Common ground4

Common ground4

“Thanks for your patience and engagement brother. Here’s my response to specific points expressed in Common Ground 2 & 3. Our sticking points are rooted in ontological differences in our beliefs about the nature of reality. We are diving deeper as we each present our case.

The ideas I’ve shared so far have elicited

a Trinity of responses from you. Let’s call them type 1, 2, and 3. The first type of response is resonance and agreement, representing our common ground. You love these ideas because they reflect something you’ve already accepted as part of you. An example would be the idea of Christians as healers. The second type of response is more tentative, you’re not fully on board with these ideas yet.  An example of this would be the idea that our function calls for us to be happy. You like these ideas, but still need more convincing. The third type of response is categorical refusal. These are the ideas you find mistaken, objectionable, impossible, ridiculous.  The eyes as projectors is an example.

I’m not asking you to be credulous. Belief isn’t faith. Although the allegories, analogies, and anecdotes I share are supported by rigorous reason and Aristotelian logic, these concepts are not meant to be taken as abstract toys for intellectuals who live and play in a virtual sandbox of ideas. They demand to be known through our direct experience. To know is to embody. These ideas bring healing to mind and body, turning our hearts into radiators of love that ripples outward to others. Apologia is “of words”, which are symbols, twice removed from reality (God).  Words never satisfy, but reality always does. Apologetics is good, but the world needs our love more than our apologies.

Carrying the heavy cross has already been accomplished. Repetition of the past is unnecessary. Being compassionate does not require that we suffer. Joy always feels joyful, never like suffering. Those who suffer lose the way, the truth, and life, limiting their ability to help. Suffering arises out of complexity, which is obfuscation of truth. Love is simple. Only love alleviates suffering, and brings joy. Being joyful, we extend joy. When we suffer, we extend suffering. Why would we want to share that?  Our brothers have forgotten what happiness looks like. Our function is to remind them, and if we don’t have it, we can’t share it.

We agreed that Jesus’s teachings transcend all categories, spheres, and fields of human endeavor. What I see doesn’t contradict Kuyper, Reformation, Protestants, Mormons, Catholics, Orthodox, or any other of the 30k+ Christian denominations running amok with division. Their differences, which sometimes appear semantic, are rooted in level confusion. The answer is a level correction (paradox) which you’ve eloquently described as God’s infinite wisdom transcending our earthly categories.

Total agreement with your theology of dominion. Exploitation is the distorting belief that God created the world as a giant Supermarket filled with creatures as commodities for our consumption. That is an example of level confusion. Level correction turns the getting mechanism into giving, by raising the belief in exploitation to the understanding of dominion as stewardship.

However, this understanding doesn’t rise high enough. Level correction is completed with the understanding that there are no differences in God’s creation. Differences derive from form (perception). Stewardship turns the nightmare of exploitation into a happy dream, where we find ourselves playing on the front lawn of Heaven. From there God takes the final step, lifting us up to Heaven, where all is formless and beings are equal.  Mastery lies beyond stewardship.  It’s the understanding that raises perception to Knowledge, ego to God, earth to Heaven, and illusions to Reality.

Perception is legion, knowledge is singular. Religion is all about the undoing of perception. We’re still confused about the difference between it and knowledge. That the world we see is an illusion is obvious when we realize that there are 8 billion versions of reality. Yet everyone believes his version of reality is the truth. How is this possible?

Apoltical teaching does not equal side-stepping, denial, or exclusion of politics. It doesn’t diminish the scope, grandeur, beauty, and truth of the teaching, and doesn’t imply a neutral position. There are no neutral thoughts. Each points to either truth or illusion, nothing in between. Apolitical subsumes politics. To believe is to cherish, and we believe in a political Jesus because we cherish politics. The acceptance of this idea doesn’t require giving up politics. The Holy Spirit never asks us to sacrifice anything.  He asks that we willingly offer everything to Him so that he can transform it. As long as we pick and choose what we offer, what we end up withholding becomes a sore spot of unhappiness.

Theo

Jesus’s teaching does call for engagement with the world, which includes politics. Politics is to His Teaching as color is to Light, perception to Knowledge, science to Faith, earth to Heaven, and the ego to God. The former must always be raised to the latter for salvation. Level confusion is the attempt to bring the latter down to the former, which is impossible. Politics must be raised to knowledge, not vice-versa. If it were possible to bring the teachings down, politics would have been transformed by now. There have been many faithful politicians and citizens engaged in that effort. Yet politics is still ruled by chaos. Christians are still split, making up differences, acting hostile towards each other, therefore equally perpetuating the problem.

The idea that the eyes are projectors isn’t merely poetic. If the world is a perception, and perception is an illusion, the eyes must be projectors. Seeing is always outward. Private investigators and surveillance agents are trained to shadow their targets without ever looking directly at them, as this risks betraying their presence. Consciously or unconsciously, everyone feels eyes that are focused on them, even if their back is turned.

There is a corollary to this in physics. In quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wave function is associated with the observer effect. What this means is debated by theoretical physicists, but that the phenomenon exists has not been questioned since it was discovered a century ago. Perception is the observer effect.

The world we perceive and experience is not what God created. The body is perceived as another object in the world, therefore equally unreal. We are not a body. This only appears to contradict Genesis. God created us in his image, and of a like quality, means that we too are light. God is still the animating force that blows life into everything, including our (perception of) bodies. Our mind has all the power of belief that God gave us, including the power of perception, which gives the world its perceived quality of solidity. The dream always appears real to the dreamer.

To say that perception is distorted by sin is to reverse cause and effect. Sin is an effect of perception, which is the effect of the separation from knowledge (fall from grace). Neither sin nor separation have causal power. The fall from grace is a deep sleep that we have fallen into.

To say that the problem is not perception per se, but its divorce from God, is akin to saying that the problem is not that we sleep, but that we dream ungodly nightmares. When a sleeping child cries out because of frightening dreams, his parents rescue him by turning on the light or gently shaking him. The dreaming mind often incorporates these into the dream, and the light becomes the dawn of a new day or a dream lamp.  The shaking may be interpreted as an earthquake or a roller coaster ride at the amusement park. These new projections may turn the nightmare into a happier dream, but they’re still illusions. Christ consciousness is an awakened state.

Christians are asleep. They daydream as they gaze toward the sky, wistfully waiting for Jesus to emerge from the clouds on a white winged horse, hoping he’ll rescue the world once again from its nightmares. They don’t see the second coming as it unfolds before their own eyes, which are blinded by their own projections. The second coming is not in time. It’s in the here and now, where nobody is looking.

Analogy Overkill. Polarized light is a blinding reflection. Polarizing political perception is a mirroring phenomenon. We are never upset for the reason we think. We’re upset because we see something that isn’t there. There is no difference between blue and red, left and right, globalists and nationalists, free traders and protectionists, theists and atheists. Labels like these are arbitrary lines of demarcation of a single field that do not exist in reality. Polarized thinkers are like Siamese fighting fish. They don’t understand that they are looking at a mirror. Misperceiving an opponent “out there,” they attack, failing to see that they are locked in an insane battle against themselves.

The question about how our calling as healers is to unfold in different spheres is placing the cart in front of the horse. We should instead inquire into the meaning of healing and ask if such a thing is possible.  We won’t agree on what healing is or how it’s accomplished until we can agree on what we are, what Jesus taught, the meaning of perception and knowledge, and what God created. Let’s keep working on our common ground.”

Back over to you, Jack..

Hey brother, I’m thankful for your thoughtful engagement and the depth you’re bringing to this conversation. You’re right—we’re diving deep, and it’s a joy to wrestle through these ideas together, even when our perspectives differ. I’ll respond carefully, grounding my thoughts in the truth of God’s Word and the reformed theological framework.

I like how you’ve framed our dialogue as eliciting a “trinity of responses”—resonance, tentativeness, and refusal. That’s a helpful way to map where we’re connecting and where we’re not yet aligned. On the first type, we absolutely share a heartbeat for Christians as healers, reflecting Christ’s love to a broken world. That’s a beautiful truth we can stand on. On the second, ideas like happiness as a core function spark some hesitation for me. Scripture calls us to joy in the Lord (Phil. 4:4), but happiness tied to our earthly experience can feel fleeting, especially when we’re called to take up our cross (Matt. 16:24). I’d love to unpack this more—how do you see happiness aligning with the suffering we’re told to expect (1 Pet. 4:12-13)? On the third, ideas like the eyes as projectors feel like a stretch. I hear you on perception shaping our experience, but I’d anchor that in the reality of a God-created world, not an illusion. Genesis 1 declares creation “very good,” and while sin distorts our view, the world itself remains God’s handiwork, not a projection of our minds. Hopefully, I am not misunderstanding you; if so, please correct me.

Your emphasis on embodying truth resonates. Knowing isn’t just intellectual—it’s transformational, lived out in love that radiates to others (1 John 4:12). I agree that apologetics, while valuable, can’t replace the witness of a life transformed by Christ. Words are symbols, and as you said, they’re “twice removed” from the reality of God. Yet, Scripture itself is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16), and through it, the Spirit reveals truth. I’d gently push back on the idea that words “never satisfy.” The Word became flesh (John 1:14), and that reality satisfies eternally. Still, you’re correct that love, not just arguments, is what the world needs most.

On suffering and joy, I hear your heart for simplicity and love as the antidote to suffering. Absolutely, love is central—God is love (1 John 4:8), and we’re called to extend it. But Scripture doesn’t shy away from suffering as part of our calling. Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33), and Paul speaks of sharing in Christ’s sufferings (Phil. 3:10). I don’t see suffering as a requirement for compassion but as a reality we endure with joy because Christ has overcome. Joy isn’t the absence of suffering but the presence of God in it (James 1:2-3). I’d love to hear more about how you see joy and suffering interacting without diminishing the weight of the cross.

Your point about Jesus’s teachings transcending categories is excellent. God’s wisdom challenges our earthly boundaries (1 Cor. 1:25), and I agree that confusion—mistaking perception for knowledge—causes division. The Reformation’s call of “sola Scriptura” roots us in God’s revealed truth, not our fragmented perceptions. See my “The Five Points of Scriptural Authority: A Defense of Sola Scriptura,” Paperback – July 16, 2021. I mention this because there is considerable confusion about the topic, even among those who claim to believe it.

Regarding dominion, we’re in agreement: it’s stewardship, not exploitation. Genesis 1:28 calls us to care for creation, not to plunder it. I’m curious about your move beyond stewardship to a formless equality in God’s creation. I would connect that to the eschatological hope in Revelation 21—a new heaven and earth where everything is reconciled. However, I would be cautious about eliminating differences entirely in the present. God’s creation is diverse, and distinctions (such as male and female in Gen. 1:27) reflect His glory. How do you see this “formless” reality developing in our current situation?

Regarding perception versus knowledge, I agree that human perception is fallible and clouded by sin (Rom. 1:21-22). However, I believe that the world’s reality is not an illusion—it’s God’s creation, broken but still redeemable. The eight billion versions of reality reflect our fallen subjectivity, not a lack of objective truth. Christ is the truth (John 14:6), and His Word anchors us beyond what we perceive. I’m interested to hear how you reconcile the idea of an illusory world with passages like Psalm 24:1, which declare the earth as the Lord’s.

Your take on politics is fascinating. I agree that Jesus’s teachings encompass all areas, including politics, and that we’re called to elevate our engagement to align with God’s truth. Politics, like all human pursuits, must submit to Christ’s lordship (Col. 1:16-17). However, I’d caution against viewing politics as inherently chaotic or beyond redemption. Faithful Christians have shaped societies through godly governance (think Daniel or Joseph). Also, consider all the hospitals and schools built by Christians. The problem arises when we idolize politics, not when we participate in it under Christ’s authority. I’d love to hear more about how you see “apolitical” teaching transforming political involvement without neutralizing it.

On the eyes as projectors, I appreciate the creativity, and the quantum mechanics analogy is thought-provoking. The observer effect shows perception influences how we interpret reality, but I’d stop short of saying the eyes project the world itself. Scripture affirms the physicality of creation (Gen. 1), and our bodies, though affected by sin, are God’s design (Ps. 139:14). The idea that we’re not bodies feels like it veers from the resurrection hope of 1 Corinthians 15, where our physical bodies are raised imperishable. I’d love to explore how you view the body’s role in light of being “light” in God’s image. Again, please forgive me if I have misunderstood you.

Your point about sin as an effect of perception rather than a cause is a big one. I’d hold that sin is the root (Rom. 5:12), distorting our perception and separating us from God. The fall wasn’t just a dream but a real rebellion, though God’s grace restores us (Eph. 2:8-9). I hear you on Christ-consciousness as an awakened state, but I’d frame it as the Spirit’s work in us, renewing our minds (Rom. 12:2) to see reality through God’s eyes. The second coming, I’d agree, isn’t just a future event—it’s unfolding now as Christ reigns (Heb. 2:8). But I’d still hold to a future, visible return (Acts 1:11).

Regarding healing, you’re right that we need to define what we are and what Jesus taught before we can unpack our calling as healers. I’d start with John 17:17—sanctification through truth—and 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, where we’re ambassadors of reconciliation. Healing flows from Christ, the Great Physician, through us as we proclaim and live His gospel. Let’s keep building on this common ground, brother. What’s the next step you’d propose to clarify our understanding of healing or perception? I’m all in for continuing this journey together!

Theo, back to you,