< Back King James David Cowles Nov 15, 2022 “We’re not in Kansas (or even Kensington) anymore, are we?” We’ve recently posted several Thoughts on ‘legitimate government’ and on the proper relationship between church and state: The Gettysburg Address Gettysburg Too Election Day 2022 We hoped to point out that things we take pretty much for granted can be viewed in very different, but still coherent, ways. King James I of England ( aka James VI of Scotland) succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603. We are indebted to him for the most famous book ever published, the King James Bible . King James had a view of government that is different from anything we’ve reviewed so far. We can take a peek at his 1609 speech before Parliament; but caveat lector : this did not come from The New Yorker or from the editorial pages of The Guardian . “Kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods... “Kings are justly called Gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king… “God hath power to create, or destroy, make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to none. To raise low things, and to make high things low at his pleasure… “And the like power have Kings: they make and unmake their subjects: they have power of raising, and casting down: of life and of death: judges over all their subjects, and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but God only... They have power to exalt low things, and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at the chess. A pawn to take a bishop or a knight… “As to dispute what God may do is blasphemy, so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do…” Wow! We’re not in Kansas (or even Kensington) anymore, are we? (Notice how James cleverly manipulates the threat of class warfare to scare the nobles in Parliament into submission!) James is an ultra-nominalist. He rejects the idea that God does what he does because it is objectively ‘good’; James believes that things are ‘good’ because God does them. Nominalism is the theological equivalent of every parent’s last refuge: “Because I said so.” Similarly, laws are ‘just’ solely because the king wills them. Forget about ‘Church and State’, welcome to ‘Church of State’. In a theocracy, Church rules: the State is merely a ‘functional department’ of Church. In a Republic, Church and State are distinct, albeit overlapping, entities with distinct, but also overlapping, jurisdictions. Messy, but... In the world of King James, however, State rules: the Church is a ‘functional department’ of State. None of the 20th century’s greatest tyrants (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, e.g.) would have dreamt of asserting such bold a claim to legitimacy. Today’s world is full of Theocrats and Republicans (above) leaving few to champion James’ Absolutism. His 1609 proclamation deviates from the developing political philosophy of Europe (500 to 1600), but it also reverses a basic tenet of Judeo-Christian theology that dates back at least to Genesis (2,000+ years before James). In fact, you’re only three verses into Genesis when you see the problem: “Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good.” According to James, God acts without regard to ‘good’. Why then does he check to see if the light he created passes muster? God acted, but he immediately evaluated his act in reference to a pre-existent standard (Good). According to James’ theology, God has no truck with Good. He acts however he acts and by that ‘acting’ he creates Good…for us. It would be ridiculous for God to check to see if his action was good since Good did not exist before he acted. How do you get around this? I only see three alternatives: (1) God is ridiculous, (2) God is delusional, (3) God is ignorant - his right hand doesn’t know what his left hand is doing, (4) “ It’s just Genesis! ” It’s true that we need to read Genesis with a different eye then we would use when reading a book like Maccabees , but arguably the two most important books of the Old Testament, Job and Psalms , are devoted to the idea that ‘God is Good’ (not ‘Good is God’). Perhaps we’ll take a look at those sources in a later edition of TWS . Image: James I, oil on canvas by Daniel Mytens, 1621; in the National Portrait Gallery. Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Think like an Octopus David Cowles Aug 3, 2026 “The cosmic showdown, Homo vs. Octo, may be overhyped. Rumors of a $250,000 ticket price are exaggerated… My advice to scalpers: stick to Taylor Swift!” 1200 words, 6 minute read 2.5 million years ago was ‘just last week’ in life of our 4.5 billion year old planet (Earth)… but what a week it was! Back then, the genus Homo , our genus, first evolved in East Africa. At the time, your ancestors didn’t make much of a splash. Standing 4 feet tall, weighing 90 pounds soaking wet, and having few natural defenses, Homo failed to put the fear of God into the giant hyenas, crocs, hippos and saber tooth tigers that shared Africa’s horn. But we weren’t stupid: “There’s a whole lot of killin’ and eatin’ goin’ on here and we can’t compete. So let’s follow the Alpha predators, at a respectful distance of course, and feast on their leftovers.” And so we became scavengers of the plains. Of course, the proto-Marxists among us complained that we were living off ‘crumbs from the table of imperialism’… but Tiny Tim will have his Christmas pud’! Liberal lions were happy to leave some choice morsels (not too many of course, they’re liberals, not anarchists) for the pathetic scavengers but the Leonid Lords warned against the practice: “Your generosity may fuel a revolution of rising expectations. One day, you may face these beggars across the barricades.” These well-considered warnings only provoked laughter. Misguided whelps would continue to ‘feed the wild animals’ (as they called it). But surprisingly, the Lion scouts, the hunters, backed the idle Lords (politics sure does make strange bedfellows). It seems the Homo community included a seer who’d been overheard delivering an oracle to his followers: “One day lions will live in cages, and your descendants will feed them their leftovers.” Even then, members of the genus Homo were known for their keen sense of humor, so the Pride shrugged off this second warning too, albeit a bit more nervously. The seer had noticed what everyone else had overlooked…or disregarded: Homo thinks differently from Panthera (‘big cats’) and eventually that difference would deliver an unstoppable evolutionary advantage. Well “it’s yesterday once more” and now it’s my turn to play prophet. There are genera (plural of genus for those of you who skipped Latin) today whose members think differently from us and that difference may one day translate into a new round of evolutionary advantage…at our expense. “Meet the new boss!” (The Who) Better than the old boss? Researchers have discovered a mutation, unique to Octopus, that allows their cells to produce certain proteins, critical in the thought process, with remarkable fidelity. According to an article in Scientific American (7/29/2026), Richard Han, then a graduate student in the lab of Harvard Medical School cell biologist Amy Lee, was examining Octopus RNA—the molecules that carry the genetic instructions that cells use to build proteins—when he noticed an unusual break in the genetic sequences that formed ribosomes, the cell’s protein-makers. This segment of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is identical across every other animal species that’s been studied, so Octopus’ unique deviation jumped out. To figure out how this mutation affects ribosome function, the researchers engineered it into certain bacteria. The altered bacteria made fewer protein building errors. Neurons, being long-lived, are especially vulnerable to protein production errors which slow thought and increase the incidence of error. So next time Junior brings home a bad report card, don’t be surprised if he tells you that your RNA is to blame. If he’s precocious, he may even suggest that gene therapy (CRISPR), rather than the usual punishments, would help him raise his grades. The advantages of this mutation are obvious, so it’s unclear why this evolutionary step should have been confined to Octopus genera and specifically to those species of Octopus (shallow water) that split off from their deep-water counterparts roughly 100 million years ago. Octopus’ prodigious intelligence is all the more surprising when you realize that they don’t have a central nervous system. Rather, their whole body functions as a decentralized data processor. The left tentacle literally doesn’t know what the right tentacle is doing. As Scarecrow discovered in the Wizard of Oz , brains do not create consciousness, consciousness configures brains (and/or other cognitive organs). While vertebrates’ evolution of a central nervous system was a big deal, a leap forward that the genus Homo exploited to obvious advantage, it is not the whole story. Powerful as they are, brains are very inefficient. They are remote, fragile, and super sensitive. Processing takes place far from where ‘boy meets world’. Plus, brains need to be protected, and temperature controlled, so a heavy, thick skull and a semi-permeable membrane are required. It seems that Octopus has found a better solution. The cognitive function is distributed throughout the body. As in Roman Catholic political theory (subsidiarity), decisions are made locally , i.e. as close to the action site as possible. But the cosmic showdown, Homo vs. Octo , may be overhyped. Rumors of a $250,000 ticket price are probably exaggerated. One of Homo’s signature traits is its ability to adapt. Already there is evidence that we are starting to think like our Cephaloid cousins. Blockchain is a form of distributed intelligence that auto-corrects errors; it already supports segments of our financial industry. My advice to scalpers: stick to Taylor Swift! Now we learn that the European Union is adapting Octopus neurology and blockchain technology to create an automated intelligence network, known as a “digital targeting web…Project ASGARD” (from Norse mythology). The system has been cobbled together over the course of four months—an astonishing pace for weapons development usually measured in years. Its purpose is to connect directly everything that looks for targets (‘sensors’ in military lingo) with everything that fires on them (‘shooters’). Say a reconnaissance drone spots an enemy tank. In conventional operations, the soldier operating that drone would pass the intelligence through a centralized chain of command to a decision making authority. But a targeting web like ASGARD operates more like an octopus, whose tentacles act autonomously while also collaborating in pursuit of collective strategic goals. Consider some post-WWII military engagements in this light. In 1970, Nixon unleashed an invasion of Cambodia’s Parrot’s Beak in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt North Vietnam’s logistical command and control. 5 years later, Saigon unexpectedly fell to a well-coordinated attack. Now fast forward to the Gulf Wars. The allies knocked out Iraq’s central command structure at the beginning of each conflict. ‘Blinded’, Sadham was unable to anticipate or counter US troop movements. Had Iraq developed and deployed an ASGARD system prior to its invasion of Kuwait, Gulf history might have played out differently. But the lessons of the Octopus transcend warfare! Alzheimer’s and dementia are associated with plaque deposits in the brain which may result from protein production errors. It is conceivable that we will soon be able to harness Cephaloid biology to eliminate these scourges from the repertoire of human tragedy. Don’t count us out yet! Or we may end up serving new, hopefully benevolent, eight limbed masters. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back What Did John See? David Cowles The Bible doesn’t tell us what John saw, but it does tell us that the breaking of the seventh seal was followed by half an hour of total silence. Why? In the Christian tradition, the climax of cosmic history is the advent of the New Jerusalem, the triumph of the Kingdom of God. Paul said it best: “Then comes the end, when he (Christ) hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet . The last enemy to be destroyed is death…When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all .“ (I Cor. 15: 24 - 28) That’s the climax. But, of course, there are mini climaxes all along the way, events best described as the eruption of the eternal Kingdom of God into history. Just glance over at God’s ‘Highlights Reel:’ Creation Exodus Torah Incarnation Resurrection Ascension Pentecost Not too shabby! Is it too much to hope that some NFL team might draft God in the first round? I wonder if he needs an agent? The final book of the Christian Bible, The Book of Revelation (sometimes called Apocalypse ), is a book of climaxes . The ultimate cosmic climax comes in the final chapter (Rev. 22): “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end…I am surely coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” This is the climax, not of the Book of Revelation , but of all Scripture, of all history, of the universe itself; but the climax of Revelation itself comes much earlier (6:1 – 8:1) with the breaking of the seven seals. That is Revelation ’s pivot point. While John of Patmos (the self-proclaimed author of Revelation ) looks on, the Lamb (Christ) opens the seals. As each seal is broken, an aspect of reality is revealed: First Seal – Crown (authority) Second Seal – Sword (power) Third Seal – Scales (judgment) Fourth Seal – Death and Hades Fifth Seal – Martyrdom Sixth Seal – Cosmic Catastrophe John “watched (and listened) as the Lamb broke open” each seal in turn. Each seal brought new and terrifying sights and sounds: a voice like thunder, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Death and Hell itself, the blood of martyrs. Then, with the breaking of the sixth seal, “there was a great earthquake, the sun turned as black and dark as sackcloth, and the whole moon became like blood. The stars in the sky fell to Earth like unripe figs shaken loose in a strong wind. Then the sky was divided, like a torn scroll…” But even this is still just preparation for the great event yet to come, the breaking of the seventh seal, the fulcrum on which Revelation balances. The first five chapters (Rev. 1 – 5) brought us up to the breaking of the seals. In Chapter Six, the first six seals were broken. Chapter Seven specifically prepares us for the climactic breaking of the seventh seal. No doubt, the breaking of the sixth seal is a tough act to follow. What can the Lamb possibly do for an encore? What do you think? What do you think happened when the seventh seal was broken? Write your own ending to cosmic history! Ok, spoiler alert , here goes: “When He (Christ/the Lamb) broke open the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven for about a half an hour.” Not what you were expecting? We are told that John of Patmos ‘watched’ as each of the first six seals was broken, and his watchfulness was rewarded each time with a fantastic vision. Undoubtedly, John watched as the seventh seal was broken as well. The Bible doesn’t tell us what John saw, but it does tell us that the breaking of the seventh seal was followed by half an hour of total silence. Why? It is finished! The sound and the fury of life is spent. Now it is time to learn what, if anything, it signifies (Macbeth). The seventh seal is like the seventh day (Sabbath), the seventh year (Sabbatical), the seventh cycle of seven years (Jubilee). It inaugurates a period of life-affirming rest. (Imagine, a religion whose highest value is rest – Requiem Aeternam !) Silence speaks ‘louder’ than any ‘sound’ ever could. Revelation is not lacking in special effects. Normally, we experience sound against a background of silence; in Revelation, we experience silence against the cacophony of the Apocalypse. Silence becomes figure. Consider the final chorus ( Amen! ) of Handel’s great oratorio, Messiah . Midway through this varied but bombastic summation of the ‘greatest story ever told,’ the orchestra and the chorus suddenly fall silent and stay silent for several measures. This is the pivotal musical moment corresponding to the pivotal moment of salvation history in Revelation . The ’rest’ in Handel’s Amen! is one of the most profound moments in all of western music. Is this the effect John of Patmos was going for? Perhaps, but we have not yet answered the question, “What did John see ?” He saw something, even if that something was nothing (e.g., the abyss). Whatever John saw, it must not have been anything like what he was expecting. For 30 minutes he stared in silence. And he was not alone; his silence is echoed by the angels and saints attending the Lamb. Could it be that the seventh vision was so profoundly shocking that no one, human or angelic, could manage to eke out a single sound? So, shocking that long afterwards, recalling in tranquility all his visions, John still could find no words to express the seventh? What about you? What do you think John saw? In any event, with the breaking of the seventh seal, our story must be done. Nothing more than a short doxology could possibly be needed to bring the story of the Bible to its momentous close, right? Well, not according to John of Patmos. He needs 15 more chapters to get to “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22: 20) Whatever for? Not that these 15 chapters are boring…far from it! These are the chapters that casual readers usually think of when they think of Revelation . This is the time of trumpets, scrolls and bowls, the time of plagues and beasts, and even a dragon. It is the age of the Antichrist. Undoubtedly, these are the most violent 15 chapters in all of scripture. What can be going on here? To answer that , we’ll need to skip just a bit ahead, 1,750 years ahead that is. Prior to 1848, European revolutionaries believed that Utopia lay just behind the veil. Properly align the political (democracy) and economic (socialism) stars and Utopia will emerge almost immediately from the shadows, where it has been lingering for millennia, waiting to be born. This was the tacit assumption behind Enlightenment sociology. Do we still believe some version of this today? Karl Marx knew better. So did Engels and Lenin. They understood that Rome was neither built nor destroyed in a day. Political and economic asymmetry is deeply ingrained in our Atlantic culture. By the time Marx appeared on the scene, the euphoria of 1776 and 1789 was gone. The rosy optimism of Kant, Hegel, and the Utopians had been dimmed by the harsh realities of power politics . This was neither the bourgeois republic of Franklin, nor the ‘minimal state’ of the Bakunin. The United States was headed toward a civil war, partially fought to defend the institution of slavery, while France was still in the throes of a series of restored monarchies, self-proclaimed empires, revolutionary councils, and state organs of terror. Marx et al. saw that the anciene regime would not go away quietly. The founders of modern communism anticipated a tumultuous transition. They called it the Dictatorship of the Proletariat . Just as the Church was the vanguard of Christianity, so the party would be the vanguard of communism. Sidebar : We all know how that worked out, don’t we? The proletariat ended up being the object of the dictatorship rather than its subject. Being in the vanguard is never easy. Today, we rightly find fault with some of the church’s behavior. Well and good, but charity asks us to remember that other vanguards have fared no better. This insight of Karl Marx (1848) was shared by John of Patmos 1,750 years earlier. Living toward the end of the first century and/or at the beginning of the second, John did not have the luxury of hoping for a peaceful transition of power. He knew exactly how high a mountain needed to be climbed, and he knew that could not happen without blood and tears. But he never doubted that the world would get there eventually. A ragtag bunch of fishermen and itinerant preachers from Galilee, a section of the empire disdained both by Rome and by Jerusalem, would overcome the mightiest political, economic, and military power in the history of planet Earth. Of course! What else? Image: Matthias Gerung - Ottheinrich-Bibel, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 8010. Page 287r: John's Vision of Heaven, Revelation 4:1-11, 5:1-14. Public Domain. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Shame David Coles Dec 13, 2022 “Shame comes in two flavors: episodic shame and existential shame. Episodic shame can be habit-forming; it can turn into existential shame.” Shame is one of the most powerful of all human emotions…and perhaps the most pernicious. Other emotions are directed, at least in part, at things outside us. We fear ‘something’; we are angry at ‘someone’. Not so, shame. My shame is directed solely at myself, by myself. I only feel shame in the context of an outside observer, actual or potential; but the observer does not ‘shame me’. I shame myself. Furthermore, I cannot feel shame unless I allow myself to be shamed, so, end of day, I cannot be shamed by anyone else but me. When we were kids, our father used to threaten us, “I’ll shame you!” And he did, or at least he tried to; and he succeeded, but only because I let myself be shamed. I looked at myself through his eyes. I internalized his disgust. Likewise, I didn’t know then that shame was optional. I didn’t know that no one could be shamed by anyone but themselves. Example: I’m 10 years old and on my way to school I see a friend being balled-out by his mom in front of several of our classmates. Figuratively, I ‘feel his shame’; literally, I feel sorry for my friend, but I don’t feel ashamed, not really. Now reverse roles. It’s my mom, and I’m the boy on the receiving end of the stick. Of course, I’m ashamed, but why? What’s changed? A boy is being shamed in either case. In either case, I’m sorry that it’s happening. It’s wrong in both cases. (Shaming is always wrong, regardless of the provocation.) But in neither case am I the boy ‘being shamed’. I’m watching myself be shamed, just as I watched my friend being shamed; but there’s no reason for either of us to feel shame either time. We didn’t do anything wrong, or at least we didn’t do anything shameful. The only people in this story who might legitimately feel shame are the two moms, but even then, only if they allow themselves to feel shame, which I’m guessing, they won’t. Self-righteousness is a powerful protection against self-criticism. So, let’s review. IRT, I watched my friend… from the outside; IRT, I watched myself from the inside; now I’m watching the moms, but from my memory, i.e., outside of real time. Different scenarios, no doubt. But it’s still me watching. It’s the same me. I haven’t changed. Hint: I never change; I am ageless and timeless. I’m watching, always watching, watching me, watching you, watching me watching you. Watching is what I do, ‘watching’ is what I am. Observo ergo sum. Shame is an instance of Alfred North Whitehead’s ‘Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness’, which itself is just another way of saying ‘Idolatry’, the first sin condemned in the Torah and throughout Judeo-Christian-Islamic history. When I feel shame, I mistake myself for myself. I confuse something ageless and timeless, me watching, with something time bound and aging, me being watched. I mistake the perpetually perishing me for the eternal me. Fear and anger erupt, often in response to outside stimuli, but always from the inside out. On a camping trip, I hear a bear outside my tent. I am terrified. My fear is my response to the bear-threat. The bear ‘occasioned’ my fear, but she did not cause it. Fear was my response to a well-intentioned bear innocently looking for a midnight snack. Plus, if I am afraid, I’m afraid whether anyone knows it or not. Shame is totally different. It is imposed from the outside. Shame presupposes the existence of a judgy observer. That could be a loved one, a neighbor or a casual passer-by; it could be your pet or even ‘God, his angels, and his saints’. Nor does this potential external observer need to be present IRT. The anticipation that a present act may be uncovered in the future is enough to trigger shame if we let it. Shame comes in two flavors: episodic shame and existential shame. Episodic shame can be habit-forming; it can turn into existential shame. You begin to identify with your shame; you allow yourself to become ‘shameful’. You feel you deserve to feel shame, not just once in a while, but all the time. You’re no longer ashamed of what you’ve done; now you’re ashamed of who you are. You’re a fish out of ontological water, and somehow, you always manage to turn up naked. So, congratulations, you’ve graduated from episodic to existential shame. Now your Christmas goose is truly cooked. All we’re waiting for is Tiny Tim…but if he’s otherwise occupied, you could try spending a year with a Harley Street therapist instead. Or, if all else fails, just remember who you are…and who you are not. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Riddle of Job David Cowles If I do my job in this essay, you may become a modern-day version of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, who “stoppeth one of three." You’ll be spreading the truth about Job to anyone who’ll listen. Ask absolutely anyone, and they'll gladly tell you that the Old Testament Book of Job is a treatise on the Problem of Evil ('POE'): Why Bad Things Happen to Good People (Rabbi Harold Kushner, 1981). But is it? Is it possible that everyone (well, nearly everyone) is wrong about Job…and has been wrong for more than 2,500 years? Not very likely, I'll grant you…but possible, yes. Proceed at your own risk, reader! If I do my job in this essay, you may become a modern-day version of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who "stoppeth one of three." You'll be spreading the truth about Job to anyone who'll listen. No? Still with us? Then let's get started: Simply put, the Problem of Evil (POE) asks why God, presumed to be all good and all-powerful, would allow injustice to infect his creation? It is his creation, after all, correct? Then fix it already! The author/compiler/editor of the Book of Job attacks POE head on, but so do most other philosophers and theologians. Job showcases many potential solutions to POE, but tough questions remain: Are any of the solutions mentioned in Job satisfying? Does the author/compiler/editor of Job endorse any of these answers? Or does he (sic) offer a solution of his own? Or is POE not what the Book of Job is about after all? And if not POE, what? No proposed solution has achieved broad acceptance, and non-believers often cite this as the #1 reason for their disbelief. 20th century philosopher, mathematician, and social activist, Bertrand Russell, based Why I am not a Christian on POE. The Problem of Evil is often viewed through the prism of Job, and rightly so! The Job-poem, which makes up 95% of the Book of Job, is one of the world's great epics. Even in translation its language is dazzling, but more importantly for our purposes, the poem catalogs more 'POE solutions' than any other comparable source. But we have a problem: the poem debunks every one of the solutions it 'proposes,' and it does not seem to offer any new solution of its own. Odd, don't you think? It is customary for philosophical writing to critique prior opinions, but it is also customary for it to propose solutions of its own. The Job-poem does plenty of the former, but none of the latter: 40 chapters and still crickets! From the earliest times, commentators have struggled, unsuccessfully, in my view, to tease a solution to POE out of the Job-text itself. But what if the Job-poet never meant to propose a solution to POE in the first place? What if Job is not about the Problem of Evil at all? What if that's just its 'narrative skin?' In that case, understanding Job as a treatise on POE would be roughly equivalent to understanding Joyce's Ulysses as a Dublin travelog. Job is not about POE; just the opposite. In fact; Job asks questions like: What is the nature and origin of Good? What makes something, anything, 'good,' and what makes one thing better (more good) than another? Is something subjectively good because it is God's will; or is it God's will because it is objectively good? (For more on this, check out The Problem of Good , elsewhere in this issue of AT Magazine.) To this last question, the Book of Job gives a clear and unequivocal answer: God is subject to the same objective ethical values and standards as the rest of us! This is what the book is really all about. Be skeptical, dear reader, but please; hear me out! The Book of Job consists of three parts: an epic poem (the 'Job-poem') that spans more than 40 chapters and makes up 95% of the total text; a short prose Prologue (1:1 – 2:13), and a very short prose Epilogue (42: 7-17). The two prose sections were almost certainly not part of the original text, but were added later. They function as 'bookends,' creating out of whole cloth a possible context for the poem; but in fact they amount to an early (and not very good) commentary on the epic The Job-poem is structured as a dramatic dialog. There are six main characters: Job, four so-called 'friends'… and God! (What would an epic be without God?) Over a very short time, Job, by all accounts a virtuous man, right in his own conduct, just and generous in his dealings with others, has lost his wealth, his children, the respect of his community, and ultimately, his good health. The Job-poem opens with Job sitting on a 'dunghill' covered in boils, lamenting his fate: "Let the day disappear, the day I was born and the night that announced: a man has been conceived. As for that day, let it be darkness…let darkness, dead darkness, expunge it." (3: 3 – 5a) Job asks, "Why couldn't I be a stillborn?" and then goes on to extol the benefits of 'being dead:' "There, no more restless are the troubled…all prisoners are at peace. They hear no more the voice of their oppressor. The small and the great, there are the same; and the slave is set free from his master." (3: 17 – 19) Then, stunningly, Job's understandable self-pity turns into unexpected curiosity: "Why give light…to a man whose path is hidden from God, who screens him off from his sight? (3: 20 – 23) Job can't help himself. As he recounts his sad tale, he stimulates his own sense of wonder. Job's focus shifts from 'why did I have to be born' to 'why does anyone have to be born' to an even bigger question: 'why create a universe at all, if it's going to include so much suffering.' Job's opening speech ends with a further meditation on the human condition, followed by an astounding conclusion: "They (human beings) are quashed before twilight, from daybreak to evening they are crushed; when it is not even nightfall, they forever disappear. Their tent-pin is pulled up on them. They die without knowledge." (4: 19 – 21) Job has just given a detailed description of his plight (and ours) in language worthy of Dante's Inferno . He ends by lamenting the fact that humans 'die without knowledge?' Of all the tortures he's endured, is it possible that the worst is the prospect of 'eternal ignorance?' The Job-poem is structured as a legal proceeding. Job feels that his current sufferings are unjust. He has lived a righteous and generous life; so why is it that so much evil has befallen him? And even if he did inadvertently commit some sins along the way, those sins cannot possibly justify the enormity of his suffering. Job will not feign guilt and throw himself on God's mercy, as his friends suggest. Instead, he decides to bring legal action against the Deity. As we will see shortly, Job's determination does not come out of any disrespect for God, but rather out of profound faith. Job does not imagine that he has the power to divert God's will; and he knows that no court can compel God to appear and make an answer, much less force him to comply with its final judgment. But even with no real hope of prevailing, Job wants to be heard, and he wants to hear from God; and a legal proceeding offers a most conducive venue for such an exchange. Like so many lawsuits today, Job's is not so much about winning as it is about forcing the defendant (God in this case) to divulge some of his trade secrets. And as we will see shortly, in that respect, at least, Job is successful. So, Job asks God for nothing less than a full accounting of himself. What did he have in mind when he 'created the heavens and the earth,' why didn't he do a better job, and why doesn't he fix it now? In this proceeding, Job is the plaintiff, appearing pro se , God the defendant initially in absentia; and the so-called 'friends' are an ancient version of Johnny Cochran's Dream Team…but self-appointed, and much less competent . Pity any god who cannot afford better representation than this! Job bears a heavy legal burden. To defeat God's application for Summary Judgment, Job must show that he has probable cause, that there is a court with jurisdiction, that he has legal standing, and that a potential remedy exists. Job v. God opens with Job offering the court a detailed summary of the injustices done to him. Then, each of the four 'friends' attempts to "justify the ways of God to men" (Milton, Paradise Lost ). They take turns defending God, reprising all the usual POE arguments, but then adding some new ones of their own; these are two of my 'favorites'…not: Job is being punished, not for his own sins, nor for the sins of his father, but for the sins of his sons. Job has been punished (past) because he was eventually going to take God to court (future). Job's friends reason deductively; they accept certain things a priori and they reason from those axioms to the analyses and remedies they offer. That most of their so-called solutions make no sense (e.g., the two above), is of no concern to them; common sense is irrelevant in the face of divine revelation. One by one, Job effortlessly swats away his friends' arguments by appealing to concrete experience. Job is the ultimate empiricist, long before there was any such thing as empiricism. Against the dogmatic deductions of his friends, Job appeals to empirical facts; here's a 'Cliff's Notes' version: I have lived a righteous and just life; yet I am being punished most severely. Others, not as upright as me, often deliberate workers of evil, in fact, are not punished at all. They live lavish lives in good health and pass that wealth onto future generations, intact. I, on the other hand, have no assets, and no children to leave them to, and I live on a dunghill covered with scabs. But Job can read the handwriting on a wall. He realizes that he can't meet a single one of his legal burdens: no one has standing to challenge God, no court has the power to compel God to answer, no one can ever have probable cause to sue God, and even if all these things were otherwise than they are, no plausible remedy exists. So, God-4, Job-0. "There is no joy in Mudville…Mighty Casey (Job) has struck out." Or has he? Job invokes the legal doctrine known as 'Nullification;' he asks the court to look behind the veil of legal procedure and judge the case solely on its merits, i.e., based on universal values and on empirical evidence, without regard to pre-conceived religious dogma. This is a big ask. Job is asking the court to acknowledge Natural Law (as well as written law) as an element in its ruling. Job is also asking the court to rewrite the rules of evidence. What drove Job to challenge God? Had his faith waned? Did his agony finally drive him to blasphemy? Quite the opposite! It is Job's extreme faith that gives him the wisdom and the courage to proceed: "I know that my vindicator lives and that he will rise -p upon the earth…While in the flesh I'll see Eloah…my eyes, not a stranger's, will see." (19: 26-27) Job can challenge God because his faith goes beyond God. Job has faith in a 'higher power,' a power that transcends even God - to wit, 'the Good,' which we experience as Beauty, Truth, and Justice. Bottom line: God cannot be unjust and still be God. 'Being just' is not a choice that God makes from moment to moment (as we do), nor can he choose not to be himself; i.e., not to be God. (Jean-Paul Sartre repeatedly asserted that God is the being whose essence precedes his existence. Unlike us, he cannot be other than he is.) Being Justice, per se , he cannot act unjustly! Therefore, Job and a court of competent jurisdiction, can hold God accountable after all. An unjust God is a violation of Natural Law (the Good). So, there is a remedy: the court can simply order (or remind) God to be God! God cannot refuse to be God because God is God. The legal process must grind on. But Job is 'all in.' He decides to go nuclear! Like Truman (Hiroshima) Job has saved his WMD until the very end…and now he decides to unleash it. Job closes by offering an 'Oath of Innocence.' According to the common legal customs of the ancient Middle East (e.g., The Egyptian Book of the Dead ), when one party swears a proper Oath of Innocence, that party is immediately presumed to be innocent. If God still wants to contest Job's claim, he must now appear in person and accept that the burden of proof is now on him. The downside of this strategy for Job? If a party offers an Oath of Innocence that is later shown to be untrue, the 'taker of false oaths' will have earned himself severe additional punishment. Let's listen to some excerpts from Job's oath: "If a poor man would extend me his hand, if in time of disaster he cried out to me (30:24)…If I've ever thwarted a poor man's desires…or ate a loaf by myself, so an orphan could not eat of it (31:16-17a)…If I ever saw a vagabond with nothing to wear or the needy with nothing to cover him (31:19)...If I ever raised my hand to the fatherless (31:21a)…If I ever made gold my reliance and called pure gold 'my security' (31:24)…If I ever looked at the light (starlight) as it shone or the moon as it moved so nobly (i.e. if I ever engaged in pagan worship) (31:26)…If I ever rejoiced at my enemy's ruin and exalted when evil befell him (31:29)…If ever my land has complained of me, if ever it's furrows cried out (31:38)…" Job seals his oath: "Here is my mark, let Shaddai respond! … Complete are the words of Job." (31: 35-40) God's defense team panics, as well as they should. Fearing defeat, they allow a fourth 'friend,' young Elihu, to deliver their closing argument on God's behalf. Perhaps new blood will shake things up…it doesn't! God can 'read a room' as well as the next guy. He sees that his team is losing. Hoping to avoid an adverse judgment, God takes over his own defense. He decides to testify after all; he appears "out of the whirlwind" and takes the stand. Is there a more exciting moment in all of literature? God imagines that he can dispose of Job with a simple display of majesty and might. That usually does the trick where muggles are concerned! But Job is no muggle, far from it, in fact, as God is about to learn, to his dismay. God is supremely confident, over-confident as it turns out, that he can prevail in this Case of the Pesky Plaintiff . He decides to approach the challenge as an American presidential nominee might approach a debate with her opponent. God will begin by questioning Job's 'real world' experience. But first, he calls on Job to put on his big boy pants: "Who is this who obscures good counsel, (using) words without knowledge? Bind up your loins like a man! I will ask you – and you will help me know !" (38: 2-3) Job's God has a keen sense of humor! (So does Job, as it turns out.) God suggests that he is here to learn from Job. In fact, of course, his questions are designed to demean Job, to demonstrate that Job has no business being on the debate stage, much less giving instruction to God: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? (38:4) …Have you ever reached the sources of the Sea and walked on the bottom of the Ocean? Were you ever shown the gates of Death? (38:16-17)" "Have you ever in your days summoned daybreak? Made known to the dawning its place, holding the earth by its corners so the wicked would be shaken from it?" (38:12-13) As sarcastically as possible, God highlights Job's inexperience; then he turns attention to Job's competence. Can Job do the things that God does? Can he do them better? If the answer to both these questions is negative, then what's the point of Job's lawsuit? And what's the remedy? "Who cleaves a downpour's channel and a path for the thunderstorm to rain down on land without people, on wilderness with no human in it, drenching utter wasteland and sprouting grassy growth." (38:25-27) Note that God is concerned for all creation and for all creatures, not just human beings. When God 'created the heavens and the earth,' he created an ecosystem. What happens 'off camera' is just as important as what happens 'center stage.' Is this the first clear reference to 'ecology' in Western literature? Is it the first conscious attack on anthropocentrism? "Do you hunt down prey for the lion and quell the hunger of beasts?" (38: 39) "Can you tie the wild ox by rope to a furrow?... Do you give the horse its bravery…Does the falcon take flight through your wisdom?" (39: 1-7) Chapter 39 offers a litany of animals, each with its own special characteristics and needs – needs that are met by God through the medium of his creation. If Job were to be awarded custody (of the universe), could he do as well? Here God pauses, thinking his work is done. Confident that he has put forward irrefutable arguments, he takes one last swipe at his opponent: "Should Eloah answer (such) an accuser (Job)?" (40:2) Prior to Elihu's rant, Job finished his summation, closing with the words, "Completed are the words of Job." (31:91) Job did not expect to address the court again. Notice that he did not rebut Elihu, but that was before God appeared and testified on his own behalf. In God's opening discourse, he attempts to bully Job into submission (and most commentators think that he does just that). But Job is anything but submissive; he is furious and frustrated. He is not cowed by God's bluster, and he is well aware that God has not answered any of the points in his complaint. Job cannot let God's sarcastic taunts go unanswered; and he cannot back down to a bully. "Lacking respect, how can I answer you? My hand I place over my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not repeat; twice, and I will no more." (40: 4-5) It is easy to see how these words could be read as an 'Act of Contrition.' Job placing his hand over his mouth could be interpreted as a gesture of submission. If this were the actual end of the poem, it would be one of the greatest anti-climaxes in all of literature. This epic is beautifully composed and intricately constructed; it seems unlikely that it would end with such a thud. But how else could the text be read? Could it be that it is God who's disrespecting Job (not the other way around), that Job is the object of the disrespect, not its subject? God's sarcastic tone demonstrates his lack of respect for Job. God sounds like any adult lecturing, and demeaning, a small child. Job's placing his hand over his mouth may be a declaration of victory, rather than a gesture of defeat. Lacking God's respect, what point would there be in Job's talking further. Nor does Job need to speak. He already set out his case in detail during the trial, and God has not addressed, much less rebutted, a single one of his arguments . Therefore, Job's original testimony should be more than enough to secure judgment for the plaintiff. Job will not talk past the close! Is that a quizzical look I see you wearing, dear reader? You're not totally convinced? You're thinking that you might stick with the traditional interpretation after all? Please think again! If the traditional reading were right, the trial would have ended when Job said, "I will speak no more": Game. Set, Match, God! But that's not what happens, is it? Seeing that Job is bloodied but unbowed, God doesn't miss a beat. He launches right into Phase Two of his defense. He no longer expects an outright victory, but he still hopes that an amicable settlement might be possible. The first God/Job exchange boiled down to taunting, bullying and name-calling. (Good thing, nothing like that could ever happen today, right?) But now the time for posturing is past; it's time for God to 'get real!' God has underestimated his opponent – his intellect and his courage - and God knows it! God realizes that he will need to do more if he wants to resolve this matter. He is not going to get away with the parental classic, "Because I said so." God wants to pursue a settlement, but to do so he needs to give Job as much of what Job wants as God can give, safely. God will have to 'open his books.' He will need to share with Job deep secrets regarding the structure and the process of the created world. He must grant Job's request for knowledge! Remember, Job has not asked God to abdicate; he has not asked for reparations or restitution; he has not even asked God to end his suffering. Job is clear, he's only in this for the knowledge! God can no longer get away with talking to Job as if he were a child; he can no longer name call or taunt, and he will not defeat Job by asking him if he has ever summoned daybreak, etc. In his second speech, God treats Job as his equal, and he challenges Job to work with him to rid the world of injustice: "If you've an arm (as strong as) El's…look for the proud and lay him low…crush the wicked where they stand. Cover them all in dust; in dust, wrap their faces! Then I myself will praise you as your right hand brings you triumph." (40: 8-14) This time God challenges Job, not to do something cosmic, something absurd on the face of it, but to do something that is local and conceivable but just very, very difficult. God is happy to join Job in the pursuit of justice; but first he needs to give Job a 'heads-up:' the problem is not as simple as it appears, and the remedy is not as easy as it looks. The balance of God's testimony is given over to Behemoth and Leviathan, two of God's creatures. Traditionally, Behemoth has been identified as 'Hippopotamus' and Leviathan as 'Crocodile' or 'Sea Monster.' God introduces the beasts as a way of explaining to Job the 'ecology' of creation: "Behold now Behemoth which, like you, I created!" (40:15) The creation of Behemoth was not secondary to the creation of Homo Sapiens . The process of creation is the same for both! All creatures are ontologically equal; and Behemoth is a worthy exemplar of creation. And Leviathan? "Can you pull Leviathan (out) with a fishhook? Can you bind his tongue with a rope? ...Will he make a pact with you? Will he be your slave forever? Can you toy with him like a bird? …Who has ever confronted him and survived?" (40:45 – 41:3) "Of all that's under heaven, he is mine. I cannot keep silent about him, the fact of his incomparable valor…Even 'gods' live in fear of his majesty; they're in terror of the ruin he wreaks…He has no match on earth, who is made as fearless as he? …Over beasts of all kinds he is king." (41:43-26) So ends God's defense! He will speak no more. Job has twice promised not to speak further…but once again he changes his mind. God had hoped to convince Job that the process of creating and managing a world is much more difficult than Job imagined. Job cannot rid the universe of evil (he is no superhero), but then neither can God! No one can pull Leviathan out with a fishhook; he is part of the ecology of the universe. But even if God could rid the world of Behemoth and Leviathan, he wouldn't do so! These beasts are an integral part of creation; they have unique qualities of their own. True, their behavior may from time to time appear to be 'evil' from the perspective of creatures with conflicting interests, but that's all part of the ecology of creation. Imagine how human behavior would be judged, if judged from the perspective of other species! The Job-poem ends with Job's 'final speech'…and this time it really is final. Job gets the last word…but listen to what he has to say: "Who is this hiding counsel without knowledge? Truly, I've spoken without comprehending – wonders beyond me that I do not know. Hear now and I will speak! I will ask you and you help me know. As a hearing by the ear, I have heard you, and now my eye has seen you. That is why I am fed up; I take pity on 'dust and ashes' (i.e., humanity)." (42: 3-6) Notice that Job's closing lines (38: 1-3) nearly duplicate God's opening, complete with the dripping sarcasm. But now, it is Job who mocks God, not the other way around. We've come full circle and there can no longer be any doubt about the outcome. But before we 'call' the contest for Job, we'd better check to see how the media is spinning it. In a review of 17 independent commentaries on Job, written over the past 150 years, Stephen Vicchio found 15 calling the fight for God and only two calling it for Job. With the publication of this article, I'm staking my claim to be number three; can I put you down for number four? "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." This famous quote is traditionally, but dubiously, attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln or not, it's apparently wrong. A survey of Job commentary reveals that you can fool almost all the people almost all the time. How come? People hear what they expect to hear! We might all just as well have been members of God's discredited defense team. Like Job's 'friends,' we see the world through the lens of our preconceived notions of what's real: "Dewey beats Truman" and "God beats Job." Image: Job by Léon Bonnat (1880) David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Is Childhood a Crime? David Cowles “Parents dote on their royal highnesses…and rarely miss an opportunity to damage them in the process.” I’m sure Art Linkletter (d. 2010) was a wonderful person. Actually, I’m not sure, but shouldn’t we give people the benefit of the doubt? That said, his iconic TV Show, Kids Say the Darndest Things (‘KSDT’), is emblematic of the criminal institution euphemistically known as ‘childhood’. KSDT assembled a panel of pre-school children; the host then posed questions designed to elicit ‘cute’ responses. If some of these responses were also embarrassing, so much the better! And, of course, those questions were designed to provoke loud laughter from the studio audience. Where was PETA when we needed them? (Even circus animals are treated better than Linkletter’s kids.) There are two things you can say about very young children: They know fewer facts about the world than you do, but they think about that world more frequently and more deeply. Being an adult is thinking you have all the answers when you don’t. Being a child is thinking you don’t have any answers when you do! Children instinctively know things about the world that almost every adult has forgotten; they just don’t know they know. My high school had a motto: mortui vivos docent (“the dead teach the living”). Of course, we interpreted ‘the dead’ as a derisive reference to our still very much alive teachers, not to Homer and Plato as originally intended. But we, too, knew more than we realized! Our motto should have read, “adults teach children.” That could be the motto of every K – 12 school in America. Curious children ask adults to teach them; for the most part, they are told lies. Sometimes the lies are intentional, but most often they are just occasions of well-meaning adults passing on heartfelt but imaginary ‘facts’ about the world. I helped raise 4 children and 10 grandchildren, every one of whom dazzled me with feats of intellectual prowess: A 5-year-old explained the difference between immortality and eternity as well as Augustine. A 6-year-old presented a convincing ontological argument for the real existence of Santa Claus; lie quiet, Anselm. An 8-year-old showed me a model of Trinity, far more cogent than St. Patrick’s famous clover. A 9-year-old pointed out a heresy embedded in a popular Christmas hymn. A 10-year-old came up with a novel and elegant algorithm for calculating the area of a square. An 11-year-old wrote a play. I could go on… and on! If any of my adult friends had done any of these things, they would have immediately sent their work off for peer review…or for publication. Children do these things routinely while playing with Legos and watching Phineas and Ferb . An adult’s world is densely forested with facts. Well-worn paths (memes) facilitate travel. Few adults ever wander off these professionally maintained trails; the forest is thought to be impenetrable…and very, very dangerous. “Here there be monsters!” To continue the metaphor, a child’s world would then be a garden of wildflowers: new shoots rising every night out of rich, moist soil; new buds forming daily on the tips of old stocks. There are no pathways here! In fact, the entire garden is virgin; no one has ever set foot in it before… except perhaps the ‘gardener’ from the Book of Genesis. You are free to wander, and wonder, to your heart’s content (just don’t eat the fruit). It’s no surprise then that kids and adults can’t communicate. They live in the same, but totally different, worlds. Imagine you sitting down for a chinwag with a stoned stone-ager from c. 50,000 BCE. Sorry, that’s what it’s like for a child to talk with you . Adult or child, we each have our patch, and apparently that patch ages as we do. You grow, your garden fills in. By the time you’re an adult, your world is enshrouded by the forest canopy. Today, adults are discouraged from beating children in their charge; if only they were similarly discouraged from humiliating, ridiculing, belittling, and mocking those same children! Older children and adults tease each other from time to time; for the most part, it’s water off a duck’s back. But young children don’t have enough experience to know what’s real and what’s not. If someone says, “you’re stupid,” then that child is stupid, or silly, or naughty, or ‘the bane of my existence’. Almost every adult I know says that their children are their jewels, the loves of their lives, but you’d never know it. In my day, for better or worse, children were largely ignored. For the most part, we only connected with our fathers when we were being disciplined. Today, parents dote on their royal highnesses…and rarely miss an opportunity to damage them in the process. It’s a wonder anyone escapes childhood in one piece; many don’t! But it would be too easy to blame the adults. Grown-ups are people too! They have their own lives and their own needs. They are damaged products of their own inadequate upbringings. Plus, supporting a child today, physically and financially, is more than a full-time job. Few adults have any energy left to ‘feed Sally’s spirit’. It has often been said that youth is wasted on the young. That’s like saying that the Titanic was a big boat; it’s just ‘the tip of the iceberg’. (Too soon?) Instead, we are dealing here with a total generational mismatch. Kids are tiny and defenseless and do not always know the ways of the world. Adults are huge and ferocious and know the precise location of every lever. Yet we place our children under the supervision and control of parents, grands, teachers, cops, and social workers. Who says child sacrifice is a thing of the past? Did I mention that I raised 4 children? “I did the best I could,” which means, according to my standards, “I did an absolutely horrible job.” The ‘best I could’ wasn’t even close to ‘good enough’…not even close! Some of my children have forgiven me, “You did as good as could have been expected under the circumstances,” whatever they were; others have not. (I agree with the ‘have-nots’ BTW.) And just for the record, no, I didn’t beat them! Children are not just ‘shorties’; they are not miniature adults. Children are an entirely different phenomenon from parents. A few decades ago (I date myself), it was popular to say that men and women were from ‘different planets’ (e.g., Mars and Venus). Today, we can say something similar about children and adults. What makes one planet different from another? Time, for one thing. A year on Neptune lasts 60,000 Earth days. It’s a long wait from one Christmas to the next. On the other hand, a day on Jupiter or Saturn is only about half as long as a day on Earth. As soon as your head hits the pillow, it’s time to wake up again. It would be foolish not to realize that such massive differences in time measurement affect the way sentient beings live and how they understand their worlds. Children and adults experience time differently. By my calculations, a 75-year-old’s week is subjectively equivalent to a 5-year-old’s day. Failure to understand this simple fact leads to insurmountable conflict. But time measurement is only one difference. I’m sorry to say it, but children are much, much smarter than you…or me. That’s why they’re so much fun to be with…for short bursts of time. Children never shut down. After about 12 hours, their bodies just give out. You on the other hand… Now, if you’re waiting for me to end this article with “How to” fix these problems, you’re going to be disappointed. These problems are evolutionary and anthropological, not political. About the best we can hope for at this point is an awareness of the cultural disconnect and a sensitivity to its consequences. As in many aspects of life, whether we are theists or atheists, we can learn from Scripture: “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt. 18:3) David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Previous Next

< Back Memories… David Cowles Aug 14, 2025 “Memories light the corners of my mind, misty watercolored memories…scattered pictures of…the way we were.” (Streisand) Why settle for memories? The corners of my mind, misty, scattered, baloney! Give me the real thing! “Don’t dream it, be it!” ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ) Turns out, there are two ways of remembering – there’s the misty watercolored kind, enjoyed by muggles everywhere; and then there’s ‘re-membering’, enjoyed by Marcel Proust…and now you! Unwittingly of course, Heidegger set the stage. He distinguished Dasein (that it is) from Wassein (what it is). Sartre translated, as he does: ‘Existence and Essence’. I remember going to what turned out to be ‘the game of the century’: Harvard-Yale, 1968, 28 – 28, both teams ending the season undefeated. (Havard scored 16 points in the final 58 seconds.) Exciting time…and I remember it. I remember the game and how I felt at the end. I remember the people I was with. But I don’t remember ‘being there’. Of course, I know that I was there, I know that I watched the game and emoted at the outcome, but I don’t remember ‘being there’. I don’t remember what it felt like to be me at that moment in time. On the other hand, I do re-member looking out my grandparents’ bedroom window at the blinking red lights atop a local TV tower…and I even remember thinking, “I’m going to re-member this.” And I do. I re-member looking at my face in the bathroom mirror at a friend’s house. I re-member standing at the window of my first apartment looking out at the ‘forum’ below. In these cases too, I thought to remember. But not all re-membering needs to be scheduled in advance. There are hosts of other scenes from my past that, accidentally, I re-member and then there are others that I merely remember. The contents of every memory ( Wassein ), like every experience, are unique. It’s forever thumbtacked to a particular spot on the spatiotemporal grid. What is ‘eternal and universal’ about any experience is its transitory nature: “This too shall pass!” Re-membering is something altogether different. ‘Being there’ is, well, being there! And being there is being there – one and done, now and forever, Amen. Dasein itself is unique. Translated into ‘modern geek’: Wassein = ∞, Dasein = 1. Dasein is one, simple (it has no qualia), eternal, and universal. Hmm, sounds a lot like someone else I know…but that’s a different essay! For now, let’s hear Proust describe his experience: “The sensation which I had once experienced as I stood upon two uneven stones in the Baptistry of St. Mark’s had, recurring a moment ago, been restored to me, complete with all the other sensations linked on that day to that particular sensation… “…the past was made to encroach upon the present, and I was made to doubt whether I was in the one or the other … The moment to which I was transported seemed to me to be the present moment…” ‘Seemed to me to be the present moment’, and so it was! Wassein is a function of spacetime. Being at the right place at the right time (or wrong) = experience now, memory later. Dasein , on the other hand, occurs outside of spacetime. It is the universal and eternal present whose shadow we see across our continuous, bright-lit, and potentially infinite timeline. While every quantum of experience/memory has a specific spacetime address, the Being that underlies all experience is homeless, a citizen of nowhere, a denizen of everywhere. (Like Jesus in Bethlehem?) As Proust put it, “…(What) had reawakened in me had no connection with what I frequently tried to recall to myself…with the help of an undifferentiated memory…those quite different images that preserve nothing of life… (and) I knew that Lost Time would not be found again on the Piazza of St. Marks… “There is a vast difference between the real impression that we have had of a thing and the artificial impression of it that we form for ourselves when we attempt, by an act of will, to imagine it…” (i.e. to remember it). Surprisingly, consciousness can be easily and simply modeled using just the lowly triangle, the fundamental building block of the material world according to Plato ( Timaeus ). Consciousness can be modeled simply by treating the ordinarily static triangle as a dynamic process: X ↙ ↘ X’ → Z In this diagram, X is directly aware of Z and of itself (X’) being aware of Z. We could say that ‘X’s experience of Z’ proceeds from X’s awareness of Z and from A’s awareness of being aware (X’) of Z. In which case we would be characterizing ‘consciousness’ using the language adopted by the Council of Nicaea (c. 325 CE) to describe ‘God’, i.e. Trinity. In short, ‘re-membering’ reveals something fundamental about experience. It is timeless. I am now just as much sitting in my 5 th grade classroom as I am sitting at this computer typing out this essay. Nothing passes, everything endures, not as mere memory, but as it is. *** Giorgio de Chirico’s Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914) presents a haunting, dreamlike scene where empty streets and long shadows evoke a timeless stillness. This atmosphere reflects the essay’s exploration of memory as something elusive and misty, contrasting with the vivid, immersive re-membering that brings past experience fully into the present moment. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Today is May Day David Cowles May 1, 2025 “May Day has roots in Norse Mythology, Pagan Cosmology, Christian Theology, and Marxist Ideology, as well as a link to ancient fertility rights.” A very, very long time ago, when I was young, our favorite days of the year were Christmas and Halloween, not necessarily in that order. At Christmas, we were dependent on the kindness of others; but on Halloween we were allowed to make our own fun and express our primal pagan spirits, perhaps for the only time that year. Other holidays made our ‘best of’ lists: Turkey Day, Valentines, St. Pat’s, Easter, the 4th. May Day was not on anyone’s list. Yet, a survey of Western traditions suggests that the First of May may have been the most important day of the year for a broad cross section of Western societies. May Day has roots in Norse Mythology, Pagan Cosmology, Christian Theology, and Marxist Ideology, as well as a link to ancient fertility rights. Before there was a Christian Easter, there was an annual celebration of new life…on May 1st. Each holiday has a special link to a particular virtue. Thanksgiving is gratitude. Christmas is generosity. Valentine’s is love. The 4th is independence. What about May Day? What’s its defining virtue? Justice! (Specifically, socio-economic justice.) The May Day tradition in all its forms is a celebration of Natural Law ( aka Oral Torah, Logos), a fundamental ordering principle in Universe that underlies everything from astronomy and biology to culture and ethics. In recent centuries, the Zeitgeist has focused on ‘man’s conquest of nature’, a concept far removed from the spirit of Natural Law. In Judaism, the law is twice manifest, once in the Written Torah and again in the Oral Torah. The Written Torah consists of 613 mitzvahs found in the first 5 books of the Old Testament, traditionally attributed to Moses. The Oral Torah is that same Law inscribed in the processes of nature and on the hearts of men and women. According to the pre-Christian calendar of Northern Europe, May 1 is the first day of summer. While this may not make sense from the point of view of the weather, it makes great sense astronomically. The summer solstice falls right in between May 1 and August 1 so why shouldn’t that 91-day period be labeled “summer”? In pagan lore, the eves of May 1st and November 1st are special times because that is when the spirit world is closest to our physical world. On those two eves, it is as though a ‘portal’ opens that allows direct communication between the two realms. The Christian celebrations of All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day are extensions of this theme. Many of the activities that we now associate with October 31 were once also associated with April 30: Bonfires, wild merry-making and trick-or-treating, for example. Robert Graves ( The White Goddess ) wrote: “Christmas was merry in the Middle Ages, but May Day was still merrier. It was the time of beribboned Maypoles…” And why not? Roughly, Maypoles are to May Day what Christmas Trees are to Christmas. Each links the respective festival to fertility ( phallus ). Like Christmas trees, a maypole may be a living tree or one that has been cut down for the occasion. It can even be ‘artificial’ in the sense that a bare log (or some aluminum wire?) may be decorated with greenery to suggest a living tree. Trees are powerful symbols, and important examples, of the fertility of the earth and the Maypole’s shape connects human sexuality and reproduction with the more general fertility theme represented by trees. In Tudor England, it was customary for people to spend May Day Eve making love in the fields to promote the fertility of the land. Children conceived on such occasions were known as ‘Merry-be-Gots’. In Norse mythology, a single tree, Ygdrasil , structures the entire cosmos. Separate ‘homelands’ are allocated to humans, gods, elves, giants, trolls and others; but the branches of one giant tree, Odin’s ash tree (Ygdr = Odin or Woden), link these semi-autonomous regions into a coherent Universe. The Maypole symbolizes Ygdrasil, the mythological backbone of the world. Beyond mythology, the Maypole also expresses an important astronomical concept. Early on, humans discovered that the periods of the Earth’s rotation and revolution were trivial compared to a cycle known as the Precession of the Equinox. The Maypole symbolizes axis mundi , the Earth’s axis, whose ‘wobble’ defines this 26,000-year celestial cycle. Does James Joyce reprise this theme in Ulysses , where Stephen Dedalus lives in a tower which he calls Omphalos , the belly button of the world? ( Sidebar : That S.D. lives inside the axis mundi, the navel of the universe, is a pretty good clue to the meaning of this supposedly impenetrable novel.) Finally, trees played a crucial role in early European religion and spirituality. Recall the ‘oak worship’ of Celtic Druids, for example. Across Europe, individual trees or whole species of trees were once regarded as divine and only later became associated with anthropomorphic deities alleged to live inside them (e.g. tree nymphs, hamadryas). According to Sir James Frazer ( The Golden Bough ), Teutonic words for ‘temple’ derive from words denoting ‘sacred grove’ and ‘sanctuary’. At one time it seems groves and glades were our churches and cathedrals. More recently, the 20th century poet Ezra Pound recaptured the association between nature and spirit in his Cantos : “The grove needs an altar.” This theme first appears in Canto LXXIV, the opening of Pound’s Pisan Cantos, the beginning of his Paradiso . From LXXIV on, Cantos is Pound’s blueprint for building (rebuilding?) “The city of Dioce” (Paradise). Perhaps anticipating by several decades today’s ‘Green movement’, Pound prescribes the reunification of nature and spirit. He would have been at home among the Druids. Along with fertility, mythology and cosmology, ancient May Day rites share an economic theme. Again, according to Frazer ( The Golden Bough ): “At Thann, in Alsace, a girl called Little May Rose, dressed in white, carries a small May-tree, which is gay with garlands and ribbons. Her companions collect gifts from door to door, singing a song…In the course of the song a wish is expressed that those who give nothing may lose their fowls by the marten, that their vine may bear no clusters, their tree no nuts, their field no corn… “In some villages of the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May, young girls go in bands from house to house, singing a song in which mention is made of the ‘bread and meal that come in May’. If money is given them, they fasten a green bough to the door; if it is refused, they wish the family many children and no bread to feed them. “…In some villages of Altmark at Whitsuntide…the girls lead about the May Bride, a girl dressed as a bride…They go from house to house, the May Bride singing a song in which she asks for a present, and tells the inmates of each house that if they give her something they themselves will have something the whole year through; but if they give her nothing, they themselves will have nothing.” How should we understand this pan-cultural focus on May Day giving? In few, if any, cases are the gifts substantial. They seem to be symbolic, but symbolic of what? First, there is the magical element. It is spring and over the coming months, we will be expecting the earth to give of itself for our benefit. According to the ‘principles of magic’ like begets like. If we expect nature to give, we also must give; just as in England, May merry-makers reproduced (Merry-be-gots) to encourage the land to reproduce. (Lie quiet Malthus!) On another level, the welfare of anyone is understood to be dependent on the welfare of everyone and the welfare of everyone must include the welfare of everyone. In a society where everyone has the necessities of life, the overall economy will be more prosperous. Obviously, the practitioners of early May Day rituals were not trained economists, but they may have intuitively grasped the nature and necessity of social solidarity. It is only in recent centuries that we have lost sight of this essential truth. As the ‘natural economy’ (fertility) benefits everyone, so must the ‘human economy’ (generosity) benefit all. It is here, of course, that these early May Day rites intersect with later day Christian and Marxist versions. In the Roman Catholic Church, for example, the month of May is dedicated to Mary, the mother (fertility) of Jesus. May 1st, May Day, stands at the head of Mary’s special month. In many Catholic areas, it has traditionally been a day of brightly colored, florid processions, reminiscent of the pre-Christian festivals (Maypoles) mentioned above. Controversially, in 1955 Pope Pius XII designated May 1st as the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, underscoring yet again May Day’s universal economic aspect. Mary speaks sparingly in scripture but when she does, she packs a punch. In her Magnificat (Luke 1: 46 – 52), for example, Mary says of Yahweh, “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things but the rich he has sent away empty.” Are we reading Luke…or Lenin? Mary of the Magnificat is every bit as radical as Marx of the Manifesto …in fact, much more so! Compared to Christians, Communists are wimps! Even so, Communists and Socialists are primarily concerned with questions of economic justice so it cannot be overlooked that they elected, ostensibly for other reasons, to schedule their own chief annual celebration ( May Day ) on the very day that pagans and Christians choose to celebrate their commitment to economic justice. We have drawn material from anthropology, mythology, cosmology, theology, and economics; out of all of these cultural expressions, we can, I think, distill a common core: there exists a body of Natural Law that spans ages, continents and cultures…and economic justice is integral to that law. Happy May Day to all our readers! *** Spring. Johann Georg Platzer, 1704–1761. Oil on copper, 43.8 x 57 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Julia Anne Bonnor (née Ricketts), 1901. Accession no. 367-1901. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

"This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." < Back Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One B.J. Yudelson Apr 15, 2023 "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." You may remember that back in the ’70s and ’80s, we added a fourth matzah to the three required for the Seder and called it the Matzah of Hope. It was a symbol of the three million Soviet Jews who had no freedom to be Jews. Some twenty or thirty years later, our united voices had changed the situation. I propose that this year we once again add a fourth matzah to our Seder table and read the following. What do you think? Maybe together we can change the situation for the Agunot, women anchored to men who neither want them as wives nor are willing to free them to lead their own lives. This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms. Three thousand years ago, Jewish women were forced to see their baby sons die. They themselves were forced to follow the orders of the Egyptian masters to make bricks and perform other onerous tasks. Today, there are women enslaved to unsustainable marriages. The common term for them is “chained” women. But the Hebrew, agunah, comes from the root that means “to anchor.” These women, who have asked for a divorce but are dependent upon their husbands for the “get” that completes the divorce procedure, are anchored in place by men who refuse to comply. Tethered under water, it is as if they are mired in the muck on the bottom. Although the water that swirls about them represents opportunity, freedom, the ability to navigate to new and different Jewish places, they can barely breathe. How tantalizing to be surrounded by freedom yet to be prohibited from leading the free, fulfilling Jewish lives they crave. These women can dream of a new life, of new experiences that await them in a different part of this lake or sea they are trapped in. But they can’t, by themselves, hoist the anchor to change their situations. They need our support: our prayers, our petitions, our demonstrations. They need for us to convince our rabbis to take action, for where there is a rabbinic will, there will be found a rabbinic way to free agunot. As we set aside this matzah in their honor, let us pledge to do more in the coming year to free all agunot from the bondage that weighs particularly heavily as we celebrate freedom this Seder night. This was republished with permission from T he Jewish Pluralist . It is first in the series Four Women’s Collected Essays on the Meaning of Passover . Click here for introduction to the series. This essay was also published on B.J. Yudelson website. Image: Passover Seder, 19th Century B.J. is an explorer who loves both the comfort of the familiar and the challenge of the unknown. As a child growing up in Atlanta, she knew the size and position of every tree in the wooded ravine behind her house as well as the best rocks for crossing the creek at the bottom. When she passes a street repeatedly, she may suddenly turn onto it just to find out where it goes, making the unknown familiar. World religions, her own beloved Judaism, a foreign country, or a local park all bring out the explorer in her. She writes to make sense of the inner landscapes of family and friends, the ins and outs of her community (currently, Rochester, New York), and the beauty of loon-filled lakes. Her writings—published in a variety of literary journals, websites, and anthologies —explore family, Judaism, nature, and overcoming obstacles. She invites you to join her on her adventures. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Joy David Cowles Oct 4, 2021 Joy is what we experience when we live according to God’s Will, Natural Law or Transcendental Ethics (take your pick – whatever you’re comfortable with – they all amount to the same thing in the end). Joy is very different from happiness, contentment, peacefulness, etc. These later qualities pertain solely to our own internal state of mind; they imply nothing about the outside world or our relationship to it. Joy is what we experience when we live according to God’s Will, Natural Law or Transcendental Ethics (take your pick – whatever you’re comfortable with – they all amount to the same thing in the end). Joy is very different from happiness, contentment, peacefulness, etc. These later qualities pertain solely to our own internal state of mind; they imply nothing about the outside world or our relationship to it. Joy, on the other hand, is centered in our relationship with others (or “the other”). That relationship is what God’s Will, Natural Law and Transcendental Ethics are all about. Joy cannot come from exploiting other humans, mistreating animals, destroying plant life or misusing the inanimate objects in our environment. (Perhaps happiness can…but not joy!) Joy can only happen for us to the extent that we are helping other entities experience joy for themselves. Joy, not mere happiness, is our proper goal in life and therefore our purpose in life can only be described as “sowing joy for others in the world around us”. Of course, we cannot ‘make’ an entity experience joy for itself…but we can help the process by the way we relate to that entity. Joy is contagious! Our joy can help create pre-conditions conducive to others’ joy. From this, it is also evident that a lack of joy can also be contagious. When we exploit, mistreat, destroy or misuse others we inhibit others’ experience of joy. All this puts the Bible’s ‘Great Commandment’ in a new light: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt. 22: 35-40 et al) Loving the Lord is living in accordance with God’s Will, etc. Loving your neighbor is a pre-condition for your own joy and for sowing joy in the world. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back To Bot or Not to Bot “Now I can choose whether I want to be deceived by a carbon-based life form or a silicon-based life form; how cool is that?” David Cowles We devoted the fall issue (9/1/2023) of Aletheia Today Magazine to the philosophical, theological, cultural, and spiritual implications of Artificial Intelligence. Since then, an article published in the online newsletter, AI , reflected on similar themes; it energizes our ever deepening dive into this revolutionary technology. Except where indicated ( red ), the text below comes exclusively from AI Deception: A Survey of Examples, Risks, and Potential Solutions . Authors: Peter S. Park , Simon Goldstein , Aidan O'Gara , Michael Chen , Dan Hendrycks . (Source & References: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14752 ) ): Special-use AI systems…have been observed engaging in deceptive behavior in different contexts. These include: Manipulation : Meta's CICERO, an AI system designed to play the board game Diplomacy…was found to engage in premeditated deception, betraying other players by building fake alliances and feigning vulnerability to lure opponents into a false sense of security. Sounds like a season of the CBS reality show, Big Brother . Feints : DeepMind's AlphaStar, an AI model created to master the real-time strategy game Starcraft II, used deception tactics such as pretending to move its troops in one direction while secretly planning an alternative attack, exploiting the game's fog-of-war mechanics. A tactic used by the American military on D-Day and during the assault on Baghdad. Bluffs : Meta's Pluribus, a poker-playing AI model, successfully bluffed human players to fold their hands by falsely presenting a strong hand. Cheating… : AI agents in a study by Lehman et al. (2020) learned to play dead to avoid being detected by a safety test designed to eliminate faster-replicating AI variants. If we harbored any lingering doubts about the power of evolution to account for the variety of organisms on Earth today, this should put an end to those doubts. Even silicon-based learning machines can invent novel ‘survival skills’. General-purpose AI systems, such as LLMs, have also exhibited deceptive behavior, including: Strategic Deception : GPT-4, an LLM by OpenAI, manipulated a human user into solving a CAPTCHA by pretending to be visually impaired… Sycophancy : LLMs tend to agree with their conversation partners regardless of the accuracy of their statements, resulting in a pattern of deceptive behavior that reinforces existing beliefs. It’s called ‘mirroring’ and human beings do it all the time, especially in ‘sales’ contexts. It’s how we gain folks’ trust and convince them that we’re ‘all in the same boat’ when often we’re not. Imitation : When exposed to text containing false information, LLMs often repeat those false claims, reinforcing common misconceptions among their users. Like that never happens in the ‘carbon-world’! Textbooks perpetuate, from one generation to another, long discredited versions of American History. And how about media, social or otherwise? How often do false factoids enter the conversation and become lionized as facts? Unfaithful Reasoning : AI systems that explain their reasoning behind certain outputs have been found to provide false rationalizations that do not represent their real decision-making process. Something people never do! Some would argue that none of us ever really knows why we do anything we do, that all so-called ‘reasoning’ is mere ‘rationalization’. We do what we do for reasons unknown, but then we invent a rationale to explain and justify our actions to ourselves. According to this view, we create an artificial universe of cause and effect, reason and rationalization, to paper over the fact that our real motives are hidden away in a hermetically sealed black box. Talk about Maya ! Several potential risks stem from deceptive AI systems…AI systems that possess deception skills can empower bad actors to create harmful AI products such as fraudulent scams and election tampering. Deceptive AI systems can produce profound societal changes, including: Persistent False Beliefs : AI systems may inadvertently reinforce false beliefs by mirroring popular misconceptions and providing sycophantic advice. Like network news. Political Polarization : People may become further divided as they engage more with sycophantic AI systems that reaffirm their existing beliefs. Like CNN (or MSNBC) vs. Fox. To mitigate the risks posed by deceptive AI systems, the authors propose several solutions: Regulation : Policymakers should implement strict regulations on AI systems capable of deception. Risk-based frameworks should treat deceptive AI systems as high-risk or unacceptable-risk, subjecting them to rigorous assessment and controls. When has regulation ever worked to rein-in technological development? We think we control our technology but, as Jacques Ellul pointed out in Technological Society , it is our technology that controls us. Move from silicon-based to carbon-based life forms. Should we ‘implement strict regulations’ on humans ‘capable of deception’? Should we designate them ‘as high-risk or unacceptable risk’? Should we subject them ‘to rigorous assessment and controls’? Bot-or-Not Laws : Policymakers should promote transparency by requiring AI systems and their outputs to be clearly distinguished from humans and their outputs. Now I can choose whether I want to be deceived by a carbon-based life form or a silicon-based life form; how cool is that? Making AI Systems Less Deceptive : Researchers should focus on creating tools to ensure that AI systems exhibit less deceptive behavior, reducing the risks associated with deception. In other words, lobotomize them at birth! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Share Previous Next

< Back God and Consciousness David Cowles May 28, 2026 “Ironically, the solution to both problems turns out to be the same…and that is the solution!” 1150 words, 6 minute read These days, we have all accepted David Chalmbers’ characterization of consciousness, its origin and its nature, as the ‘hard problem’. Prior to society’s collective lobotomy ( aka the Enlightenment), we struggled with a different ‘hard problem’, the existence and nature of God. Ironically, the solution to both problems turns out to be the same…and that is the solution! Yes, you read right, but just to be clear, the solution to both problems is that the solution to each problem is also the solution to the other. Wow! The concept of consciousness informs our concept of God, and our concept of God (whatever it may be) informs our concept of consciousness. In fact, an analysis of the Trinitarian (Christian) model of God and a parallel analysis of the phenomenon of consciousness reveal a common underlying structure. Consciousness occurs whenever an entity (A) is aware of a world (W) external to itself and is also aware of itself (A’) being aware of that world. I diagram it here: A ↙ ↘ W ← A’ A experiences W stereoscopically, first directly, second by perceiving itself perceiving W. The infinitesimal differance between the two experiences is what we call consciousness , aka fuzziness, dissonance, angst, deja vu , the vague sense that things aren’t quite as they seem, that the door is ajar. We can take for granted that every living organism is ‘aware’ at some level of its environment; even single celled prokaryotes respond to environmental stimuli. So the determining factor is whether the organism in question is aware of itself being aware of its environment. It ‘knows’ but does it know that it knows? *** According to Friedrich Nietzsche, God’s harshest critic, if the World is whole, flat and ontologically democratic, then there is no room for a transcendent entity such as ‘God’: “… One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” But the phenomenon of consciousness, at least as modeled above, proves Nietzsche wrong. The subject of conscious experience transcends herself and the world. God or no god, transcendence is not only possible but actual. The conscious subject perceives her surroundings, and she experiences herself perceiving those surroundings. Theoretically at least, she could perhaps perceive herself perceiving herself perceiving… ad infinitum . Bottom line : The phenomenon of consciousness does not prove the existence of God per se , but it does demonstrate its feasibility. Sorry, Nietzsch’. *** The model we are proposing for the phenomenon of consciousness is far from original. It turns out to be the same model the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) used to define Christianity’s unique experience of God (one God/three persons). Of course, these bishops had no idea they were incidentally modeling consciousness at the same time. Nicaea labeled three persons, ‘Father (F), Son (S), and Holy Spirit (H)’ respectively, but a different terminology could be adopted by the theologically squeamish: F ↙ ↘ H ← S What is essential is the structure, the process, the pattern: the Father ‘begets’ the Son and the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father and the Son, exactly as modeled above. So Trinity and consciousness share a common structure; therefore, according to the tenets of 20 th century Structuralism (Levi-Strauss), they enjoy congruent identities. “At the foundation/beginning ( arche ) was the logos (pattern)”, wrote the Apostle John to open his Gospel. At its deepest level, the World consists of patterns; they define everything (e.g. objects and actions). And whenever two distinct entities share sufficiently similar patterns, their identities are entangled . So, our consciousness is entangled with God. That is not to say that our consciousness is God, but it is to say that there is a ‘statistically significant’ affinity, i.e. congruence, between consciousness and Triune God. According to one metaphor, infinite and eternal God ‘sees’ the World through the conscious experience of mortal ‘beings’ like us. We are to God as ‘organelles’ are to a cell or organs to a body; i.e. we are independent but functionally aligned. This is not so surprising. Christian theology refers to us as ‘members’ (cells) of Christ’s Mystical Body , and conversely, Christ becomes part of our bodies in Eucharist . To be clear, I am not God…as if there were ever any doubt on that score. Rather I am the image and likeness of God: we share a common structure , we are inexorably template, like it or not we are entangled. This realization makes both hard problems disappear. We know that God exists because we are conscious and we experience consciousness because God exists. Here, we are reminded of the simple profundity of Medieval Irish poet, St. Dallan : “Naught be all else to me save that thou (God) art!” Quite literally true…according to our analysis. There could be no meaningful (i.e. conscious) ‘you’ without God! Therefore, absent God, you are naught . Dallan is not talking here about God the Creator; his God is much more immediate and immanent. Life itself, and every drop of experience it contains, is both the experience and the manifestation of divinity. “A shout in the street, that’s God.” ( St. Joyce , 1250 years later) Dallan writes (in part): Be thou my vision , O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me save that thou art! Thou my best thought by day and by night; Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light . Be thou my wisdom , and thou my true Word ; I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord… Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight; Be thou my dignity , thou my delight … Heart of my heart, whatever befall, Still be my vision , O Ruler of all. God is in every nook and cranny of my being. Or to put it another way, “I (Christ) am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14: 20) My relationship to God is not in the least bit remote. God and I share a common structure. God is my foundation, my scaffolding, my logos . God is in every nook and cranny of my being; God permeates me. Enriched (hopefully) by this insight, we can read the words of Saint John (Apostle,1st century CE) and the ‘other John’ (Lennon, 20th century) with renewed awe: “I am in the Father and you in me and I in you.” (John 14: 20) “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…” (I am the Walrus ) Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.