Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 1:03 amOne of us has a definition of "Christianity," and the other doesn't.
It isn't the one who doesn't who "understands" anything.
Well, the essence of my position, and yet I admit that I do not have this worked out completely because it is, really, a very difficult psychic, psychological, intellectual, historical and social problem, the essence of my position I have already revealed; directly and honestly. I will make an effort to explain, once again, and then I hope to be able to tie what I think to some of what I have been researching about the beliefs, ideas and writings of Simone Weil (who I've never read but who is a very interesting figure and worthy of examination). I know that you will be able to understand none of it, because of the nature of the
fortress you have established for yourself and reside in, but no matter!
I do not believe in, and find it impossible to believe in, an absolute
external source that is defined as God.
There is a contradiction to what I have previously thought and said when I have expressed 'belief in' the existence of metaphysical principles and the notion of Logos. That is, that what is true in our world (what can be discovered to be ultimately true) must then be true simultaneously 'in all possible worlds'. On Earth but in all worlds (which I believe must exist). The reason I take this tack is because it is a 'logical' tack to take. So, the figure of Jesus Christ, as an emissary of God and the Logos, is in a significant sense a diagram of the relationship of metaphysical truth to the material and mutable plane in which we live. Meaning that in all places, in all times, throughout the universe, the descent of an avatar of God must be a fact of this created, manifested world. But the specificity of the Picture, the historical event (if one believes in it and, it must be stated, many cannot), the symbolic meaning of the descent of God into a material, biological and mutable sphere where certain levels of awareness manifest themselves (our human awareness, our consciousness) -- the same must be repeated, and must have been repeated, and will forever be repeated, throughout the Universe and the Kosmos.
So when I say that I do not believe in an absolute source what I mean must be explained. I do not believe in the Picture that becomes necessary for the visualization of 'God'. It is impossible to create a picture to represent God (the origin of all things) because (I must assume) what God is in this sense is non-material. The *notion of God* is also non-material. And the *stuff* (to use a non-workable metaphor!) which the psyche of man deals in when it conceives of ideas is also of a non-material nature. I am not sure if many people grasp this. It has to be pointed out for it even to be thought about. It is in our psyche and out of our psyche (the physicists refer to this as 'consciousness' and they cannot explain it) that all of our *productions* arise. Our effect in this world, our molding of the world, is as a result of those impositions that arise in our psyche.
The focus is therefore, and must be, in and
toward the psyche. Meaning, there is no external location of 'God' (and 'God' should always be put in quotations because when God it referred to God in fact is not referred to! since by doing so it is reduced to a concept, a picture, and the picture is not what the picture represents. The term is a sort of necessary shorthand but to rely on the term exposes many different traps. We cannot do without it but it does not help us to clarify.
The language of God, the description of God, is generally speaking always a false conceptual path. Yet we cannot do without the conception, and we cannot do without the *path*. A path is a way to get from one concept-point to another concept-point. But let's face one solid fact: most people when they 'align themselves with God' are aligning themselves with a limited picture of a conception, but largely with a moral and ethical code. This is how it should be and there is no way around it. If I am explaining anything, and if I am making any sense at all, it is because I am dealing in terms that are those pertinent to 'gnosis', and gnosis refers to ideas that are 'not for everyone'.
So, it is true: the 'horizon was erased'. And on that horizon (which is man's imagination) the Giant Picture that is the Christian description of Reality was painted. It is all false. That is to say, it is all 'pictures painted on the walls of the cave'. I guess you could say 'shadows cast on the wall of man's imagination and screen of consciousness' and that would work as well. But a truth must be confronted: many people will not be able to understand that though the 'image' is technically unreal (a picture, a trope) what the picture
refers to is not! But what is referred to is, literally, in another dimension. That dimension is the immateriality of concept, and it is this that man confronts (deals with, works with) through that inexplicable entity known as psyche.
What is God? Where is God? Once you've done the math, so to speak, the only conclusion that remains is that God and Psyche, or Psyche and God, is the only place that the *endeavor* could take place. The external picture may be elaborate, or simple, or ancient, or futuristic, but it is merely a picture, not the real thing. But even to propose a 'real thing' is to refer, still, to a picture. We have no choice but
to picture (as a verb). We are instruments that picture. But it goes without saying that an instrument, any instrument, cannot ever arrive at a 'real picture'.
It must be understood that *most people* will not, indeed will not want to, grasp these ideas. Certainly many do not have any interest at all. Most can only be presented with, and 'held' by, concrete images that are presented as 'absolute'. So, if you are going to tell one of them about Jesus Christ, you are going to have to present them with as detailed a picture as is possible to paint. Not only does the story have to be coherent but, if possible, you will do well to present them with an artifact that "proves' the existence of the historical personage. If you suggested, as I am suggesting, that in fact any picture is just a picture (a visualization!) you will confuse them and, unfortunately, they will not be able to *believe in* the Story.
But there is another dimension and I have also referred to it. Judaism and Judeo-Christianity are 'constructs' and 'pictures' that pertain to the people who created the story, the history (the lived and *real* history as well as the imagined and mythological history -- and these two bizarrely interweave and intertwine). When the Mediterranean generals and their ideological educators conquered the northern regions, the people who were there already had, largely, their world-picture. In what sense? Not as something defined and concretized in written language, but something very essential and part of the 'substructure' of their being. They received all that Christianity represents (this is
far more than merely the Gospel stories, a cross and a church building), but what they received came to them with *compulsion*. That is, through the imposition of power. Nevertheless, what they received, which also came through pictures that were entertained in the imagination, they simultaneously modified, transfigured, transvalued, what they were presented with. All of this began in the 7th century (more or less) and
waaaaaaay back in the earliest days.
Here, it must be understood that though *Christianity* could be pictured as a solid, defined thing, no matter where it is received, and who receives it, the *it* of it will be bent, modified, interpreted, adapted and all other terms referring to the same thing.
If this is so, and it is certainly so, what then
is Christianity? You would have to present a specific picture from a specific place and talk about
that Christianity. So my reference point is the Germanic World (because of my identification as European). When I say Germanic World I mean the core of Europe. And I also mean Indo-European. This opens up a problematic question of identity. And as we all know the issue of identity (blood & soil) has arisen and has been presented as a Specter. It is a difficult and complex topic and, here, I cannot go into it, but present Christian forms, in their milquetoast versions, present a form of Universalism that (in my view) must be resisted, opposed and vanquished. Is Jesus Christ then the image or the representative of this Universalism? If yes, then that Jesus Christ must be resisted. Or to put it another way
rewritten. Re-pictured.
So I have a position that is potentially intensely dedicated to a re-drawing of the picture. My posture is 'identitarian'. This arises in the context, my context, of realizing, acutely, the degree to which I have been influenced to abandon my 'roots'. And I must use that rather troubling term 'blood & soil'. Meaning, the place where I originated and the biological structure through which my ancestors gave me what they worked for. Heritage, locality, way-of-being, things indeed exclusive, things that I must say
These are mine (and not yours). This is all highly
problematic stuff. It is filled with all sort of problems and dangers.
In the next post I will talk a bit about Simone Weil and two titles that interest me:
Intimations of Christianity Among The Greeks
The Need of Roots