Cultural pathology / religious pathology.
[page 130]
Avis page 199: 'Christian theology starts from the assumption that God has given himself to be known by man.' [wank wank]
'. . . the extent of disagreement among theologian and the diversity if Christain tradition are sufficient evidence of the scope of the unknown in knowledge of God.
Operational theology.
First thing one encounters on being employed by a responsible person (corporate or natural) is some sort of operations manual. It may be as simple as a walk around the propoerty showing the new hand all the troughs, gates, bores, mills etc or it may be a huge database setting out procedures for dealing with every controlable and uncontrollable condition in an oil refinery. Modern emphasis on documentation. Normative = responsible. Functional specialities.
transcendental method
[page 131]
METHOD ≡ MAPPING TECHNOLOGY
Avis age 200: Method under attack
'In philosophy critica rationalists like Popper have poured cold water on the assumption that there exists a method or technique that offers a unfailing key to success.' Popper
Soe, like Copernicus (Lonergan, Rahner)
If religion is effective, we can take it seriously. The Conquistadores were taking Christianity to the New World. The smallpox was an accident.
page 201: Koestler on creativity; Act of Creation London 1964 146f Koestler
Koestler: 'the branch of knowledge which operates predominantly with abstract symbols, whose entire rationale and credo are objectivity, verifiability, logicality, turns
[page 132]
out to be dependent on mental processes which are subjective, irrational and verifiable only after the event.
Avis page 201: 'All successful attempts to solve major problems have neen obtained by deliberate or unwitting infringement of the rules.'
Polanyi on decidability: - the mapping problem - finding a mapping
This is similar to Chaitins theory
page 203: 'In his book The Grammar of Faith Prof Paul Holmer of Yale has cited the state of academic theology as a babel of conflicting voices verging on anarchy. For Feyerabend presumably, this would be a healthy sign: for Holmer, it indicates a crisis of theological integrity. Holmer
Holmer: away from academia back to passion. ,/p>
Knowledge is a covering of a manifold.
[page 133]
'A theology that does nothing but contemplate its own navel is not worthy of the name. Neither the world nor the church owes it a living.'
Avis page 204: 'Grace ,not method'. [wishful thinking]
'the grace of method'
The Church is hanging on to a standard. Time to go open source.
Language of faith = language of culture = Cantor universe
'We live our lives from day to day as though the scientific point of view is the only one that matters.' For work, yes.
Every act lies on the spectrum from pure work to pure play (what might that be?)
Entropy minimization - Work
entropy maximization - Play.
page 205: Paper tiger of scientific limitation.
[page 134]
Christian faith, on the other hand, assumes the existence of another dimension of reality, a realm in which the concepts of creation and providence, Incarnation and redemption, prayer and miracles not only are not superfluous but are of ultimate significance and do indeed make sense.'
Macquarrie: '. . . to meet the challenge of scientific positivism, the theologian has to preface his work with "as careful an explanation as he can give of the experiences, concepts and modes of discourse on which his theology is based" in the hope that the theological interpretation of the world may be regarded as a legitimate approach to the world alongside the scientific one.
Macquarrie, J, Principles of Christian Theology Macquarrie
Avis page 206: Macquarrie '[Method] can only be roven by its results: "If it leads to a coherent and intelligible presentation of what is recognisably the content of revelation, as that has been held by the community of faith, then a theological method vindicates itself".' (Principles page 34)
[page 135]
This is a purely circular and meaningless argument.
Avis page 207: 'Scholastic theology lacks any effective self correcting principle and is without anxiety about its own integrity.'
MEANING = BONDING, as a termite creates meaning by bonding two grains of sand together.
page 209: 'the plurality of theological views, the elusiveness of its object and the dearth of firm conclusions seem to disqualify theology from the ranks of the sciences.'
So we weasel our way out by distinguishing between human natural science and human sciences.
page 210: Theology not natural:
2. conclusions — unrepeatable particulars
page 212; Mathematics is an instrument of generalization - No, here squash empirical residue.
[page 136]
Tennant: 'The abstractive method of science never will, because it never can, reach ultimate reality; the very nature of the scientific method of explaining diversity by reducing it to identity, in virtue of which science tends to issue in mathematics, renders thus feat intrinsically impossible.' [wrong]
Avis page 213; Geisteswissenschaften
'. . . our objects are the 'spiritual' ones of human life and thought, culture and development, and require accordingly 'spiritual' methods involving imagination and insight, empathy and indwelling.' [so no insight in science?]
page 214: 'The primary data of theology - the thoughts, experiences writings and other cultura and symbolic expressions od human religiosity = fall within their province and are subject to their critique.'
'But though the data of theology are amenable to scientific study, there is a sense in which theology can never be a science, for neither is God an object, nor can he ever become 'subject' to our scrutiny. For the Cristian faith, God remains the ultimately Unknown one even in revelation; his mystery is
[page 137]
unfathomable. [This is your hypothesis and it has paid off very well.]
Avis page 215: 'The proposals of Schleiermacher and Barth represent, in their different ways, a closing up of theological method, in the interest, it is supposed, of scientific rigour and objectivity.
page 216: 'Reality must set the agenda for theology. it is what is the case that concerns us. Theology is an interpretation of reality in its ultimate depth - in Christian understanding - through its own self disclosure.;
cf Popper, Conjectures page 72: 'Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy, and they die if their roots decay.'
page 217: 'In theology what we have to guide our enquiry is the basic definition of God as the all determining reality.'
Fundamental problem of linguistics.
Whitehead: Process and Reality Whitehead
page 221: '. . . rigorous self-criticism of formulated theological positions
[page 138]
is called for, both in the light if our adopted methodological axioms and in relation to the content of Christian doctrine as a whole (thus a certain conclusion in theology might be rejected n formal grounds as a result of some fallacy of method, or on material grounds, as contradicting a fundamental Christian teaching). [What if Christianity is not the case?]
Avis page 221: Whitehead (Science and the Modern World 219)
'The evolution of religion is in the main a disentanglement of its own proper ideas from the adventitious notions which have crept into it by reason of the expression of its own ideas in terms of the imaginative picture of the world entertained in previous ages. Whitehead
page 222: 1: Chronic diversity of approaches to theology within a single religion
2: enormous creative and constructive energy expended on theological theories.
223; Chenu: 'the theologian "is a man who dares to put into human Words the Word of God. Once he has heard this Word, he possesses it, or rather, it possesses him, and to such an extent that he thinks through it and in it,
[page 139]
that it becomes his own thought . . . it become human property . . . the incarnation of divine truth in the very fabric of our minds. (Is Theology a Science, page 49) Chenu
Tis is not theology, simply culture.
Avis page 223: 'Modern theology impresses us as the apotheosis of theory.
'There is a swelling tide of dissatisfaction with the theoretical basis of modern theology, its alleged contemplative bias, its individualism, its obliviousness to the corporate dimension of human subjectivity with its social determinants and ideological distortions, its neglect of the solidarity of the human race in suffering and hope, its detachment from the struggle against oppression. For this alternative conception of theology, articulated by Moltmann and Metz in Europe and by the liberationists of Latin America, theology emerges as the logic of action, taking its rise from praxis rather than theory. Such a practical theology sits in judgement on the Christian tradition; it claims to constitute a Copernican revolution in Christianity.
Physics: dealing with the world
Metaphysics: dealing with eachother
All the ancient religions project a one sided
[page 140]
version of dealing with each other. In this model our primary loyalty is to some supernatural abstraction.
At the centre of Lonergan's method is the notion of conversion. Taking a defined position in doctrine.
Definition of definition ≡ to make final, bounded. Here we take it to mean 'encode in (mathematically interpreted) symbols. We will say that a set of mathematical symbols is mathematically interpreted if there exists a computable function which can produce an infinity of representations of the one idea. In short, mathematics is a computable code for transmitting ideas. This sentence defines both mathematics and the idea, for the purposes of this essay. A little history might illuminate this inflexible looking definition.
The deepest game in town is the mating game. This statement has its roots in the theory of evolution. One canot opt out.
{page 141]
We further assume a noetic space whose mathematical description is a transfinite network.This is the space of both physical and spiritual [reality]. Noetic competition operates at al levels, and we see the varying ecology.
Monday 22 November 1999
Tuesday 23 November 1999
Wednesday 24 November 1999
Thursday 25 November 1999
Friday 26 November 1999
Short history of human thought from Parmenides on is but the crust of a deeper history going back to the era of evolutionary adaptation when we were shaped as animals with all our instincts. These include all sorts of complex games and deceits, some of which are acceptable to civilization and some not. We have to take all these into account while designing heaven on earth.
Created soul is the foundation of idealism. Intentional analysis.
We all intend to mate too, but the Church des not seem to make much of that.
Idealism = delusion = wishful thinking.
[page 142]
Not trailing clouds of glory but obscured by clouds of history. William Wordsworth
Saturday 27 November 1999
Theology is the science of human relationships, that is relationships that have both a subjective and an objective interpretation, to be distinguished from physical relationships where the objective side of the relationship is open to us. We know nothing of the feelings of atoms, molecules and cells, a little more about the feelings of horses, dogs and chimpanzees and most abut our own feelings.
The depiction of human feelings seems primarily restricted to the world of fiction. For many, feeling is too ephemeral to be the subject of scientific inquiry, but the situation may be changing.
Went through a short introspective period a while ago when I began to read, index and transcribe my notebooks, but it is full
[page 143]
steam ahead again.
What we want to understand and model is 'power tripping'.
Power: ability to obtain resources from the environment [including the human environment].
Desire outruns achievement and drives it on. So we seek church unity but we still do not know how to achieve it. We can, however, imagine that it has to do with power and tolerance.
Almost like a whale. Jones
Jones page 111: 'Before Mendel all heredity was . . . memory.
page 139: 'Every animal is limited in what it can do by what it starts with.'
page 159: Humpback whales: 'A history held in the mind rather than in the genes splits them to the opposite ends of the earth.
[page 144]
Jones page 209: 'Those who hope to use fragments of the past as the key to the workings of the present will, as a result [of destruction of evidence] almost always fail.'
We only know those events of history that are present in the [present].
The fact that God is pure act is intimately related to the fact of time in the universe.
The good news [the Redemption] is just as stupid and unnecessary as the bad news [the Fall].
Can you imagine a god so small minded, stupid and fucked in the head as the Christian God, who destroyed all he had made because some of his creatures ate some fruit. It is a product of the mind of arrogant monarchists. So drop the literal meaning of the scripture. Like all other human literature, one has to look below the surface (unlike a fundamentalist) to get to the real picture.
xs
'Voltaire . . . thought that fossil fish in the Alps were remnants of pilgims' packed
[page 145]
lunches.
The central theological problem is dynamics. [2014: still had not thought of fixed point theory in 1999]
