Moral & Intellectual Life of the West II

Philosophy Study, June 2021, Vol. 11, No. 6, 417-442 doi: 10.17265/2159-5313/2021.06.001 D D AV I D PUBLISHING

Moral & Intellectual Life of the West II Summary Outline of Christianity in the Modern World for Devout Christians and Skeptics

Hermann G. W. Burchard Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK, USA

All human beings are born from divine mercy drawing man out of unfathomable reality’s chaotic depth into the divine realm’s peaceable light. The modern sense of justice, of fair government, depends on the teachings of Jesus to which all citizens must subscribe. This is not a mere ecclesiastic doctrine but an empirically proven fact. The imperfections of a finite albeit adaptable, very large computing system, which our brain appears to be, require us to be open to the infinite beyond, its recondite wisdom, for divinity to grant us a moral life & to come to our help. Jesus puts the individual human being center stage for the first time in history. The story of abounding divine mercy: Every day we humans struggle with the difficult moral law but Jesus taught us what matters most is our soul, St. Paul’s inner man, a biological function of our left brain. Relying upon the faith of the apostles, the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) in its Confession affirmed that Jesus was an actual person in his substance, possessing two natures, human & divine. This widely has been interpreted to apply to all mankind, the soul of each human being, the inner man, is potentially divine. Forming a practical metaphysics for devout christians & skeptics: Metaphysics is needed for the purpose of undergirding faith. Origins of humanity in the deep structures of reality: Science appears to be opposite to our human spiritual existence & requires us to search for ourselves in the realm of the logos, that can serve as our guide, being one of the names of the Christ. Jesus was deeply influenced by the gifts of the Magi, brought to him from an Armenian revival during his age, source of charismatic theology, basic concepts & historical architecture. Survival by faith in the everyday human communal world: We must have a secure grasp of the Faith, its basics, memorized or divine help won’t come. Be a lifelong winner based upon your own inner man: The essential help from divinity, in our need, is granting us a moral life. Become a lifelong winner based upon your own inner man or woman. What it takes is a willing heart, a sudden inspiration. Version 1. Piety: To be aware of our marginal competence, nobody is born as a genetic loser. Version 2. Humility: To be ready for divine help, able to receive it, we need to take a step back. Version 3. Metanoia, the Ninety Degree Turn: Repentance, betterment is the beginning of faith for all of us. Miracles can & do happen, the down-&-out guide to happiness: Constant prayer is the effective remedy for a soul that has gone lost in the temptations of the human tribal world.

Keywords: potentially divine human soul, its permanence and human existence, inner man, Kant’s inner & outer senses, orderly inner self & chaotic outer environment, brain laterality, double Ego, noumenal & phenomenal bilateral interior cosmos, metaphysical gap, divine mercy

Dedication Across the centuries, over two Millennia, in praise of Jesus.

Hermann G. W. Burchard, Prof. Emer., Dept. of Mathematics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK 74078, USA.

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Twenty-Five Theses: The Story of Divine Mercy, Faith & Piety Synopsis: Jesus puts the individual human being center stage for the first time in history. The story of abounding divine mercy: Every day we humans struggle with the difficult moral law but Jesus taught us what matters most is our soul, St. Paul’s inner man, a biological function of our left brain. We are here to tell the wonderful story of abounding divine mercy, faith & piety. Divine help can reach us by filtering into our moral lives each time we have a fresh experience of the world around us, of our neighbors, or the natural environment. Christianity is all about saving the human soul. Under any form of holistic scientific consideration, our soul, St. Paul’s inner man, our personal identity, our Self, appears to be a biological function of our bilateral brain. The brain’s neural circuits have evolved adaptively by Darwin’s rules during 4 billion years of life on planet Earth (Burchard, 2005, 2011, 2020a, 2020c, 2021). As described in the cited works, the soul, which lives in Saint Paul’s earthen vessel that we may identify as being identical with the complex bilateral architecture of the human brain, is constituted of two Egos, one each in the left & right hemispheres. It includes a bilateral interior cosmos, our world model; in the left brain our private Ego is exercising the power of the intellect, ruling over its free-floating thought-world or interior noumenal cosmos; but in the right brain, the public Ego faces the environment & in spontaneous kindness the human community, where the soul subjects itself to the moral law, representing all in an interior phenomenal cosmos. Personally, I am indebted to Saint Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, especially for her Castel Interior, that I have long identified with my own idea of our interior cosmos, a free creation that combines our total experience into an orderly whole. The Hellenic1 word κοσμος means adorned, orderly, the same root as in the cosmetics that our ladies are relying upon. As the soul matures, it will change constantly, with every new experience. So it might be difficult to persuade folk of its permanence, as had been observed already by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (Radakrishnan, 1957), and also in modern times, by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (Burchard, 2011). Yet there can be little doubt that we each exist as a unique invariantly identical person. This is true, both in our own personal understanding and as an axiom of human social order, underlying public law. Life is tough, but late in life we can discover mercy. All of us owe gratitude for the mercy granted us & the forgiveness we have received, for the failures in our lives, the friendly greeting we did not respond to or a missing reply to a letter or email, even the haughty attitude toward our friends, colleagues & neighbors, when they did not measure up to our expectations. Americans understand mercy as fairness, a highly regarded virtue. There is a mercy movement in the Catholic Church. Our brain appears to be a very large computing system, finite but equipped with adaptable synapses. I like to identify the human soul with the noumenal & phenomenal bilateral interior cosmos, controlled by Brodmann Area BA10, situated behind our eyebrows (Burchard, 2020a, 2020c). It is constructed for holistic function & allows us to be open to divinity, to the infinite beyond, & to the recondite wisdom of the galaxies. Perhaps the changing world we live in is not willing to hear about “moral life,” with religion through the left-brain rear door access to the divine creator, whose mercy has provided for us with traces of his wisdom we may discover, scattered around his vast universe.

1 Greek, a word odious to the Hellenes, as it reminds them of their time in Roman slavery.

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Next, in condensed form of twenty five (25) theses, we list the central Christian doctrines, loosely worded, but with reverence & love of our faith. (1) Jesus puts the individual human being center stage for the first time in history. Each sinner saved is worth as much as all the sheep in the herd, & deserves as much of his care.2

Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends, his family and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!” I tell you that even so, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

(2) As Jesus taught us, our soul, St. Paul’s inner man, matters more than our adherence to the moral code, though this should be perfect at all times, to the extent possible as a practicality. (3) Jesus is concerned with the soul of man, not his communal place in society:3

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ––Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” For whoever might desire to save his soul will lose it; but whoever might lose his soul for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

(4) We sense the message cited next at heart is close to the one stated above, though not identical with it:4

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

(5) If we combine the two we arrive at what may be the winning evangelistic Christian dogma that has not changed in 2,000 years:

Come to me, all you with a heavy burden on your shoulders. Heaven rejoices over every sinner, every lost sheep, that was lost in the cliffs of the desert of life, but was found & rescued.

(6) Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, speaking in his vernacular slang, said “religion is for losers.” Jesus said almost exactly the same thing, in his own words quoted above. Unwittingly the gov in fact pronounced the official dogma of the church, although seemingly hostile. The Holy Ghost spoke out of his mouth & he prophesied, as the Charismatics like to put it. (7) The Council of Chalcedon was opened in AD 451 by Emperor Marcian & his wife Pulcheria.5 In its Confession, the Council expressed that Jesus, in one person & substance (hypostasis), has two natures, one human & one divine. All the bishops present at the Council agreed, “so taught the Apostles.” This must be true as a potentiality for each human being, according to Pope Leo I’s Tome, vide infra, and is explicit in 2. Peter 1:4, where the Apostle affirms: “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.”6

2 Luke 15:3-7. 3 Matthew 10:28; 16:24-26. Mistaken translations abound. Avoiding a common source of error, cause of gross semantic distortions, the same word should not be translated differently in succeeding verses, in this case the soul, ψυχὴ. 4 Matthew 11:28-30. 5 Pulcheria (398-453), holding the title of Augusta, was the de facto ruling Empress, supervising her younger brother, Emperor Theodosius II (401-450). 6 New American Standard Bible.

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Similarly, Saint Paul the apostle speaks of the inner man, the human soul, as a treasure in earthen vessels, i.e., potentially divine.7

For it is God, who said “out of darkness let light shine,” who has shone into our hearts the radiance of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the exceeding power may be God’s and not ours.

(8) Each mature human individual is granted an opportunity to exist as one person or substance with two natures, divine & human, preformed through the anatomy of the two cerebral hemispheres, two separate functions, known to us as being divided bilaterally.

Figure 1. The cathedral of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon, modern Kadıköy, a suburb of Istanbul situated across the Bosporus, venue of the Council in AD 451. Wikipedia.

7 2. Cor. 4:6-7.

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(9) Combining both functions in one soul or substance is possible through the divine spark, the Holy Ghost, enveloping the soul in a rich religious life, explored by the science of theology. (10) We receive the Holy Ghost directly, as taught to us by Saint Teresa of Avila, in the secret seventh mansion of her Castillo Interior, with intellectual discernment in the six lower mansions. (11) The divine presence, the holy spirit, existing in our brain, in the secret seventh chamber of the interior castle, constitutes our soul, the inner man, our potentially godlike nature. This is the guarantee of the New Birth, Jesus speaking to Nicodemus.8 (12) We may think the life of our soul, our private self, is located in the left cerebral hemisphere (Burchard, 2020c). This is where we indulge in our dreams of a good life, formulate a life-purpose for ourselves & hatch our plans, for the next few minutes as well as for the distant future. (13) In the left brain private ego, we are guarded by faith in divine mercy. His angel guides us to choose the right, the best course of action, so we can survive in the most adverse conditions but we must ask, must spend time in constant prayer. (14) The Holy Ghost was familiar to people in the time of Jesus, who mentions Him. Not a Christian doctrine initially, but due to Zartusht (Zarathustra, Zoroaster), called Spenta Mainyu. He is accompanied by six archangels, the foremost among them being Vohu Manah, “Good Mind.” (15) By the time of Jesus, 4,000 years after Zartusht,9 the name of Vohu Manah had become contracted to “Omanu.” His statue was being carried about in Cappadocia in processions, during a revival period in the life-time of Jesus. It appears likely that both our sacred affirmation “Amen” and the holy syllable “Om” were derived from it. (16) We love the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes:10

Blessed are the downtrodden, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This unorthodox translation is based on a parallel in Isaiah, that Jesus likely had in mind, when pronouncing his 1st beatitude. (17) Blessed are the peace keepers. Usually translated “peace makers,” but that is not what Jesus would have said. You make peace with the sword, but you keep peace by being gentle. (18) Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is what we know the civil rights movement was based on, not riots. (19) Blessed are the merciful. Equal justice for all is a demand that seems to be based on mercy, opposite to dominance & supremacy. (20) But our moral life is a biological function of our right brain, which is dedicated to the phenomena we encounter in the environment, where we are engaged with the public and with the forces of nature (Burchard, 2021). (21) No human being is a stranger to moral failure. Every day we humans struggle with the difficult moral law. So many painful memories of when we could have done better, occasions when, in retrospect, we acted in ways other than we should have.

8 John 3:1-21. 9 According to a tradition of the Zoroastrian Parsees of Mumbai. 10 Matthew 5:3-12.

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(22) There is forgiveness possible for moral lapses, because of our human weakness, the organism in our left brain sometimes may be erring, esp. when under pressure, vital life algorithms must be performed, but perhaps are not being executed as they ought. (23) The right brain is devoted wholly to take care of our earthly being to perform whatever improvements we can effect in the world. (24) This includes our fellow man, who has his own intentions. That a thriving human community exists, capable of sustaining us, is a precondition of our separate individual existences. (25) This intertwined nature, of our individual & communal being, is the selective criteria that has acted through Darwinian adaptation pressure, leading to a moral code having evolved, that regulates societal interactions so that they can serve in support of tribal well-being.

Council of Chalcedon (AD 451): The Divine Spark in the Human Soul Synopsis: Relying upon the faith of the apostles, the Council of Chalcedon in its Confession affirmed that Jesus was an actual person in his substance, possessing two natures, human & divine. This widely has been interpreted to apply to all mankind, the soul of each human being, the inner man, is potentially divine. Touching the Unknown, humans are given hope to receive the divine spark in their souls, in the inner man according to the Apostle Saint Paul, when they receive the Holy Ghost at Confirmation. In AD 451, the Council of Chalcedon expressed in its Confession, that Jesus was a living human being, yet in his person beside his human nature, suffering as we are suffering, there also was present his full divinity. In one person of substance, Jesus had two natures, one human & one divine. According to Pope Leo I’s Tome, by extension to all of us, to the human tribe, since we all are like him in our fleshly natural form, there likewise is given a hope, an opportunity, to attain to a heavenly soul & receive the divine spark. It must be true as a potentiality for each human being, to become fully owned, inhabited & exhilarated by the holy spirit. Here, at once with Jesus, newly recognized as applicable to all mankind, each mature human individual is granted an opportunity to exist as one person or substance11 with two natures, divine & human, preformed through the anatomy of the two cerebral hemispheres, two separate functions, known to us as being divided bilaterally. Our godlike nature, as taught to us by Saint Teresa of Avila, dwells in the secret seventh chamber of the left brain, with intellectual discernment in six lower mansions. The right half of the brain is devoted to our earthly existence in the world. Combining both functions in one soul or substance is possible through the divine spark, the Holy Ghost, enveloping the soul in a rich religious life, explored by the science of theology. This is how Pope Saint Leo I’s Tome, puts it, in § iii:

God also at the demand of the principle of justice had changed His own purpose towards man whom He had created in such honour: there was need for the issue of a secret counsel, that the unchangeable God whose will cannot be robbed of its own kindness, might carry out the first design of His Fatherly care towards us by a more hidden mystery; and that man who had been driven into his fault by the treacherous cunning of the devil might not perish contrary to the purpose of GOD.

We wish to offer ancient religious views of man, yet radically new, by which the sinner, a random human being, can think of his or her innermost constitution, as a sacred precinct, no matter what the wounds and scars may be, where the divine rule can and should be established, and where holiness can yet move in.

11 In Hellenic, ὑποστάσις.

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This should not be the result of a human being made to undergo prescribed rituals, perhaps even difficult ascetic exercises, but solely through the sinner’s love for God, a reflection of the sinner first receiving God’s love for him in his heart. The converted sinners then will begin to glow on the outside with divine peace that comforts all those who are under their care. Such views are old, and yet new at the same time. We now must found and ground them anew in what we know, and not leave them buried under myths, lies, and forgeries. If it hasn’t been done, then in part for lust of power by those guarding what they hold to be sacred traditions, but in part also, because of resistance from age-old and seemingly sheer insurmountable barriers that stand in the way, and which perhaps we may address elsewhere. Yet, the greater mystery perhaps is why we who claim to be Christians rarely actually do follow His rule or, not more often, or more thoroughly! Is there some inherent reason in human nature and the environment why we cannot do better, inspite of the best efforts of many, and in view of the not-so-sincere attitude of most, do we just not care, like Ghandi thought, or does ignorance have something to do with it, is it a matter of education and upbringing? All of us, whether we already are Christians or are just toying with the idea, need to inquire within ourselves why we do not give Christianity, the Christian ethics, more of a try. We all want to live in righteousness, i.e., rightness, in truth and in sanctity. My whole heart yearns for fulfillment in my life of the laws of God. I want to tell you that a Christian lives by faith. But what is faith? What are its benefits? How do we live by it? These are difficult questions to answer, except by faith. The first meaning of faith, and how to live by it, is to open your heart and mind to the goodness of God. He is the Great Giver,12 the Shepherd who nourishes you, body, soul, and spirit. And again, a Christian lives under God’s dominion. When the Divine Ruler orders action a Christian should go to the task at hand immediately. Often misunderstood, faith is the way to a mind filled with goodness. Faith is so much more than mere belief in dogmas, an ancient confusion which is more prevalent in some authors than in others, and often has contributed to needless controversies. Even the word “belief” originally meant “praise” of that which is good, and therefore worthy of our mental affirmation or assent. It seems evident that we want only good things in our mental reserves to be stored up to give out to the world as our share of peace. From such a mind many kinds of goodness can flow and become active. For, we are not just shaped by our world, but changers and shapers of it, by revealing our thoughts, and by the actions that spring from our minds. With faith we act out of humility, having perceived God’s greatness, giving to others what we ourselves have received from God. Without faith we would act out habits without recourse to principles, at best what we have learned, at worst acting on suggestion, but otherwise only led by blind, instinctual, greed, and more often than not after insufficient reflection. Faith implies a reliance on natural laws governing human conduct, and this posits certain as yet unknown deep structures of reality, which would lead to these laws becoming evident through experience, in a manner similar to empirical science, physics and chemistry, which has discovered laws for material structures.

12 Mazda, correctly translated.

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We know from historical accounts, ancient sacred scriptures, that from the oldest days, men have formulated canons of ethics. The familiar panoply of such ethical canons propagated in all culture circles has been the result of special traditions established or re-invigorated by various persons at different times. The names of these prophets and anointed teachers are familiar to us all. They are often venerated and accorded a status of divinity. Their canons within the traditional membership of adherents are considered of fundamental importance for their survival. As a safe-guard for the lives of those who practice its statutes, an ethical canon is indeed effective, we will grant, any one of the many we might wish to consider.

A Practical Metaphysics for Devout Christians & Skeptics Synopsis: Forming a practical metaphysics is needed for the purpose of undergirding faith. Metaphysics is needed for the purpose of undergirding faith, without which we cannot hold on to any principles with lasting conviction. To learn about metaphysics, we quote Martin Heidegger for his holistic approach. 13 This is his interpretation of Plato’s Phaedrus, 279a:14

In as much as man exists, philosophizing happens in a certain way.

Φύσει γαρ, ὦ φίλε, ἔνεστι τις φιλοσοφία τῆ, τοῠ ἀνδρὸς διανοία.

Human existence can relate to beings only if it holds itself out into the nothing. Going beyond beings occurs in the essence of Dasein. But this going beyond is metaphysics itself. This implies that metaphysics belongs to the “nature of man.” It is neither a division of academic philosophy nor a field of arbitrary notions. Metaphysics is the basic occurrence of Dasein. It is Dasein itself. Because the truth of metaphysics dwells in this groundless ground it stands in closest proximity to the constantly lurking possibility of deepest error. For this reason no amount of scientific rigor attains to the seriousness of metaphysics. Philosophy can never be measured by the standard of the idea of science.

If the question of the nothing unfolded here has actually questioned us, then we have not simply brought metaphysics before us in an extrinsic manner. Nor have we merely been “transposed” to it. We cannot be transposed there at all, because insofar as we exist we are always there already. So long as man exists, philosophizing of some sort occurs. Philosophy—what we call philosophy—is metaphysics getting under way, in which philosophy comes to itself and to its explicit tasks. Philosophy gets under way only by a peculiar insertion of our own existence into the fundamental possibilities of Dasein as a whole. For this insertion it is of decisive importance, first, that we allow space for beings as a whole; second, that we release ourselves into the nothing, which is to say, that we liberate ourselves from those idols everyone has and to which he is wont to go cringing; and finally, that we let the sweep of our suspense take its full course, so that it swings back into the basic question of metaphysics which the nothing itself compels: Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?

What Heidegger meant to indicate by “peculiar insertion of our own existence into the fundamental possibilities of Dasein,” most likely can be interpreted in terms of our bilateral interior cosmos, vide supra. Each individual human being is the sovereign author in free creation of his or her own interior cosmos from experience. This illuminates the grandiose liberty at base of human life, fundamental for our practical metaphysics.

13 We must remain ambivalent toward this influential philosopher, who was a member of the Nazi party and an incorrigible antisemite. 14 Martin Heidegger, What is Metaphysics? (1929), Trans. by Miles Groth, https://wagner.edu/psychology/files/2013/01/ Heidegger-What-Is-Metaphysics-Translation-GROTH.pdf.

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Before there was human language there was image language, the kind of linguistic means in use in dreams (owned by higher mammals, —and even vertebrates to some extent, —infants, as well as Oxford professors). More to the point, we see this language in dreams, in fact precisely because it is our common tool, day in and day out, for dealing with the images from our environment in planning and executing scenarios with various protagonists acting out possible dramatic events. Then later on there evolved the usage of symbolic language, with sequential processing, for the exchange of information (algorithms). Practical metaphysics is based on this language of two kinds, allowing us literally to compose our life in our interior cosmos. Life is not about language games, but to make properly applicable programming available for survival. We can escape from several problem areas of ancient metaphysics by paying more attention to mathematical principles. These cast a bright light on mental and neural processes. Many of these of course are only beginning to be understood. We can anticipate the basic recursive structures of mathematics are somehow represented in those biological processes. Beyond simply informing my readers, more than that, I would like to be able to set some guide posts, to give advice concerning the basic religious matters in a sectarian world where conflicting statements are made about the place and the function of religion and science, for how we conduct our lives or succeed in human affairs. It is not our goal to overthrow traditions, but by any measure our main question is what faith is. Therefore it would be wrong and impious to go against certain traditions, simply because I don’t personally believe in them, nor of course would I want to seek to put my own ideas in place instead of established doctrine just because I like them better. However, it deserves emphasis that a need exists to set aside habits of thought and habitual opinions. A history of errors exerts a pervasive and deleterious influence. These faults destroy the integrity of civil life. Each school, religion, tradition, or group is more or less known by its own scheme of erroneous dogma to which the members of the group are sworn, owing them complete fealty at peril of excommunication. If we can hope to be of utility here to those confused by the mixture of myth and truth in their religions, then only to the extent that we are able to discover those complete and radical shifts of point of view, which ultimately must lead to a thorough reformulation of basic metaphysical principles, as we attempt here.

Origins of Humanity in the Deep Structures of Reality Synopsis: Origins of humanity in the deep structures of reality: Science appears to be opposite to our human spiritual existence & requires us to search for ourselves in the realm of the logos, that can serve as our guide, being one of the names of the Christ. All humans are born from divine mercy, drawing man out of unfathomable reality’s chaotic depth into the divine realm of peaceable light. Life depends on language for overcoming the metaphysical gap that separates an individual animal from its environment. This is the doctrine of Plato’s Cave Allegory, language being the divine light shining outside

426 MORAL & INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE WEST II the confines of the cave. From the beginnings, the genome, the animal’s blueprint, its embryonic logos, is stored in each cell in the language of the DNA genomic alphabet. We owe to Descartes the realization that our being depends on our thinking, that our very existence as a human person is tied into the weave of our thoughts. The mental life & existence of the human person, as agent in his or her own world, private & social, interior & exterior, is the result of organismic oneness, the objective counterpart of mental holism, performed by our brain, our Logos machine (Burchard, 2020d). This is identical to Immanuel Kant’s Oneness Function which is responsible for his famous threefold synthesis that brings about our mental existence, as he tries to explain in his Transcendental Deduction (Kant, 1781, 1787). Conscious existence depends upon our interior cosmos, the neuronal record of our interconnected, or general, experience (Kant, 1790). Essential for us humans is the well-being of the cosmos, Saint Teresa of Avila’s interior castle, in all interactions with each other & the greater environment.

Faith and Talking to God in Prayer Synopsis: In our heart-felt need, we discover love of God & talking to Jesus in prayer. Jesus will not despise you or send you away, whether you are a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or whoever you might be, because that is what Jesus said to do. While in the title we address “Devout Christians and Skeptics” I am really hoping that this essay may talk to everybody, and I wish to leave it up to you, my gentle reader, where you place yourself along this scale. One thing this essay is about, is for us to find out about faith. What it is, how we can find it, what it does for us. We first have to come to know that God will be faithful to us. When you read this essay, give yourself room to live—do you know where you are going? We strive to succeed but often the right way is in doubt. There come trials and tribulations our way, no matter how decent are the lives we live, just as it was for Job. For just such situations, and to live good and and acceptable lives, here, in this outline of the Charismatic faith, I want to help you to find out about the wonderful things which our Father God has given to us, to those of us who love him and his divine laws, in order to help us, in times of need, and escape from the corruption of the world. Jesus is talking then to you as if you already love God, and already have faith. It may seem paradoxical but you need to have faith to be able to learn about faith. Faith is a life-and-death matter, not for occasional or even casual consumption. Every step out of faith is sin, as St. Paul the Apostle said. Having stepped out of faith, it’s harder for God to help you. Some of you are already doing, what I am beginning to do more and more, which is talk to God. What are the benefits of this & what are the preconditions for you to be able to speak to him? In talking to him, I may confess my sins, ask for forgiveness, feel how he lifts burdens off of my shoulders, thank him for all the good things he has given to me, listen to his advice, ask him for help, ask for others to be blessed. To be able to talk with each other, for me to make myself understood to you, if as yet you have not recognized faith: Faith in a living God, as a major power in your life, then—you need to find it, if possible right now, before you let go of this writing, or even if you decide to go on with reading it inspite of your doubts, whatever your case may be.

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Simply lift up your hands now to heaven, as empty cups, to receive his nourishment for He is your shepherd. Tell him you will be his sheep, grazing on the meadows where he will lead you, wherever that may lead you. He will be your sustainer, you can rely on this, so go ahead and thank him for his mercy toward you. God will now send you the Comforter, which is his Holy Spirit. This is perhaps the nicest thing about becoming a devout Christian and it will change your life, because it is like a direct line where you can call up to God any time, 24 hours a day, and get the greatest source of wisdom, to give you advice for the things you need to accomplish in your daily doings. If you already know God and love His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, then you know also that Jesus was anointed by the Father Himself, who sent us the Comforter, God’s Holy Spirit. You know that your faith needs frequent renewal by hearing the Gospel preached that Jesus died and rose again, now sits at God’s right hand, to save us from the sinful world. You need the precepts of the faith taught in the Holy Ghost. For those in trouble or for those in sadness God is the best source of advice and of comfort far and wide. This is the best part of the life of all religious people. We often do not know what the correct course of action is, in the hours and days ahead. Situations can be difficult enough without our own doing, but on top of that, it is very easy for us to make mistakes and in either case, one needs advice, almost constantly. It happens often that one loses somebody dear or events rob one of some valued possession and then it is good to find comfort. And so it is with a suffering human, which has many items of information drifting past it within the thought patterns of society which are injected into the general fabric of human records seemingly at random. But Christians believe comforting advice may reach them under divine guidance. How can we explain this? We probably can’t, but everybody knows God—he talks to everybody. You may think that you have not yet talked to God. You may not know that it is He, who is Goodness, the Giver of Life, the Great Giver of everything. He has loved you from the beginning and you love Him even if you don’t know it. Faith depends on words, on the word, the word of God in which we may trust. Every act therefore of a Christian is based on dogma, which is why the faith vs. mere belief debate arose in the first place. The lives of the faithful have a deep relationship to language, strange, unheard of and to a new convert strangely comforting. It does matter to talk to God in faith without fear and doubting. Something in ourselves should help us express our faith, in the language divinely instituted and given to us for that purpose. God gives credence to our words, as if they were hewn in stone, because He himself has allowed for us to utter these sacred sounds. Even in every-day business, our words have the contractual force of the law. Language makes a bond that ties us to whatever we say. As J himself said, we shall have to give an account for every idle word we speak. A simple example might help to explain what is at issue. The name of J, in Hebrew, reads “God Saves”. So, every time we say the name “Jesus,” we state, in faith, “God Saves.” He is saving you, and is saving you now. Right now he is in the process of redeeming you and getting you out of the mess you have created for yourself. Thus, if instead of saying the name of J, you pray “God save me!” then you are actually implying your lack of faith in the promise that God has sent J to save us and that he is already doing so. This could be

428 MORAL & INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE WEST II understood to imply that you have just told God that you don’t trust in his help (which is here) and you reject him. In our lives God’s mercy in action is seen every day. As J himself put it: “Your eyes are blessed because you see, and your ears because they hear.”

The Blessed Soul––Gifts of the Magi Synopsis: Jesus was deeply influenced by the gifts of the Magi, brought to him through an Armenian revival during his age, source of charismatic theology, basic concepts & historical architecture. As told by the Apostle Saint Matthew, three Magi, Iranian priests of the Zoroastrian church, came to adore Baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem & to bring him precious gifts. We delve into the historical roots 15 in the ancient teachings of Zartusht, who was the founder of religion in the West. His writings are much older than acknowledged in the West, & he influenced Buddhism & Judaism. The ultimate goal is the blessed soul, as Jesus gives his blessings in the Beatitudes, “μακάριος ἔστιν …” What is the good mind? The mind that is filled with goodness. How do we achieve it? By leading a life filled with goodness. “Whatever is decent, think of this...”. Known also as “The power of positive thinking.” The most effective strategy and also the best tactical rule is the J-rule: “Act the way J would have if you had him in your place.” It is often not clear, what exactly this means, but, the J-rule certainly at he very least means to be guided by love. Zarathustra, one of the greatest thinkers and saints who ever lived, said the Supreme Being is Ahura Mazda, the “Lord the Great Giver,” the good God (later: Ormuzd). His other name is Spenta Mainyuh, Holy Spirit. He also is called by Zarathustra the Shepherd a title also given to Zarathustra, the Pastor in Latin, the vastar in Gathic, the ancient Iranian language, in which the Song of Zarathustra, the Gathas, are written, the nourisher, Nerient in Goth, the language of Ulfilas who translated the NT into Goth. Further, Zarathustra said, there are six Amesha Spentas, Immortal Holy ones: Good Thought (Vohu Manah, later Omanu), Righteousness (Asha, from *aritsha, virtue, ἀρετη), Divine Kingdom (Khshathra), Piety (Spenta Armaiti), Perfection (Haurvatat), Immortality (Ameretat), with Spenta Mainyuh, the Holy Ghost, the seven spirits of God, the archangels, who attend to Ahura Mazda. In the Bible we meet them under other names as well, e.g., in the seven eyes of the lamb.16 It seems accepted, however, that Zarathustra originally understood the six Archangels, not to be mere angels, if indeed we know what we mean by that, but rather landmarks of a divine order set up to direct human lives, that have personality commensurate in accordance with the good creation of Ahura Mazda, and in opposition with the bad creation of Angra Mainyuh (later: Ariman). These six Archangels were experienced in immediate psychological reality. This is certainly the expression given the Amesha Spentas in the Zarathustrian Gathas, the oldest part of the Avesta. It is thought that these hymns, at least the greater part, may have been written by Zarathustra himself.17 The nature of ethical orientation in the original teaching becomes apparent when we take a closer look at the names of the six Archangels, which express their spiritual functions in God’s great plan of redemption: Z1. Good Thought (Vohu Manah)

15 Zarathustra, Zoroaster. 16 Revelation 5:6. 17 In oral tradition, perhaps, prior to writing, i.e. the Gathas were spoken.

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Z2. Perfect Righteousness (Asha Vahista) Z3. Divine Kingdom (Rule) (Khshathra Vairya) Z4. Pious Devotion (Spenta Armaiti) Z5. Salvation, Perfection (Haurvatat) Z6. Immortality (Ameretat) 1. VOHU MANAH: Have good thoughts. Dwell in your mind on what benefits those in your family and in your community. Think how you can promote their well-being and how to make their lives safe. 2. ASHA VAHISTA: Having acquired a habit of good thoughts, we now can be fair, just, and merciful toward others. 3. KHSHATHRA VAIRYA: When we courageously practice perfect fairness daily then we begin to foster peace, both in our own hearts as well as around us. Such peace testifies to the divine kingdom existing in our hearts. 4. SPENTA ARMAITI: After heart peace is found, we may begin to devote ourselves to God and His laws in pious meditation. 5. HAURVATAT: All temptations of the ordinary human nature will fall off from us when we practice constant devotion. In this way we are saved from the corruption of the world. We can live peaceful lives free of greed and less threatened by the evil surrounding us. 6. AMERETAT: Those not tempted and free of greed, with devout hearts meditating on God’s word, at peace with Man and with God, who are fair and just to others, whose thought patterns are directed to things above, they partake of the eternal spirit, attaining to immortality. Even at first glance, there is an obvious kinship between these Amesha Spentas, Immortal Holy Ones or Archangels, and the NT and Christianity. In many ways the teachings of the NT revolve around just such spiritual entities, while at the same time the OT is devoid of references to any of them, except in isolated and doubtful instances. Such references can be referred to Persian (=Pharisean) influence beginning with Cyrus the Persian Greatking liberating the Jews, along with other nations, from Babylonion captivity. The influence on the NT of the Z-Archangels is the clearest in the case of the last five Amesha Spentas (Archangels): The New Testament is replete with direct references for Z2-Z6, there is almost no need to cite specific verses. In fact, throughout and in every conceivable reading, the NT is very much a commentary on what these divine powers are, they occupy not perhaps chief place, which is firmly occupied by “Faith” and agapeh-love, but certainly function most prominently, near the top, in central roles. The NT is a textbook concerning how these and a few other gifts can operate in everyday human life, how they were granted to us by a merciful, by a loving God, who sent His own dear Son, Jesus, expressly for this specific purpose, that by His death, burial, and resurrection we should have a share of these heavenly gifts. Once we focus on this it becomes difficult to overlook the constant, pervasive theme that they furnish within the edifice of the NT. Let us here list what must be considered to be the apparent standard New Testament Hellenic equivalents for Z2-Z6. They are: 2. Perfect Righteousness = δικαιοσυνη (Asha Vahista) 3. Divine Kingdom = βασιλεια των ὀυρανων, του θεου (Khshathra Vairya) 4. Pious Devotion = εὐσεβεια (Spenta Armaiti) 5. Salvation = σωτηρια (Haurvatat)

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6. Immortality = ζωη (Ameretat) Evidently we seem to be dealing with verbatim translations, for all practical purposes. However, we do not know whether any of these qualify to be considered actual translations. By contrast with these NT equivalents for Z2-Z6, we find that for Z1, Good Thought, nothing approaching the verbatim translations, that we encountered above in Z2-Z6, no prominent NT term of just the same thrust and import comes to mind. J said in Hebrew: (1) amen, amunah = Vohu Manah = πιστις = ἀληθεια = faith = truth (2) ashri = Asha = righteous = δικαιος = blessed = μακαριος (3) zedeq = Spenta Armaiti = εὐσεβεια = righteousness = piety (4) malekut = Khshathra = βασιλεια των ὀυρανων = kingdom (5) shalom = Haurvatat = εἰρηνη = peace = τελειον = perfection (Sept.) (6) ‘almaut = Ameretat = ζωη = eternal life = immortality The centrality of every single one of these topics, or notions sometimes in noun form, sometimes adjectives, for NT theology is utterly familiar to all earnest students of the NT. This fact hardly requires proof and their importance cannot easily be exaggerated. Only agapeh-love occupies a place more prominent than the combined force of these archangels, or spiritual gifts, which is what they have become in the NT context. As can be seen, depending on the language, the meanings vary somewhat. Speakers did their best to render in their preferred vernacular concepts from other more ancient sources, often influenced by the similar sound of a word, and relying on prior commercial and other neighborly contact in their choices of terms, in which they often may have had little choice, because of well-established usage. One of the better known examples of this sort is the equation Apollo = Baal, which is partly based on similar sound. Closely related is Aphrodite = Astarte. If preference should be given to any one among them it would have to be Z3, the Kingdom of Heaven, because Jesus so often mentions it in His parables. Those who belong to the Kingdom partake of all of the other divine endowments. Still, the question exactly how these various endowments are related must be on everybody’s mind when studying the NT. We might note that there is almost no mention of the kingdom of heaven in the Old Testament, a fact that alone would suffice to suggest and even establish the importance of Z-thought for Christianity. Not even “Faith” (pistis) or conversion and repentance (metanoia and epistrepho) (in the OT these are primarily used of God, not man) have quite the same force in the gospels (although “Faith” reigns in the Pauline Epistles). The movement had become quite sophisticated and presaged many of the best Christian teachings, which arose from it by further development. Each of the basic concepts was correctly and transparantly translated first into Hebrew (or as some think Aramaic), but also into Hellenic, which then was the lingua franca in this age of Hellenism all over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern lands. As we saw, five concepts, at least are recognized quite easily in the English rendition of the Hellenic (Greek) NT. Only one, the main important one perhaps, Vohu Manah, had a different fate, because of the phonetic similarity with the Hebrew word Amunah, “Faith”. This is very close in its inner significance, but does not quite amount to a literal translation of Good Thought.

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Therefore, Good Thought not unexpectedly possesses other, more literal or more essential equivalents, and really amounts to a profound undergirding within the conceptual, spiritual frame of the NT. We discuss these multiple equivalents next, but we must note at the outset that this Tower-of-Babel type of linguistic mishap also had a profound consequence of confusing a vital issue for 2000 years, so that most Christians today have a poorer and less fruitful comprehension of Vohu Manah, than did the believers of the age of the Acts of the Apostles. Faith, so much more abstract than the Z-Vohu Manah, in its central position has pre-empted the place of the concrete practice. This profound confusion, inherent in the very core of Christian teachings, will be directly evident from the following discussion. The main Christian teaching, of course, relates to our conduct here on earth, where the aim of Christian life is not to sin. Thus, the whole of the Christian teaching intends in one way or another to guide the Church, the assembly of saints, toward living a good and beneficient life, collectively and individually. The fact that there appears to be no verbatim correspondence in the NT, while each of the five other ones has a very prominent equivalent, may have something to do with cultural matters, but also, more importantly, this is a seeming lack or ommission, more than a real one, which hinges on issues connected with the very core of Christian doctrine, as we explore next. In the NT, we may find many deep concepts, or ethical values, among which stand out “Faith”, righteousness, humility, and above all, agapeh-love. Good Thought, the topic of Z1, is mentioned several times in significant context, for example in verses Mat 5:8, Ro 8:6, 12:2, Phil 4:8, Col 3:1-2. Good thought, or goodness, is implied in many of the NT ethical concepts. Such a life would seem definitely to imply that Christians should be expected to have Good Thought and good thoughts, to possess a benign inner disposition. However, this is not realistic in the sense of a permanent and unalterable condition even in the most steady believer who may be on his or her knees praying for several hours each day. The world will see to it that evil thoughts are blown into the minds of Christians, as if by an ill wind. However, this type of occurrence does not mean that such thoughts are accepted in the spiritual inner self. Faith is there to reject them. For this reason “Faith” is a permanent form, where good thought cannot be suitably so. We were, however, able to cite several verses where the topic is addressed in a clearly thematic way. One might expect to be confronted immediately by some prominent notion equivalent to Good Thought in the NT that should occupy a central place in Biblical teaching and in Christian discipline. Good thought seems such a logical first step on the way to spiritual maturity. The lack of such a notion that might provide an obvious equivalent for Good Thought is remarkable, and all the more so because its occurrence in first place in Zarathustra’s list seems to give it a most prominent role in Z-metaphysics. Indeed, the worship of Omanu (Vohu Manah) is reported from Asia Minor in NT times. No Christian concept is more basic than “Faith”. Yet we shall try to make plain that a profound interrelationship exists among the many great words for ethical concepts that the NT teaches must rule our lives. The Mystery of “Faith” about which the Apostles speak is interwoven with thoughts we cannot unravel unless we study how these words and concepts came into use in part as a heritage that was bequeathed by Z-ism in its time of submersion. Not only following Martin Luther’s renaissance of St. Paul’s teachings but in all of its branches, Christianity is symbolized by the very word “Faith”, fides, Santa Fe, Glaube, credo, crede.

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In a way, then, “Faith” is the best candidate for the missing equivalent for Vohu Manah, simply on the basis of first appearance and first place. Indeed, after due consideration of significance and origin of the word it will be clear that “Faith” is the embodiment of good thought, simply and fully: Good Thought = πιστις, “Faith” (Vohu Manah) If I trust God, and believe in the message of salvation and selfless love (Agapeh) brought to us by His Son, Jesus, then I own the very best thought there is, I am fully occupied by it, I will praise the Father of my Lord Jesus for His love and mercy. A remarkable historical possibility exists, that in fact the Hebrew word “Amunah” which is translated “pistis” in the Hellenic (Greek) NT and “Faith” for us in English, may have been favored by the early brethren of the Christian “Faith” in the Ancient Mid-Eastern ethnic and cultural melting pot that we have described above because of the Hebrew word “Amunah”, “Faith”, carrying great phonetic similarity with Omanu, which, as mentioned, is attested to having been in use for Vohu Manah at that time. Here we have a type of language cross fertilization and to linguists this is a familiar type of occurrence which they call popular etymology, a type of adoption, or mistranslation, too harsh a term, by far. It’s quite common and there are striking examples in all languages, as for instance in the Hellenic (Greek)-Phoenician language in the interface where Jesus lived—such as okhlos “crowd,” which is both a Hellenic and a Hebrew word. Again, the Hellenic NT word agapeh more than likely is a translation from the Hebrew word ahaba (Arab “habibi”) of the same meaning. We may then postulate that about the time of Jesus and the Apostles in the power vacuum for the Z-religion when it was not a state religion, a wide spread Parsi or Pharisean version of worship of the Amesha Spentas existed in and about Western Asia. In the Acts of the Apostles the phrase “we found brethren that had not yet heard that the Spirit had been given” probably refers to a pocket of these Parsis. We observe that here the message of the arrival of the Holy Ghost overshadows even the Savior. We mention several possible equivalents. These are discussed in detail below. (a) Good Thought = πιστις, “Faith” (Vohu Manah) (b) Good Thought = ἁγιασμος, Sanctification (Vohu Manah) (c) Good Thought = εἰρηνη, Peace (Vohu Manah) (d) Good Thought = ἀγαθωσυνη, Goodness (Vohu Manah) (e) Good Thought = εὐδωκια, Good Will (Vohu Manah) Hebrew “Amunah”, “Faith” has great phonetic similarity with Omanu, as mentioned. But, a permanent state of good thought cannot be expected of those novices in the Faith who still struggle with sin, with adversity of all kinds, which they are as yet unable to overcome. Only those who have perfected their Christian Faith and have learned to walk in it and in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, those only who are doers of the Word and not merely hearers, have the ability to steadily maintain Good Thought. The only true equivalent for “Vohu Manah,” therefore, far from being a first step on the road of “Faith”, is sanctification. This, then, is the next in a series of Hellenic (Greek) NT words equivalent to the first, the remaining Z-Amesha Spenta: Good Thought = ἁγιασμος, Sanctification (Vohu Manah) Only by grace, not of his or her own efforts may wo/man expect to become sanctified. It is unlikely that

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Zarathustra could have foreseen this and was aware of the grave implications of asking his followers to begin with Vohu Manah = Good Thought = ἁγιασμος. Not merely coincidentally, sanctification is considered to require separation from the world. Separation is Latin “abstinentia,” a translation in 2. Peter 1:5-11 of inner strength ἐγκρατεια in the Vulgate. Thus, far from the trivial contortion as which abstinence is often caricatured in the public arena, it actually is another word for faith and for holiness. While ἁγιασμος, inspite of its very different perspective as the end not the beginning of spiritual growth, seems to best fit the bill as the “correct” analog of Vohu Manah, there is yet another central Christian topic of frequent mention in the NT, that stands in close proximity to Z1, Good Thought. We know that Jesus gave high praise to “shalom,” Peace = εἰρηνη. It is a basic error to regard Good Thought as seemingly the “first step” toward heaven & to equate Vohu Manah with Sanctification = ζωη. We now can see clearly that it is as much an end-product of spiritual growth, under grace, as is Ameretat = ζωη = Immortality. Few seem to move very far along this progressive path of improvement. Most all of us human beings appear to stumble sooner or later. None, except, as they say, Jesus, the Son. In Zarathustra’s scheme the Divine Kingdom is no. 3, in the middle, while it is the sum total for Peter, indeed the reward for a good life. He is aware of the repeated cycle with its progressive sanctification. This he implies in vs 8. Therefore, seemingly delaying membership in the Kingdom until all else has been achieved is not unmerciful of Peter. He knows we all will come the same way again many times in our lives. Likewise the Apostle Saint John in 1 Jn says, in vs. 1:5-10, if we sin, let us not be slow to confess our sins to the Father, rather than pretending we did nothing wrong, yet again and again in other verses we are told that to belong to Christ is to have love and not to sin. The Apostle presents the steps of the cycle in reverse order, beginning with “Faith” = Vohu Manah, as if it were the start, but clearly saying that in our “Faith” we minister something else, other endowments. Of these he cites first the obvious, virtue, and he mentions last the subtle, the Kingdom and love. To us pragmatic moderns it would seem Peter should have come right out and said: “You expect to be received in Heaven as a member of the Divine Kingdom? Then accept God’s election, that He activated by pouring out divine love in your heart. You must practice it daily in brotherly love, philadelphia. Then you can be charitable, caring for the needs of others, enduring under suffering, keeping yourself in check, with a progressive understanding of divine laws, a virtuous life, ultimately steady reliance and ‘Faith’ in Divine powers being made available and put at your disposal. Do this over and over no matter how often you stumble and fail.” This would seem a lot clearer! Why did the Apostle not express himself in this way? We can only speculate that he wanted the inherent unity of “Faith” to stand out, that he was retaining the mystery that resides in steps of the ladder. All depends in the power of the Divinity to affect changes in a person’s life. In reality nothing is first and nothing is last. These are not just some of the desirable features of Christian living that perhaps might be helpful, along with others, in attaining the ultimate goal of eternal salvation. The passage is solemn and well-constructed. A transparent and lucid architecture surrounds the central stairwell, with its steps apparently rising in careful order. At the end of this section there is more on these architectural concerns. They shed additional light on this unique document of the teachings of the Church in its early days concerning practical ethics.

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Unfortunately, however, modern translations as a rule don’t reflect the consistency or the inner thematics that St. Peter has condensed in so few verses, which probably were the standard teaching in the churches to which he was addressing his remarks. In fact these failures of most translation that we read today, along with numerous other, similar lapses in translation, suggests that the Apostle’s teachings may never have been fully understood. Indeed, there are many obstacles that stand in the way of acceptance, for everywhere in the NT we are called upon to accept the presence of the supernatural in our daily lives. In particular, the rendition of “virtue” for areteh, seemingly proposing a ladder with “Faith” representing the lowest rung seems to contradict Paul who has given “Faith” preeminence. In Romans 3:28 we read: “We judge that a person is justified by ‘Faith’, apart from doing what is required under the law.” Our reading appears to be difficult because it makes “Faith” dependent on virtue, the standard translation of areteh. We cannot face placing “Faith” beneath good works, such as we nowadays understand virtue. This meaning of virtue is not what St. Peter intended, as we attempt to demonstrate next. But, even for Peter, at the time he wrote the epistle, virtue must have been understood primarily in the sense of obeying Jewish law. St. Peter in the same epistle refers to the difficulties that the teachings of St. Paul causes for many believers (presumably because seemingly giving them mistaken excuses for licentiousness), 2nd Pet. 3:15,16. This strongly suggests that part of the reason why St. Peter wrote the letter was because he knew about the lesser meanings of terms which had become common coinage in his day, as indeed is the constant erosion of semantics. We are influenced adversely by a usage different from the ancients’ and caused by later ages which have given “virtue” a negative meaning. Here in 2nd Peter, areteh, Latin virtue meaning “manhood”, most likely stands for Ghatic ashta = aritsha, meaning righteousness, and could be so used through the universal principle of ancient translation, literalism. The ancients maintained a fiction known from many examples that literal translation, even phonetic correspondence, could render a precise semantic equivalence between various languages. Gods with similar sounding names were identified, e.g., Ba’al & Apollo. Thus aritsha, areteh, and virtue came seamlessly together. Virtue, it would seem to our distorted sense, was to live by the ordinances of Jewish law. If this is our reading, the passage contradicts directly the teaching of Paul, that the law kills, but “Faith” resurrects. We would have to be admit that an impasse has been reached. The solution of this dilemma that we offer, in first rough outline, is to give “virtue”, areteh, a wider meaning, that of Gathic aritsha, more like dikaiosyneh, justification. The implication also can be one of power, like dynamis. This may help to make it stronger, since dynamis is mentioned in verse 3. Faith is our justification according to Paul, yet in another, wider sense it is only a part of it. We receive it as our divine endowment when we are saved. A closer reading of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, the beginning of the fifth chapter will make this quite evident through the words of the Apostle himself, when he says our access to grace is through Jesus, by “Faith.” Jesus is the Way of access, the major premise, “Faith” our traversing the way, the minor premise. Verse 5 almost literally confirms our reading of 2nd Peter, reading that Agapeh is poured out in our hearts through the given Holy Spirit, that is, not through anything that we might do first. We do not cause the giving of the Holy Spirit by our “Faith”, but we are still required to accept the Spirit, by our “Faith” in Jesus. Also, in Galatians, chapter 5, Paul puts Agapeh first and “Faith” almost last. Noting this, here “Faith” is often translated “Faithfulness”, but I think falsely. Greek “pistis” is indistinguishable, the

MORAL & INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE WEST II 435 motivation for an alternate reading of “pistis”, one of St. Paul’s key words, is doubtful because it is just intended to avoid the conclusion that “Faith” is one of the last rungs, way down from agapeh. Instead, here we endeavor to find an alternate theology, giving “pistis” a stable Pauline meaning, but rearranging his doctrine to obtain a scale on which “Faith” seems to be a low rung. Is this possible without running squarely athwart the bow of the ship of classical Protestant doctrine? But notice, in matters of the Divine Kingdom there are no low rungs. The nine fruits of the Spirit of the Apostle Paul correlate very well, in reverse order, to 2nd Peter. Also with the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 5, virtue = dokimeh, is the fruit of patience, enduring the “trials of ‘Faith’ more precious than gold”, just like in 2nd Peter. In this greater sense, then, virtue = righteousness = justification = salvation is able to serve us in the capacity which 2nd Peter seems to demand. We now can see why Peter would ask us to minister our virtue in our “Faith”. Similar adjustments must be made in our understanding of some of the other steps of Peter’s ladder. The impasse is already abating. There is no contradiction here to Paul’s doctrine of justification by “Faith” alone. Faith is the ultimate fruit of Grace, which begins always in one way and in one way only: God mysteriously pours out His love in our hearts, love from Him to us, from us to Him, and last but foremost from ourselves to others, “we know we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers,” 1 Jn 3:14. Therefore, love, agapeh, is necessarily the highest rung for both, Peter and Paul. One word holds the key to unravelling the confusion, ἐπιχορηγεω, to minister. “To minister” is the correct Latin translation given in the Vulgate, which until recent years was the official Catholic Bible. This word “minister” occurs twice, in verses 5 and 11. This is used in conjunction with σπουδη, diligence, likewise in both verses 5, 11. To observe the Christian virtues with diligence is the message. This identity of vocabulary makes for a bracket that ties together the two verses and all of the matter that is brought out in the intervening verses. Such brackets are frequent devices, so often sadly neglected by translators, in the epistles both of St. Peter and St. Paul. Many translators fail to render these stylistic devices, & thereby lose much of the meaning of the text. In this example, the recurrence of the word indicates that there is a reciprocal relationship between God giving us a part in His kingdom and man giving of his Christian virtues. The various Bible translations have very different renderings, with divergent interpretations of the metaphysics of this unique account of the structure and sources of Christian ethics. This problem exists primarily with the newer English translations. The Vulgate, as already mentioned above, uses “minister”, a straightforward and satisfactory rendition of the Greek. Martin Luther, lacking a suitable German equvalent of “minister”, translates somewhat weaker “reiche dar” in both verses, thus at least observing the metaphysical bracket. The word “minister” (as a transitive verb) does not translate very well into German, so Luther had to go back to part of the root meaning of ἐπιχορηγεω, to offer up in a liturgical dance, “reiche dar” = “offer up”. A stronger, less literal, German translation is possible: In verse 5: “Dein Glaube sei ein Dienst der aus deiner Rechtschaffenheit springt, und deine Rechtschaffenheit aus deiner Kenntnis der göttlichen Gesetze,” etc. In verse 11: “dann wird Gott dir mit dem Einlass in sein Himmelreich dienen.” In verse 11 the King James version retains “minister”, but unfortunately has “add to your ‘Faith’ virtue” in verse 5, completely missing (i) the stylistic device of the bracket-word “minister”, (ii) the separate and common points made by both verses,

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(iii) the ascending scale of ethical perfection. We can perhaps “add” patience to our self-control in a behavioral sense without necessarily progressing internally to a generally patient attitude. This misunderstanding, first set down by a careless error of the translators of the King James version, is then carried on in countless modern translations. If we stop to think about this for a minute, and accept the “add to” interpretation, we would ultimately be admonishing believers to add Agapeh to their virtue and to their “Faith”, contradicting directly Rom. 5:5. There is the record of the unambiguous teaching that Agapeh is an original Divine endowment, not the result of our “Faith”. The outpouring of love in the heart of a Christian is the original act of salvation by the Lord Himself. Our confessing our “Faith” is only our acknowledgement and acceptance of our election and predestination. We have used ‘minister’ above, in our translation of all of the relevant verses 5-11. After Martin Luther had reestablished the primacy of Paul’s thought and teachings in Protestant churches, translators could not face placing “Faith” beneath good works, such as they held virtue, in the sense of obeying the Jewish laws, self control, and brotherly love to be. Later translations beginning with the King James Bible seem to entirely miss the link connecting the two verses. They are missing the thought implied by the identity of verbs in verses 5 and 11: If Christian believers hope for the entrance into the eternal kingdom of Jesus to be ministered to them, then they must first minister in their lives the Christian virtues. Many may find out only on the final day that they missed it. Of such, Jesus Himself said “I never knew you”, yet they plead “we have used your name”. Ghandi met some of the crasser specimens of such Christians in South Africa, as he describes in his autobiography, incredulous from his strict Hindu background. These are the very Christians that St. Peter means to warn in the same epistle, 2nd Pet. 3:15,16. The King James Bible translates “add to your ‘Faith’ virtue” in verse 5, in exactly reverse order of causality from the Greek “in your ‘Faith’ minister virtue”. We can see that this is wrong, because it would lead in verse 7 to “add to your philadelphia Agapeh”. Unless forewarned it is entirely possible for one to read the latter phrase without stumbling, yet for Agapeh-love to be something added on to one’s everyday behavior would seem to be contrary to the whole idea of this core of Christian ethics. Rather, Agapeh-love is the divine spark in us that enables us to minister brotherly love in our day-to-day business. This is exactly what 2nd Peter is expressing. It is the most direct sign of grace, as in Romans 5:5, not “Faith” is given, then the Holy Spirit, but first, “after the Holy Spirit (=Spenta Mainyuh) has been given,” then  the Kingdom of Heaven (=Khshathra),  then Agapeh,  then Peace and Piety (=Spenta Armaiti), that is Sanctification,  then Patience,  then Self-Control,  then knowledge of the call of God on our lives and of His Divine Laws,  then Virtue (=Aritsha), Goodness, Kindness, Gentleness, Modesty,  then “Faith” and “Faithfulness” (Vohu Manah). In this essay we learn to live in faith by the J-rule. First it seems difficult to remember, but we soon notice when we forget it. It’s by the action of the Holy Ghost, that we are reminded. Then just thinking of the alternatives, we find the J-rule is easy! As J himself put it: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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Faith and Divine Help Synopsis: Survival by faith in the everyday human communal world: We must have a secure grasp of the Faith, its basics, memorized or divine help won’t come. This essay is about guidance by faith. This we obtain by means of a special relationship with God. When we first come to know God it is his faith that gives us his spirit. We call him the Holy Ghost because he is there unseen, to give us, by his agency, communion with the Saving Power of the Almighty. As J himself put it: “I will ask God the Father and he will send you a counsellor.” Ethics, that is customs, prescribe multitudinous kinds of actions which may be either mental, such as contemplation or meditation, or verbal, such as oral, that is spoken, prayer, or of an external type, such as prostrating yourself before a sacred object, but primarily and most often rules of conduct among confraternal faithful as well as the greater community, such as giving to the poor and supporting orphans and widows, which one must adhere to in order to prosper mentally a well as materially. It is this linguistic element in human existence, certainly related to what Christians call “The Word”, the logos, that sets apart human existence, as it proceeds in the fairways of society. Still, the overwhelming importance of linguistic control for all manner of ethical canons does not seem to be widely understood. Let me now give you here several lists of items, canonical building blocks of the charismatic Christian life, means of attaining to divine help that have proved effective for people to continue in good health, happiness and maintaining their good spirits. We have transcendental gifts in eternity: Holy Spirit, peace of mind, wholeness of character, truth, right righteousness, rule and dominion, immortality of souls. Some transcendental gifts are available as boons for us to savor in real time while we still remain alive, here on our lovely little planet Earth: Forgiveness of sins, permission to pray for gifts of well-being, for food and drink as much as we need, for health, physical and mental, for sleep, for shelter and transportation, for job, work, and useful occupation, for mental light in science and education, family and friends. Questions of the realism immediately suggest themselves to anyone about these elements of ordinary Christian life, of why such listed items more than others would matter, or how charismatics could attain to them in the architecture of their lives. We will grant that an ethical canon, any one of the many we might wish to consider, is indeed effective as a safe-guard for the lives of those who practice its statutes. Therefore, we are induced to look for deep structures of reality that might cause a canon to be effective. We could attempt to think of humans, to be like other animals pursuing their biological activities but different in their linguistic capabilities, and consider the ethical canons to be rational outgrowths of human biology and the linguistic superstructures built upon them.

What Does It Take Synopsis: The question of divine intervention vs. human initiative: Be a lifelong winner based upon your own inner man or woman. What it takes is a willing heart, a sudden inspiration. The essential help from divinity, in our need, is granting us a moral life. The result will be: (a) Piety, (b) Humility, (c) Metanoia, the Ninety Degree Turn.

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Is there some necessary preparation to receive this blessing? Yes, in general, but everyone is different, especially before God, contrary to the popular saying. Some may get this in an instant, others must first go through trials. Still, with few exceptions, a severe initiation seems required to become a Christian worthy of his or her name, applying the J-rule, from insight and skill rooted in the heart filled with God’s love, guided by the Holy Ghost with divine language forming on your lips. Suffering, yes, it does seem to take that and lots of it, why? Failure causes suffering, when we miss the J-rule, as we must because of marginal competence more often than we care to admit. We need the experience of failure to induce us to seek being humble and to keep us that way whatever our perceived needs may be. Without failure and suffering, we would probably be far too complacent, we would be fairly sin-prone, i.e., careless, animalian, brutish. But that exactly produces the needed suffering because of fellow-man, who won’t stand for it, seeing us trying to get away with it. Maybe we should pause here, and mention the witness of seven-year-olds, PKs, who gave their hearts to God and thereafter remained faithful. I don’t doubt it, growing up a PK is tough. I know, I was married to one. But is that like suffering as the rest of us do, as kids, teens, adults, sometimes for much of our lives, as a never-ending worldly purgatory. Certainly, we must think of those PKs’ parents as holy people, who by their living examples gave to their children a Christian education. Holy parents need not be preachers, and we have many examples of good people who, raised in the Christian faith, lived decent lives devoted to charity. They knew how the power of positive thinking helps making friends, and influence others to be the same way. These people suffer, too, and we are all made perfect by the things we learn in obedience from what we suffer. Our prayers are heard when we offer them up with loud cries and tears in reverent submission to a God who is able to save us from perishing. Humility: Knowing My Limitations Synopsis: To be aware of our marginal competence, become a lifelong winner based upon your own inner man or woman, nobody is born as a genetic loser. It is inconsistent with humility to strive for perfection. A daily effort for improvement may be a good thing, but always I am only patching up the torn rag of my soul. Faulty in design, there is no chance I can outrun mercy. Our virtues are not ours—we have them on loan from God. Likewise the so-called virtue of humility is an awareness of our very real limitations, but only when He allows us to have the awareness. There is a need for us to constantly remind ourselves that we are lowly-humble, yet if the Lord doesn’t come to our help, all of our own efforts will do no good. One way by which we can see this best is to notice how we tend to not follow the J-rule, but by being inattentive and careless lose our Faith, drop all knowledge and self-control, impatiently push forward in a seemingly favorable hour, become impious and fall out of love, leaving the heart empty for evil spirits to return. We don’t always know exactly what is required by humility. Although we participate in divine nature, according to statements such as 2. Pet. 1:3, we don’t have at our disposal the full range of divine powers. We are very, very limited in what we can do or effect. Therefore, we need to be humble in our approach toward relying on the J-rule.

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It is easy to become aware of our lowly state, to which even J had to change, too, in order to be able to share a common reality, which is often harsh and always difficult. Nothing but the J-rule can preserve us from ruin in this world of woe. Every day we must become more aware of how much we are missing the mark. We often miss humility. It is so easy to go down our road and do “our thing”. Our thing is no good, almost without exception. Whatever we tend to do “naturally” most likely will go against the J-rule. Right away we are in trouble. Trouble will remind us that we are humble, humus, i.e., dirt. In this essay we discover that being humble will seem more attractive than the opposite, because we learn to hate sin. Piety: Waiting to Be Called Synopsis: To be ready for divine help we need to take a step back, quit doing things & not be aggressive. One of the first laws of piety is: “When in doubt do nothing.”18 We don’t act if it is not absolutely necessary. Whatever we do, it should be out of devotion in piety to the divine laws, that govern our lives during every minute, in every aspect. We cause so much trouble by our tendency to “take over,” to “get things done,” our way of course, not necessarily God’s. Metanoia: The Ninety Degree Turn Synopsis: Repentance, Betterment, Buße is the beginning of faith for all of us. Whenever we run into any kind of trouble, we should try to turn sideways, the 90º turn, outflanking the enemy. The key to a good life is the readiness to acknowledge failure, and to try something else, something better. In Christianity, repentance is Hellenic metanoia, μετάνοια, literally “with-mindedness,” where ‘meta=mit=with’ (Hellenic-Dutch-English) has its characteristic double meaning “for/against” of seeming paradox. This is best seen in words like “withstand” or “withdraw” or the trope of opposing armies “joining in battle.” In my own Dutch language the word is “Buße,” from ancient Proto-Germanic *bōtō, betterment, recompense, fine, atonement.19 After we are told the story in Acts 10, where the Apostle Saint Peter is called upon to go & convert Cornelius, we next hear about the Disciples, the Jerusalem council, giving their full assent to accept the pagan Roman centurion into the community, though this would constitute a violation of Judaic laws of purity. But their leader, Saint Peter, by the indwelling God, had been commanded in a dream, that was twice-repeated, just in the hour when emissaries were arriving from Cornelius to make the arrangements for the baptism of the centurion & his entire household:20

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance for to receive eternal life.”

Metanoia is granted by divinity for salvation, the central objective of the Faith, why Jesus came in human form, according to his own, numerous sayings.

18 General Mikhail Kutuzov, from Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” 19 Wiktionary. 20 Acts 11:18.

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Turn from “my way” to God’s. Turn away from the world, and toward heaven, where J is, seated at God’s right hand, hearing your prayers and defending you against the accusations a never-ending stream of slander coming from our adversary, the angel of the false light. God, if we want to know him, will give us the ability of turning to faith. The technical term is repentance or metanoia. This simply means “change of mind”. But today the word has come to mean conversion. There is a substantial body of knowledge about the ways one can succeed in this (Boisi Center, 2021).

Everyday Faith & Survival in the Human Tribal World Synopsis: Miracles can & do happen, the down-&-out guide to happiness: Constant prayer is the effective remedy for a soul that has gone lost in the temptations of the human tribal world. Looking at our faith in our lives in the world, this vale of tears, we desire to run according to all of the Christian teachings, & seek to leave our Christian imprint when & wherever we go among our fellow humans, carrying on our tribal existence. Every time we do, we find a spontaneous response of kindness from our fellow human being, a friendly face & willingness to help. Quite naturally, a human soul will subject itself to the moral law. Human social interactions overwhelmingly unfold peaceably. Constant prayer is recommended by the Apostles, Saints Peter & Paul. When anything disturbs you, a bad thought sneaks into your mind, a temptation, a painful memory of great loss, or perhaps a missed moment of happiness, then pray the mercy prayer, “Jesus, mercy.” Say it twice, three times, or more. Gone is the confusion, as now we are together with & in the presence of our Savior. This essay is to help you find out about the only thing we can hold onto in all cases, whatever comes up, good or bad. If we know Him, then we can be sustained by faith in God, even in death. As J himself put it: “Come to me all you who are burdened.” He has all the answers if this world is not for us anymore. The good things come to us by faith much without our doing, even without our consent, if we only love God, or love goodness, whichever way you prefer to say it: God is love and God is good. One day some time ago, I had made a purchase but noticed that there was a potential problem. I wanted to call the seller, and get it fixed. At daybreak I got up, made coffee, and went to look at it. I compared the item with another one it was replacing. Naturally, I wanted the new one to have all the old had. Being trained as a logician, or else led by God, I began to analyze the proposition. Why was the old different, unlike the new? I saw that there was a difference in the function, the new one served a different purpose. Suddenly, I realized there was nothing wrong with it. I realized that things had turned out alright. In fact, I didn’t have to do a single thing! I could relax and have a good day, with no merits on my part. “Oh dear God,” I said, “I really wanted to gripe about it, but I don’t have anything to gripe about, everything is fine.” Later that day, at the office things were better than I had expected. There was an effective reconciliation where I had feared a deteriorating relationship. I noticed a glimmer of comprehension of what needed to be done and willingness to give it a try. People reacted with unexpected reasonableness to what I said. When I had really wanted to be mean, several unselfish acts of kindness resulted as I was following the J-rule without any explicit desire to do so––kicking and screaming you might say, but it was a quiet process, almost unnoticeable deep inside my inner being, except I knew the signs and the protocol––I had nothing do with the good outcome, except my agony.

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Praise the Lord! You may count on it, this is the way things work out to the best for all those who love God. He is an awesome, merciful God. Miraculously, He sends a constant stream of instructions toward us by His Holy Ghost.

Summary & Conclusions In this essay, we present an outline of Christianity in the present time, as a living, vital religion, that underlies & carries Western civilization. The faith’s many doctrines & subtitles are subordinated to a single purpose: In gratitude to Jesus praising the Creator God through the agency of the indwelling Holy Ghost. We credibly explain a life in the divine presence in constant prayer & provide all the required tools to live a full, joyous Christian life on its many levels, spiritual, moral, intellectual, biological, biochemical, yet all integrated as the performance of a unitary person, as one with the underlying biological organism. The life of the individual, continues & thrives, overcomes all obstacles, vanquishes all opponents, while praising God for his abundant grace & mercy, that maintain a human life & continually are granted to the person in his or her miraculous being, evolved over the span of 4 billion years, in an otherwise largely vacuous universe. Included is a newly understood holistic science, learning to see human existence as function of a central nervous system & its bilateral brain, in its two hemispheres forming our dual ego, one private for our plans & dreams, another public ego subject to the moral law for dealing with the environment, human society, to provide for ourselves & dependents. According to recent neuroscience studies, inner temporal sequential logic in the sophisticated linguistic left brain, domicile of our intellectual private ego, & outer spatial image geometry resides in the heroic protagonist right hemisphere residence of our moral public Ego. We establish philosophy basics, relevant for a healthy life and based upon new insights into the nature of human conscious existence, founded in the bilateral brain, serving asymmetric functions that were anticipated by Immanuel Kant’s theory of our two senses, temporal inner logic based on sequential processing & spatial outer geometry based on image processing, paralleling his distinction of objects of experience into noumena & phenomena. Much attention should be given by every human to the care of one’s inner bilateral cosmos, under prefrontal lobe control, Brodmann Area BA10 (Burchard, 2020c), formerly thought of as our immortal soul.

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Burchard, H. G. W. (2020d). Heidegger’s metaphysics, a theory of human perception. Philosophy Study, 10(11), 713-754. https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5313/2020.11.006 Burchard, H. G. W. (2021). Moral & intellectual life of the West. Philosophy Study, 11(2), 77-88. https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5313/2021.02.001 Heidegger, M. (1929). Was ist metaphysik? (What is metaphysics?) Verlag Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3465035176. Kant, I. (1781 A, 1787 B). Critique of pure reason. English translation: Marcus Weigelt (2008), based upon translation by F. M. Müller (1881). Penguin Modern Classics. Kant, I. (1790). Critique of the power of judgment. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge University Press. Plato. (375 BC). The Republic, Book VII. The Dialogues of Plato, translated into English with Analyses and Introductions, B. Jowett (Trans.), Vol. 3, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press (1892). Radakrishnan, S. (1957). A source book in Indian philosophy. Princeton University Press. Teresa of Avila, St. (1577). Castillo interior, or Las moradas.