Creatively Advancing into Novelty
“Evil is not eliminated by a destructive retributive judgment, but by an aesthetic synthesis of intensity, order, and harmony. Whitehead’s God is not a cosmic judge; rather, God is a cosmic artist. The many poor paintings of individual lives and events are transformed in a continuous aesthetic process of harmonizing the parts with an ideal…
“Moral and religious authority will always tip toward the blood of the martyrs, and military service is the only martyrological option available to Americans…In America, the weight of blood tips the scales of sacred authority toward the state and away from the church. The nation state is elevated above the church by the sacred authority…
“It is certainly the case that many cultural traditions with their varying modes of reasoning are already embedded within Christianity. The Bible alone contains texts that celebrate different and sometimes conflicting accounts of the world, exposing a range of rationalities that are expressed in a variety of genres. But even more important for theology’s work…
“I would say that selfhood as we humans normally conceive of it emerges as we master language. As Whitehead says in “Adventures of Ideas” (I summarize), the account of the 6th day should be written, “He gave them language, and they became souls.” I think we can make distinctions between degrees of nonconscious experience (particles,…
This was a short story I wrote a few years ago for the Unfolded Podcast that was never recorded. I thought I would publish it here. Male 5’10” 155 lbs. Age: 35 Education: B.S., History, Mercy College; M.S. Ancient History & Language, Indiana University; PhD. Ancient Near East & Egyption Studies, New York University Current…
“That biblical vision of a world-for-all did not come from our modern ideas of democratic power or our contemporary claims about human or civil rights. It did not come from liberalism, socialism, or communism. In recognizing its challenge we are not retrojecting any of that modernity back onto antiquity. A world-for-all came, if one needs…
“For all that [Jordan] Peterson speaks of the Bible, so far, he leaves out one vital figure, perhaps the most vital figure: Sophia. In Carl Jung’s Answer to Job, Jung calls Sophia the logos itself. He names Sophia the mediator between humankind and God. Who is Sophia? Wisdom. She is the feminine wisdom exiled from…
“All tribes unite at the Godhead and then walk away with their differing tribal missions: that is the aim of the 21st century, to achieve that realization and walk from the whole toward infinite fracturing into communities that reflect what its members actually believe. It is the only way to purge ourselves of guilt and…
“To put this into the context of a life narrative, my dreams do not belong only to myself but to all of the people and non-human things and processes with which I share this earth. The earth flows through me, and my vision of the world, in turn, reverberates back out into my surroundings. Strictly…
“The notion that political enemies are human, too, sharing our common human hopes and fears, triumphs and vulnerabilities, is often deployed in a way to downplay political division and enmity. In reality, though, the fact that our enemies are human, too, is what makes them morally accountable. If they were inhuman monsters who thrived on…