Journal of August 18, 2005

Thursday August 18, 2005 6:56 PM

Consider Kant’s characterization of the hope of the Christian: the Christian has this hope that, if he will but do as best he can, then even though that will not be adequate for the task at hand (my comment: establishment of the rule of goodness on earth), nevertheless whatever that lack it will be made up for (by God) even though he is unable to imagine how.

7:16 PM What a horrible, horrible reputation the Christians have earned. The Jews are as afraid of the Christians as they are of the Muslims. Look what Christian Europe did. Etc.

The only way around this is to assert again the Paulian Congregation. By means of the Paulian we can disassociate ourselves from the Peterian Congregation and use the present state of the church as indicative of a lawful, i.e., law-book-driven, grouping. In other words the present day Christian church is what you get when you get the Peterian idea as your idea. God in his wise providence has used his own church to show the world the dangers of the legalisms which are rampant in Judaism and Islam. He permitted the Paulian Congregation to transmorphe into Neo-Peterians. But the birth certificate had been placed in Holy Scripture and since it had once been proclaimed, it needs merely to be proclaimed, i.e., here is the Christian Church, the Paulian Congregation. That is the Christian Church, the Peterian Congregation.

It is really quite simple. So simple as to be amazing. And it simply needs to be proclaimed and lived, for then the kindred spirits again will attract each other into organized deeds of good

The conception here expressed is to be understood in terms of what might be called a binity, a bi-ninity, as opposed to say a u-nity or a tri-nity or a multi-nity in general. Each the left and the right hand is an absolutely perfect embodiment of any and all things that can be thought by means of the divine idea of a hand, and so each expresses that identical and unique idea in utter perfection, and yet they cannot wear the same glove. they are a bi-nity.

Even so is it with the Christian Church. It is expressed by the Peterian Congregation in its utter fullness for the Jews (or law-abiding people in general). It is expressed by the Paulian Congregation in its utter fullness for non-Jews. the Holy Spirit lives in the lives of individual and group Christians, through out the ages, and is never absent. But the human image of this Spirit, the humanly organized and led church (as the visible rendering), has become thoroughly Peterian. It’s like this: at the beginning the Peterians wore a right glove at supper and the Paulians had no gloves, and then when the Peterians were dispersed the paulians started wearing a glove to make them feel at home, although it was a left glove. And so what we have is a gloved congregation parading under the name of the gloveless congregation (the glove being, of course, law, either ecclesiastical, scriptural or even individual enlightenment).

And so all we have ever had was a gloved church with influence in the world. The gloveless church (congregation) has never had such an experience, for it has been kept under wraps through the agency of God in order that he might now spring his grand surprise, the Paulian. Paul is back. And it is Paul who can speak to the Muslim. No one is better suited to speak to the Muslim than Paul, for he speaks before all law and independently of all commands of God.

8:37 PM Now to the Muslim. I am increasingly convinced that Smith’s tale should be utilized to gain entrance into the (morally) slumbering Islamic mind. We (Christians) can introduce this is a wild tale which we ourselves do not believe, but which is nevertheless fascinating.

Then we tell the story. and then we suggests that perhaps Smith copied Mohammed and show this and that similarity and parallel. And then we can theorize as to whether Smith was acting alone in a fraud, or whether he was under the influence of demons who appeared to him in the guise of the angel and the others. We can discount a fraud as highly unlikely due to Smith’s age and have to consider whether it were a demon. For the hypothesis is that Smith is either a fraud or else he is honestly deluded by demons or his own fancy. We might then wonder in a more abstract way: what are the signs of a divine revelation and what are the signs of a demonic revelation.

We will discover that you cannot tell a divine revelation by looking, for this is simply impossible for any being who perceives things through his own senses, and an infinite straight line and an exceedingly long straight line are indistinguishable to the eye.

Through a long development we will come to the idea that reason itself can tell us what to expect and not to expect in any divine revelation and what to expect and not to expect in any demonic revelation. The upshot is that the notion of God is first established by reason upon a need of the respect that humans have for the moral law, and so we know ipso facto that God will only command what is moral, and never what is immoral. and likewise the demon will seduce people into immoral actions and will hide that from them by having them believe that they are actually moral, i.e., they are doing what leads to reward, for the moral leads to reward (which is an axiom of pure practical reason).

We will then also be able to utilize reason to fashion a religion which would be an instrument of moral improvement and where the ideal is a love of the moral law.

Now this is precisely the goal of the Christian, Peterian or Paulian, for the Lord Jesus violated the revealed law of God (John 5) in order to conform to the dictates of the law of love (the absolute moral law) by refusing to have a sick man wait a little while until sunset in order to be healed.

And so no command or guidance of God can be presumed to call for an immoral act, an act immoral in the eyes of the actor by virtue of independent determination.

With Islam this is quite different. Islam can be characterized as an immoral religion or rather a cult (not unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses) where there are no constraints placed on what can be a guidance of Allah, and so where it is possible that a person might easily and sincerely think to be guided to commit a dangerous and immoral act by some work of Allah. This is worsened by the fact that there is no pain for submissive acting, but only (possibly) for not acting. If the guidance is genuine then the submissive Muslim is rewarded for obedience; and if it is not genuine, but merely a dream, his conforming action results in a reward for sincerity. The only punishment would be in failing to conform with action, if it is genuine; and otherwise, if it is only a dream and he does nothing, it doesn’t matter.

Then we may be able to conclude that an unbiased bystander, if he had to opt for a religion, would most surely opt for Christianity (perhaps only Paulianity) over Islam. Islam is not fit as a world religion except through the silencing and self imposed mental curtailing of dissidents, i.e., their slaughter or their submission, willingly or unwillingly. Christian alone holds up the light to utter allegiance to the law of love, and thus is freely accessible by all people without coercion. It is a free religion.