Reflections: A Challenge to Dual

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Of the person who first uttered the proverb, “Too soon old, too late smart,” you might surmise — given the source from which you probably first heard it — that he was a Jew. The odds there are good. But on one thing you can bet your silver samovar: whoever said it first was old.

The truth conveyed by those six little words tells you everything you need to know about life on the material plane. It encapsulates everything said at much greater length by Ecclesiastes. Beneath the agonizing weight of it, you may come to realize that the putative old Jew who first had the honesty to express this thought was, ipso facto, a (gasp!) Dualist. His tardy realization is that he was fucked from the git-go because his realization was tardy. Unless we choose to single-mindedly pursue the path of sainthood our physical plant breaks down before our spiritual growth can be completed. Unless we early-on see the adversary in the materia we almost certainly will not do so.

Concerning those who take an anti-Dualist approach in their contemplation of human existence we can say that each is either a credulous naïf or that he is lying to himself. It was Jesus Christ who identified Satan as “the prince of this world.” Therefore, don’t listen uncritically to those who say “It’s all good”—do your own math.

The anti-Dualists can’t give you a satisfactory explanation of the Problem of Evil for one simple reason: one needs to have become a Dualist before one can even begin to contemplate the problem honestly.

To be in the world is a universal given. To be of the world is an individual choice.

Is the material world not beautiful? You betcha! And was not Lucifer also the most beautiful of God’s angels? (*BIG FRIGGIN' WINK*) Ah! there’s the snare.

For all the verbiage expended to insulate one from the obvious, the issue really isn’t that complicated. And for you, it may not yet be too late.
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Readings: Evil Raises Its Ugly Head. Again.

There has been an on-going discussion, on a couple of consecutive threads, over in the Religion Department at Politics, Sex and Religion--(I’ve put in for a transfer to Sex, but so far nothing has opened up for me, no pun intended)—concerning the nature of God, with particular reference to the Problem of Evil.

I got home from work this afternoon, eager to watch the end of the Rockies-Phillies game prior to settling into the Yankees-Indians contest, only to find that the cable is out -- proving that THERE IS NO GOD!!! DAMN IT ALL!!!

Nothing to be done, then, but to take a deep breath, pick up On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God and begin reading the next Simone Weil piece therein. The piece is entitled “Some Reflections on the Love of God” and the opening paragraph, which follows, is very relevant to the above mentioned discussions:

“The love that God bears us is, at any moment, the material and substance of our very being. God’s creative love which maintains us in existence is not merely a superabundance of generosity, it is also renunciation and sacrifice. Not only the Passion but the Creation itself is a renunciation and sacrifice on the part of God. The Passion is simply its consummation. God already voids himself of his divinity by the Creation. He takes the form of a slave, submits to necessity, abases himself. His love maintains in existence, in a free and autonomous existence, beings other than himself, beings other than the good, mediocre beings. Through love, he abandons them to affliction and sin. For if he did not abandon them they would not exist. His presence would annul their existence as a flame kills a butterfly.”

You gotta admit—that’s different. And it leads us straight to Today’s Word, kenosis. Kenosis. Just point and click.