Tag: Christianity
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The Unfolding of Truth – Appendix A
Christ and the Eternal: Beyond Time, Beyond Creation “Before Abraham was, I am.”— John 8:58 The Hidden Contradiction in the Christian Narrative Christianity, in its dominant historical form, presents a synthesis between the eternal and the temporal: God, who is eternal, enters time to redeem creation, which is seen as fallen, finite, and subject to…
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The Unfolding of Truth – 5: Islamic and Jewish Thought – Divine Simplicity, Emanation, and the Hidden Unity
As the Christian world grappled with the tension between eternity and time, Islamic and Jewish thinkers inherited many of the same questions, often through their deep engagement with Greek philosophy. What emerged was a powerful synthesis: the divine transcendence of monotheism joined to the metaphysical clarity of reason. Yet beneath this apparent resolution, new contradictions…
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The Unfolding of Truth – 4: Christian Revelation – Creation, Logos, and the Problem of Time
With the advent of Christianity, a new voice enters the unfolding of thought, one that speaks not only of the eternal, but of a personal God who creates out of love, enters into history, and redeems. The metaphysical speculation of the Greeks meets the narrative structure of Scripture. Logos becomes flesh. Eternity touches time. At…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being–A Metaphysical Map
From Plato to the Eternal Structure of Being 🔹 1. Plato (4th c. BCE) Core Move: Eternal Forms vs. Temporal World 🡺 Impact: Introduces the first metaphysical dualism→ Sets up the world of change as ontologically inferior→ Seeds the logic of annihilation (what becomes can also vanish) 🔹 2. Early Christianity (1st–4th c. CE) Core…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being– Conclusion: Christianity Was Never Meant to End in Dualism
The Return to What Has Always Been True Throughout this series, we’ve traced a path—one not of rejection, but of return. Not a return to doctrine as it has been taught, nor to metaphysics as it has been inherited, but to the truth Christianity has always carried within itself: that what-is cannot not be. That…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being– 5: Toward Fulfillment — Christianity and the End of Dualism
The Return to What Has Always Been True Christianity stands today at a threshold — not of decline, but of fulfillment. After centuries of tension between its deepest intuitions and its inherited metaphysics, the time has come to see what has been gesturing from the beginning: that the truths it proclaims are not mere hopes…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being– 4: The Intimations of Destiny Within the Christian Tradition
How the Eternal Structure Continues to Emerge Despite centuries of metaphysical dualism, Christianity has never fully surrendered to nihilism. Even while shaped by a Platonic framework that casts the world as impermanent and the body as perishable, the Christian tradition has continued to bear witness to something more: the silent but insistent truth that what…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being– 3: The Persistence of the Platonic Framework
From Augustine to Modernity: How Christianity Carried the Logic of Annihilation By the time Christianity emerged as the dominant religious force of the Roman Empire, the seeds of a deeper metaphysical tension had already been sown. The Christian proclamation of the eternal had fused with the Platonic suspicion of time, matter, and change. The result…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being – 2: The Infiltration of Platonism
How Greek Metaphysics Entered Christian Thought In its earliest centuries, Christianity encountered a world saturated with Greek philosophy. Among the many schools of thought that shaped late antiquity, none was more influential—or more seductive—than Platonism. Plato offered a majestic metaphysical vision: a realm of eternal, unchanging Forms—the true Being of which all sensible things were…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being – 1: The Eternal Intuition of Christianity
The Seeds of Truth in the Christian Vision From its very beginning, Christianity has spoken of eternity. Not merely as a distant realm beyond this life, but as something that enters into history—something that breaks into time through incarnation, resurrection, and the promise of a kingdom that shall have no end. In this, Christianity reveals…
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Christianity and the Structure of Being– Introduction to the Series
From Dualism to Destiny For centuries, Christianity has offered the Western world its deepest intuitions about the eternal: that life does not end in death, that the person is sacred, that love is stronger than the grave, and that a kingdom without end is not only possible—but promised. And yet, these luminous insights have long…
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The Final Non-Duality 3 – Christian Mysticism: Union, Darkness, and the Eternal God
From Ascent to Appearing: Rereading the Path of the Soul The mystical tradition in Christianity stands as one of the most powerful witnesses to the limits of conceptual thought and the longing of the soul for something that cannot be captured by language. From Dionysius the Areopagite to John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart,…
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The Unveiling of Being – Article 7: Religion, Theology, and the Movement Toward the Eternal
Religious thought has long sought to grasp the nature of ultimate reality, often articulating it through symbols, narratives, and doctrines that attempt to bridge the finite and the infinite. While diverse in form, religious traditions share an underlying impulse: the recognition of something beyond the transient, something absolute and indestructible. This movement, though often expressed…
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Post 50 – The Oneness of Being: Unity in Multiplicity
The One and the Many At the core of reality lies a fundamental truth: Being is one and undivided, yet it consists of an infinite plurality of distinct entities. Each being is itself, maintaining its unique identity, and yet it is seamlessly one with all others. This paradox—that everything is irreducibly itself while being inseparably…
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Understanding the Structure of Being – 8
Religion and the Eternal: Creation, God, and Necessity Religion has long been the primary means through which humanity seeks to understand ultimate reality. It provides narratives that shape meaning, morality, and our place in the cosmos. Yet, within religious thought, there is a fundamental tension: the assumption that God or the divine is eternal and…
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Near Death Experiences 4: Light, Beings, Encounters and Cultural Filters
One of the most common features of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) is the encounter with luminous presences, divine beings, or deceased loved ones. Many describe being enveloped in an all-embracing light, standing before a figure of ultimate authority, or undergoing a review of their life in the presence of compassionate observers. However, while these elements appear…
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Post 41 – Love and Providence: The Experience of the Eternal Within Time
From the perspective of the eternal, all that is has always been and will always be. There is no becoming, no contingency, no arbitrary will. The structure of being is necessity itself—an immutable relation where nothing is lost, and nothing truly changes. Yet, within time, we live as though choices are ours to make, as…
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Post 25 – How the Structure of Being Compares to Other Philosophies
The Structure of Being, as explored in this blog, shares insights with many philosophical traditions—both Eastern and Western. However, it also takes a radically different stance on key issues: What is real? What is illusion? Can we “wake up” to truth? And if so, what does that actually mean? Most traditions agree that we are…
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Post 17 – The Infinite Whole: Understanding Love, Suffering, and Reality
The Impersonal and the Personal When we analyze the nature of Being, we find that it is an unchanging, eternal whole. Nothing truly comes into existence or disappears: everything simply is, necessarily and forever. This perspective may seem impersonal, but it does not deny the distinctions we perceive within existence. Rather than being random or…
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Post 9 – Ethics, Morality, Love and Freedom
Ethics and Morality Beyond Nihilism Here’s a provocative question to start with: If everything is eternal and unchanging, does that mean reality is predetermined? At first glance, this might seem disheartening—almost as if our choices don’t matter. But in Post 4, we explored the concept of free will and arrived at an intriguing conclusion: our…
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Post 8 – Eternal Being and the Illusion of Change: Eastern Insights and Nihilistic Paradoxes
The East“For the soul, there is neither birth nor death at any time.It has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being.It is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval.It is not slain when the body is slain.”— Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 20 This verse from the Bhagavad Gita…
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Post 6 – Rethinking Nihilism in Religious Thought
What Would Become of Our Systems of Thought? What would become of our various systems of thought if we were to remove from their core the nihilistic persuasion? To a certain extent, we have already explored that, but let us now get a bit more specific, perhaps starting with religion and spirituality. First, a brief…
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Post 2 – The Eternity of All Things
Intuitions of the Eternal We have spoken of the unassailable truth of our Being and our awareness of time and space, but there is yet another form of awareness; more elusive, less dependent on our senses, and harder to define. It is something we all experience at times yet struggle to articulate. This awareness emerges…
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Post 1 – At the Roots of Western Thought
A Western Problem? In progressive Western societies, we take pride in the freedom to think and believe as we choose. Individualism and self-determination are highly valued ideals. Yet, despite this emphasis on personal autonomy, our thinking is profoundly shaped by cultural and historical frameworks that influence us in ways we often fail to recognize. While…
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It Is What It Is 