Category: Christian Doctrine

Notes on Advaita Vedanta in Relation to Christianity

Jottings from December, 2023. Consume with caution. I am not a specialist in Asian philosophy.

1) I am always already my True Self. I do not need to become my True Self. I need only to realize (come to have insight into) this timeless fact. Not make it real, but become aware of its antecedent reality.  There is no theosis if this means to become God-like.  The mundus sensibilis is not a vale of soul-making. I am ‘already’ God, or rather, the eternal Atman. I may need time to achieve the realization but not to become who I ‘already’ am. To achieve the realization is to become enlightened.  To become enlightened is to achieve salvation. Salvation is thus noetic and achievable in the here and now in the midst of the samsaric crapstorm, or mayic world-dream.   You don’t have to wait for salvation or release.  It is not in the future at the end of history. Salvation is noetic or gnostic, not eschatological.

2) Time is merely phenomenal and thus metaphysically illusory as belonging to maya. It seems to follow that the realization (the coming to have insight into the timeless fact of one’s identity with the eternal Atman) is itself illusory. Is this a problem?  A bug or a feature?

3) Advaitins don’t explain the world; they explain it away.  They say about the physical world what some (Daniel Dennett, for example) say about consciousness, namely, that  it is an illusion. It would not be inaccurate to say of Dennett & Co. that they do not explain consciousness (despite the title of his eponymous book); they explain it away.  Makes no sense to me, but that is what they maintain.

Christian metaphysics, by contrast, explains the world. You cannot explain what does not exist or is not the case. (Think about it: would it make sense to demand an evolutionary,  or any, explanation of why unicorns have only one horn?)  The physical world (cosmos) exists.  Given this fact, and given that it exists contingently, it is natural in Christian and not just Christian metaphtsics to ask why it exists.

4)  Advaita Vedantists will try to assimilate Christianity to their  view, but the latter in all of its mainstream versions (Orthodox, Roman, and Protestant) remains unassimilably  distinct from Vedantism.  On the former, there is no plurality of  real individual egos.  Such a plurality  is metaphysically illusory, as are the members of the plurality.  There is only one Self, the eternal Atman, which is numerically the same in all of us. At metaphysical bottom, I am the  eternal Atman and so are you. At bottom, then, you and I are one. Not so on the Christian view according to which individual egos  or selves, although created by God, and thus ontologically dependent on God, are nonetheless real and remain separate from each other and from God after their creation.

Roughly, then, for the Advaitin there is only one Self whereas for the Christian there are many selves with God being a supereminent self among the many selves.

5) There is a tension, however, in the Christian position. It leads to what I call the ultimate paradox of divine creation:

The difficulty can be framed as an aporetic dyad. We have two propositions each of which makes a very strong claim on our acceptance, but which seem to be such that they cannot both be true. They are individually plausible to a very high degree, but collectively inconsistent. The dyad displayed:

a) Everything other than God is created and sustained by God and is nothing at all in itself apart from this ongoing creation and sustenance. Everything other than God is an object of the divine mind the Being of which is exhausted by its objecthood.

b) Among creatures are free, autonomous agents that have been released into ontological independence and so exist in themselves as subjects in their own right and not as mere objects of the divine mind.

This aporia is what I am calling the ultimate paradox of divine creation. To solve it one would have to show either that one of the limbs of the dyad is false, or that the limbs are logically consistent.

I have no idea how to solve it. And apparently Ratzinger did not know how to solve it either: after stating it, he went on to something else. I conjecture, although I cannot strictly prove, that the problem is absolutely insoluble by minds of our discursive/dianoetic constitution. If so, is divine creation a mystery or an impossibility?

If an impossibility, then God as classically understood cannot exist. (Some will opt for deism as a solution, but it has its own problems.) But for all we know we might be in the presence of a mystery: the solution to the aporetic dyad might exist but lie beyond our ken. Perhaps our cognitive architecture such as it is here below bars access to the solution. That is an epistemic possibility.

Perhaps we should say that the sui generis, absolutely unique status of God and his relation to the world is good reason to withhold both appellations, ‘realism’ and ‘idealism.’ Perhaps classical theism cannot be fit neatly into that oppositional schema. Still and all, classical theism is closer to idealism than anything that could be called realism.

6) The tension between the noetic/gnostic versus the eschatological, mentioned above, Thomas Merton sees as a tension between contemplation and eschatology.  He says he will always be “committed to the latter.” (Journals, vol. 5, p. 181, entry of 22 December 1964.) An on p. 182: “what this means is that my faith is an eschatological faith, not merely a means of penetrating the mystery of the divine presence resting in Him now.”

7) A related problem is that “I cannot suffer the loss of my immortal soul” if I am ‘already’ the eternal Atman. Is the world a vale of soul-making or of Self-realization? Does it matter how I live here below? Is there something really at stake? How could there be if there is no individual soul either to save or to lose?

If God Created the World, Who Created the Creator?

Thomas Merton claims that the title question is a good koan. I maintain that it isn’t.  I then give two examples of what I consider to be good Christian koans. Substack latest.

This article is relevant to my ongoing discussion with Tom Carroll. I thank him once again for engaging, as opposed to opposing, my ideas.  Those who think oppositionally in philosophy are not philosophers but ideologues.

Paul Evdokimov on the Monastic and Marital States

A Substack piece wherein I talk about sex and orgasm. Excerpt:

The final sentence of the quotation expresses a profound thought, which I take to be that the renunciation in both the monastic and the marital state can, and ought to be, equal. But how could that be? The monk and the nun eschew all sexual relations. The married person does not: such persons limit themselves to relations with their spouses. They do not renounce all sexual relations. True. But there is supposed to be chastity in marriage, and therefore chastity in sexual intercourse. Taken in its most austere sense, a sense that neither I nor any of you have ever practiced — I’ll bet — that austere chastity forbids all sexual contact between man and woman except that which can lead to procreation.

But not only that. It also demands that at the apex of orgasm, one not fully lose oneself in its pleasure, but that even at that peak of immersion in sensuality, one retain the remembrance and love of God, in line with the first of the Great Commandments: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37–38) And that implies: all the time, even at the moment of orgasm.

Adultery in the Heart: Lustful Thoughts and Levels of Culpability

Matthew 5:27-28 is a powerful verse I learned as a boy and have never forgotten.  It struck me then and I continue to feel its impact.  It is probably the source of my long-held conviction that not only deeds, but also thoughts and words are morally evaluable.  Here is the verse:

27 You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 

I am not a theologian. What follows is an exercise in moral philosophy, not moral theology.

a) The first point I want to make is that the mere arisal of a lustful thought, whether or not accompanied by physical arousal in the form of an erection, say, is morally neutral.  Spontaneous unbidden  lustful thoughts, with or without physical manifestation, are natural occurrences in healthy human beings.  No moral culpability attaches to such occurrences. This is level 0 of moral culpability.

b) But after the occurrence of the thought, its  suppression is morally obligatory and its entertainment and elaboration morally impermissible.  Thus one ought to practice self-censorship and put the lustful thought out of one’s mind.  Why? Because thoughts and words are the seeds of deeds, and if lustful or otherwise evil, are likely to sprout into evil deeds.  This is level 1.0 of moral culpability.   Depending on the degree of the ‘hospitality’  of the entertainment one might want to distinguish levels 1.1, 1.2, and so on.

c) Thus taking pleasure in the lustful thought is morally impermissible even if no intention is formed to act on the thought either verbally, by saying something to the object of lust, or physically, by doing something to her by touching, fondling, groping, ‘making an advance,’ or something worse. Discharge of lustful thoughts and inclinations via masturbation leads to a separate but related topic which we can discuss later. We are still at level 1.0. This paragraph merely unpacks paragraph (b).

d) Morally worse than (c) is the deliberate decision to act on the lustful thought by forming the intention to commit adultery or rape.  But to decide to do X is not the same as doing X.  I might decide to tell a lie without telling a lie or decide to commit rape without committing rape.  ‘Adultery in the heart’ is not adultery in the flesh. Nevertheless, the decision to commit adultery is morally censurable. We are now at level 2.0.

e) Side issue: How are rape and adultery related? Rape, by definition, is in every case non-consensual, whereas adultery is in most case consensual. In most cases, but not in every case.  Three types of case:  (i) rape without adultery where an unmarried person rapes an unmarried person; (ii) adultery without rape; (iii) rape with adultery where a married person rapes an unmarried or married person or an unmarried person rapes a married person.   I should think that moral culpability is additive. So if an unmarried man rapes a married woman, that is worse than a rape by itself or an adulteration of her marriage by itself.

f) Now suppose I freely decide to commit adultery or freely decide to commit a rape, but ‘come to my senses’ and decide not to do either.  The ‘adultery in the heart’ is and remains morally wrong, and the same goes for the ‘rape in the heart,’ but morally worse would be to follow through on either initial decision.   It seems we are still at level 2.0. Or do I get moral credit for rescinding my decision?

g) A different case is one in which one does not ‘come to one’s senses,’ i.e., freely rescind one’s decision to do an evil deed, but is prevented by external forces or agents from raping or committing adultery or engaging in sex acts with underaged girls. Suppose the “Lolita Express” on which you are riding to Sin Central crashes killing all on board.  Does the NT verse imply that the free decision to commit illicit sex acts will  get one sent to hell as surely as the commission of the deeds would?

In this case one could plausibly claim that the ‘adultery in the heart’ is just as egregious, just as morally culpable, as the ‘adultery in the flesh.’ For although the free decision to commit adultery is not the same as the physical  act of adultery, the physical deed would have followed from the decision were it not for the external prevention. But it is not entirely clear.

There is a distinction between the physical deed, adultery say, and its moral wrongfulness.  Where does the wrongfulness reside? Is it present already in the prior free decision to do the deed whether or not the deed is done?  I say it isn’t. Ed Farrell seems to be saying that it is.  Can I argue my case? Well, the wrongfulness cannot hang in the air. If it is present in the deed, then the deed must exist, i.e., must have occurred.  If. on the other hand, the wrongfulness is already present in the free decision, whether or not the deed is done, then the question is begged.

h) Level 3.0 is reached when on does the evil deed that one intended to do.

 

 

“Turn the Other Cheek” and Other ‘Hard Sayings’

A long-time friend of MavPhil, Ed Farrell, refers us to his Substack article On Turning the Other Cheek, where we read:

The general reaction to turning the other cheek, even in the church, goes something like this: Christ often spoke in hyperboles. He certainly doesn’t mean that this can, or even should, be universally applied in the private and public spheres. This goes for the whole list of Christ’s admonishments in the sermon on the mount, where he also reveals that sins of the flesh are no worse before God than the sins of the mind that preceded them.

  • To be angry and callous with your brother is the same as murdering him
  • To lust after a person is the same as committing adultery.
  • To make any oath or vow is idolatrous since you presume you have the power to fulfill it.
  • To resist your enemy is to dishonor God, whose grace extends to friend and enemy alike.

It’s true that sometimes Christ speaks figuratively or even in parables. But not here. As impossible as this teaching may seem, Christ is speaking literally. He is revealing to his disciples the true nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and its ethic. This is the ethical standard for which God created man, but which became moot with man’s fall. That this ethic has at all times appeared so absurdly radical to fallen man makes it abundantly clear that the barrier of sin that separates our world from Heaven is insurmountable. No matter what good deeds you may think you do, they will never be good enough to allow you entry to God’s kingdom.

Ed’s article challenges what I maintain in my Substack article, Morality Private and Public: On Not Confusing Them. While this is not the time for a full-on Auseinandersetzung of our respective positions, I do want to comment on the above bullet points.

Consider the second  point,  the NT source of which is presumably Matthew 5: 27-28:

27 You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 

Farrell thinks that “the sins of the flesh are no worse before God than the sins of the mind that preceded them,” that “to lust after a person is the same as committing adultery.”  But surely there is a distinction between thoughts, words, and actions. As I like to say, “Thoughts and words are the seeds of deeds.” The aphorism underscores an obvious tripartite distinction but also makes clear that words ‘out of the mouth’ and deeds ‘in the flesh’ have their source in thoughts ‘in the heart.’ Surely it is obvious that to entertain lustful adulterous thoughts about my neighbor’s wife is not to commit adultery with her, contrary to Farrell’s second bullet point. It should also be clear that to commit adultery ‘in the flesh’ is far worse morally speaking than to entertain the thought of so doing ‘in the heart.’ 

One thing Farrell and I will agree on is that  merely thinking about (entertaining with hospitality the thought of) committing adultery is morally wrong, even if the deed is never done.   Surprisingly (to me anyway) there are people who deny this. They  hold that there is nothing at all morally wrong with thinking in detail about how one might bring about an adulterous sexual liaison or even a rape if one does not actually do the deed.  These people think that overt actions are morally evaluable but mere thoughts are not. I deny this. If I hit you over the head with a lead pipe just for the fun of it, I do something morally wrong; but my planning to hit you over head for fun is also morally wrong, but much less wrong than the actual physical deed.

There is a further distinction that needs to be made. Suppose the thought occurs to one: I could overpower this girl and rape her. I’m not maintaining that the mere arisal or occurrence of the thought is morally wrong; I am maintaining that the elaboration and entertaining of the thought, the forming of an intention to act on it, is what is morally wrong – – even if I do not act on it.  The difference is that the mere arisal is involuntary: the thought just popped into my head, unbidden. But the elaboration and entertaining of the thought is voluntary. And  the more hospitable the entertainment, the more morally evil it is. What  one must do when an evil thought arises is to suppress it by exercising moral self-censorship.

For a deeper elaboration of these ideas see my article, Can Mere Thoughts be Morally Wrong?

If you agree with my critique of the second of Farrell’s bullet points, you should be able to see that a similar critique applies to the first.

I reject the third as well, but to explain what I would have to present my view of idolatry, a task for another occasion.

As for resisting the enemy, Farrell tells us that to do so is “to dishonor God, whose grace extends to friend and enemy alike.”   But here is a weighty counter-consideration. A while back I had a conversation with a hermit monk at a remote Benedictine monastery in the high desert of New Mexico.  I pointed out to him that the monastery was wide open to jihadis or any group bent on invasion and slaughter. (There was a Muslim center down the road a piece.) He told me that if someone came to kill him, he would let himself be slaughtered. A clear case of “Resist not the evil-doer.” Matthew 5:39: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

The counter-consideration is that if the monk allows himself to be slaughtered, then he is party to the assailant’s commission of a mortal sin!  What the monk should do is elude the assailant or otherwise prevent him from committing the mortal sin of murder.   Making this point, I presuppose that there is a difference between the mere intention to murder and its actual accomplishment.   Since Farrell  denies this obvious distinction, mistakenly in my view, he might accuse me of begging the question against him.

The Ultimate Paradox of Divine Creation

Substack latest.

This entry continues the line of thought in Is Classical Theism a Type of Idealism?

God freely creates beings that are both (i) wholly dependent on God’s creative activity at every moment for their existence, and yet (ii) beings in their own own right, not merely intentional objects of the divine mind. The extreme case of this is God’s free creation of finite minds, finite subjects, finite unities of consciousness and self-consciousness, finite centers of inviolable inwardness, finite free agents, finite yet autonomous free agents with the power to refuse their own good, their own happiness, and to defy the nature of reality. God creates potential rebels. He creates Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus. He creates Lucifer the light bearer who, blinded by his own light, refuses to acknowledge the source of his light, and would be that source himself even though the project of becoming the source of his own light is doomed to failure, and he knows it, but pursues it anyway. He creates Lucifer who became the father of all perversity. The “Father of lights” (James 1:17) creates the father of lies.

God creates and sustains, moment by moment, other minds, like unto his own, made in his image, who are yet radically other in their inwardness and freedom. He creates subjects who exist in their own right and not merely as objects of divine thought. How is this conceivable?

Aquinas on Angels and Human Souls: Examination of a Passage in De Ente et Essentia

I found a passage in De Ente et Essentia that is relevant to my claim that Thomas is not a hylomorphist with respect to  the human soul but a substance-dualist. Here is the passage in the Armand Maurer translation. The numbers in brackets are my interpolation. My commentary follows.

[1] This is why among these substances [created intellectual substances] we do not find a multitude of individuals in the same species . . . except in the case of the human soul because of the body to which it is united. [2] And even though the individuation of the soul depends on the body as for the occasion of its beginning, because it acquires its individuated  being only in the body of which it is the actuality, it is not necessary that the individuation cease when the body is removed.  [3] Because the soul has a separate being, once the soul has acquired its individuated being by having been made the form of a particular body, that being always remains individuated. [4]  That is why Avicenna says that the individuation and multiplication of souls depends on the body as regards its beginning but not as regards its end. (On Being and Essence, 2nd rev. ed, 1968, The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, pp. 62-63.)

Commentary

Ad [1].  Created intellectual substances are either angels or human souls. Angels, of which there are many, are wholly immaterial. They are nonetheless composite beings in that they do not exist in virtue of their  essence (quiddity) but receive their existence from God.  Since there is no matter-form (hylomorphic) composition in them, what makes them many cannot be matter.  And so each is a species unto itself. Their numerical difference is a difference in species.

Human beings, by contrast, all belong to the same species where the genus is animal, the species is human, and the specific difference is rationality. “Man is a rational animal.” The numerical difference of human beings among themselves is therefore not a difference grounded in a difference of species but a difference grounded in a difference in designated matter (materia signata).

Ad [2]. We are then told that a human soul first begins to exist when it acquires a body.  Human souls do not pre-exist their embodiment. This is because the human soul is individuated — made to be an individual soul — by its acquisition of a body.  Before Socrates acquired a body, there was no individual Socrates. Socrates cannot exist in reality except as an individual human being  and he cannot exist as an individual human being without a material body. It is embodiment that brings about his individuation. So far, so good.

Now comes the crucial inference:  because the human soul acquires its individuated being (existence) in the material body of which the soul is the actuality, it is not necessary  that the individuation cease when the body is removed. Why not?

Ad [3]. The reason is because the soul’s individuation brings it about that the soul is  a separate being. Unfortunately, Aquinas appears to be equivocating on ‘separate.’ No doubt the individuation of  the soul of Socrates bring it about that his soul is separate from Plato’s soul in the sense of numerically different from Plato’s soul.  But that is not to say that the soul of either is separate in the sense of  existing without a body either before or after death.

I now explain the two senses of ‘separate.’

The cat is on the mat. The cat is separate from the mat, and the mat from the cat.  That is equivalent to saying that cat and mat are numerically different.  But neither is separate from designated matter. So ‘separate’ has these two different senses. Separation in the first sense is a symmetrical dyadic relation. It is existence-entailing on both ends: if x is separate from y, then x, y both exist.  Separation in the second sense is not a relation at all. A separate substance such as an angel is not separated from anything.  There is no parcel of designated matter that the angel Gabriel has to be separate from to be a separate substance.

So it looks as if Thomas is equivocating on ‘separate.’ One hesitates to tax such a great thinker with the fallacy of equivocation.  But even if  Thomas is not equivocating on ‘separate,’ his argument remains puzzling.  Angels are separate substances: although not self-subsistent like God, they subsist without matter.  They are individual in themselves, as forms.  They need no individuation ab extra. They are already, logically speaking, individuals.  Socrates does need individuation ab extra, and it comes from matter.  Before he began to exist, he was nothing in reality: he was not a subsistent individual form that acquired a body.  He became an individual only when a certain soul-body/ form-matter composite came to be. How then can the soul or form of that composite continue to exist when the composite is no more? This is impossible on Aristotelian hylomorphism, according to which the ‘principles’ of a hylomorphic compound substance are not themselves substances but non-independent ontological ‘parts’ or constituents of the substance of which they are the constituents.

Is Aquinas telling us that when Socrates died he became an angel? I reckon  not. (That would be quite the metabasis eis allo genos!) Not even the doctor angelicus became an angel at death. He is however telling us that when the philosopher  died he became a separate intellectual substance, and thus like an angel in that respect.   Bear in mind that for Thomas, an incomplete substance is a substance. An incomplete substance is logically capable of independent existence: it is not an accident of a substance nor a ‘principle’ of a substance.

So, while Socrates post-mortem is no angel, sensu stricto, he is a separate intellectual substance, a substance that exists in reality on its own without matter. How exactly, given that for humans, as opposed to angels, (designated) matter is the principium individuationis?

The Aquinate line seems to be that the individuation that human souls acquire from matter before death remains with those souls after death. But what is the argument for this surprising thesis?  The only argument I discern  in the above text is this:

a) Designated matter individuates human souls;
b) Such individuation by designated matter makes of the soul a separate substance;
c) A separate substance does not depend on matter for its subsistence; ergo,
d) A human soul once individuated is forever after a separate substance.

But what reason do we have to accept (b)?   No reason at all on a strictly hylomorphic approach.  In fact, such an approach rules out (b). The form or soul of a living substance such as Socrates is merely a ‘principle’ of this compound sublunary substance — as I have stated many times already.  These principles are not themselves substances. So they cannot exist on their own. Hence they cannot exist without matter. On strict hylomorphism, the soul of Socrates cannot continue to exist upon the dissolution of his body.

Everything falls into place, however, once you see that Aquinas is not a hylomorphic monist, but a substance-dualist.  He simply presupposes the truth of (b).  This presupposition is logical ‘fallout’ from  Christianity as he understands it.

A Buddhist Scholar Swims the Tiber

Dmitri writes,

Hope all is well. I am reading yet another book of a convert to Catholicism. This one is written by a British professor Paul Williams who is a scholar of Buddhism. Besides the interesting personal story the book contains a few interesting arguments with a few fundamental Buddhist conceptions such as rebirth. Williams states that his return to Christianity and conversion to Catholicism was rational and in part based on the incoherence of the Buddhist concept of rebirth. There is a short chapter dedicated to this topic at the end of the book that can be read standalone. An online religious community shared a copy of Williams’ book  if you would want to preview before deciding whether it is worth your time and money.
Great to hear from you, my friend. Conversions (22 entries) and deconversions fascinate me. I ‘ve read a bit of the pdf you’ve kindly sent: the book is engaging from the start. Amazon wants 79 USD which is a bit steep. I’ll read more. These days, the problem’s not lack of loot but of space. Italian frugality has paid off. And while books can burn in a fire, they are less fragile all things considered than online materials.

After what I said yesterday about the left-ward transmogrification unto insipidity of the RCC, a process that began with Vatican II (1962-1965), as Dr. Caiati documents in a comment below, it is somewhat strange that anyone should still want to swim the Tiber. Buddhism has its problems, but Christianity does not? Is Williams serious?

Buddhism, Suffering, and One Reason I am not a Buddhist 

People convert and deconvert to and from the strangest things:

Harry Binswanger’s Conversion

Son of Atheist Neo-Positivist David Stove Converts to Catholicism

Sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree.

The Stove ‘Dilemma’ and the Lewis ‘Trilemma’

 

Resist Not the Evil-Doer?

Steven Nemes weighs in on Matt. 5:38-42 in his Substack entry, When should Christians not resist an evildoer?

He makes some of  the same points I have made over the years, most recently, here at Substack: Morality Private and Public.

But he also makes good points that didn’t occur to me.

Mind-Body Dualism in Aquinas and Descartes: How Do They Differ?

Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, views the soul as the form of the body. Anima forma corporis. Roughly, soul is to body as form is to matter. So to understand the soul-body relation, we must first understand the form-matter relation.  Henry Veatch points out that "Matter and form are not beings so much as they are principles of being." (Henry B. Veatch, "To Gustav Bergmann: A Humble Petition and Advice" in M. S. Gram and E. D. Klemke, eds. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann , University of Iowa Press, 1974, pp. 65-85, p. 80)  'Principles' in this scholastic usage are not  propositions.  They are ontological factors (as I would put it) invoked in the analysis of primary substances, but they are not themselves primary substances. They cannot exist on their own.  Let me explain.

Who is the Enemy? More on Carl Schmitt

Commenter Ben wrote:

Neighbors are familiar, local. This is in direct contrast to the sort of pablum about being a "citizen of the world" and preferring the plight of the universal faceless stranger over what you owe to your own countrymen . . .

That's right. I'll add that while we are enjoined to love our neighbors, we are also commanded to love our enemies (MT 5:44 and Luke 6:27). Are these enemies familiar and local too and not, say, Iranian Islamists? Do the verses mentioned rule out hating foreigners who pose an existential threat to us? Or do they permit it?

Carl Schmitt has something to say on the question in The Concept of the Political (expanded ed., tr. G. Schwab, U. of Chicago Press, 2007, 28-29):

The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity. The enemy is solely the public enemy, because everything that has a relationship to such a collectivity of men, particularly to a whole nation, becomes public by virtue of such a relationship. The enemy is hostis, not inimicus in the broader sense; polemios, not ecthros. As German and other languages do not distinguish between the private and political enemy, many misconceptions and falsifications are possible. The often quoted “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27) reads “diligite inimicos vestros,” agapate tous ecthrous, and not diligite hostes vestros.

No mention is made of the political enemy. Never in the thousand-year struggle between Christians and Moslems did it occur to a Christian to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward the Saracens or Turks. The enemy in the political sense need not be hated personally, and in the private sphere only does it make sense to love one’s enemy, i.e., one’s adversary. The Bible quotation touches the political antithesis even less than it intends to dissolve, for example, the antithesis of good and evil or beautiful and ugly. It certainly does not mean that one should love and support the enemies of one’s own people.

What is Schmitt telling us?  The criterion of the political sphere is the Freund-Feind, friend-enemy distinction. (26) But who is the enemy? The main point made above, as I understand it, is that the political enemy is a public enemy who may or may not be in addition a private adversary whom one hates.  Suppose you are I are Trump supporters who hate each other.  That would be a case of political friendship but personal enmity.  Or it may be that you and I are on the same side politically and love each other. That would be a case of both political and personal friendship. (I assume that love includes friendship but not conversely.) A third possibility is realized in many marriages: the partners love each other on the personal plane but are on opposite sides of a political divide. (James Carville and Mary Matalin?)

Now consider Luke 6:27: "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you (KJV)."  Who are the enemies referred to in this verse? Not political/public enemies, but private enemies, according to Schmitt.  The verse therefore allows the hating, and presumably also the killing, of foreign and domestic enemies who pose an existential threat to us, where an existential threat is one not merely to our biological life, but to our way of life.

Is that right?

“My Kingdom is not of this World”

Thus Jesus to Pilate at John 18:36. 

What does 'this world' refer to?  In the "Our Father"  we pray: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Reading these two texts side-by-side one might conclude that God's kingdom is to be realized on earth and not in a purely spiritual realm, and that therefore  'this world' at John 18:36 refers to this age of the earthly realm and not to the earthly realm as such.

Yes or no?

If Someone is Walking is He Necessarily Walking?

This article defends the modal collapse objection to the doctrine of divine simplicity.  Brian Bosse asked me about this. Here is my answer. Put on your thinking caps, boys and girls. (Hey Joe, who was it who used to say that back at STS, Sr. Ann Miriam in the first grade?)

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