Chain of Being Thinking and Implications

“A second essential point with respect to ancient philosophy: for ancient philosophy, being is one and continuous. Now, what does this mean? As Christians, as believers in the scriptures, we declare that God is uncreated being. He alone is God. Men are not Gods, men are not divine, we don’t have a spark of divinity in us, we are creatures. So that there are two kinds of being in the universe. The uncreated being, God, and the whole word of created being, man and all the creatures, the entire universe. This means, therefore, there is a vast gap between God and the universe, and the universe, nor any part of it, can ever be termed divine. But in ancient philosophy, there was only one continuous world of beings, so that the Gods, the men, all shared in this divinity.

Now some people were more godlike than others, the heroes were ones who were at least half-Gods. The rulers or emperors very often became completely God. Everyone had a little bit of God in them and it was just a case of developing that in them. So salvation meant becoming more and more a God, whereas for us salvation is accepting the redemptive work of God by faith.

Now, the background of this idea of one continuous being was that being arose out of chaos, and here you have the whole religion of revolution and that it is working its way up. And since it is evolving, and the idea of evolution is the hallmark of paganism, there was no idea of creation in paganism, whatever they may try to tell you. The way for this evolution to proceed is through chaos. It has to have chaos occasionally in order to step upward. And so this takes us to the religion of evolution.”

R. J. Rushdoony
Lecture — The Early Thinkers from Plato to Augustine Q&A-Delivered 1969

These three paragraphs explain the modern West for those with ears to hear. Some observations.

1.) If all being is continuous then all being participates in and is reflective of God.  Any distinctions that exist, exist only because some realities have more being in them than other realities. The more the being the higher one is on the scale of hierarchy. This kind of social order was reflected in the Egyptian system of Mahat. Mahat had reference to the Universal mind. Pharaoh was understood to have the greatest participation of the Universal mind. From Pharaoh on down, everyone possessed less of the Universal mind.  If one possessed less of the universal mind one was the slave of the one who possessed more of the universal mind. Mahat gave a slave order where everyone was the slave of the one above them who had more being.

2.) The West has put a twist on this continuous being thinking by adding egalitarianism to continuous being. If all being is continuous (Chain of being) and if that thinking is going to be combined with egalitarianism then no being is superior or inferior to any other being and as no being is superior or inferior to any other being then no distinctions that mark superiority or inferiority can be allowed to exist. Hence egalitarianism, as combined with the chain of being thinking (called Oneism by Dr. Peter Jones), results in the certitude that no objection can be raised against Transgenderism, sodomy, New World Order Babelism, multiculturalism, multiracialism, multi-faithism or Open borders because all share in divinity and all are equal. Indeed in this system of continuous thinking as combined with egalitarianism any distinction made in terms of “superior” (better) vs. “inferior” (worse) is the greatest crime imaginable. (With the exception that egalitarianism is superior to inferior notions of Biblical hierarchy.)

3.) Wherever you find the doctrine of the chain of being (continuous being) there you find the religion of chaos.  Chain of Being thinking does not allow a creator God who has distinct unshared being and who is responsible for bringing order out of Chaos so Being and order must arise out of chaos. Chaos gives birth to order and being.  As such, those social orders who embrace continuous being (and Evolutionary thinking is the very nard of chain of being thinking), also embrace the religion of revolution. This religion insists that in order for a utopian order to come to pass that can only happen by returning to chaos that order may be birthed. You find this kind of thinking exemplified in celebrations of Mardi Gras, ancient rites of bacchanalia, and of course the post-Endarkenment blood-drenched Revolutions (1789 — French / 1848 — Europe / 1861 — America / 1914 — Europe / 1918 — Bolshevik / 1948 — China etc.).  This thinking teaches that destruction has the capacity to bring Utopia.  Order out of Chaos reflects a dialectical thinking of one step back in order to gain two steps forward.

4.) Of course, “chain of being” thinking disallows the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible has being that is unique and distinct from the creature. (In Christian theology this is called the Creator-creature distinction.) In “chain of being” thinking this Creator God must be eliminated.  Of course, when the God of the Bible is eliminated God pops up elsewhere. For “chain of being” thinking the god which has distinct being from all else (even though lip service is given that no distinct being exists) is the State. The State becomes that reality which has the most being and so must be obeyed. The new motto for “chain of being” thinking is “in the state we live and move and have our being.”

5.) Since all godhead must have unity of being the State as the god of the Chain of being must work in order to ensure uniformity in the social order. The motto becomes, “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” If there is continuity of being and if the State is the Archimedean point of all being then all individuality in the State must be sunk in the god-State. This also becomes a factor in pushing all things towards egalitarianism.  The State becomes Queen Bee and all in the hive are drones serving the Queen bee.

Individuality is lost. Distinction is lost. Liberty is lost.

Marriage … It Either Has A Stable Meaning, or It Means Everything and Nothing

‘Once one says that a homosexual orientation is no more culpable or disordered than a heterosexual orientation, and once one observes that Scripture does not teach that God says that homosexual activity is always wrong, I think we’re left to conclude that justice requires that the church offer the great good of marriage both to heterosexual couples committed to a loving, covenantal relationship, and to homosexual couples so committed’.

Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff 
American Philosopher
All One Body Lecture

A pedophile should be held responsible for his conduct — but not for the underlying attraction.

Margo Kaplan
New York Times Article

How long until we hear that the orientation for pedophiles is no more culpable or disordered than a heterosexual orientation? Where in Scripture do we see that bedding children (even of the same sex) is wrong if done in the context of a “loving, covenantal relationship, and to Man-boy love so committed,” as stated by Dr. Wolterstoff in regards to sodomy?

After all, if God is the one who gives the underlying attraction and if God is the one who wired some adults brains differently who are we to deny what God has done? If God has made pedophilia (or Necrophilia, or Beastiality) as merely a creational variance of sexuality who are we to challenge God?

In 1986, a short 31 years ago,  SCOTUS Chief Justice Warren Burger considered by many to have been a liberal could write in the Bowers v. Hardwick decision,

“To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.”

In the same Hardwick decision Burger also cited the “ancient roots” of prohibitions against homosexual sex by quoting William Blackstone’s description of homosexual sex as an “infamous crime against nature”, worse than rape, and “a crime not fit to be named.”

Somehow, in 30 years as a culture, we have gone from a liberal Supreme Court Justice inveighing against sodomy to a well-respected Churchmen and philosopher giving his imprimatur on the same.

Also,  we have to note the linguistic play that is found in describing marriage as something two people of the same biological sex can enter. Scripturally, as well as historically, marriage, by definition, is an institution that only can be occupied by males and females.  In the 1888 California court case, “Sharon vs. Sharon,” we find marriage defined,

“Marriage is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge to each other and to the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex. “

In Scripture Jesus defines Marriage as being composed of males and females,

Matthew 19:4 – Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ 5and said, ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

So, when people begin to talk about the “church offering the great good of marriage … to homosexual couples so committed.” we should recognize that linguistic deception has just been leveraged, even if unwittingly done. Because of the definition of marriage, we can no more offer the great good of marriage to sodomite couples then we can legitimately offer the great good of the US Presidency to someone born in Kenya. Neither of the Institutions, by definition, are allowed legal occupancy by those who don’t adhere to the definition.

And while we are at it, we might as well note the same is true for the word “sex.” Given definitional realities, it is not possible for sodomites or lesbians to engage in “sex,” whatever it is they may be doing to and with one another with their reproductive organs.

When we get sloppy with our language we begin to lose what the reality that the language is supposed to represent.

 

 

 

On “Out ‘Enemying’ the Enemy”

“No cultural conservative could seek to copy the left’s means and create conditioning mechanisms of our own because psychological conditioning leads to a Brave New World regardless of what attitudes it is attempting to impart. That is not where we want to end up.”

William S. Lind

In the article from which this quote comes Lind is warning against the instinct to use the techniques of the cultural Marxists in order to defeat the cultural Marxist. Lind’s point is that if we have to become like our enemy in order to defeat our enemy our enemy has defeated us inasmuch as we have become him.

Any victory that is found against the Cultural Marxists by using their techniques against them will be a victory that is defeat. Success in this way will mean failure as we become the same venomous sons of Belial that the Cultural Marxist already are. Oh, sure, people will be dancing in the streets thinking that they have had great success because the beast of Cultural Marxism has been slain but if that beast is slain by the same tools that it used to slay Biblical Christianity than whoever has won the field of battle it is not the Biblical Christians and it is not Christ.

Jesus himself told us that Satan does not drive out Satan and so we can be sure that if the techniques to drive out Satan are being used by someone else purporting to be ‘good-guys’ but who use the same techniques as Satan than it is not the case that Satan is being driven out. At best he is merely changing uniforms in order to keep ruling.

When you fight someone to win at all costs you will do literally anything to win. You will even take on that person’s vices if that is what it takes to win. You will, in essence, become that person. You become your enemy. And your enemy wins because now there’s another one of him in the world. Oh sure, your cause may well triumph but what profit is it to gain the whole world while losing your own soul? And what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Another way of saying this is that you cannot accept the presuppositions of your enemy and still expect to defeat your enemy. If you accept the premise of your enemy you lose even if you win. One cannot use the enemies methodologies, techniques, and assumptions as un-reinterpreted through a biblical grid and win without becoming the enemy.

In literature, this has been teased out a couple times that I know of. In C. S. Lewis’ “Prince Caspian,” the character Nikabrik desires to win at any and all costs. Nikabrik makes it clear that he believes in anything or anyone that will rid Narnia of the Telmarines: Aslan OR the White Witch. After the Narnians suffer many defeats at Aslan’s How and Susan’s Horn appears to have failed, Nikabrik concocts his own plan. Nikabrik invites two of his “friends” — a Hag and a Wer-Wolf — to the council, and suggests that they use black sorcery, calling up the White Witch to defeat Miraz. When the Wer-Wolf mentions preparing the blue fire, a fight breaks out between Nikabrik’s group and Caspian, Doctor Cornelius, and Trufflehunter. At that moment, Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin, who had been listening outside the door, rush in to help. During the fighting in the dark, Nikabrik is killed, though no one knows who killed him. Caspian says,

“I am sorry for Nikabrik, though he hated me from the first moment he saw me. He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating. If we had won quickly he might have become a good Dwarf in the days of peace.”

One easily sees that Lewis’s “Nikabrik” had no problem becoming the enemy to defeat the enemy. However, even with a White Witch very real victory, there would have been no real victory.

It is possible that many of our people are going “sour inside from the long suffering and hating” that the West has had to endure since the Endarkenment. It’s perfectly understandable that some people, like Nikabrik, want victory so badly they will call on any and all powers to deliver them but at the end of the day victory achieved with these kinds of tools will remain defeat.

The other example is Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” The Fellowship of the Ring refused to wield the ring of power even though the ring of power guaranteed victory. They all understood (except possibly Boromir for a space of time) that victory with the ring meant defeat. The Fellowship refused to use the methodologies, techniques, and tools of the Evil One in order to defeat the Evil One because they understood that victory gained by techniques of darkness means defeat even if you call defeat “victory.”

The German “philosopher” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche also understood well what I’m getting at in this article. Nietzche wrote,

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”

Monsters defeating Monsters leaves Monsters.

So, what are the means of victory against our enemies?

Well, first we need to realize that it has taken several generations to come to this point and so victory is not likely to come over night or with abrupt suddenness. We need to gird up our loins for a long fight that begins in our homes and with our families and then radiates out from there first into Christian churches and then to different institutions and walks of life. The victory over our Cultural Marxist enemies will only be won if we train up our children in the way of the Lord Christ and His righteousness. A lack of worldview training and catechesis in the home is almost certain to guarantee the loss of the next generation. If the enemy keeps stealing our children than all talk of victory is mere stand up comedy. Of course, this also means not sending our children to Government schools, not letting them be influenced by the Ichabod Church in the West,  and not sending them to University. Likewise, this also means our children must see their parents standing for righteousness and opposing wickedness and wicked people. This can happen any number of ways from activism for Biblically righteous causes to standing in public forums contesting for Christ against the wicked. Children must not only learn it between the ears they must see it lived out with their eyes. It must be both caught and taught.

In order to be victorious in the long fight, we must also get out of the cultural current and dare to think differently than the zeitgeist. This means reading, study and research. Lots of it. I’ve known any number of families who have homeschooled and yet remain in the zeitgeist and so part of the problem because they continue to support a Republican “Patrick Henry College” type mindset for their children. These types end up being in league with the enemy that needs to be defeated.

Finally, for this article, I’m going to get out on an edge and insist that this long fight will only be won to the degree that we are Calvinists. Throughout history with the Reformation and since Calvinists have been the particular expression of Christianity that those intent on tyranny most hate. Whether you are talking the Calvinist Dutch against the Catholic Habsburgs of Spain, or the Glorious Revolution of 1689, or the American Counter-Revolution of 1776 Calvinists have always been those who are willing to resist on Biblical grounds. Inasmuch as the steel spined Calvinism (as opposed to R2K “Calvinism” and Cultural Marxist “Calvinsim”) goes into eclipse in just that much any hope for recovery goes into eclipse.

But the victory, however long it might take, begins in the home and if Christians keep routinely losing their children as they currently do all talk of looming victory is just so much happy talk.

 

 

 

A Satanist Prayer … A Christian Rebuttal

After complaints from several community members that only prayer or religious groups can give the invocation at the Grand Junction City Council meetings, council members decided to allow a satanic invocation at their August 2 meeting.
 

“We beseech all those present to shun primitive hatreds and superstitions, bigotry, prejudice and atavism and instead seek equality and justice and thereby safeguard all world views and treat them equally and with respect. So say we all in the name of reason, in the name of free inquiry and in the name of rebellion against theocracy. Hail Satan.” said Andrew Vodopich with the Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers.

http://www.kjct8.com/content/news/GJ-City-Council-allows-satanic-invocation-at-meeting-438227943.html

 

Notice that the Satanists are Classical liberals. They want to “safeguard all worldviews and treat them equally and with respect.” Here we learn

1.) Egalitarianism is a doctrinal plank which Satanists approve.

2.) Satanists support absolute libertine freedom when they invoke “the name of free inquiry.” “Free inquiry” is the call for absolute freedom. Absolute freedom is to man what freedom is to a goldfish outside its bowl. Absolute freedom is to man what freedom is to a train once off its tracks.

3.) Classical liberalism is Satanic in origin. Satanist are perfectly good with God getting a vote as long as all the other false gods (including Satan) gets a vote as well.

The Satanists pray for all worldviews being treated equally and with respect. However, this is a prayer request as coming from those who have a worldview that allows only their worldview to be treated with respect. This worldview that, “all the Gods should be equal” is a worldview that does not treat equally any other worldview besides their own. Their egalitarian god rises above all competition from any other god. Any God who insists that He-they are God above the Satanist (classical liberal) god is a god that the prayer of the Satanists is not treating with respect.

Another way to say this was framed by a friend of mine,

“It’s as self-contradicting as it can be. They want their world view – in which all world views are treated equally and with respect – to dominate. If their world view dominates, then they can’t say that all world views are equal. Domination negates equality.”

4.) Satanists enshrine reason as an autonomous source of knowing. This is consistent with Satan’s temptation in the garden of Eden. “You shall be as God determining good from evil.” However, their appeal to reason is shipwrecked by the “reasoning” in this prayer.  What good is reason if you are involved in repeated contradiction as we noted above?

5.) The Satanist pray in favor of rebelling against Theocracy. Yet, their belief system has provided the evilest theocracy that man has ever seen. So, the Satanists are for rebelling against theocracy all the while affirming a theocracy that forces all worldviews to be treated as equal.

Multiculturalism as the New Religion in Town

Religion — Any system of faith and worship. In this sense, religion comprehends the belief and worship of pagans and Mohammedans, as well as of Christians; any religion consisting in the belief of a superior power or powers governing the world, and in the worship of such power or powers. Thus we speak of the religion of the Turks, of the Hindoos, of the Indians, etc. as well as of the Christian religion We speak of false religion as well as of true religion.

1828 Webster’s Dictionary

“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. . . . We must, therefore, worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth, and consider that if it is difficult to comprehend Nature, it is harder to grasp the Essence of the State. . . .[T]he State is the march of God through the world.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is my conviction that Religion is an inescapable category. All men organize their social order in subservience to, as Webster tells us, “belief of a superior power or powers governing the world.” Thus, all cultures are naught but the expression of the religion of the people who comprise that culture. Culture then is the religion of a people put into real life social order animation.

One thing we should immediately note is how ridiculous it is to make blanket condemnations as “all religion being bad.” Christians often do this by saying things like, “I don’t have a religion. I have a relationship.” Religion is an inescapable category and so while some religions are worse than others (and all are worse than Biblical Christianity) the reality is that all people and peoples are religious. This is true also of those (usually the atheist crowd) who say “I don’t have a religion.”  That this is true is explained by the fact that it is the religion of people who condemn religion that accounts for their condemnation of religion. The idea of something (in this case “religion”) being “bad” requires a moral foundation upon which to make such a pronouncement and that moral foundation is nothing else but an expression of a religion. In their statement, “I don’t have a religion,” or “Religion is wicked and accounts for all the evil of the world,” they are their own superior power that is governing the world (see Webster’s definition) and so their egoism is their religion. 

For most moderns the State is their god and so provides their religion as the Hegel quote indicates. For those non-Christians who haven’t taken the state as their god, the result usually is that they are their own gods, determining good and evil. As such their individual egos are their own religion. Religion is an inescapable category.

Given all that the above is true we might ask ourselves what is the religion of our culture. Below provides just a bit of a teasing out of the answer to that question.

I.) The Religion of Modernism

Multiculturalist Diversity

The irony here is lodged in the fact that the pursuit of multiculturalism finally arrives in the embrace of a monoculture as everybody is straitjacketed into the singular embrace of a uniform multicultural social order where the equality of all cultures create and reflect the monolithic religion behind multiculturalism.

II.) The Temple / Church of Modernism

US Government outlets (Civic bldgs., Schools, etc.)

All religions have a Temple or gathering place where the worshipers come to worship and be catechized. In the West, the Government facility has replaced the Temple as the Church of Modernism. In Church facilities, we educate our young into the state religion.  We send our tithes and offerings to the Church every year. We place our dead heroes in Temple like structures (think of the Lincoln Memorial). It is all really quite religious as in the State we live and move and have our being.

III.) Priest Class

Bureaucrats / Teachers / Ministers / Professional Class

All religions have a Preistcraft. Modernism as a religion is no different. The Priest class serves to guide the people in how to satisfy the god and how to practice the religion. The Priestcraft have a self-interest in perpetuating the religion since their lifestyle is dependent upon the religion being kept stoked. In the West, the God state is served by a Preistcraft that now includes almost the whole white collar professional class. Because of the totalitarian presence of the State nearly all the white collar professional class is beholden to the religion of multiculturalism and so supports it and inculcates it in all their doings. From Shrinks, to Shysters, to Ministers, to Teachers, to Businessmen, to Medial Doctors, to Academia, they all are tasked with serving multiculturalism as the religion and the State as God.

IV.)  Catechism Motifs

All religions have their catch phrases and pithy motifs that the Preistcraft must teach. In Christianity one might use as just one example, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and fully enjoy Him forever.” In the religion of multiculturalism, we get mindless pithy motifs that all are to embrace such as, “Diversity is our strength,” and, “White people are evil,” and “All people and all cultures are equal.” These and like simple-minded motifs constitute the lubricant that oils the thinking of the whole social order.

V.) Mission’s Agency

United Nations,  Evangelical Church Sending Agencies, US Military

Every religion has an agency whereby the religion is spread to others who are deprived of the great religion. In the social order of the West that Missions agency ranges from the United Nations publishing arm to the most Missionary agencies of most of the Denominations that constitute modern Christianity. Christianity has been reinterpreted through the grid of multiculturalism so that much of what is pushed as Christianity by missionaries (both home and abroad) is just another expression of multiculturalism. When nations are particularly resistant to being convinced of the truth of multiculturalism then we turn to the US Military to convert by the sword.

VI.) Criminal Code

Hate Crimes / homophobia / Sexist / Racist

Every religion develops a criminal code as to what is allowed and what is not allowed. Multiculturalism, as a religion, seeks to criminalize behavior that does not support the zeitgeist. As such multiculturalism creates hate crimes that punish with extra zeal those guilty of hating beyond the normal hate that comes with every crime. Further, homophobia, sexism, racism, while not yet criminal, are so deeply taboo that to violate them puts one outside the company of “civilized” people.

VII.) Propaganda Wing

Hollywood / Top 40 / Government schools / Media Outlets

Every religion has a propaganda wing. The propaganda wing of multiculturalism is Hollywood, Top 40 music of almost all genres, and Government schools, and newspapers, magazines, radio talk show, etc. All of these are not concerned with teaching people to think critically. All are concerned with teaching people what to think. All teach people the virtues of multiculturalism. We are bombarded with messaging that informs us that all relationships are equal. That all sexuality is equal. Christian white people are evil. Patriarchy is despicable. Heirarchy is bias.

VIII.) Main Goal

Overthrow Christianity

Samuel Francis, in his “Leviathan and Its Enemies,” captured this when he wrote,

“The persistence of traditional institutions and systems of belief constrains and impedes the continuing growth of mass organizations and their operations, and it is imperative for the emerging elites to challenge, discredit, and erode the moral, intellectual, and institutional fabric of traditional society that sustains the older elites and the systems of beliefs, or ideologies, on which their rule is based.”

The goal of multiculturalism is to completely destroy Christianity as the religion of the West. It has been largely successful to that end. The emerging multicultural elites are doing all in their powers to overthrow Christ and Christianity in favor of the cultural marxism that drives multiculturalism.

VIII.) Chief method to that end

The use of Critical theory to destroy White people

Critical theory was a means developed to viciously attack any aspect of thinking that had Christianity as its origin. It presupposed that Christian thinking was responsible for social orders that enslaved. It was leveraged as upon the foundation of Cultural Marxism and so all the criticism as run through the prism of Cultural Marxism in order to smash Christianity as evil. The reason that it especially is pointed on White people is that the Cultural Marxist understood that White people have been, historically speaking, the main carriers of Christianity and the builders of Christian civilizations. The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school (the origin of movement multiculturalism) understood that if white people are destroyed the consequence is that Christianity will be destroyed.

This also explains the push for amnesty and the immigration crisis that the West is facing.

IX.) High Holy Days

Martin Luther King Day / 4th of July / Veterans day

Every religion has its own high holy days. Multiculturalism is no different. This explains why multiculturalism so intensely makes “war on Christmas.” Multiculturalism understands that Christmas is a high, holy day in competition with its own high holy days. The high holy days of multiculturalism celebrates egalitarianism and diversity, or the god-state and those who have died for it. (Why anybody can’t see the contradiction in praising, at the same time, both diversity and egalitarianism is quite beyond me.)

X.) Enemy of “The People”

a.) Epistemologically self-conscious Christians
b.) Trustee Family
c.) Property

Multiculturalism understands that it has enemies that it must snuff out. We noted above that Multiculturalism, as a religion, understands that its greatest threat is Christian white people. This category just refines that a wee bit further. Multiculturalism understands that the “enemy of the multiculturalist people” are especially those who are epistemologically self-conscious Christians. Epistemologically self-conscious Christians see through the three-card monte con of multiculturalism and so are understood as a threat and so must be professionally destroyed.

The Trustee family is such a distinct enemy of the adherents of multiculturalism because the Trustee family embraces hierarchy and patriarchy, and so eschews egalitarianism.

Property also is seen as an enemy of multiculturalism because property introduces a “mine, not yours” mentality which wages wars on everyone being and having the same.

So, this is a brief description of the new religion of the West. It is a description that seeks at the same time to reinforce that religion is an inescapable category that can’t be avoided. Either we will return to Christ and so have abundant life again or we will embrace some other religion of death.