John D. Brey
Well-Known Member
When discussing metaphysics, many people don't understand that whereas in physics (as opposed to metaphysics), you have a referent and something that references it (the word "apple" is the reference for the referent: that red fruit sitting there on the table), in metaphysics you don't have the same duality between reference and referent.
In normal communication a word references a referent: "apple" references a red fruit that's the referent in the natural duality between reference and referent. -----But in metaphysics, in this case theology, the referent, the spiritual entity, God, or some theological concept, has no physical reality, like the apple does, so that when we speak of "God," we're not able to legitimately assume that the reference "God" has a physical referent, like the word "apple" has a physical referent. The non-Jewish mind is unintelligent or sloppy concerning such things so that even though there's no physical referent "God" that the word "God" references, that fact doesn't stop the non-Jewish mind from thinking of God as an immaterial referent whose non-physicality in no way damages the natural duality between reference and referent.
The miracle of the Jewish mind is its ability to understand that God's immateriality is not just absent physicality . . . as though that deficiency is minor (kind of an immaterial materiality) but to realize that if there's no materiality, then there's no dualistic relationship between the reference, and the referent, and thus no mediatable space between the two.
In Greek/Christian thought, you have referent, reference, and subject. The reference is the mediator between the subject and the referent. A word is a mediator between the subject, and the referent. If I want to tell someone I ate an "apple" I don't have to get a physical apple and take a bite in front of them. I can use the reference "apple" (the word) as mediator for the referent, the apple, when addressing a subject (my interlocutor). Judaism somehow came to intuit that in metaphysics this trinity of referent, reference, subject, breaks down. You can't do metaphysics the way you do physics, you can't speak of God, the way you speak of an apple, merely by positing that God is immaterial.
The Greeks and the Christians merely use the word "immaterial" as a bandage over a chasm the Jews, before anyone else, and singularly, appreciated as not something that can be handled in such a shallow and muddleheaded way. Jews, miraculously, intuited the genuine issues involved in the distinction between a material, pagan, idol, God, and the actual monotheistic God who is the creator of the physical world.
The rest of the world, Greek and Christian, merely paper over a distinction they don't even appreciate, such that for these, Jesus is the mediator between the subject, the Church, and the immaterial Father, who is out there somewhere watching us.
Judaism is completely correct that Jesus cannot be a mediator in the sense that Greek Christianity makes him a mediator. That kind of mediation is pagan, and doesn't even participate in the most magnificent insight given to humanity, through Judaism, that in metaphysics, the trinity of reference, referent, and subject, is a facade, a chimera, and a demonic ruse, generating misunderstanding toward, hatred for, and violence against, the only people who got it right from the get go.
John
In normal communication a word references a referent: "apple" references a red fruit that's the referent in the natural duality between reference and referent. -----But in metaphysics, in this case theology, the referent, the spiritual entity, God, or some theological concept, has no physical reality, like the apple does, so that when we speak of "God," we're not able to legitimately assume that the reference "God" has a physical referent, like the word "apple" has a physical referent. The non-Jewish mind is unintelligent or sloppy concerning such things so that even though there's no physical referent "God" that the word "God" references, that fact doesn't stop the non-Jewish mind from thinking of God as an immaterial referent whose non-physicality in no way damages the natural duality between reference and referent.
The miracle of the Jewish mind is its ability to understand that God's immateriality is not just absent physicality . . . as though that deficiency is minor (kind of an immaterial materiality) but to realize that if there's no materiality, then there's no dualistic relationship between the reference, and the referent, and thus no mediatable space between the two.
In Greek/Christian thought, you have referent, reference, and subject. The reference is the mediator between the subject and the referent. A word is a mediator between the subject, and the referent. If I want to tell someone I ate an "apple" I don't have to get a physical apple and take a bite in front of them. I can use the reference "apple" (the word) as mediator for the referent, the apple, when addressing a subject (my interlocutor). Judaism somehow came to intuit that in metaphysics this trinity of referent, reference, subject, breaks down. You can't do metaphysics the way you do physics, you can't speak of God, the way you speak of an apple, merely by positing that God is immaterial.
The Greeks and the Christians merely use the word "immaterial" as a bandage over a chasm the Jews, before anyone else, and singularly, appreciated as not something that can be handled in such a shallow and muddleheaded way. Jews, miraculously, intuited the genuine issues involved in the distinction between a material, pagan, idol, God, and the actual monotheistic God who is the creator of the physical world.
The rest of the world, Greek and Christian, merely paper over a distinction they don't even appreciate, such that for these, Jesus is the mediator between the subject, the Church, and the immaterial Father, who is out there somewhere watching us.
Judaism is completely correct that Jesus cannot be a mediator in the sense that Greek Christianity makes him a mediator. That kind of mediation is pagan, and doesn't even participate in the most magnificent insight given to humanity, through Judaism, that in metaphysics, the trinity of reference, referent, and subject, is a facade, a chimera, and a demonic ruse, generating misunderstanding toward, hatred for, and violence against, the only people who got it right from the get go.
John
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