The Cosmic Fall and Natural Evil
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
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TREY’s book “Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity”: amzn.to/3hzxZAR (Preface below!)
PATREON / telosbound
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Preface to Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity
Aphesis is a philosophical journey through hell, ending with a brief-perhaps even miraculous-glimpse of salvation. Many readers of the first edition were quick to note that the transition from the atheistic philosophy of subjectivity to the meditations on Christian theology were sudden and did not naturally follow from the reasoning of the previous chapters, but is this not the very way in which the grace of God operates? It is often when the sinner is most lost in this world-totally unconcerned with anything beyond themselves-that the Spirit of God descends into their hearts and shatters all of their prior assumptions and misconceptions.
I found Christ through this book. When I wrote the first word of Aphesis in the summer of 2019, I was a staunch (Nietzschean) atheist, and I wrote the final chapter as a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. When I say that I found Christ through this book, I mean it in the most literal sense. My “moment of conversion” occurred while I was shooting hoops in my driveway, in deep and troubled thought over my inability to complete the final chapter of this book, one which would overcome, or at least provide a reconciliation with, the “impossibilities of subjectivity.” And suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I perceived the profound truth that the Christian story of salvation provides a “narrow path” out of every paradox and contradiction I found myself lost in. I dropped the ball, and the coincidences I perceived “made me suddenly stand still.”
I then messaged my cousin, my best friend and brother in Christ, to tell him the good news. Over the next two years we discovered Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christian theology-which has its foundation in the ontology of communion-posits that the being of beings is found in the other, in communion with the other. Communion is not mere “relating” to the other as if there were an underlying self-relation that only secondarily “relates” to another self-relating being. The radicality of the communal ontology consists of its absolute opposition to the notion of self-relation, which it banishes into the outer darkness. Pure self-relation is not merely something to be avoided-it is strictly impossible. The source of all being, being as such, is the communion between the Persons of the Holy Trinity: “Nothing in existence is conceivable in itself, as an individual, such as the substance of Aristotle, since even God exists thanks to an event of communion.”
The ontology of communion posits that one’s being is not found in oneself but in and through the other. One reconciles with and finds oneself in Christ. Simply put, the life of the individual is not found “in itself,” but in God:
"Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day [...] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." (John 6:53-57)
The true radicality of Christ’s “hard teaching” is often lost in the English translation. The Greek term translated as “eat” is closer to “munch” or “consume.” The communal ontology sees being as the consumption of the other (which is another reason why the communal ontology is not merely “relational”). But this “consumption” is not selfish devouring and the destruction of otherness, but a full reception of the other’s freely given love, made possible through the simultaneous giving of oneself. If one remains enclosed within oneself, one cannot commune; it is only in abandoning one’s self-imprisonment through self-sacrifice that one becomes open to communal life.
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Orthodoxy is growing.
Peak Orthodoxy, love it!
I have never heard of the explanation that the animals were outside the garden before the fall... very interesting
Absolute fire!
You should make a library tour.
Brother what about animals, especially predators killing and eating other animals? Does that happened before the fall...? Is animals killing other animals part of the natural order or is a disorder caused by man's fall...?
Good question
Probably after. Because they're doing far worse than killing and eating each other.
Man is the center of creation, he is the being that stands between heaven and earth (it is no coincidence that God became man). There are many aspects to it, but essentially it is like the entire cosmos fell with the fall of man.
There was no death whatsoever before the fall. Predators hunting and the eating of flesh was caused by our fall
Do you have any source on the point about no animals being in Eden according to the Syriacs at around 11:00? I've never heard this before.
Great stuff!
Keep up the excellent work 💪
very engaging, spirited !
great video!
I have a question, I’m a Catholic, then how do you explain evolution, did the Garden come before or after it?
@@telosboundAre you a young earth creationist and is this required to be an Orthodox Christian? And what is the view of dinosaurs?
@@randomango2789 The word dinosaur wasn't invented until after early English translations were made. So you will find terms such as dragon, leviathan, behemoth, etc. Which seem to imply dinosaurs of various sorts. The actual term 'dinosaur' wasn't invented until 1841.
@@John-nb6ep I’ve heard this argument before and it’s not convincing. The reasons why we see dragons in various mythologies around the world is because people have been finding dinosaur bones for thousands of years. They saw the monstrous appearance of these skeletons which caused them to create mythologies around them. It’s like when ancient Greeks found the skulls of mammoths and confused them for the skulls of cyclops. Look up mammoth skulls without their tusks, then you’ll see why they were perceived that way.
Paleontology didn’t become a science until the late 1700s which is why the proper study of dinosaurs fossils weren’t done until the 1800s. Also there aren’t any dinosaurs in the Bible, the interpretation of leviathan and Bohemoth being dinosaurs originated from Protestant fundamentalists in the mid 20th century. It’s a very recent reading of the text which means you won’t find it in patristic commentaries. I used to be a YEC until the arguments became unconvincing.
@@randomango2789 It seems like you've answered your own question with your own preconceived conclusion before I even replied. So was there any point to your question?
But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Firstly you're actually incorrect the Bible does mention a Dragon in The Idol Bel, and the Dragon story an Apocrypha Text to the book of Daniel briefly. Which is theorised to be a Dragon or Dinosaur.
And secondly what I believe is Dinosaurs or dragons were already extinct by the time the Garden of Eden story takes place or extremely rare, enough for mythology to form around it later, but could be as you said they just discovered the bones then legends started from there over time. I'll also add It's probably not common knowledge but the Romans actually had their own museums which housed extinct animals so they were more than likely aware or mislabelled them as much.
But the main point being is the scriptures are first a theological text and second a historical text and then everything else if at all. It’s very much a theological gloss over the top of real, legendary, and embellished events. So for example it’s not like the Exodus is pure fiction, but it’s also probably not play-by-play history textbook nor is it suppose to be comprehensive Paleontology book or anything else either.
The Bible, as the written Word (and Christ, as the Incarnate Word) was written/incarnated for only ONE race Adamkind. Therefore, while the Bible touches on ‘secular’ history, [ Pharaoh, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans] the main purpose of the Books, is that “… everything that was written in the past was written to teach US, etc.” [ Rom. 15:4]" The rest of it is up to us to piece together or to fill in the gaps things that were left out to learn at our own discretion as long as it does not contradict or conflict with the paradigm itself preferably.
@@randomango2789 Sorry, but I do not believe your theory about ancient and medieval people finding dinosaur bones and inventing dragons thereafter. The dragon its own archetypal and phenomenological significance, and it not just an explanation for dinosaur bones.
i don't have clear how would Man's falleness affect the natural world. I understand it as an idea but not in a concrete way. Seems ad hoc. I am not sure if you guys understand the Fall as a literal historic event of a human couple eating a literal forbidden fruit, but it's hard to explain HOW disobedience causes earthquakes or, say, predation, and much more importantly, THIS or THAT earthquake.
Take, for instance, the Jurassic era where there were pura animals almost in a constant state of predation of one another, terrible weather, and so on. I'm not sure how the disobedience of a couple would cause this. Ok, man disobeys, how does that create fangs and tigers, for example? How does it now create germs? It's clear this would be an ontological corruption and that given that Creation gets its meaning from Man, then the ontological Fall of Man would be replicated in an ontological Fall of Creation, but how?
Another issue is: how is it fair for animals to be placed as subordinates of an improper tyrant like Fallen Man? Is it fair that animals suffer, get deprated upon, be in constant anxiety, get ill, get hurt, die due to starvation, because another kind of creature disobeyed? This seems a clear case of injustice. It is fine for object to be subordinated to subjects, but animals are subjects as well. This objectification of animals to Man beyond their will and which would be known to cause suffering is as unjust as if the entirety of Mankind's suffering arose from the disobedience of an angel.
It is also unclear to me why the act of disobedience would have such effects. It's not a logical, metaphysical or conceptual necessity.
Where do you get that necklace from? Also good video
@@telosbound wow you responded so fast and also wow that is crazy that that’s how u got that necklace. God bless that friend lol
When you say that the Fall led to all of creation being separated from God, this sounds a lot to me like Hegel's discussion of the moment of particularity in the Concept that is coming to be the singularity or the Absolute of all creation. Although Hegel says the Concept is always-already at its point of the unity of creation with itself (the Idea), he does lay the development of the Concept out in this sense of drawing a point of particularity where the universal Concept is disconnected from the particular moment ie creation/nature.
Further on this point, the Concept can never be at the point of particularity for Hegel because if it was created by a self-differentiating being of the Concept as Hegel says, then if something self-differentiates and affirms a something different from it, this different something will itself have the content of self-negation or self-differentiation. If this content is self-negation, the moment of nature must negate back into the universality of the Concept and thus we have the Idea or for Orthodox Christianity, this would be the point after Jesus's crucifixion whereby the totality or Singularity is reached: Spirit is the living manifestation of God and Jesus.
Towards the end 13:32 you offer another very Hegelian statement. "Man was the definite goal of creation." For Hegel, the Absolute is only realized or is only truly Absolute if man (spirit) is there to think it. As Hegel says, the Absolute thinks itself in its highest moment of self-differentiation. That is, the highest moment of nature which is Spirit. The Absolute without man (spirit) is simply the Idea in-itself but has not realized itself as the Absolute.
Many Hegelians today want to cast aside this telos of nature as it seems incompatible with evolution but certainly it could be worked in if one was to attempt a revitalized Hegelian naturalism that understands the Platonic and Aristotelian undertones throughout Hegel's corpus.
in my opinion his Bride, the Heavenly Jerusalem is the Goal of Creation.
As for the relationship between man and nature, what I'm hearing is very anthropocentric.
Humankind is not that significant in the creation the Most High YAH has made, it is just another creature that exists here.
The cosmos has NEVER revolved around humanity and it never will!
I'm not pointing the finger at the speaker in this video but, this false notion of man being at the center of creation (even though there are clearly higher beings, like the malachim for example), and the notion that the entire cosmos "fell" with man, these are products of humanity's hubris and arrogance.
The cosmos is meant to serve the Creator, and it does not revolve around man.
There is natural evil because the cosmos, though not evil, is completely indifferent to man, or any creature. People need to just face that world does not revolve around them or around the demonic species called humanity, and it doesn't give a darn about us.
Why is there natural evil? I don't know; but it's not because of man.
This whole story starts to go downhill with the talking snake and gets worse from there.
As opposed to a talking ape?
The snake is the devil
@@kyrptonite1825The Bible never actually addresses it as the Devil, simply refers to it as the serpent. Apparently it also had arms and legs, but after deceiving Eve, God punished the serpent to crawl on its belly so I don’t really know
@@BarbaPamino Don't forget that it wasn't always apes, supposedly, but that life just spawned inside of some chemical soup and then fish started morphing into apes over biiiillions of years
@@panperl1212 I'd probably still be able to breathe under water of the religious patriarchy didn't ruin everything
NONSENSE😊
Adam didn't fall and his name wasn't Adam. It's a story of evolution. When humans evolved enough to realize they possessed morality.
😂😂😂
@Johnny BeeHam
Evolution is based on observable facts. I didn't take the time to try and understand your mumbo jumbo.
@@spankduncan1114 The philosophical / paradigmatic implications of the evolutionary theory by which you so proselytize are precisely what Orthodox Christians reject. We reject evolution because it is an anthropological heresy, and in violation of the historical record taught by Holy Scripture-and to plead to an atheist conclusion from the “facts” observed is ultimately a plead for blind ignorance and an incoherent worldview
Take the famous children's fable of the princess and the frog. We know it's make-believe. And were it not for a careless attitude toward words, everyone would instantly recognize the popular nursery tale is none other than the Theory of Evolution. By glancing over words, an entire world takes a childhood make-believe fantasy: amphibian morphing to man, and calls it science! Darwin's process does take longer than the princess' kiss is said to take to cause the transformation, but outside of exchanging a kiss with time, Darwin is describing the same event manifestation. Darwin's seems a bit less impressive than the magic of a princess' kiss though, one might say. Some claim he stole the idea from some fellows named Wallace or Lamarck, when the answer is clear. The Brothers Grimm wrote it. Time is the princess' kiss. The princess' kiss is time.
@@FutureReferenc
That's a story of nemphomania. A woman willing to "hop" into bed with any creature.