Christianity

[Nick_A]

noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
dianoia (discursive thought)
pistis (belief or confidence)
eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)

2, 3, & 4 are redundancies, if the indulgence is necessary.

When a religion initiating with a conscious source becomes secularized, it gradually becomes its opposite. How for example, did the Jesus teaching become the Spanish Inquisition? The effects of secularization and why everything in nature by a universal law, turns in circles

[Nick_A]

Ortega y Gassett...

"Professional noisemakers of every class will always prefer the anarchy of intoxication of the mystics to the clear and ordered intelligence of the priests, that is, of the Church. I regret at not being able to join them in this preference either. I am prevented by a matter of truthfulness. It is this: I think that any theology transmits to us much more of God, greater insights and ideas about divinity, than the combined ecstasies of all the mystics; because, instead of approaching the ecstatic skeptically, we must take the mystic at his word, accept what he brings us from his transcendental immersions, and then see if what he offers us is worth while. The truth is that, after we accompany him on his sublime voyage, what he succeeds in communicating to us is a thing of little consequence. I think that the European soul is approaching a new experience of God and new inquiries into that most important of all realities. I doubt very much, however, if the enrichment of our ideas about divine matters will emerge from the mystic's subterranean roads rather than from the luminous paths of discursive thought. Theology---not ecstasy!"

What Ortega y Gassett is directly saying here is that any innate mystical experience is inferior to that which is dogmatically prescribed by a priesthood. If that were so, religions wouldn't exist and theism couldn't evolve to any supervised clarity as rendered by its elites. Incipient to most theologies is the insurgence of mystery and its concomitant feelings of mind dilation as precursor to a near steady-state of theological structure. As a generational habit, it eventually yields to tradition even when its belief systems are crumbling.

Not least, the influx of a palpable mystery in itself does not require the existence of any god or middleman to reveal itself to one's psyche. Anything may serve as catalyst to self-inflict both mystical and revelatory experiences. Furthermore, discursive thought is the least likely means to invent another god conception. Back and forth logic is not amenable to discussing matters of divinity.

Ortega y Gassett prefers yielding to the construction zone of dogma whose validity is as much or more in question than the kind of experiences which are neither negatable nor negotiable or requires for its effect any proximity to truth or dogma which invariably presents itself as having achieved.

Ortega's views yield aridity throughout!

By definition, discursive thought must exclude the conception of wholeness in favor of centering on fragmentation or partial truths in the search for truth. This isn't a gotcha question but does wholeness exist at least theoretically in your opinion? If it does, what actually is wholeness?

[Belinda]

If there is a smidgin of intention towards goodness, truth, or beauty in Dionysian activities then God is there . Apollonian activities can be equally as death-dealing as Dionysian activities.

I am not sure if I should accept the binary definition of either Dionysian or Apollonian. I get your point though. The issue as I tried to describe it hinges more on the division between healthy/productive/intelligent and self-destructive/destructive/non thought-through.

The Bacchic infection of sudden intoxicated mountain-dancing that gets hold of unbelievers is psychologically intelligible to us. And curious that the first converts were among the women. Poor Pentheus though! To be forced into cross-dressing before he is ripped to shreds and devoured.

C’est la vie, je suppose.

I may have shared this clip from the movie Seconds. It is illustrative of the Dionysian mood. And fits in to the ethics and desire of the age.

For some of course the evidence of being on the right track and knowing you are on the right track is when the women undress of their own volition.

For others that they choose to keep their clothes on . . .

I am mildly surprised that as a Roman Catholic you don't immediately support performative rituals with which I understand RC is rich. Indeed one of the main critiques of Xianity is that it's too cognitive and insufficiently performative.

You are able to bring in argumentative big guns regarding social deprivation in South America to support your argument against the Dionysians and that makes me pause and think again. However I would imagine that Roman Catholicism can, as it has done before, include pagan misbehaviour and Christianise it. Of course that strategy has to be accompanied by the political will to alleviate poverty!

[Alexis Jacobi]

By definition, discursive thought must exclude the conception of wholeness in favor of centering on fragmentation or partial truths in the search for truth. This isn't a gotcha question but does wholeness exist at least theoretically in your opinion? If it does, what actually is wholeness?

This question is, when examined, more of a statement, isn't it? It asserts that there is a state of wholeness where ideas, views, perspectives, social commitments, opinions about right & wrong good & bad, ethical issues and problems, have been transcended into the realization of the wholeness you refer to. But that achievement could only take place within a sole individual. And in a sense that person, within that position of wholeness, would seem to have stopped thinking! Because -- by definition, the definition you offer -- thinking is divisive. Having an opinion, a sense, a believe, even a defined ethics, is evidence of the fragmentation you refer to.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I am mildly surprised that as a Roman Catholic you don't immediately support performative rituals with which I understand RC is rich. Indeed one of the main critiques of Xianity is that it's too cognitive and insufficiently performative.

The actual facts are a bit more complex -- fortunately or unfortunately. Technically, I am not a Roman Catholic since to be one I'd have to have gone through a conversion. I haven't. What I am and what I have been is an admirer of what I call *essences* that I find within Catholic philosophy. Frankly, I am a 'fractured modern' and a cultural product of post-Sixties California. My parents were of the educated class but, in what I guess was a fit of Dionysian enthusiasm (entheos), took the radical stance of abandoning social and economic standing (at least temporarily) and brought myself and my sister to live in India for a time. It is kind of a long story of course. But that is sort of the point I'd make: processes of cultural change, transformation, fragmentation and disintegration, restructuring and recovery, have been 'the stuff of my life'.

And I do not refer just to myself, obviously. What I wrote about in trying to define a Dionysian process of *spiritual adventuring* is what was bequeathed to me by my parents but also by the culture (as things evolved into the 80s and 90s). I included a link to The Source Family not because my parents were associated with such a profoundly radical (and bizarre) experimental cult, but the fact is that, culturally and in general, they came under the influence of the longing and the profound desire for 'transformative life-experience' born of a similar desire (and such things were going on all over California). And as I say it seems to me that in the clip from the movie Seconds and the Bacchic celebration depicted is in truth something that I know about nearly first hand. I watched the adults around me. What I mean is that this is the stuff my parents got involved with. But I do not mean jumping into a vat of grapes and grape-juice. I mean things similar in effect. Yoga, kundalini meditation, Hindu ritualism, general exoticism, Castaneda, transpersonal therapy, the Human Potential Movement, the list goes on and on...

So it is fair to reveal that in my own case the discovery, let's say, of Catholic philosophy has been part of a process of 'recovery of roots'. But this happens among those who, perhaps against their will, were drawn by others and by exterior forces along paths of radicalism. It is common, isn't it? that the children of radicals often revert back to different forms of conservatism. You can find that with people like David Horowitz who grew up as a 'red diaper baby' but then turned completely around ... and then defined a radical conservatism. So, what I said in earlier posts is of course true: at a certain point (maybe 10 years ago) I read Slouching Toward Gomorrah (Robert Bork) and Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver and, because I was primed for it and ready for it, I put everything in reverse. I saw the *sense* that these men communicated through their definitions of 'solid territories' that correspond to what Ortega y Gassett divulges as anchoring within structured, rational theology. One has to define some base within beliefs & understandings. You have to make some statement about *what life is* and what life is for (and what one must do and what one must not do). That's adulthood, isn't it? To define a position and live on it and through it. (Which is why the term paideia -- what one teaches to the young -- is always given emphasis in what I write).

As to 'performative rituals' -- if I had a choice I think I would regularly participate in a traditional Catholic Mass. That is, the old-school Roman Catholic Mass. But they did away with it. All of that post-Vatican ll. There are some groups in Bogotá and in Bucaramanga that celebrate the tradional Latin Mass but I have not attended. I have read the Traditional Mass though and I see what it is about. It is about ascent on the idea-plane and on a spiritual-plane to a *higher realm*. It is profoundly metaphysical and transcendental. In my view it is extremely admirable. But more than that: I refer to the *essence* of it as the place where its meaning is found; i.e. felt, realized, experienced.

You are able to bring in argumentative big guns regarding social deprivation in South America to support your argument against the Dionysians and that makes me pause and think again. However I would imagine that Roman Catholicism can, as it has done before, include pagan misbehaviour and Christianise it. Of course that strategy has to be accompanied by the political will to alleviate poverty!

Oh no, I would not say 'against' Dionysian experience, not at all. As I said I reviewed ER Dodds' introduction to the Bacchae of Euripedes and Richard Lattimore's introduction to his translation of the play to remind myself of what -- if this can even be defined -- Dionysus is. So the fair statement is to note, and be honest in stating, that there are some things about Life that simply are. They cannot be repressed ultimately. They will always resurge. A simple, intelligible metaphor is to visualize the powerful life-sap coursing through a tree. Or the image of when a tree is cut and the saplings sprout again, indomitably. There you have it! The old gods will never go away because what they are, are processes that are part-and-parcel of Life and lived experience. Be that Dionysian ecstasy of all that Aphrodite connotes -- this is the core of Life itself.

So the problem with Christianity, and one of the reasons that people are in rebellion against it ("an insurrection against God beginning in the 18th century" as one writer put it) is related to this. You see people want to live. Not in some future realm but presently, in their bodies and in the fullness of life's experience. They will sacrifice everything for one drop of exalted love (Aphrodite) and the same for some mere moments where they really feel alive and vibrant with life's sap. It will never be possible to put a damper on this. Those who think they can, and here I'd mention the unfortunate victim of Dionysus in The Bacchae, Pentheus, will be possessed and destroyed by what they repress. Which is to say cannot acknowledge about themselves. Pentheus became a victim of the god, was fully possessed, and then devoured. It is a useful metaphor to examine present and ongoing cultural processes (and I speak mostly of American culture). It is a difficult but nonetheless and interesting conversation: America is in the midst of a possession. It is all hitting the wall. It is profoundly psychological and psychic. But no one seems capable to really see it and fairly and accurately describe what is going on. Disunity, necessarily, manifests itself. Those 'lacks of agreement' I mentioned to RC. People seem to be 'melting down'. They do not seem even to know what is happening in themselves. And then as we all know war looms. And it has broken out in Ukraine and may indeed spread.

But the curious thing is that there will, just as well and just as likely, always be swings between the Dionysian adventure that breaks boundaries and social conventions, and the Apollonian self-recovery (to use your dichotomy) that enforces a 'return' to conventional positions. What in all of this are The Culture Wars? These are the things that must be thought-through.

(What is needed politically and economically in Colombia and most of Latin America is, indeed, economic development and access to education for the impoverished classes. I thought that things were at least improving generally here . . . but the pandemic set things back. But this ia another topic altogether.)

[promethean75]

Edifying discussion of the Dionysian, gentlemen.

I believe the Dionysian symbol is a synthesis of two fundamental elements ... the mythologizing or spiritualization of intoxicated states and sexual energy/activity. Sometimes ecstatic states produced by the pure contemplation of art, whatever that means, are included. But the same meta-narrative runs through every age's expression of the Dionysian. The irreducibility of the extraordinary states produced by intoxication and sexy time.

But because Dionysus is contrasted to an antithesis, Apollo, the concept of the Dionysian is forced to include logocentric opposites of character, and 'he' comes to represent in a fixed way all that is contrary to Apollo's stoic discipline of measured rational, critical thinking, regard for moderation and order, etc.

D became a reservoir of all the collected human prohibitions... whatever was prohibited, naturally, was associated with him.

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

But the curious thing is that there will, just as well and just as likely, always be swings between the Dionysian adventure that breaks boundaries and social conventions, and the Apollonian self-recovery (to use your dichotomy) that enforces a 'return' to conventional positions. What in all of this are The Culture Wars? These are the things that must be thought-through.

Christianity is the main tradition in the US and Europe; there is no great need to step aside from Xianity. There are dysfunctional aspects of Xianity. One I have mentioned is that it's largely about believing and not so much about performing rituals which are pleasurable and consoling. What so many contributors write here against Xianity are objections to supernatural myths which are illustrations of how the moral code works and are not essential beliefs. The Xian moral code is much the same as any other Eurasian post-Axial moral code. I include post-colonial Americas in "Eurasian post-Axial".

The other dysfunction of Christianity is its traditional low status of physical 'extended matter' compared with mental matter . Dionysus/extended substance/romanticism is not less than Apollo/mental substance/classicism and both are attributes of God and both can be accommodated within broadly Christian lives.

[DPMartin]

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos really doesn’t apply in true Christianity (born of the Holy Spirit). Man’s nature and God nature are not the same nor do they coexist. A real Christian is one who lives and walks in the Spirit, Spirit of God, therefore God’s nature and ways, that replaces the man’s nature (hence Paul’s old man new man discussion). John also explains dual mindedness isn’t a walk with the Lord his God in Christ.

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos is man’s nature such as self-discipline is merely survival instinct to have a desire fulfilled (meet a goal) or maintain what is valued, that shouldn’t be misconstrued as God’s nature manifested in man.

[Belinda]

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos really doesn’t apply in true Christianity (born of the Holy Spirit). Man’s nature and God nature are not the same nor do they coexist. A real Christian is one who lives and walks in the Spirit, Spirit of God, therefore God’s nature and ways, that replaces the man’s nature (hence Paul’s old man new man discussion). John also explains dual mindedness isn’t a walk with the Lord his God in Christ.

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos is man’s nature such as self-discipline is merely survival instinct to have a desire fulfilled (meet a goal) or maintain what is valued, that shouldn’t be misconstrued as God’s nature manifested in man.

Listen everyone! DPMartin knows what "a true Christian " is. Good for you. DPMartin!

[iambiguous]

And this...

The reason people have difficulty with Meno's paradox is that they try to reason it by associative thought rather than noesis. According to Plato we have four qualities of reason beginning from the top down:

noesis (immediate intuition, apprehension, or mental 'seeing' of principles)
dianoia (discursive thought)
pistis (belief or confidence)
eikasia (delusion or sheer conjecture)


Pistis and eikasia are really just blind beliefs. Dianoia is rational thought but limited to two dimensional thought and our senses. It is necessary to function in everyday life but useless to experience higher knowledge beyond what our senses can experience.

Noesis explains Men's paradox through anamnesis or remembrance of what has been forgotten. Thinkers prefer to analyze but seekers of truth are open to the experience of anamnesis or recollection to verify the truth behind our contradictions

https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/ ... impossible.

The Theory of Recollection

Concedes that, in some sense, inquiry is impossible. What appears to be learning something new is really recollecting something already known.
This is implausible for many kinds of inquiry. E.g., empirical inquiry:
Who is at the door?
How many leaves are on that tree?
Is the liquid in this beaker an acid?
In these cases, there is a recognized method, a standard procedure, for arriving at the correct answer. So one can, indeed, come to know something one did not previously know.
But what about answers to non-empirical questions? Here, there may not be a recognized method or a standard procedure for getting answers. And Socrates’ questions (“What is justice,” etc.) are questions of this type.
Plato’s theory is that we already have within our souls the answers to such questions. Thus, arriving at the answers is a matter of retrieving them from within. We recognize them as correct when we confront them. (The “Aha!” erlebnis.)

So if I am right, a source for human existence was always known but misinterpreted first by fear and secondly by creating the idolatry of personal gods. Only recently God, the great ineffable source Plotinus called the ONE, Has made it possible to appreciate the universe as the body of God and Man's purpose and potential within the body.

To understand why our species is drawn to experience something greater then itself requires the evolution of reason from animal dianoia into human noesis. Now such a person for me at least is worth talking to and to learn from.

“When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.” Simone Weil

Dianoia when sincere exposes a person to the contradictions most experience. It is only those with the need for truth who have the courage to go through the door and open to the experience of remembrance or anamnesis which can reconcile contradictions through a higher conscious perspective.

...has exactly what to do with my attempt to bring the Christian God "down to earth" pertaining to these factors:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of the Christian God
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why the Christian God?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in the Christian God
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and the Christian God

That's my own interest in either the Christian God or in all other Gods and spiritual paths. Connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then.

Another pedant...

[Dubious]

By definition, discursive thought must exclude the conception of wholeness in favor of centering on fragmentation or partial truths in the search for truth. This isn't a gotcha question but does wholeness exist at least theoretically in your opinion? If it does, what actually is wholeness?

Wholeness is a highly idealistic concept which can never apply to humans as pertaining to some complete theory humans don't, can't and never will have access to or reify. It implies the kind of perfection which avoids fragmentation. The idea is of a totalitarian type depending on the kind of system designed to implement it.

The imperfections of the human psyche have completely distorted its philosophical content in favor of its political and religious connotations, in the sense that what is deemed whole should never be infringed, as its fragmentation can only yield chaos and possible nihilism in its wake. But those who won't allow themselves to become fragmented on occasion, fail to recognize what "wholeness" in reality aspires to, which isn't some granite conception of perfection. Paradoxically, wholeness allows and requires fragmentation to be part of its genre, allowing for its own renewal. Wholeness requires service to maintain itself.

The kind of wholeness achieved so far - as presided by a system - is one which was never in a state of equilibrium, eventually succumbing to outside influences. Wholeness, as steadfast principle or idealized state of perfection, can not exist in any mental or physical system subject to the overwhelming power of entropy to which the universe itself is subject.

I know that's not the answer you wanted to hear or expected!

[Dubious]

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos really doesn’t apply in true Christianity (born of the Holy Spirit). Man’s nature and God nature are not the same nor do they coexist. A real Christian is one who lives and walks in the Spirit, Spirit of God, therefore God’s nature and ways, that replaces the man’s nature (hence Paul’s old man new man discussion). John also explains dual mindedness isn’t a walk with the Lord his God in Christ.

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos is man’s nature such as self-discipline is merely survival instinct to have a desire fulfilled (meet a goal) or maintain what is valued, that shouldn’t be misconstrued as God’s nature manifested in man.

It doesn't come as a surprise to know that Christianity had so few Christians in it!

[Nick_A]

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos really doesn’t apply in true Christianity (born of the Holy Spirit). Man’s nature and God nature are not the same nor do they coexist. A real Christian is one who lives and walks in the Spirit, Spirit of God, therefore God’s nature and ways, that replaces the man’s nature (hence Paul’s old man new man discussion). John also explains dual mindedness isn’t a walk with the Lord his God in Christ.

the struggle between cold Apollonian categorization and Dionysiac lust and chaos is man’s nature such as self-discipline is merely survival instinct to have a desire fulfilled (meet a goal) or maintain what is valued, that shouldn’t be misconstrued as God’s nature manifested in man.

Quite true. A Christian is one who walks in the precepts of Christ. A person who wants to be a Christian but cannot is a pre-Christian while a person with no interest is a non-Christian. The question becomes how a pre-Christian becomes a Christian.

[Nick_A]

By definition, discursive thought must exclude the conception of wholeness in favor of centering on fragmentation or partial truths in the search for truth. This isn't a gotcha question but does wholeness exist at least theoretically in your opinion? If it does, what actually is wholeness?

Wholeness is a highly idealistic concept which can never apply to humans as pertaining to some complete theory humans don't, can't and never will have access to or reify. It implies the kind of perfection which avoids fragmentation. The idea is of a totalitarian type depending on the kind of system designed to implement it.

The imperfections of the human psyche have completely distorted its philosophical content in favor of its political and religious connotations, in the sense that what is deemed whole should never be infringed, as its fragmentation can only yield chaos and possible nihilism in its wake. But those who won't allow themselves to become fragmented on occasion, fail to recognize what "wholeness" in reality aspires to, which isn't some granite conception of perfection. Paradoxically, wholeness allows and requires fragmentation to be part of its genre, allowing for its own renewal. Wholeness requires service to maintain itself.

The kind of wholeness achieved so far - as presided by a system - is one which was never in a state of equilibrium, eventually succumbing to outside influences. Wholeness, as steadfast principle or idealized state of perfection, can not exist in any mental or physical system subject to the overwhelming power of entropy to which the universe itself is subject.

I know that's not the answer you wanted to hear or expected!

Einstein wrote: "A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self."

Does this make sense to you; the idea that the universe is an interconnected whole we are a part of which only a few can understand?

From Rodney Collin’s book: The Theory of Celestial Influence

In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different 'methods of knowing'.

Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religions.. The first method begins with 'facts' and attempts to reach 'laws'. The second method begins with 'laws' and attempts to reach 'facts'.

These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. the second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive for lack of nervous energy of sufficient intensity, and which we may call higher mental function This function on rare occasions of its operation, reveals to man laws in action, he sees the whole phenomenal world as the product of laws.

All true formulations of universal laws derive recently or remotely from the working of this higher function, somewhere and in some man. At the same time, for the application and understanding of the laws revealed in the long stretches of time and culture when such revelation is not available, man has to rely on the ordinary logical mind."

A real person would be one who has experienced what leads to deductive reason and understands how inductive reason, when based on the revelations of deductive reason, furthers the cause leading to human purpose. Can such people exist in the modern world anymore? If so they are few and far between.

[Dubious]

Does this make sense to you; the idea that the universe is an interconnected whole we are a part of which only a few can understand?

This idea was long integrated even in the most ancient societies. I fail to see what's new!

A real person would be one who has experienced what leads to deductive reason and understands how inductive reason, when based on the revelations of deductive reason, furthers the cause leading to human purpose. Can such people exist in the modern world anymore? If so they are few and far between

No amount of inductive, deductive or abductive reasoning will lead to discovering human purpose. To discover such, there has to be such. No one ever, not even Einstein - whom you're so fond of quoting - could discover anything amounting to purpose in any of the processes known to science. Every natural process or event so far understood - which is a lot - is not programmed or predetermined by any measure of intent. Purpose has no place in science: but if you're a mystic or theist that perspective changes radically.

On the other hand there is nothing that stipulates imagination supervised by logic, can't lead in what amounts to a revelation. I'm quite sure that Einstein and very many others have had that feeling upon discovering some fundamental intrinsic unknown having finally revealed itself.

So, what's your point because frankly I have no idea what you're trying to say except that it seems to be what you always say!