One contemplated by Zeroes, or Love contemplated by Lovers

In the end, we must choose between a 'god' of prefixes and suffixes, and the God of Love.

Consider the following quote: «I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All». Some new age guru? In a sense, I suppose. It’s Plotinus.

If we put aside intellectual sophistication how different is the ‘god of the philosophers’ from the popular new age concepts of post-modernity? The line is very thin. Both are abstract and impersonal ‘forces’, ‘presences’, ‘sources’; both avoid above all ‘anthropomorphism’ – whether in will or in form. And both, indeed, tend to avoid the word God – and rightly so. The sophisticates probably would not like to be cataloged with the embarrassing woo of the ‘new age’ - but what am I to do but note the similarities? Instead of crystals they have footnotes. Still too close for comfort, I say. This neither proves nor disproves the validity and truth of either or both, of course. But it is interesting nonetheless. For one thing it shows that, since the Machine has no problem with new age spirituality, it has no problem with the metaphysicians’ version either, no matter how cleverly espoused. And I am simple man, with a simple heuristic: if the powers of evil approve of an idea, I become rather suspicious and reexamine my assumptions. And of the Evil of the Machine, I have no doubt. This is how I first came to question the reality of ‘oneness’ spirituality, in all its forms, popular or sophisticated.

The sophisticated version goes sometimes by the name ‘god of the philosophers’, but it really is a misnomer: it is neither a god, at least as understood by all myths and revelations, nor should we call those who adhere to such a concept ‘lovers of Sophia’. As we shall see, Love is all but excluded from such a ‘god’, and Sophia, being indeed one such god, is also not an abstraction. The reason why such an inappropriate term came to be is simple: at the time of its appearance, there was a need and a desire to bridge the unbridgeable: the abstract metaphysical speculations of the neoplatonists with the personal gods of everyone else, specifically the God, or rather gods, of the Bible. Now, of course, most are not interested in this rather clunky syncretism: who needs a personal God? That is too human; ew, gross.

Many names besides the above have been given, whether approvingly or pejoratively: the Omnigod, the Absolute, Being, Beyond Being – not to mention many foreign Sanskrit terms, plus some Chinese ones, used appropriately or inappropriately, which sound rather fancy to our modern ears. We shall, however, call it what Plotinus called it – since he is not only a favorite, but really the main saint of the religion of abstraction, at least in the West: The One. It is true that he does even more often call it ‘The Good’, but as Plotinus himself puts it: «Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency». It seems to me that there is a jump in logic here, or an obfuscation of what the word Good might mean. Calling it ‘The Good’ is already adding a further thought and introducing sentimentality and judgement into what cannot have sentiment or judgement at all.

This ‘One’ is discovered through intuition, not just reasoning and even less through experience (especially of the senses). Now here is a metaphysical assumption which is important to keep in mind: that there is such a thing as unmoored intuition. This seems to be what Plotinus (and most metaphysicians) tell us. It is no surprise they always end up posing formlessness as the highest - because they start there.

My own assumptions are the reverse. Just like the senses perceive the sensible, and reasoning reasons based on data (from the senses and from logic), intuition too needs something to work upon. It works upon both what sense and logic reveal, but on one further datum: Revelation. In fact, it is all revelation: we have the Book of Nature and we have the Scriptures - the myths, the legends, the stories of the gods. It is on both of these ‘books’ that our intuition works upon; it cannot work in a vacuum. So all levels are important, and if we would reach for the highest heaven we must keep ourselves rooted in the deep earth, like a Tree. And the Tree is a revealed symbol - that we can understand both by observation of Nature and by the myriad revelations of Supernature attested by all peoples. Hence, Revelation - of Nature and Supernature - is primary, and Intuition works upon it; by itself, it works only with words, and produces mere wordplay related neither to Nature nor to Supernature.

So we read the stories and the testimonies, we hear the inspired words, and then we make up our mind. We can add some abstractions to explain and explore them - this is unavoidable, it is implied in the very use of language - but they, and not the wordplay, are primary. Yet, it is this very rootedness in the concrete that proves so irksome to metaphysicians of The One. In part, for sure, because it is nowhere to be found in the primary texts of all peoples - this allows the metaphysician to be original, to come up with something not found anywhere else. It can be argued that it is found in the Upanishads - but as the very name Vedanta suggests, it is commentary on (and the end of) the Vedas. The myths themselves speak of beings, persons - with all the flaws and limitations that are intrinsic to them. Hence, we should start with persons, with beings. Non-personal and non-being, substance or essence, are like quantum ‘particles’ - once we talk about it, we already lost the plot, for the very act of talking about it brings us - persons, beings - into the picture. We shall speak more about this later.

Now, the intellectuals will accuse us of simplification, and they would be right. First of all, it is at least historically possible to hold both positions, no matter how incongruent (and really, psychically taxing) it may be to keep equilibrium. Plotinus, at least, was consistent: he wanted to think, and that was it. But for Christians, and other religious writers, the case is different. Most intellectual saints were both Christians and subscribed to ‘the One’. If we read St. Maximus the Confessor, for example, we shift constantly between the personal and the abstract – yet neither the twain shall meet except by clever wordplay; and sometimes merely by punctuation: ending a sentence and beginning another is a great way to make it seem like things follow when they don’t. Given that some of these saints actually gave their life, or at the very least suffered greatly, for their ideas proves they were sincere. But that does not make their positions any less incongruent. Certainly Maximus was faithful, but reading now with the benefit of time the ideas he suffered for, one can ask: how relevant are they really? The Christological controversies that led so many to slaughter and suffering (including St. Maximus), besides instructing us on the unholy alliance of Christianity and state power, seem completely insane in retrospect when we consider the survival of rivaling Christologies in other apostolic churches, without any appreciable loss in faithfulness or tradition – such as the Coptic or the Ethiopian. And what was the source of all this controversy? Nothing more, and nothing less, than trying to square a circle: trying to fit the Biblical perspective of personality and love into abstract metaphysics of unmoved movers and ones.

Craftsmen and scientists need to be told that just because they can make it or build it, it does not mean they should. Kings and politicians need to be told that just because they can persuade or conquer, it does not mean it’s good. But who is going to tell the intellectuals – who are always wordsmiths – that just because they can think it and put it into words it does not mean it is true? Other wordsmiths are needed, but they are usually found precisely among intellectuals, so the cycle continues and rarely are they challenged. So our simplification has a point. Ideas are not neural. As Richard Weaver’s famous title says, very rightly: ideas have consequences. Good and bad. And the metaphysics of the One can only yield an anthropology of zero. And if this sounds like binary code, giving off a vague cybernetic feel and an ominous transhuman vibe, it is no coincidence. This is how metaphysics is important: not just a mental exercise, but something which gives form and purpose to our living - and by extension to society as a whole. And the metaphysics of our society are anything if anti-human. The One poses no threat at all to this: in fact, it provides the veneer of spirituality without challenging at all the basic intentions and positions of the Machine. For both the One and the Machine, the human is of no importance whatsoever. And with it, not only all that is natural, but all moral values. It shouldn’t be a surprise that for a metaphysics where formlessness is the highest, forms are ultimately irrelevant, everything other than the One is ultimately illusory, Good and Evil are ultimately relative. If everything comes from and goes back to the One, then there is no reason to do anything, nor any reason to prevent anyone from doing it.

All the schools of abstract theology, including the Christian – which is really, in the end, Plotinian – advance very sophisticated arguments for a ‘ground of being’, ‘being as such’, etc. We could go through the famous list of twenty-four thesis and knock ourselves out, but it is not necessary. They are twenty-four ways of saying the same thing, and we all know – or rather, cannot know – what it is. We can know, however, that it should be, indeed, an It. We must admit that the abstractions are very reasonable because well-reasoned; they satisfy a certain necessity of the intellect to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’. It turns out, however, that only negation can do the job – hence, in the end, rather than dotting the ‘i’ and crossing the ‘t’, one must eliminate ‘i’ and ‘t' all together. The measurement problem that was recently recognized in modern science, in which the scientist does not consider himself part of the picture and hence misses something not only important but essential is equally, if not even more, stark in the case of The One. The question could be put this way: can one pray to this impersonal absolute? Can one love such a ‘One’? This ‘thing’ that exists only in itself, that is totally self-sufficient, totally other, utterly incomprehensible and inaccessible (except, one is told, by an abstract wordplay of denials) – this ‘One’ – has no need for prayers and will not respond. Even hearing them would be an addition to It, and hence make it less than the utterly ‘alone’. This Absolute has no need of anyone or anything. It couldn’t care less about human beings, or the Earth, or anything. If such indeed is ‘the highest’, then it is too high and no human can really concern himself with it. The mere contact with it, if it were possible, would instantly annihilate us – we would be absorbed, quite simply. Some, of course, not only assert this but desire it; once again, regardless of sophistication, new agers and metaphysicians find common ground. And once more, this was congruent for Plotinus, and it is for ‘new agers’ - those who are by default unmoored from any myth and any revelation - but it is not for a Christian - or a pagan, for that matter, at least the kind of pagan who knows and believes the stories of his gods, not the kind of ‘pagan’ who is a metaphysician.

The traditional solution to this conundrum is to say that ‘the Good cannot but radiate’. This, of course, helps to explain our existence and give it, at least, a partial meaning. But, as we said previously, even calling the One ‘the Good’ is a jump in logic – it is assumed, but it does not follow necessarily; in fact, unless we change the definition of Good to include both Good and Evil (which is certainly done in very high metaphysics, although they call it ‘transcend’ rather than ‘include’). If we don’t take such a step it is, in fact, an expression of that very sentimentality that all intellectuals are so eager to either ignore, deny or get rid of. For Christians, who wanted to bridge the gap, it was a welcome addition to see the One as also the Good. But the problem lay elsewhere for Christians: this ‘radiation’ made Creation, including humans, akin to a bowel movement – an automatic process of this impersonal absolute – no more loving than a sneeze. Besides, forced to keep the Bible somewhere in their conception, it was impossible to accept this basic emanation theory along with the impersonal absolute. For the ‘I AM’ speaks of full personality (and then of full relationship to the Hebrews specifically), not of impersonal absoluteness and general indifference. And the Creation story (in fact all Creation stories) speak of purpose, not of automatic flowing. For some reason, metaphysicians tend to believe that this automatism is somehow superior to purposeful action, and so they never really abandon it, even when they are Christian. One can read Aquinas, for example, still trying to square the circle – and using the word emanation and creation in the same sentence, saying the one is the same as the other ultimately: the perennial tension between personal mythopoetics and impersonal metaphysics. In the end, as we know, Aquinas said his writings were ‘all as straw’. One wonders if a simple country mystic is not superior by going straight to setting fire to the straw, producing light and warmth, instead of building voluminous bales that won’t even feed horses.

And so, for Christians, another solution was needed, one that afforded purpose in Creation. Abandoning the One, the impersonal Absolute, however, was out of the question. Instead of saving the appearances, metaphysicians always tend to condemn them and save their assumptions. But how to reconcile purpose, which is a personal consideration and volition, with the impersonal absolute One? The answer was twofold, one part regarding God and the other regarding Creation. Let’s start with God. The initial problem was Jesus - He proved to be just as much a nuisance to authorities in life as in death, and by His very existence. If Jesus was also God, then there would be two Gods (at least): Father and Son. The testimony of the Hebrew scriptures was, furthermore, completely ignored: for it clearly spoke of various gods (Elohim) as much as it spoke of a Most High (Elyon) as well as of a specific Yahweh, God of Israel. But still, ignoring the Hebrew Scriptures alone didn’t solve the problem. Reconciling the One with the obvious Two of the Gospels (Father and Son) still proved a challenge. For some, it was the Arian and later Islamic solution: there is only one God, and Jesus, no matter how holy, is not God. So a strange contraption called the Trinity was conceived – or rather, adapted. Because, once more, the origin of the idea was Plotinus. One God in three Persons – allowing Christians to eat their cake and have it too. Or rather, to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of God and have an impersonal and bodiless God too. Hard to stomach, if you ask me.

If you put aside your affiliations, what you are supposed to believe as part of this or that church, even ‘the One True Church’, it is rather confusing and sophistic, wouldn’t you agree? I forget who it was, but wasn’t there a Church Father who admitted that ‘no one understands the Trinity’? If we could just discard Plotinus, and the absolute necessity of One, we could read Jesus’ words and actually make sense of them - in the very plain and direct meaning they have. This does not mean they do not contain multitudes of meanings - it just means we don’t destroy the plain and direct, but rather, rise from there - from those roots in deep earth into the highest heaven. But instead, the schoolmen severed those very roots and assumed it must mean something totally different.

We shall not even venture in this text into the very problematic area of pneumatology, for it is clear again in the Gospels (not to mention the Hebrew Scriptures) that the Holy Spirit is something quite different in nature from Father and Son – but we shall leave that heretical exploration for another time. Let’s just say for now that the filioque was not radical enough, but at least it went in the right direction. Here we shall focus on the fact that the solution of having the Father be the impersonal One doesn’t square at all with the circle of the Gospels. Yet, this was the ‘solution’ needed to fit the Scriptures into Plotinus – and may we say, furthermore, that many ‘apocryphal’ texts have been brushed aside precisely because they could not fit this Hellenic straight-jacket?

In the conventional picture, Jesus is not so much a savior and a healer with a specific mission, but an intermediary between humanity and the absolute non-being – though I feel inclined to call it absolute non-sense. The implications, however, do not stop there - with the Son and His mission - because this need for squaring abstraction into the circle of divine personality also affects the way we see the Father. Rather than being the loving creator, the Most High, the Father becomes both the impersonal absolute and a personal tyrant, Jesus then taming the wrath of this at once impersonal and personal whatever. How far is this from the picture Jesus gives us? Yet this is the gymnastics necessary to fit two things which are poles apart, never to meet. Tertullian famously said ‘what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’, but this was unfair for it’s not Athens as a whole: the mythopoetic view also had a foothold there once until Aristotle definitely killed it at least among intellectuals (we can still hear echoes of it in Plato); and so did the abstraction had a foothold among the Hebrews, though always tempered by the firmness of the Scriptures and their claim to direct, Divine, inspiration (a testimony to the importance of putting Revelation, rather than unmoored intuition, first). If we just cast the ‘oneness’ assumptions aside, however, the Gospels actually make sense and we do no violence to the text. If we don’t, we end up with an incomprehensible and nonsensical mess - and miss the mission of the Son and the character of the Father.

All this, of course, had to be tied with Creation somehow. The solution was again more saving of assumptions instead of appearances: Creation Ex Nihilo. The Hebrew word translated as ‘Creation’ in Genesis means more properly to ‘Shape’ or ‘Organize’. But this did not square with the impersonal absolute, for only It truly Is – hence there couldn’t be anything to Shape or Organize. Rather, as the Plotinians have it, it emanated from it. Normally this would mean a Creation, not Ex Nihilo, but Ex Deo et in Deo – out of Itself and in Itself. But this raised yet another problem that, for one reason or another, Christian writers were very interested in: the separation between Nature and Supernature. In short, if Ex Deo et in Deo – which makes sense given the premise of the One – then everything takes place in God and this made Creation, even if not arbitrary (‘arbitrium’ means choice, and implies purpose), irrelevant. And with this irrelevancy, it made Jesus irrelevant as well. So the solution, as it would become the norm for high Christian theology, was to posit something that is neither coherent with Hebrew revelation nor with Hellenic metaphysics, to the point that in the end it is simply declared ‘a mystery’. You may not want to call it so, but it is a cope. If you can’t explain it, or it doesn’t make sense, call it ‘a mystery’ (doing violence to the very important meaning the word once had). This is both the case for trinitarian formulations and ex nihilo. Is it any wonder that, in the post-Christian West, now that everyone has seen the failure and started to ask questions, many flock to Hellenistic metaphysics undefiled by Christian additions? It is certainly more reasonable, since the Plotinian worldview makes Jesus (and especially the Resurrection) completely irrelevant, if not offensive. Crucifying the flesh is fine. Resurrecting it is to deny the oneness and absoluteness of the Absolute One.

If Jesus tells us that ‘we shall know them by their fruits’ then the score is not so great for these two doctrines, which satisfy neither the head nor the heart. But it’s not all bad news, because the fact is that outside of strict theology, no Christian has really believed or acted as if he believed them - nor could they, if they are to pray and act morally. This is true for trinitarianism, so much so that schisms were frequent on the basis of these nuances alone, but perhaps even more for Ex Nihilo Creation – and you will perhaps recall, or learn, that the Early Fathers weren’t totally sure on either, to say the least (and unsurprisingly, the fitting of squares into circles was still in its infancy). More tragically and despicably, some, Origen first and foremost, were even posthumously condemned for not affirming what was only later formulated. Talk about pettiness.

The fact that these two doctrines yielded so much ugliness, persecution and schism is not surprising however because the two are related. The Muslims, for example, adhering logically to the One (without a second, not even a second that is also one, like Jesus), can say that ‘God was a hidden treasure that desired to be known’. Hence, purposeful Creation but also a radically other, totally separate sphere. But for Trinitarianism this could not be, because the conception already includes this knowing within the trinity. So there would be no need for something else.

If we contemplate the trinity as conceived by the Hellenistic theologians we see that it pushes the question of automatism to the very heart of the godhead. So not only is Creation now a bowel movement, but the Second Person is too, and so is the Holy Spirit. What is called perichoresis, which now to our ears sounds impressive and profound, is really the automatic outpouring from Father to Son and Spirit. This may make some kind of intellectual sense – and how could it not, when it comes from a powerful intellect like Plotinus – but the implications are dire. Maybe they could not be seen at the time, but they can now when automatism, which is the essence of the Machine, is the very threat of the modern world and the outstripping of all personality and humanity. But besides this very real threat in our time, and despite being intellectually satisfying, it does not square with the testimony of Jesus (have you noticed, by the way, that among dogmatic Christians there is a tendency to use Christ, a title, rather than the name of the person, Jesus? It is no coincidence, since denying personality in the godhead is paramount to make the system work). Why would Jesus cry out in the cross ‘Father why have you forsaken me?’. Is He talking to Himself? It makes Jesus into some kind of schizophrenic (once more playing into one more trap of modernity – psychologism). Even asking these questions could once send you to the fire (or worse). But now maybe only the fire of social media, but unsurprisingly, avoiding such a simple question - or answering it in the unsatisfyingly ‘mysterious’ way, just pushes people away from the message and mission of the Son and the loving knowledge of the Father. The words of Jesus make no sense even within the subordinationist (which is the original Plotinian view and that was eventually condemned – probably because it wasn’t confusing enough) – a view in which, given the popularity and affinity of Vedantic and Plotinian conceptions, the Father is Nirguna Brahman, the Son is Saguna Brahman and the Spirit is the Om. Given the popularity of Hindu terms both among the New Age and the New Metaphysicians, it is relevant to mention them.

But it makes even less sense within the conventional trinitarian view – because if there really is perichoresis then the Father could never forsake the Son, nor the Son feel forsaken (we give one example but could give many others from the Gospels). The only solution would be that the Father forsook the human side – but here again another expedient dogma comes in: Jesus is both Divine and Human all the time and since forever but also always the Second Person of the Trinity. So the Father cannot forsake just the human side. If we can say something is that conventional Christian theology is very carefully constructed, a marvel of intellect – reaching its apex in Aquinas (you know, the one who in the end thought it all straw). What it does not do, however, is take the Revelation seriously. Its God, really and in the end, is neither Father, nor Son nor Spirit, but in fact The One, the Nous and the Psyche – it always goes back to St. Plotinus. This jumble of abstractions really does not deserve the name of God, and that is why neither Plotinus nor the Vedantists really give it this name, except colloquially and rarely. The ‘god of the philosophers’ is really a container for all irreducible infinities. Being, Eternity, Power, etc. All of them abstractions. It is, in the end, nothing more than the unmoved mover. We can conceive of such, of course; that is not difficult. But it is impossible to Love as it is impossible that it is Love – because Love not only moves but is moved. And both Father and Son are clearly moved, and not only movers.

This collection of necessities that is ‘the One’ demands the questions, at least of Christians: Is it worshipable? Can you pray to it? Will it hear you? Does it care? All these questions are preposterous (in the very etymological sense of ‘putting the cart before the horse – or in this case, putting abstraction in front of what can be known directly). At every turn we see in the Scriptures (and not just the Hebrew and Christian ones) purpose, intention and personality. So does that mean that they are limited? Yes. Personality is itself limitation and this reveals to us that the worship of the impersonal absolute is really a worship of power rather than the worship of love. Still, it was perhaps possible to conceive of the Most High as the unknown God before Jesus. Wasn’t this what St. Paul preached? Yet that very same story reveals a much ignored facet: Paul was incredibly unsuccessful preaching the knowing of the unknown God. His philosophical rigmarole convinced no one and after that Paul understood he had to preach ‘Christ crucified’ (the famous stumblingblock and foolishness). This is because after Jesus the unknown God is no longer unknown or unknowable, if it ever was. Such a ‘god’, if there is such, is a giant container of infinities, which at best serves to entertain intellectuals and at worst to distract us from loving relationships with all that is alive and personal both above and below. This is yet another obfuscation of trinitarian theology: the Yahweh of the Old Testament is not the Trinity, nor the Father, but the Son. This, along with answering some questions about the morality of the Old Testament, and the questions regarding what Jesus gained by and from the Incarnation, answers yet another question regarding the mission of Jesus with regards to us: not to reveal the nature of the Son, not to reveal the nature of Man, but to reveal the nature of the Father. Isn’t this, furthermore, what He Himself tells us repeatedly?

Yet, the problem for the mind remains: if God is limited, then does God have a God? What of the infinities, the categories? Is there infinite regression so that the Father we must worship Himself worships another or something? Does He worship the infinities of the One? This question, as you might have guessed, cannot be answered definitively. Two choices, however, present themselves, and both are equally logical: to admit these infinities as real but separate, impersonal realities; or to put all necessity and absoluteness into God. But let us be clear: the second really contradicts the Revelation in its most basic senses; and takes all Freedom from both the Father and all other beings.

All this may sound academic but it most certainly is not: it is fundamental for our lives, especially in these times of the end. We must decide where to cast our vote – and to do this we must acknowledge free will, which cannot be really free unless it is uncreated, co-eternal with the Most High. To take seriously the Absolute One we end up in the same voluntarism of fanatics through the backdoor – since absolutely everything is contingent on It. I choose to believe – and it is a choice! – in eternal principles – Truth, Goodness, Beauty – but these principles are not individual nor personal unless embodied (by Jesus, for example); and separately, I choose to believe in a God that is a God, not because He has no choice in the matter but because He adheres perfectly to these principles and wants us to learn to do the same. If the Father is the Absolute One, to ‘be perfect like the Father is perfect’ is to cease to exist at all, and it does not seem like this was what Jesus meant, if nothing else because He Himself would cease to have any existence. The conclusion seems obvious: these absolute principles and infinities cannot and should not be worshiped. To worship is ‘to become like’ and to adore is to ‘speak to’ – and neither is applicable to the Absolute One which contains all these principles.

One way to clearly understand the problem is that these concepts which the mind demands cannot be clearly expressed in language. Consider ‘infinite’ – do you see it? It is ‘finite’ with a prefix to indicate its opposite. The only way for us to conceive it is to relate it to what we actually know – and that is finitude, delimitation. Consider ‘timeless’ – is it not the same trick except this time with a suffix? There’s time and then you add another word and magically it is augmented (or is it rather erased?). At this point it would seem we are vindicating the need for ‘negative theology’, but in fact we are merely making the point that it is all mere wordplay, no matter how clever. One can make a treatise on this easily (and many have), the composition being good if it is well written. I confess the Areopagite wrote very well, he was a poet. But what indeed is he telling us? In the end, nothing at all (that really is the end of negative theology – the nothingness). These infinities and timelessnesses can easily be imputed to a single container, God, or rather The One. And not only at the level of negation: consider the famous ternary: Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence. Don’t you see the trick? We know what presence, knowledge and power are. So, given our assumptions, we add omni (meaning ‘all’) and ascribe it to this thing we call the One and that some, mistakenly, call God – and some even more mistakenly call Father. I suppose it fills a certain necessity for completion, but we can not pretend it does not create its own problems. The implications, in fact, are monstruous – yet they are at the level that we, in metaphysical flight like Icarus, abandoned: morality, freedom, theodicy. The problem of Evil and Pain really tears it to pieces right away, leaving us a stark choice between a Loving and Limited God, or a both tyrannical and indifferent One. Free Will is obliterated – and with it the meaning of Life and the possibility of True Love. It is no surprise that this abstracting flight takes us away (‘abstract’ means just that) from this life, from our very humanity. And there is yet another level from which it takes us away: Revelation, of Nature and Supernature. In the primary myths of all human groups we find no ‘god of the philosophers’. It only appears as later commentaries, when the necessities of reasoning bring it forth. These necessities are not wrong or sinful. The tragic turn is to input these abstractions to a single being – or rather ‘beyond being’ – who ceases to be relatable when we do.

In the end, we must choose between a 'god' of prefixes and suffixes, and the God of Love.