(continued)
Dig through history. Moriah guarantees you will not find any, or if, on the off chance you believe you can, you will have to really stretch things to make a viable example from it and it will be a rarity more readily chalked up to a disordered mind instead.
By contrast, consider the stacks through time of multitudes of such things year after year, nation after nation, century after century, which 'orthodoxy' has brought us. If in the multitude of counsellors there might be found wisdom, then the opposite obtains true as well: that in the multitude of consensus may be found conspiracy and corruption. Every religious atrocity ever committed in the history of mankind has been the product not only of some form of 'orthodoxy' but specifically of said 'orthodoxy' seeking to either impose and establish, or maintain and tighten, control over the forces it perceived to threaten it.
More often than not, what did these "forces" consist of, but those brave souls whose gnosis led them to adore and trust God Himself way too much to surrender their autonomy or conscience to these self-inflated bullies and brutes, and to labor for the similar spiritually-revolutionary liberation of their fellows, even to the ultimate sacrifice of laying down their own lives as the very first apostles did to honor and preserve and keep the faith???
The New Covenant foretold by Creator YHVH in the Old Testament and ratified by Jesus Christ in the New, contains this very imperative for safeguarding the sanctity of the private, intimate discourse and dealings between God and the soul:
Last, but not least ...
available to ourselves and all believers everywhere through the indwelling Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts He bestows which involve divine revelation of one sort or another. The latter constitutes a singularly unique self-declaration of God which we and those like us must still investigate and parse mentally in order to comprehend. It differs because God does not likewise reveal Himself TO Christ, but rather IN Christ and THROUGH Christ. The equation shifts; Christ being a unique agent capable of producing divine revelation TO us, not merely yet another recipient of divine revelation LIKE us.
Next it must be mentioned, again hearkening back to the confused applications of "subjective" and "objective" you made earlier, that while God's revelation of Himself may safely be said to be objective, man's encounter with that and awareness of that, as well as his awareness of God resulting from that, never bes. It bes subjective, for all revelation from God whether through the written Word, through a "rhema" word, through visions, through dreams, through tongues, through Christ's teachings, etc. ALL touches the mind of man and of necessity, whether conscious or not, gets filtered through that mind. The human agent cannot receive revelation of any sort absent the active engagement of the recipient himself; therefore it bes utterly illogical to suppose that God objectively reveals Himself to ANYONE human.
That does not mean His revelation fails nor that it gets left to whimsy. Faith, by its very nature, bes a subjective experience already, and God appears to be quite comfortable and at ease with this -- at least, He has refrained during these several thousand years of human history from removal of all doubt or potential doubt from the equation. Apparently HE has great faith in Himself and trusts HIS own power to both reach the hearts and minds of people as well as to keep them firmly established, rooted and grounded in love, in HIM. So let us not have any vapid protests here based on obsolete and outmoded models partaking of rudimentary thought and elementary lessons. Forget the balls and sticks; concentrate on the electron shells instead.
You argue that, "There would be little need for objective revelation if gnosticism were all that was necessary, or the only truth. The very fact that God has revealed himself objectively establishes orthodoxy." Moriah contends rather that there would be absolutely no notion of orthodoxy whatsoever to begin with, had gnosis not proven to be not merely indispensible but also absolutely necessary already. Orthodoxy can arise from only two possibilities: the indisputable presence of gnosis or the utter absence of it. In the case of the former, orthodoxy may arise as either an honest effort to preserve and transmit a codified form of that gnosis as collated from a consensus defined sampling of those deemed to possess it, or it may arise as a sinister effort to codify as presumed "indisputable" and "indispensible" doctrines the very notions required to combat gnosis and put it down. In the case of the latter, however -- orthodoxy arising in the complete absence of gnosis -- some conceptualization of something like gnosis would have to exist at least in theory or speculation as the basis of the emerging orthodoxy itself.
Therefore gnosis, at least in principle, pre-exists orthodoxy as well as pre-empts it, and its existence bes required at least in theory in order for orthodoxy to formulate and organize itself around the contents of said collated consensus awareness to begin with. Thus gnosis clearly has the supremacy here and not merely the supremacy, but the absolute necessity. In fact, apart from anything else it has put forth in this post regarding the interaction of the two, gnosis -- the personal encounter with and personal revelation of God -- would still be the one thing required in order for any human being to experience salvation for himself as a reality, and not just as a set of theories, beliefs, or propositions to which he must give mental assent.
Please show us one crusade, one pogrom, one Inquisition, one witchhunt, one murder by oubliette, rack, sword, stake or catherine wheel -- in fact, one atrocity, period, of ANY sort -- which has ever been perpetrated on another human being as a product of the perpetrator's personal gnosis.Simon Templar said:
Dig through history. Moriah guarantees you will not find any, or if, on the off chance you believe you can, you will have to really stretch things to make a viable example from it and it will be a rarity more readily chalked up to a disordered mind instead.
By contrast, consider the stacks through time of multitudes of such things year after year, nation after nation, century after century, which 'orthodoxy' has brought us. If in the multitude of counsellors there might be found wisdom, then the opposite obtains true as well: that in the multitude of consensus may be found conspiracy and corruption. Every religious atrocity ever committed in the history of mankind has been the product not only of some form of 'orthodoxy' but specifically of said 'orthodoxy' seeking to either impose and establish, or maintain and tighten, control over the forces it perceived to threaten it.
More often than not, what did these "forces" consist of, but those brave souls whose gnosis led them to adore and trust God Himself way too much to surrender their autonomy or conscience to these self-inflated bullies and brutes, and to labor for the similar spiritually-revolutionary liberation of their fellows, even to the ultimate sacrifice of laying down their own lives as the very first apostles did to honor and preserve and keep the faith???
Nowhere in scripture will you find Jesus inviting the sinner to repair himself to a self-appointed council of mere men to establish the veracity of his salvation and to receive the divine blessings and gifts on a personal level. No, rather, you will find the Saviour in all such cases instructing and inviting the sinner, "Come unto ... ME." If we cannot trust God to get it right, whom can we trust? Whom will we trust? As Peter once said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? THOU hast the words of eternal life." (John 6:68)
The New Covenant foretold by Creator YHVH in the Old Testament and ratified by Jesus Christ in the New, contains this very imperative for safeguarding the sanctity of the private, intimate discourse and dealings between God and the soul:
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:34). It would be to those who have experienced the truth and reality of this precious forgiveness that the promise obtains. Those whose sins have been forgiven -- that would be all of us in and through Christ -- who have also become aware thereof -- that would be those of us currently consciously putting our faith in Him -- HE declares as knowing Him personally, and doing it so well that they have no need of any other among their fellows teaching them how to know Him. And why? Because He dwells in our hearts by faith, and we have been rooted and established in His love.Last, but not least ...
First, we must of necessity make a distinction between God revealing Himself to prophets and apostles versus God revealing Himself in the Person of Christ. The former constitutes the same type of personal gnosis or "Holy Spirit download"Simon Templar said:
available to ourselves and all believers everywhere through the indwelling Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts He bestows which involve divine revelation of one sort or another. The latter constitutes a singularly unique self-declaration of God which we and those like us must still investigate and parse mentally in order to comprehend. It differs because God does not likewise reveal Himself TO Christ, but rather IN Christ and THROUGH Christ. The equation shifts; Christ being a unique agent capable of producing divine revelation TO us, not merely yet another recipient of divine revelation LIKE us.Next it must be mentioned, again hearkening back to the confused applications of "subjective" and "objective" you made earlier, that while God's revelation of Himself may safely be said to be objective, man's encounter with that and awareness of that, as well as his awareness of God resulting from that, never bes. It bes subjective, for all revelation from God whether through the written Word, through a "rhema" word, through visions, through dreams, through tongues, through Christ's teachings, etc. ALL touches the mind of man and of necessity, whether conscious or not, gets filtered through that mind. The human agent cannot receive revelation of any sort absent the active engagement of the recipient himself; therefore it bes utterly illogical to suppose that God objectively reveals Himself to ANYONE human.
That does not mean His revelation fails nor that it gets left to whimsy. Faith, by its very nature, bes a subjective experience already, and God appears to be quite comfortable and at ease with this -- at least, He has refrained during these several thousand years of human history from removal of all doubt or potential doubt from the equation. Apparently HE has great faith in Himself and trusts HIS own power to both reach the hearts and minds of people as well as to keep them firmly established, rooted and grounded in love, in HIM. So let us not have any vapid protests here based on obsolete and outmoded models partaking of rudimentary thought and elementary lessons. Forget the balls and sticks; concentrate on the electron shells instead.
You argue that, "There would be little need for objective revelation if gnosticism were all that was necessary, or the only truth. The very fact that God has revealed himself objectively establishes orthodoxy." Moriah contends rather that there would be absolutely no notion of orthodoxy whatsoever to begin with, had gnosis not proven to be not merely indispensible but also absolutely necessary already. Orthodoxy can arise from only two possibilities: the indisputable presence of gnosis or the utter absence of it. In the case of the former, orthodoxy may arise as either an honest effort to preserve and transmit a codified form of that gnosis as collated from a consensus defined sampling of those deemed to possess it, or it may arise as a sinister effort to codify as presumed "indisputable" and "indispensible" doctrines the very notions required to combat gnosis and put it down. In the case of the latter, however -- orthodoxy arising in the complete absence of gnosis -- some conceptualization of something like gnosis would have to exist at least in theory or speculation as the basis of the emerging orthodoxy itself.
Therefore gnosis, at least in principle, pre-exists orthodoxy as well as pre-empts it, and its existence bes required at least in theory in order for orthodoxy to formulate and organize itself around the contents of said collated consensus awareness to begin with. Thus gnosis clearly has the supremacy here and not merely the supremacy, but the absolute necessity. In fact, apart from anything else it has put forth in this post regarding the interaction of the two, gnosis -- the personal encounter with and personal revelation of God -- would still be the one thing required in order for any human being to experience salvation for himself as a reality, and not just as a set of theories, beliefs, or propositions to which he must give mental assent.
