Paul versus Mohammed

In any confrontation by Paulian Christians (called "gentile Christians" in the Christian scriptures) with Muslims should consist in a juxtaposition of Paul and Mohammed, and not Jesus and Mohammed. The position of Jesus is seen by the Paulians as quite different from Mohammed's conception of Jesus, and the Mohammedans reject many of the Christian's assertion, and so there is really no significant common denominator to be a foundation. Jesus is seen by the Christians as the Son of God and by the Muslims as the Slave of God, and they are quite incompatible.

But Paul and Mohammed make a perfect pair. Paul has his Jesus-in-the-Sky and Mohammed his Gabreal-in-the-Cave. Both produce a revelation ensuing from that. The lives of both men are about as equally well known and in a good detail, and were attested to by living witnesses. Their actions were recorded in a dependable way and each dictated his revelation to another, although Paul, unlike Mohammed, could read what was written. Both men report a personal inspection of a "third heaven" and a "Paradise". They are so similar that if one were to be discounted, the other would have to also for a like reason. But there is a great difference in the content.

Mohammed will have us understand that Jesus was another prophet in a long line who faithfully recited to the Jews what he was commanded by God. Paul tells us that he was the Son of God, and that he spoke with divine authority on his own and never recited, but rather proclaimed.

According to the revelation of Paul it was only incidental (divine promises made to Abraham) that the Christ appeared as Jesus the Jew. It could just as easily have been Hermes the Greek. Therefore the real object of the life and mission of Christ was the liberation of all humans from the chains of sin. It was not to settle on a reconstituted Israel, but on a redeemed Adam. Adam had been redeemed, and not just the Jews, and then only them who follow. And so now one's condition suddenly becomes immaterial and what counts is the representation of the spirit of Christ in that condition. If a Greek, then a good Greek; if a wife, then a good wife; if a master, then a good master; if a slave, then a good slave,, etc. This was the revealing of the great mystery of creation, that Adam was to be redeemed and not just the Jews. In fact the Jews would be redeemed in the same way as Adam, but only afterwards. Christ enters into the heart of the believer and fashions a new nature where people give without counting and reveals this new nature to the individual Christian progressively in time. The call then is to all people, Jew and gentile, to follow Christ and to put the three loves (God, neighbor, fellow Christian) first in life. Thus all things are lawful and the only question is expediency, first according to the code of conduct of the three loves, and then in terms of personal interest and advantage. According to this revelation there is the supremacy of the law of love (generically considered as the moral law) above all else, including commands of God (cf. John 5) and then there is rationality in implementing this and all other objectives in the most effective way. The spirit occasionally moves and can be recognized positively in the impulse to do a good deed, and then negatively through the filter that nothing contrary to the three loves can be understood as a command of God.

The code of conduct is remarkably simple and is unified with others for a common effort in the combine called the church. A child can make derivations from it. It calls for no great study. By virtue of the unification of these kindred hearts science is pursued and also good governance in all things, personal and corporately.

And so this is the revelation of Paul, the great mystery and is solution. This revelation came to him from Jesus himself, according to Paul, and this assertion was confirmed by the disciples who knew Jesus best. It is a revelation, and it is all from Jesus through Paul. It corresponds nicely with Jesus' "followers are not those saying Lord Lord, but those acting in accordance with the moral law" but it is still unique, for Jesus' gospel reports shies away from gentiles, just like any other Jew. This was at first understood by his disciples to mean people first became Jewish and they were saved as Jews. Peter (according to Paul's report) had a dream in which gentiles were shown to be acceptable, and then Paul presented the entire revelation and won acceptance by them. Thus this deserves to be called the revelation of Paul, that Jesus came only incidentally to the Jews and that his complete purpose was the redemption of the children of Adam and not just of Israel.

What do we get in the revelation of Mohammed? In the most fundamental sense we have a slave mind where it is impossible to act except for reward and so where the term "moral" comes to mean that which ends up in a reward. What is "moral" is whatever is spoken from the mouth of Mohammed, e.g., honoring parents, giving to the poor and bowing down according to the clock. These acts lead to great reward (or the avoidance of great punishment) and in this wise the human is conceived of as acting. To the slave mind what Christians call moral is irrelevant and immaterial and not a matter of concern. What is important and what counts is what the slave is commanded to do. Once the slave understands a command his is not the role of some quibbler, but rather of an actor and implementor, and foolish indeed is the man who hesitates upon a sincerely perceived guidance of Allah. A slave, understood generally, must do what he is told or face punishment. Allah is Benevolent in also providing positive rewards for his slaves and not just use a whip as he might have done. And he is Wise, Powerful. Sincerity is all important and the slave must ever be mindful of the watchful eye of Allah who is All Seeing and All Hearing. Harboring insincere thoughts is an affront on the part of a slave. "Ours is not to reason why; ours is to do and die." The slave is judged on how obedient and submissive he is in banishing thoughts which question the teaching of Mohammed.

Thus we have a system of business, a "profitable business" the Arabs have called it, where a man is free to do anything he wishes within the bounds set by Mohammed, and where perceived commands of Allah, where there is no presupposition except the bounds set by Mohammed, are complied with in the two fold assurance of reward (and thus their morality), namely obedience and sincerity. The moral law is not the boundary, but rather the utterances of the Prophet (both as recitations and then also on his own). The supreme rule of conduct is: do what you are guided to do, remembering first the bounds set by Mohammed.

The content of Mohammed's revelation and all the guidance and guidances of his revelation and of his life presents a mindless slave who can only calculate and cannot understand the meaning of a moral law but only of a law connected with reward and punishment. In the words of Jesus the Muslim would be called a "hireling" for he is up for the highest bidder who, he believes, is someone named Allah. The guidance is quite involved and requires a school of reasoning (and there are presently several) and so where questions will always abound as to what is and is not the import and scope of an alleged guidance. The Muslim is not expected to treat of the morality of his guidances, but rather to seek studiously to act in accordance with the guidances. The mind is to be attitude to the calls of Mohammed night and day, day in and day out. All thoughts are to be on the words of Mohammed, for they are the moral acts, the acts that lead to reward and avoid hell. Pray many times a day,, hopefully in a crowd, impress upon your mind the words of Mohammed and meditate on them constantly, for they are words that lead to great rewards for those intelligent enough to recognize them for what they are, tickets to paradise.

Thus, in a nutshell, Paul gives us the jacket to be worn by a free man, a Paulian, who makes his own decisions in accordance with a moral principle as a supreme code of conduct, and Mohammed gives us the skirt of a slave, who does just as he is told without thinking about it, but doing it because he is told to do it.

In another, related essay (located here) I develop a comparison of Paul and Mohammed in terms of a divine encounter, a demonic encounter, an hallucination and a lie. The gist of the conclusion is that Paul's revelation could easily be of God and could not be that of a demon, while Mohammed's revelation could be that of a demon, and could not have been that of God.

And so what we do here is to enter into the slave mind to find the doubt in the revelation that can set the Muslim free. Both the Paulian and the Mohammedan are asked to submit themselves to the same test and so where the playing field is seen as fair between them, and the Muslim can first stir from the doubts that arise with the question as to which is demonic and which is divine, since they are in fact so similar in so many critical elements? Since the bases of the theretofore assumed fraud (Paul's revelation as understood by Mohammedans) is the same as the theretofore assumed truth (Mohammed's revelation as understood by Mohammedans), the doubt must arise itself from within the most steadfast submitter, for he cannot deny his own reasoning to himself, even if he is a slave. [I think not.]

I suspect, in the face of challenge, the Muslim will retreat back into a recitation of the words of Mohammed in a sort of chant routine, not unlike the Hari Krishna enthusiast. I am sure that is part and parcel of the constant repetition of prayers and bowing and so forth. To have nothing else in mind except the words of Mohammed. It is a sort of insubordination to want to give to the poor what is commanded to be paid to them; the slave must be under orders. He must be sincere in mind as he acts. He is simply a slave who has a chance, a hope, of escaping punishment and obtaining a reward.

In terms of mindset, the Paulian is totally free and without fear and full of joy, for he has become one in spirit with Christ Jesus, and he makes his own decisions in terms of his new nature and its allegiance to the supreme code of conduct. The Muslim shivers in fearful submission and the Paulian glories in joyful liberty. The slave does as he is told (and spends much time trying to discern what he is being told), and the free man does as he ordains (within the spirit of the three loves). The slave recites as he is told, and the free man pronounces of himself (the prophets merely recited; Jesus, Christ, proclaimed on his own (cf. the lawbreaking of John 5)).

This essay is by no means finished, or even properly started, but there is enough in this sketch for the reader to follow the overall logic that has developed.

The essay will general pit Paul against Mohammed. Both claim to be prophets and both claim to have been approached supernaturally in visions. Both proclaimed a correction to the horror of the existing world condition.

The soldier brings Napoleon some grapes and the emperor thanks him. and when he finds out that the man left his guard post in order to get the grapes, Napoleon had him shot. Kant would have approved in principle, namely a man who violates his duty deserves punishment, and the man will also know it when he thinks about it.

It is important for the logic to be explained. The only way Napoleon’s army can sleep in peace is because they are guarded. The rest is obvious.

Now once we have that understanding, of the necessity of the order, i.e., that it is a lawful order, then we realize that we may not dessert our post for any reason, for that is our duty.

And so it seems that actions are a function of two things: a man’s moral code, and his understanding of consequences in the realm of nature, e.g., that a certain herb will heal a certain malady, and another will kill, etc.

But this is abrogated, it seems to me, in the Islamic conception, although most certainly not in the Christian, especially when we consider Paul’s gentile Christian.

In the Islamic conception we have no need of man, for a rational brute will suffice. Such a being can come to understand that he if will do A and B and C that he will get an infinite reward, and can do it out of sheer prudence, and without qualms as to whether we are told to violate a moral law, e.g., kill an innocent person without reason. And so A of the three above might be the moral law itself, in the form of a Golden Rule, of doing to others as you would have them do unto you. And all sorts of actions can be derived from this and which could be termed good, where good meant simply actions in accordance with this particular, even curious rule. And so a person doing A and B and C (and where the other may be: divorce only in this way, and another: bow down and say this and that) would, by an external bystander, be thought of as utterly moral, for only moral acts would ensue. He might wonder what happens if C should conflict with A or if B might, what one would do? But there is no solution to this except as a gratis rule that A shall rule in any conflict. Then surely it would be thought moral. But it is as amoral as before and as it is in its very conception, for the person doing all the A (moral) things would just as willing to immoral things if that happened to be the requirement for getting the infinite reward. And yet, as far as external appearances go, the man or woman is connected with a moral religion.

This, I think, is the blindness that Kant spoke of, where we come to see ourselves as moral by virtue of merely the action alone and without regard to the maxim which produces the actions (given the circumstances). Since the actions are what would ensue from moral maxims, we naturally declare the man to be moral; but the moral judge who is able to see the disposition will declare the man to be utterly and totally depraved and evil.

Such acuteness belongs to the moral judgment.

Now in the Christian conception, for contrast, we find an entirely different situation. We are dealing only with men who therefore are also sinful. They are sinful by their nature in being willing to do exactly what the Islamics have done as they have camouflaged something (prudence) to look like something else (morality). What happens here is not the clear rendering of some law and a reward or punishment, but rather the unveiling of a new nature where prudence is subjugated to morality, and willingly. The Christians promise a miracle where a person at a given instant is transformed in spirit and in that spirit enters into eternal life, at that very moment, and so is never again motivated by gain, for he has already gained all that he shall ever have, and that is heaven itself (in the company of Jesus, Christ). From that moment on this new spirit leads the man or woman toward a manifestation of Christ in the flesh, much as though the spirit that moved the body of Jesus has entered again into a body and is now moving that body, in accordance with the understanding of that body and in the condition of that person, e.g., a slave, a prisoner, an emperor, etc. Now this spirit was revealed in the person of Jesus and consists of a trinity, namely: love of God with total self, love of neighbor as self, and love of a disciple of Christ more than self (for so Jesus loved the disciples). And so therefore the only standard is Kant’s moral law, augmented by the love of God and the love of disciple (which latter goes beyond the necessity that Kant let excuse violations of the moral law).

5:18 PM And so here there is no question as to the morality for two reasons in the Christian act. In the first place there is no notion of gain any more in the determination of all actions. And in the second place there is nothing against which the moral law might be confronted and a question arise as to supremacy, for the whole point is the replication of the spirit of Christ, and that already embodies the whole law, the moral law, the original law, the law itself.

And so I think we can conclude at this point that the Christian religion is a moral religion while the Islamic faith is not (for it remains a cult).

5:21 PM I want to consider again the notion of atonement in order that we can understand what Jesus was about and why he chose to die.

There are two considerations, the spiritual and the empirical. In the spiritual realm there was a curse inflicted upon the world due to the dereliction of duty by the very first man, who is all respects is just the same as we. This curse was a descent into sin from which it was impossible to escape, for it had become our nature in society to turn evil, and since we are not fully human except in society, we are natural evil, by a natural use of our own rationality. People like Mohammed and Moses seek to harness this rationality with reasons why good acts should be undertaken, there being a reward or a deal worth keeping, respectively. As a result we have a moral blindness and think we are good, as explained above, and therefore cannot rightly understand when someone accuses us of immorality, a sell out to the highest bidder.

Such a person cannot be comfortable in the presence of God, for such a person is a hireling, and God surrounds himself only with friends. And so it is impossible for anyone to delight God and so the most you can come up with is a reason to obey God, for he is gracious enough to tell us what we must do in order to win some reward. He could have kept that a secret. He was not obligated to tell us. He did so only because he is a beneficent being, and we are so terribly fortunate and blessed. Etc.

Such a person cannot delight God, but merely humor him. The only person who can delight God is one who has his spirit. But this seems impossible since the nature of man is against this spirit. and so it seems we are lost.

But then we find a savior, a person is perfect in all respects and who is given to remove the curse. Well, then, how do we remove the curse? The only way this can be removed is if we are subject to a new nature. But this is only possible is we can come to love each other more than self (in a group of kindred spirits). Since this is needful, and since this cannot be gained by virtue of our sinful nature, Jesus comes to us and lives with the disciples in order 1. to show them what this love is and 2. convey to them the Holy Spirit whereby this love is made perfect. The curse can only be lifted in the disciples become transformed. But they will not do this. They continually reject this and so in order to show them what is required in its fullness, Jesus arranges his own death through his provocations and it is then by means of his example in his death and by means of his mighty resurrection to them alone that they began to want to love each other as Christ had loved them not only as individuals, but even more as a group, and by virtue of this desire and their expectation of a transformation they were able to receive the Holy Spirit, and in that the curse was lifted. Spiritually it was lifted in the crucifixion, and physically it was lifted at the Pentecost.

And so the curse was lifted by virtue of Jesus’s ability to get his disciples to come to love each other more than self and the subsequent reception of the Holy Spirit into sinful man, creating a new man.

Now the reason it is called an atonement for the sins of all is because this episode reflects what every person must go through in order to be born again. He must die to sin and live to Christ.

On the individual level however we have this moral problem. The sins of the old disposition, which were infinite, could not yet have been requited, and yet the virtue of the new disposition warrants perfect happiness. And the good needs of the new life cannot be considered as surplus such that they could be used to blot out earlier sins, for good is always required of the Christian, no matter his or her past.

The reconciliation comes in the fact of the commitment itself. In the commitment or dedication to Christ we swear ourselves for the good and we know that this means that we will be at a disadvantage in a world which must be assumed to be evil. And nevertheless we are committed to experiencing this pain, even though it is not deserved of the new disposition. Nevertheless we do it in payment for the earlier sinful disposition, for since they are both potentially infinite, they match nicely, and so this readiness for the fray counts itself as a morally sufficient payment for the potential sin of the old man, who has now died.

And so Jesus does what we do, but he does it as a man who had no sinful disposition in the first place which called for any retribution. And still he does it as the first of many brothers and sisters and does ahead and shows us the way we are to go and why it is that we need not fear. Upon then his testimony could Paul be so certain that he had entered into eternal life and would never die.

Jesus dies 1. to show us the way and thereby to lift the curse and 2. to go with us into the death when we die to sin. As we take the curse of the old man upon our own shoulders, Jesus takes on the old man of sin itself, the curse; and as he refused to murmur that it was unjust, we also refuse to murmur that it is unjust (the suffering that will be coming to the new man of the new birth), and the good we do we do without self praise, for we are merely doing our duty as friends of Christ. (it’s the same as the duty of the servant, except the servant may do it reluctantly and without fervor).

In a word: Jesus died because it was necessary that he die in order to accomplish his mission on earth for God, namely the opening of sinful men to the Holy Spirit.

Now this is eminently validated in the letters of Paul, for he who had been an enemy became a friend by means of the Holy Spirit.

How could Mohammed have come up with such a strange idea about Jesus? He was forcing Jesus into Mohammed’s prophet mold as the only way that God could be imagined as dealing with the likes of humans (which, I think, are no more in the sight of God than merely rational brutes, who must be whipped into line).

6:05 PM Obviously Mohammed never heard of Paul, or else dismissed him as a confused man. Jesus was the Holy One of God (as the Christians insisted upon calling him) and so it was impossible that God would have let him be killed by a bunch of Jews. And so there must have been a sleight of hand, probably Judas who was wrongly reported as having hanged himself.

The Christian talk that Mohammed would have been privy to would have been that of Jews in Christian clothing (speaking of attitude and mind set) and they would have found plenty of laws in Paul’s writings, when encouraged by a priesthood (emulating the Jews) and a government interested in knowing exactly what God expected of people in order to make sure that society. And so Mohammed was faced essentially with bickering Jews, and the notion of a new birth or transformation would be Christian talk and nothing more. There were enough rewards mentioned in the gospels (where Jesus addresses the Jews in Jewish terms) to make evil men obedient, just as Mohammed would do with his Quoran, and indeed better than the Christian gibberish.

Paul’s conception would have already long been trampled under by a powerful and power seeking church and state. The liberation by means of the Holy Spirit would never have reached the eye or hear of Mohammed. He was totally in the dark, but he did the best he could and put an efficacious and even beneficent restraint on the human passions. Just as Moses did. If Moses passed off his own notions and divinely inspired (as Jesus claimed) then there is no reason to think that Mohammed might not have done the same thing. Perhaps Mohammed was as confused as Moses.

6:15 PM Then the case of Joseph Smith proves the real possibility of a deliberate fraud on the part of Mohammed, even if in pursuit of noble aims.

6:16 PM Concerning the Holy Trinity, while the affirmation of this is an act of sheer faith, the notion is really no more illogical than the left and the right hands, each being a hand and yet not able to wear the same glove.