The Omen (2006)

Exactly 30 years after The Omen (1976), The Omen (2006) was released. An older boy plays Damien in the remake, which means that the actor is capable of acting facial expression-reactions; even so, what really distinguishes the remake as having more depth than the original film is the explicit use of a poem that undergirds the veracity of the narrative—that Damien as indeed been sent by his father, Satan, to usher in the apocalypse in a way that will fill hell with human souls. The poem is a Christian prophesy that functions in the film’s narrative as a thread. I contend that the poem partakes of several domains, rather than being exclusively religious in nature, and thus “muddies the water” in terms of answering the question of how the religious domain is distinctive, rather than to be read psychologically, historically, or scientifically.

The full essay is at "The Omen (2006)."

Russian Patriarch Kirill: A Case of Religion Overreaching

The political separation of “Church and State” in U.S. constitutional law, a doctrine that is of jurisprudence (judicial decision) rather than theology and thus does not straddle and therefore demarcate the political and religious domains as qualitatively distinct from a neutral standpoint. Furthermore, the question of what makes the religious domain distinct (and unique) from all others is the pole from which a religious functionary’s (or religionist) leap into the political garden from the Garden of Eden can be detected. The trouble worsens if the criteria from one domain in imposed and overlaid in the overreaching into another domain, as if the criteria that is determinative in one domain were valid in another. In fact, the eclipsing itself of the other’s own criteria on their own “turf” is unethical. The legitimate sovereignty of a domain’s own criteria in that domain over criteria indigenous to other domains yet superimposed renders any supervening overreaching as both erroneous—as in going off-sides in football (soccer)—and unethical because the criteria indigenous to a given domain should not be disrespected within their own domain. In other words, encroaching is presumptuous. If these ideas strike the reader as novel, even strange perhaps, then I am keeping within the confines of my mission in writing, as I look to a new dawn in which the ideational tyranny of hitherto reigning yet questionable assumptions ist zerstört because they have been discredited, which is not to say that every extant assumption should be eviscerated and expunged for lack of substance. Unfortunately, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, went out on a tree limb, far from his religious tree’s trunk, by formulating and spreading “revisionist propaganda to justify the war in Ukraine” while the invasion was underway.[1] The history and legitimacy of a bygone Russian empire (not the U.S.S.R.) properly belong to the political rather than to the religious domain. Being schooled in theology does not give even a high religious functionary the knowledge on which to presume to be an expert in political history and international relations. The resentment in the E.U. and U.S. at the patriarch’s intrusion into a domain that is not an extension of the religious domain was not merely from opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also from an intuitive sense that the domains of religion/theology and politics/government are distinct and thus require different knowledge-sets and have their own respective criteria and distinctiveness.

In late June, 2026, agreement in the E.U. on “the 21^st package of European Union sanctions against Russia” remained “mired in difficult, with multiple obstacles and the public threat” of a veto by the E.U. state of Bulgaria in the European Council, where the proposed law had to pass unanimously or else fail to be enacted.[2] Bulgaria’s governor, Rumen Radev, “publicly announced his opposition to sanctioning Patriarch Kirill” with “a travel ban and an asset freeze.”[3] Both the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church “belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, share the same faith and dogma, and are bound by cultural and historical ties.”[4] Radev’s rational is political rather than theological, however, as would be the proposed sanctions against the patriarch, who had overstepped from the theological onto the political domain in justifying the Russian government’s war even if he drew on theological doctrines in making the political statement on the war. Had Kirill restrained himself to “coloring within the lines” of theology proper, he would not have been vulnerable in the political domain.

Especially in Christianity, where Christ’s preachment, give what is Caesar’s unto Caesar, is a salient reminder that distinctively religious transcendence does not bother with politics, Kirill’s political ideology can be likened in the Gospels to the Jewish Zealots whose cause Jesus does not take up because that political movement is antipodal to  the religious preachment to love thy enemy. It is fitting, therefore, that Pope Leo had recently been implicitly invalidated even Catholic just-war “theory” by stating that Jesus would not be in favor of fighting in any war. From the perspective of the political domain, Jesus of the Gospels may appear, at a distance, as a mystic whose teachings pertain to a kingdom not of this world. This is not to say that a distinctly religious message cannot have political implications, even dire ones, as per Jesus in the Gospel narratives, but to say that something that is in one distinct domain has an effect in another domain is not to say that the “something” is in the other domain. Kirill went into the political domain in formulating and spreading pro-war propaganda and thus lost hold of that which makes the religious domain unique and distinctive. In other words, he went too far out on a branch and fell into another property without bothering to acknowledge that he was then in another, qualitatively different domain with its own criteria.

Crucially, the political domain is based on this realm, whereas, as Pseudo-Dionysius wrote, the divine transcends the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility (emotion). Whereas the political domain is compatible with humanism, religious transcendence, having a transcendent reference point (e.g., God), is not based in, and thus limited to our realm, which is in the principle of possibility within the limits of human conception, perception, and sensibility. The two domains—the political and the religious—are thus qualitatively different. To remake the latter too much of this realm is to deny the radical transcendence that renders the religious domain unique. In depicting the Kingdom of God in overt political terms wherein social, economic, and political inequalities are treated as the problem and the Kingdom as a particular political-economic system, or structure, Liberation Theology risks denying the distinctly religious transcendence that is in the kingdom preached by Jesus in the Gospels. No where in those stories does Jesus design an equitable economic system, for his Father’s kingdom is of the heart rather than political economy. Similarly, Jesus does not justify the Roman, or any other empire, for his orientation is to reverting hearts back to God. Kirill’s attempt to justify the Russian empire from a Christian standpoint can thus be regarded not only as dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary, but also besides the point, lying in another domain of human experience.

At a basic level, the religious domain can be said to be unique, and thus distinct from other domains qualitatively rather than just by degrees of difference, because of the transcendent basis that is not based within our realm wherein we think, perceive, and feel. The experience of religious transcendence is thus unique. Kirill strayed from this by climbing so far out on a tree branch (limb) that he fell into someone else’s yard and started telling the people there how their game is properly to be played. Any player in the indigenous group there could not be blamed for exclaiming to the prelate, Excuse me? You don’t know how to play our game because it is taught only here, not where you come from. You are off-sides.

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Oil, Cod, Kirill: Friction Points Emerge in New E.U. Sanctions Against Russia,” Euronews.com, 26 June, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The Mephisto Waltz

In a retelling of the proverbial Faustian deal with the devil, The Mephisto Waltz (1971) plays out with the deal paying off, as Duncan Ely is able to live on in the body of Myles Clarkson. It doesn’t hurt that Ely is a master pianist and Clarkson has long, spry fingers (and that he has a beautiful wife, Paula). Even so, both Paula and the Clarkson’s daughter stand in the way of Duncan being able to get back to his own wife, and the film ends with Paula making her own deal with the devil so she can live on even though Duncan (and his wife) have already set about her demise. Because Duncan’s “after-life” transition is successful and even Paula, who has been opposing Duncan’s possession of Myles, ends up turning to the devil, the lesson of the film, Faust (1926) is effectively debunked. Besides The Mephisto Waltz, that God does not smite every case of injustice in the world—the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in the 2020s being a vivid and blatant example—may even further instigate interest in Faustian deals with the devil, even though that entity is known to be deceiver and thus not to be trusted. The allure of selfish gain can be worthwhile nonetheless for some people. For Duncan Ely, being able to go on living and gain even more fame as a performing pianist is worth the gamble, and it pays off. The medium of film is an excellent means of presenting the religious level, which is distinct yet interacts with the ordinary world that anchors the film.

The full essay is at "The Mephisto Waltz."

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist

Decades before dying while doing battle with the demon possessing Regan NacNeil in The Exorcist (1973), Rev. Lankester Merrin successfully extracts the same demon from a young man in Kenya. An African chief (or medicine man) tells Merrin at the end of Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) that he has made a rather bad enemy of the demon, which was not done with the priest. We know from The Exorcist that the demon will eventually kill the priest, but that is by no means the final word on a distinctively religious battle because in that domain, the human soul is eternal rather than necessarily tethered to a corporeal body. It is important, moreover, not to reduce religion to one of its aspects, or, even worse, to the stuff of any other domain, including the supernatural. Dominion reduces Christianity to one belief-claim and relies on supernaturalism to validate the religious phenomena in the film.

The full essay is at "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist."

The Vatican Tapes

After The Omen (1976), which was released just two years after the sardonic U.S. President, Richard Nixon, had resigned in utter disgrace from the presidency amid much economic and political pessimism in the 1970s generally, moviemakers got busy on stories involving demon-possession. The 2015 film, The Vatican Tapes, begins as an apparent demon-possession case and thus seems not to stand out among other such films, but towards the end of the film, when the demon-possessed young woman suddenly breaches the bounds of the sort of supernatural feats of which demons are capable, the true significance of her case emerges with stunning clarity. For that which possesses and kills the young woman is none other than the Anti-Christ, and that figure is in a wholly different league than demons.

The full essay is at "The Vatican Tapes."

Religious Liturgy and the Wholly Other

In the Zhuangzi, how can Zhuangzi possibly know that the fish are happy? To know what it is like to be a bat, a person must be a bat. This is not to say that we disagree with bats. Sonar represents the “sheer otherness” of a bat. In Christianity, how does eternal joy and bliss differ from happiness? Happiness is not a theological concept. There are different kinds of experience, and it follows that they have different kinds of truth-claims. To treat every such claim as the same kind of thing is premised on conflating domains of human experience that are qualitatively different. I contend that the domain of religion is both distinct and unique. Our ordinary ways of describing the world and even ourselves are not well-suited to our endeavors in the domain of religion.

The full essay is at "Religious Liturgy and the Wholly Other."

The Physician: Medical Science and God

In the 11^th century, Christians were not welcome in Persia, so in the film, The Physician (2013), Rob Cole, a Christian, pretends to be Jewish in order to travel from Western Europe to study at the medical school of Ibn Sina, a famous physician in Isfahan. He eventually reveals his religion as that of “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” when he is on trial before the local imam. The Jews there doubtlessly feel used and betrayed. As interesting as interreligious controversy can be, I contend that the nature of Cole’s crime is more significant from the standpoint of religion itself. In short, the film illustrates what bad effects are likely to come from committing a category mistake with respect to religion and another domain. Whether conflating distinct domains or erasing the boundary between them, category mistakes had diminished the credibility of religion as being over-reaching by the time that the film was made. As for the matter of interreligious differences, the sheer pettiness by which the three Abrahamic religions that share the same deity have made mole hills into untraversable mountains is hardly worthy of attention, whereas that which makes religion as a domain of phenomena unique and thus distinct from other, even related domains, is in need of further work. The film could have done more in this regard.

The full essay is at "The Physician." 

On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita

In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna reveals his real form to Arjuna. The chapter seems like a departure from the surrounding chapters, which focus on bhukti (i.e., devotion to Krishna). For example, in chapter 9, Krishna gives Arjuna the following imperative: “Always think of Me and become my devotee.” Unlike seeing the deity as he really is, sincere devotion to that which is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion is possible without being given “divine eyes.” The metaphysically, ontologically real is an attention-getter in the text, but it is the devotion, or bhukti, that is more important from a practical standpoint. Even theologically, the experience of transcendence, of which the human brain is capable, can be said to be more important than “seeing” divinity as it really is because the latter, unlike the former, lies beyond our grasp. In fact, seeing Krishna as he really exists is not necessary, for in chapter 10, Krishna says, “Here are some ways you can recognize and think of Me in the things around you [in the world].” This is yet another reason why the devotion rather than seeing Krishna as he really is, ontologically, should be the attention-getter in the Gita.

A movie focusing on chapter 11 would highlight special effects, and indeed at least one does this to gaudy excess, whereas a movie based on the compassion of Krishna and devotion of Arjuna would be a melodrama, at least if Ramakrishna, a Hindu mystic who lived in the nineteenth century, is any indication. His devotion was so intense that a guru allowed Ramakrishna to perform ritual as he intuited. I contend that this, rather than hoping to see the divine as it really is, ought to be the goal of a religious person.

Benkata Bhatta, speaking at a Bhakti Yoga Conference in 2025, asked why, given that Krishna tells Arjuna when he is seeing Krishna as the deity really is, “Now see for yourself how everything in creation is within Me,” why does Arjuna request to see Krishna as the deity really is? Bhatta’s answer was that we are visual creatures. Hence, Jesus says in the Gospels, blessed are those who do not see me yet believe. Yet even in the case of Jesus, the incarnated Logos, he is not seen by even his disciples as the Word itself, by which God created the world. In contrast, Krishna is giving Arjuna a way of accessing something that is already there in front of us, only Arjuna needs divine eyes to see Krishna as the deity really is. Just before revealing Himself, Krishna tells Arjuna, “but you cannot see Me with our present eyes. Therefore, I give you divine eyes.” Although Jesus’s disciples do not see Jesus as the Logos, they do not need divine eyes to see Jesus ascending to heaven as resurrected. The resurrected body is itself at least how the incarnated Logos really is, even if it does not show the Logos as it is before being incarnated by God’s self-emptying, or lowering, of itself. Paul’s vision of Jesus, as well as that of the disciples when they see Jesus next to Elijah and Moses, can also be said to be transcendent and thus as Jesus really is, as incarnated. Nevertheless, it can be argued that seeing the Logos as it really is, sans being incarnated, requires “divine eyes.”

In his talk, Bhatta said that vision defies enumeration, and is brighter than “hundreds of thousands of suns.” All living being. No beginning, middle or end; without limit or boundaries. How can this be encapsulated in the vision?  A person would need divine eyes, which Krishna gives to Arjuna to see Krishna as that Supreme Person is. Simultaneous unity and unending multiplicity. Innumerable arms, faces, mouths, bellies, and many terrible teeth. This is, I submit, intentionally overwhelming, and this can be treated as an indication that being provided such a vision goes too far for us mere mortals.

 In The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto’s descriptors of terrifying, fancinating, mysterious pertaining to the human experience of the holy aptly describe Arjuna’s reaction to seeing Krishna. For instance, Arjuna says, “Oh great one, seeing this wondrous and terrible form. . . . Your many terrible teeth; and as they are disturbed, so am I. . . . my mind is perturbed by fear. I can no longer maintain my steadiness or equilibrium of mind.” Arjuna sees the soldiers on both sides, their heads smashed by Krishna’s teeth. He is bewildered, terrified, and humbled. “What are you?” Arjuna asks. Krishna answers, “Time (or death) I am, the great destroyer of all worlds.” This ontological basis of Krishna is the metaphysical basis of the Gita’s main ethical teaching for Arjuna, who is in a confused state ethically on whether to fight against some of his relatives on the battlefield in a civil war: death is already fated, so an instrument. Don’t worry about the ethics of killing your former teachers and even some of your relatives. Yet even as destiny exists, there is still space for free will. Arjuna can decide to walk away from the battlefield.

Arjuna calls Krishna the god of gods. Arjuna begs forgiveness for having been so informally friendly with the supreme deity. “You are my dear friend, but simultaneously you are so much greater than I am,” Arjuna now realizes. Krishna forgives Arjuna, and thus treats the latter as a friend. Arjuna says, “I am gladdened, but at the same time my mind is disturbed with fear . . .” According to Bhatta, Arjuna is grateful for being shown the divine vision, but is also afraid—too much so, in fact. The fear is making it difficult for Arjuna to love Krishna. So, Arjuna asks to see the four-armed Narayana form of Krishna. The four-arms reminds him that Krishna is the Supreme Person and yet is less terrifying. Krishna grants this wish. To encourage Arjuna, Krishna further withdraws to a two-armed human-like form. This is divinity seen as human-like, just as Jesus is the Logos in human form. Just as seeing the Logos as it is may be too terrifying for mere mortls, Arjuna tells Krishna, “Seeing this beautiful human-like form, now I am myself . . .” Krishna sympathizes with the confused warrior, saying during the vision, “this form of Mine you are now seeing is very difficult to behold. The form you are seeing you’re your transcendental eyes cannot be understood simply by studying the Vedas, or by undergoing serious penances, nor by charity, nor by worship.” Lest this line be construed as privileging the ontological vision over bhukti, Krishna goes on to say, “only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding . . .”  Krishna appears to be saying that only by bhukti can He not only be understood as he is, but also seen, thus in a way that does not require divine eyes. To be sure, Arjuna is able to see Krishna in human form (i.e., with only two arms) differently after having seen the deity as He really is, but, according to Bhatta, the source of divine power is coming down to a loving relationship with Arjuna. Even though there is admittedly a power to having a healthy kind of fear if it facilitates a fuller, personal, intimate relationship, for otherwise such a relationship may be taken for granted, seeing Krishna as He really exists is not necessary to be even intensely devoted to the deity and even understanding and seeing the deity as it really is.

Therefore, reading the Gita as if the vision in chapter 11 is the most important part may be a mistake borne in part from the sensationalism of how the vision is described in the text. The descriptors theorized by Otto, especially that of tremendum, can and should be tempered, and this can be done by focusing on loving devotion instead of a vision of a deity as it really is. It is not as if we have divine eyes, whereas devotion to a transcendent entity or object is within our purview.

Transcendence in Action in the Bhagavad-gita

Chaitanya Charan spoke at Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025 about action and transcendence in the Bhagavad-gita. Arjuna faces adversity even though he is a good. That life is suffering is a Noble Truth in Buddhism. Why noble? Even suffering can be ennobling. That life can be unfair is a given in the Gita. Getting less than we think we deserve can be from our bad karma in a previous life. So, we can’t really know what we actually deserve, so it is important to accept results. They aren’t in our control anyway, whereas our present karma is. So, the advice is to be committed to doing your best in acting, but with detachment on whatever results from the action. I contend that detachment from pride and especially arrogance goes automatically with the transcendence of detachment from not only the results of one’s actions, but also from the created realm itself, which by analogy looks smaller and smaller as the planet Earth does from a spacecraft on the way to the Moon.

Acceptance and commitment to acting lead to transcendence, spirituality goes from being an anchor to being an airplane. In terms of bhukti devotion, Krishna is the higher reality. As a person grows spiritually, the deity becomes more important and the world’s importance becomes less. Transcendence is a matter of being more oriented to “another reality” than to the world, and thus such a person might seem to be not fully “here” in conversations with other people. Differing somewhat from Charan’s interpretation of the Gita, I contend that the higher “reality” in the Gita can be understood to be a deity itself, as in bhukti devotionalism, or, as Shankara claims in his commentary on the Gita, reaching the higher reality can be thought of as an ongoing realization that a person can have that one’s self (atman) is really the very same as brahman, which is conscious, limitless, powerful, and blissful being. In bhukti (i.e., devotion to a deity), according to Charan, a deity as a higher reality that is to be the primary focus even while the person is committed to actions in the world.  Charan pointed out that bhukti devotion does not mean that a person should not be fixed on a goal, for a goal is held before acting whereas results are afterward.

In the Gita, according to Charan, Arjuna is initially perplexed. If he does not fight, disaster on the battlefield would be likely because the other side, which has unjustly cast out Arjuna and his brothers from a share in rulership, would win. If Arjuna does fight, he might kill his teachers and even one of his grandfathers. The Gita is essentially a call to action; the philosophical basis for acting is not the point in the Gita. Act, but with detachment from whatever results. Act with wisdom; act with a higher consciousness, which, means transcending attachment to things of the world to a higher realization.

Whether in being oriented to Charan’s bhukti higher reality personified as Krishna or Shankara’s impersonal brahman, that the process of transcending the world shifts a person’s orientation such that the world looks smaller and the higher reality looks larger is decisive in Charan’s view of spirituality gained from having studied and meditated on the Gita text. He did not mention, however, the compatible idea that a natural or automatic sense of humility is an important inherent byproduct of shifting (and then holding) one’s primary focus to a reference-point that is by definition, according to the Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius, beyond the limits of human thoughts, perception, and emotions. Even in the realization that one’s atman is identical to brahman, a person’s ego cannot be front and center if the reference point (i.e., brahman) is not sourced in and thus limited to the world in which we live (i.e., the created realm, whether it is created by brahman or Krishna). Being limitless is a quality of brahman. 

Human beings are so steeped in pride (i.e., the presumptions of ego, as if deserving to be on stilts during a flood) that the byproduct of having a qualitatively unique kind of orientation (i.e., in terms of religious transcendence) is crucial not only to being able to be at peace, but also for interpersonal relations to be so as well. A focus on Jesus or the kingdom of God can serve the same purpose for a Christian even without taking into account the leitmotif of humility in the Gospels. In fact, that humility is a byproduct of maintaining a transcendental orientation even while performing actions in the world and relating to other people is especially valuable precisely because intending to be humble can be such a weak motive in human nature. I suppose that relying more on a natural byproduct of a distinct kind of orientation than on an intention to have the byproduct itself as a quality may be Taoist in nature. In other words, it may be more natural to human nature to assume an orientation to a transcendent referent point or entity than it is to try to be humble, given the gravitas of the human ego.  This is not to say that valuing humility highly as a virtue is not another means by which a person can be naturally humble.

Is the Bhagavad-Gita Compromised?

Compared with Shankara’s non-dualist Advaita Vedanta theology, the Gita can be interpreted as a compromise between Shankara’s view and Vedic practices—essentially, between renunciation and ritual being done to get something. By this I do not mean to imply that the Gita is morally compromised; rather, I am using the word in the sense of reconciling different priorities and even relating seemingly disparate branches of a religion. In the Gita, Lord Krishna advises Arguna to fight in the upcoming military battle with equanimity as to the outcome, for attachment to desire and distancing pain both accrue karma, which in turn delays liberation. Prime facie, to be unconcerned with winning, or gaining economically, is morally superior to egoist pursuits. Superior to detached action may be the option not to fight or get rich at all, but instead to view the created realm as illusory and distance oneself even from being a doer or agent; earn enough to survive and otherwise try to come to know that one’s self is Brahman, which is Being itself, as conscious, bliss, and infinite. In straying from this, the Gita is not without problems.  

Firstly, Malinar describes karmayoga as “self-control through action that allows [a person] to act without experiencing any consequences.”[1] Is experiencing the right word, or is the phrase, being attached to, more accurate? In other words, does experiencing go too far? Malinar quotes from the Gita (3.7): “he who checks the senses with his mind and then practices self-control in action using his faculties of action without any attachment, he stands out.” To check or constrain one’s senses is not sufficient to sever one’s experience of external stimuli, including that which results from one’s actions; rather, the restraint both in mind and actions is enough to keep attachment at bay. Indeed, Malinar claims that the purpose of karmayoga is “acting without attachment.”[2] To be unattached is to experience without desiring precisely that which is experienced, even the consequences of one’s actions.

Secondly, Malinar claims that in chapter 3 of the Gita, “the prakrti concept of Samkhya philosophy is used to explain why ‘doing nothing’ is an illusion.”[3] In contrast, Shankara holds that action is illusory because the world is also illusory, whereas renunciation enables a person to get in touch with the reality that one’s individual atman is Brahman. Malinar appears to reject outright or relegate Shankara’s interpretation, perhaps according it breathing space only in chapter 2 of the Gita (v.s 11-38). In ch. 3, Malinar points out, Krishna demands, “’Carry out the ordained acts, since action is better than non-action,’ and he adds that ‘the journey in the body’ (sarirayatra) does not succeed without action. This extended, Samkhyistic meaning of karman remains the basis of much of the BhG.”[4] It may perhaps be countered that just because we must act while we are embodied in this world of scarcity does not mean that karmayoga is superior to jnanayoga as a means to liberation. Shankara admits that even ascetics must act that their sustenance needs are met, and, moreover, that such limited activity does not compromise the route of renunciation. Furthermore, just because the law of karma presupposes that all of us desire happiness does not mean that we all seek liberation (moksa). In fact, to the extent that seeking liberation (from suffering, karma, and even ontological illusion) is superior to seeking garden-variety happiness, it follows that the preponderance of the Gita is oriented to the inferior path simply because more readers are oriented to it. 

Thirdly, Malinar states that the verses (10-13) in chapter 3 of the Gita on the origin of the sacrifice ritual are in contrast with “the interpretation of sacrifice current among the followers of the Veda.”[5] I wonder if the dichotomy is not overdone here, for in the verses that Malinar quotes are the words, “will give you the desired enjoyments.” It is difficult to square such wording with what in the Gita is the exclusive function of religious ritualized sacrifice: “the cosmogonic function of sacrifice as being an integral part of creation.”[6] In other words, it may be difficult to fit with this function the claim that sacrifice “guarantees the prosperity of those who participate in [the ritual] through its retributive, reciprocal structure (parasparam).”[7] So too, the claim that “no mutual profit would be possible” unless “the separated spheres of gods and men meet, but are also kept apart” seems to go beyond ontology to include cattle (i.e., an increase in worldly goods, or wealth).[8] Sustaining “the order and orderliness of creation as a realm of mutual dependence and reciprocal relationships” is arguably more distinctly religious in nature than is the Vedic consequences of increased profit and wealth, for there are also non-religious ways of gaining the latter. Also, that a person should eat “the leftovers of a sacrifice”, according to ManuS as per Malinar, may imply that the intent in ritually sacrificing should not be oriented to personal gain.[9] It is not as with the ancient Greek priests who were allowed to eat the best portions of the cooked sacrificial animal rather than having to leave the best for a god or goddess, such as Zeus, Apollo, or Athena. I suspect, however, that Malinar’s choice of wealth-oriented words is merely unfortunate rather than suggestive of any such earthly consequentialism. Support for this interpretation comes from Malinar’s claim that “the performance of ritual is not primarily regarded as a way to fulfil one’s desires, but is turned into an occasion for proving one’s yogic detachment.”[10] Also, in discussing the word lokasamgraha, Malinar states that “the ultimate purpose of ritual action . . . does not serve primarily to achieve a goal or fulfil desires, but to contribute to the maintenance of cosmic order.”[11] The word primarily allows for some seepage in what otherwise would be a clear dichotomy between the sacrificial ritual as interpreted in the Gita and in the Vedic sources. In the Gita, doing one’s own (or one’s caste’s) social duty, or dharma, is not for the fruits of action, as the proper attitude is one of equanimity concerning pleasure and pain; rather, one is doing one’s part in holding the social order and primarily the cosmos together.

Fourthly, in its description of the wheel of ritual sacrifice, the Gita appears to contradict Brahman being the foundation qua being and consciousness, and even bliss in the sense that Brahman cannot be dependent on anything else, and cannot even be in relation to objects as a subject. As quoted by Milinar, the relevant passage in the Gita is, “and brahman arises from the ‘indestructible’ (aksara [the syllable Om]). Therefore the ubiquitous brahman is forever founded in the sacrifice (yajna).”[12] Prime facie, it is not clear that something that is “forever founded” arises at all. Buitenen’s explanation that the words brahman and aksara both refer to brahman, but can it really be said that being itself has two senses without having to admit that brahman is a composite? Regarding sacrifice as the foundation of brahman, Malinar points to the word, pratistha as “a ‘ground’ on which something established there can unfold and function.” Brahman depends on sacrifice to become “manifest and effective.”[13] Although the dependence is not so as to exist, as being and consciousness, to say that brahman depends on anything deprives it of its bliss and its situs as a foundation that does not even depend on creation, which, according to Shankara, is illusory anyway. It is as if brahman were already the basement floor of a house, and yet somebody would prefer to refer to whatever is below that floor as the real foundation of the house. To say that a house rests on dirt and thus it is the foundation of a house is not at all what construction contractors are referring to when they refer to the house’s foundation; typically, “laying the basement” is considered to be making the foundation. If how brahman manifests is a corruption of being rather than its foundation, then sacrifice depends on brahman, rather than vice versa. In short, to point out as Malinar does that “sacrifice is the cause of brahman” seems to go against the eternal essence of brahman.[14]

Fifthly, in the presumably causal partial series, “Creatures arise from food, food arises from rain, rain arises from sacrifice, sacrifice arises from (ordained) action (karman),”[15] two distinct kinds of relations are present. Creatures do not arise from food, and food from rain, like rain arises from sacrifice. Whereas the first two causal relations are in the domain of science, the third is religious in nature. To treat the entire (partial) series as if the links were qualitatively homogenous is to ignore the sui generis quality of the two domains involved in the series. People may be misled in supposing that rain arises from sacrifice in a scientifically causal sense, and that the role of food-stuffs in the growth of a biological organism is religious in nature. Such category mistakes can be occasioned by such conflations and the over-reaching of one domain onto the turf of another. Such errors have impeded greater human understanding not only of science, but also religion.  For instance, applying an empirically causal mechanism to “rain arises from sacrifice” forestalls progress in uncovering the distinctly religious nature of the relation.

In short, to the extent that chapter 3 of the Gita contradicts the previous chapter with respect to action and knowing Brahman, and thus with Shankara’s Advaita Vedantan emphasis on coming to know that an individual’s self is really Brahman rather than even a doer, the attempt at compromising with the Vedas karmayoga, and even devotion to a deity (bhukti) contains downsides. This is assuming that internal consistency in a religion is something of value. Of course, not attempting to relate disparate aspects of a religion and compromise different priorities has its own downsides. Perhaps in final analysis, we are human, all too human, so we do the best that we can in comprehending the religions that we have been left by people who have long since died. Doing the best we can may not solve every puzzle or reconcile every strand, but demarcating the domain of religion, and thus distinguishing it from other domains, is something that I contend lies within our ken.

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1. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 79.
2. Ibid., p. 81.
3. Ibid., p. 79.
4. Ibid., p. 81.
5. Ibid., p. 82.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 83.
10. Ibid., p. 84.
11. Ibid., p. 87.
12. Ibid., p. 84.
13. Ibid., p. 86.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 84.

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita

The Hindu myth, the Bhagavadgita, is typically regarded as placing the god Krishna above not only the other Hindu gods—here rendered merely as Krishna’s various functionalities—but also Brahman, which is being and consciousness themselves. As Krishna is incarnated in human form, placing him at the peak of the Hindu pantheon—in fact, even reducing the latter to the extent that Hinduism can be regarded as monotheist—compromises the wholly-other quality of the divine that is based on it extending beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion. In other word, the importance of Krishna’s role in the Gita comes at a cost. Depicting Krishna as the “Supreme Person” connotes less transcendence than does depicting Brahman as being and consciousness (of the whole). In going against the grain by making Brahman the basis even of Krishna, Shankara, a Hindu theologian, philosopher, and ascetic of the eighth century, CE, restores transcendence to its importance in not only Hinduism, but also religion itself as a distinctive domain of human endeavor distinguished by its unique element of transcendence.

According to Shankara, Lord Krishna is born “in order to safeguard the spiritual power in the world,” which can also be expressed as “the state of Brahmanhood.”[1] Such safeguarding is especially valuable when cravings dominate and a decline of “discriminative knowledge” impair those people who would otherwise be practitioners of Dharma, the law of righteousness.[2]  Besides promoting prosperity, that law is oriented to the “emancipation of living beings,” for being liberated from samsara is the summum bonum for a human being.[3] Shankara states that “the purpose of the science of the Gita is to set forth the summum bonum, which consists in the total cessation of the transmigratory life and its causes.”[4] Transmigration does not take place in the world; the term is inherently spiritual, or religious, because it takes place in a realm between death and birth, and thus not in the world that we inhabit during a lifetime.

Although Shankara claims that the “unborn, immutable, Lord of beings, and, in essence, eternally pure conscious and free” Brahman becomes manifest in being “embodied and born as a man, for ensuring the welfare of the world,” I submit that for “the well-being of all living beings” is a more accurate description because whether or not an atman (self) is reborn or not is not contained in the world, but, rather, transcends it.[5] Even just trying in vain to imagine what it means for Brahman to be “eternally pure conscious” goes inherently beyond the limits of human cognition and perception. The Vedic law that is oriented to balancing embracing works with embracing cessation or renunciation pales in comparison to the extent that promoting balance in the world is taken as an end rather than as a means toward liberation from the world. Shankara’s stance that maya is merely illusion rather than being the causality by which Brahman emanates multiplicity in the world can itself be taken as an admission that the ways of Brahman are wholly other and thus not readily translatable into terms that we can fathom. Hence the Gita lauds whoever “is quiescent, firmly seated, silent, not thinking any thought.”[6]

In so far as the Vedic law of works is viewed in terms of promoting prosperity in the world—which is to say, “done with desire for fruits” rather, or even more, than in “dedication to God and without expectation of rewards,”—practicing the law does not even indirectly subserve “the attainment of emancipation” though admittedly such practice “leads its practitioners to the higher stations of heavenly beings.”[7] Madhusudana Sarasvati, another commentator of the Gita, claims that the first step in the “disciplines for Liberation” as presented “as the purpose” of the Gita, is “the performance of selfless work (niskama-karma) by rejecting rites and duties meant for personal gain (kamya-karma) and the prohibited actions (nisidha-karma).”[8] Of course, Shankara’s interpretation hardly promotes a worldly orientation. In fact, a proclivity in favor of the transcendent is implied, especially as “desire for fruits” can be included in cravings. Be in the world but not of it, Augustine warns Christians. Similarly, Shankara claims that the science of the Gita “is aimed at emancipation,” which characterizes an individual atman going back into unmanifest Brahman; hence Shankara also claims that the science “sets forth the ultimate Truth that is synonymous with Vasudeva, the content of Supreme Brahman.”[9] Having come from Brahman, an individual atman is sustained by Brahman in life and at death goes back into Brahman; the welfare of the world in which we live is thereby relegated, especially when an atman is liberated from this cycle of samsara and remains unmanifest in Brahman. Madhusudana Sarasvati’s description of the Unitive Vision as the “immediate Knowledge of the identity of Brahman and the Self”[10]—an identity that is certainly not lost on Shankara—anticipates the final fulfillment of an atman retiring in Brahman. This summum bonum, rather than the desire for earthly treasure and even religious ways to promote it, and even the achievement of balance in the world, grounds the Gita as distinctly religious in nature, and thus as firmly classifiable within the domain of religion.

1. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya. Trans. A. G. Warrier (Madras, IN: Sri Ramakrishna Math), p. 2.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 4.
5. Ibid., p. 3.
6. Ibid., p. 4.
7. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
8. Madhusudana Sarasvati, Bhagavad-Gita. Trans. by Swami Gambhirananda, p. 22.
9. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya, p. 5.
10. Madhusudana Sarasvati, Bhagavad-Gita., p. 23.

Religious Transcendence

I contend that the core of religion is its quality of transcendence beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and emotion. This is not to say that nothing may be said of the divine, but that the stuff of our realm does not exhaust the mystery. We can’t have God utterly figured out, for it would be impious of creatures of finite knowledge to presume such knowledge that would fill up the dark hole of absolute mystery. I turn to the Christian theologian, Karl Rahner, and to the Hindu Rigveda to support this point, which is valid, I submit, for anything that is (or can be counted as) a religion.

In chapter two of Foundations of Christian Faith, Karl Rahner reflects on “that transcendental experience in which a person comes into the presence of the absolute mystery which we call ‘God,’ an experience which is more primary than reflection and cannot be recaptured completely by reflection.”[1] In other words, the theologian reflects on a human experience that is more primary than reflection. Similarly, he claims that the word, God, “is itself a reality,” which, unlike the word itself, is presumably beyond reflection.[2] Borrowing from Pseudo-Dionysius, we could say that both the transcendental experience and the metaphysically real referent of the word God go beyond the limits of human conception, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotion). The key here is go beyond, which is different than “is entirely beyond.” So we can hang what Hume refers to as anthropomorphic ornaments on the experience and reality, which thus need not be utterly ineffable. Both the experience and the reality go beyond our reflections, and thus our words, and this should situate our attempts to provide descriptors such that we do not take them as absolute and exhaustive. Even divine revelation, Augustine writes, arrives in our realm as through a darkened window. Hence, a person having a transcendental experience comes into the presence of absolute mystery—a point that Hegel seems to relegate under the presumed clarity of revelation. To the Christian, according to Hegel, the proclamation “God is dead” means that “the truths of faith are not in heaven but fully revealed in and for the finite world.”[3]  That is, the content of Christianity “is that God is revealed to human beings, that they know what God is.”[4] Augustine’s darkened window is assumed to be transparent, as if the taint of the fall had no impact on our reception of revelation. Dionysius’ “goes beyond” is utterly ignored. In short, Hegel risks idealizing our realm and extirpating the continuance of absolute mystery.

I submit that the inclusion of a transcendent referent even though it inherently goes beyond the limits of our cognitions, perceptions, and sensibilities is essential to the domain of religion and renders it sui generis, and thus properly subject to its own criteria, rather than those of history, ethics, or science. This is the thesis of one of my research projects. I submit that transcendence as “going beyond” is present not just in Christianity, but in Hinduism as well. For instance, “going beyond” is depicted in X.90 of the Rigveda in the person of Purusa in the following verses:[5]

“Having covered the earth on all sides, he extended ten fingers’ breadth beyond.” (v. 1)

“he is master of immortality when he climbs beyond (this world) through food.” (v. 2)

“So much is his greatness, but the Man is more than this: a quarter of him is all living beings; three quarters are the immortal in heaven.” (v. 3)

“Upon his birth, he reached beyond the earth from behind and also from in front.” (v. 5)

“From his head the heaven developed.” (v. 14)

According to Jamison and Brereton, the “ten fingers’ breadth” by which Purusa “exceeds the world measures from the Man’s hairline to his mouth” and is thus of “the imperceptible world of thought.”[6] Also beyond the world lie immortality (v. 2) and heaven (v. 3). Indeed, heaven developed from his head (v. 14). This ethereal beyondness lies beyond our realm, or world, and thus beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. In the cosmological myth of the primordial Purusa, a transcendental experience can thus be associated with the nature of Man—in particular, with our mind—what Feuerbach would say is simply human nature. But as coming from the mind, the experience may be construed as being of thought, rather than going beyond the limits of cognition as Dionysius claims. If so, going beyond the world in the Rigveda (X.90) is not as transcendent. Thus it may be asked whether the absoluteness of mystery is eclipsed. If so, it would not necessarily be as compromised as in the case of Hegel’s view the human capacity for knowledge of God, for beyondness itself is salient in Rigveda X.90. That is to say, what is beyond the world is specified only to a limited extent (e.g., heaven, immortality). Yet it is presumably from thought—the area between the hairline and the mouth. Thought may begin us on the road to a transcendental experience (and notion of the divine), but the key lies in being willing to go beyond thought into the presence of absolute mystery. 

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1. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, William V. Dych, trans. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), p. 44.
2. Ibid., p. 50.
3. Jeffrey Kosky, “The Birth of the Modern Philosophy of Religion and the Death of Transcendence.” Pp. 13-29 in Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond. Regina Schwartz, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004): 22.
4. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, p. 130.
5. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India, Vol. 3, Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P Brereton, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 1549-550.  Bold added.

[6] Ibid., p. 1538.

The Holy Grail: Artifact or Superstition?

Relics are nothing new to religion, whose legitimacy used to be synonymous with being ancient, which is one reason why the ancient Romans did not consider the nascent Jesus Movement to be a religion. The cup that Jesus uses in the Last Supper in Gospels is right up there with pieces of the wood cross of the Crucifixion as the most holy of relics in Christianity. “In Europe alone, there are said to be around 200 cups, each thought to be the Holy Grail—the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.”[1] They can’t all be THE cup, but I bet if you visited each place, the partisans would insist that their cup is genuine. For example, the website of the cathedral at Valencia, in eastern Spain, proclaims regarding the cup there, “Tradition reveals that it is the same cup that the Lord used at the Last Supper for the Institution of the Eucharist.”[2] Never mind that medieval legend had it that Joseph of Arimathea had brought the Holy Grail near Glastonbury Tor in southern England shortly after Jesus’ death. That would be quite a distance to travel back them to deliver a cup. These two cannot both be right, yet Christians have prayed in both places as if the cup in each place were genuine. That people have gotten carried away with the super relic through history seems clear from “the fact that, over the centuries, legends have arisen of ‘grails’ producing miracles.”[3] That miracles have been said to arise from more than one of the cups ought to be a red flag that something is amiss, for only one cup could possibly be genuine and so miracles could not have come by means of proximity to the other cups. I submit that basic category mistakes regarding genres of meaning (and writing) are a big part of the problem as to why a presumed historical artifact has given rise to puerile superstition in the name of religious truth.

One scholar of religious studies, Joanne Pierce, is realistic in saying, “I honestly do not think that the actual cup from the Last Supper still exists.”[4] In fact, Pierce elaborates that because according to some Gospel accounts, the room was already prepared before Jesus and his disciples arrived, the cup used may not have even belonged to them. I submit that Pierce is conflating historical accounts and faith narratives—two very different, albeit related—genres of writing. That some of the Gospels have the room already prepared is itself an indication that we should not assume that the room actually was prepared beforehand.

Moreover, a faith narrative is not written as a historical account; the concerns of the writers would have been theological rather than to make empirical reports or accounts, especially as the Gospels were written many decades after the Crucifixion. Is it really likely that, for theological purposes, a detail such as how or whether the room was prepared would have been preserved in notes or orally? Pierce gets around this problem by stating that “the idea of the Holy Grail is more symbolic than realistic—in her words, ‘a cultural reality rather than a religious reality.’”[5] We are no longer concerned with the relationship of empirical history and faith narrative; the idea of the cup is what matters, and that isn’t even religious.

I think Pierce is wrong to jettison the religious meaning of the cup, even as an idea, because of the salvific significance at least in Roman Catholicism of the Eucharist in the gradual process of sanctification. Given the theological doctrine of transubstantiation—the real presence of Christ in bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Christ—in Catholicism, it is interesting that, “(f)or Pierce, a Catholic, the idea of the Holy Grail is more symbolic than realistic.”[6] Zwingli, the Swiss reformer for whom the Eucharist is only symbolic, would be more likely than the Pope to agree.

Essentially, my argument is that faith narratives are neither historical accounts nor just cultural ideas; rather, the distinctive meaning in a faith narrative such as one of the Gospels is religious. It is felt proximity to religious meaning that is important—not whether a given cup was actually used by Jesus in a historical or empirical sense. To conflate the religious and empirical is to engage in superstition, as evinced by the attribution of miracles from Jesus’ historical use of a cup. Put another way, the religious significance of the Last Supper, which is Jesus being willing to follow his Father’s will in sacrificing his life for humanity, does not come down to the trite contention of which cup Jesus actually used. “It was just a cup,” Jesus might say; “You’re missing the point.” In other words, too much attention to the means can obstruct the ends being served by the means. 

Regarding the famous cup, the distinction between artifact and superstition can be transcended, perhaps even in a Hegelian sense of solving dialectics through human history, by focusing instead on distinctly religious meaning. In other words, perhaps superstition results from mistaking historical artifact for religious truth. This is not to say that the latter cannot come through history; only that if or when the transcendent does manifest on the surface of history, a faith narrative still cannot be taken for a historical account. To focus on the historical as if it were the point would be to miss the distinctly religious point, for the validity of religious meaning does not depend on the criteria of any other domain.

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1 Julia Buckley, “They All Say They’ve Got the Holy Grail. So Who’s Right?” CNN.com, August 17, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

The Pope on AI: On the Ethical (Rather than Religious) Dimension

In June, 2024 at the international political meeting of the G7, a group of seven industrial nations, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, spoke on the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence, or machine-learning. Regarding what the Pope called the “techno-human condition,” machines capable of AI are yet another manifestation of human propensity, which our species has had since its inception, to use tools to mediate with the environment. Although tools can be thought of as an extension of our arms ad legs, it is important to distinguish the human from the machine, even as we posit human characteristics onto some advanced machines, such as computers. In the film, 2001, the computer Hal sounds human, and may even seem to have human motivations, but any such attributions come to an abrupt end when Hal is shut down. To say that Hal dies is to commit a basic category mistake. It would be absurd, for example, to claim that Hal has an after-life. So too, I submit, is there a category mistake in taking the Pope’s talk on the ethics of AI as being religious in nature. Just as it is easy to imprint the human mind on a machine-learning computer, it can be tempting to superimpose the religious domain onto another. The Pope overreached in arbitrarily bringing in religious garb on what is actually an ethical matter in the “techno-human” world.

At its core, the human-machine distinction regarding decision-making comes down to AI making only “algorithmic choices,” that is, “technical choices ‘among several possibilities based either on well-defined criteria or on statistical inferences,” whereas the human heart is capable of influencing the choices that we make and so only we can have wisdom.[1] The Pope’s definition of wisdom differs from that which describes wisdom as the combination of experience with knowledge. Even if experience comes into the equation as intuition, that is distinct from the proverbial heart. If statistical inferences don’t reach human intuition, then either conception of human wisdom suffices to distinguish human from (machine-learning) machine. In the philosophy of mind field, the difference between man and “thinking” machine can be put into the following question: Is understanding merely the manipulation of symbols according to rules? Do I, whose languages do not include Chinese, understand the answers I write to questions if I use a chart that indicates which Chinese characters to write if I’m presented with other Chinese characters? If understanding is more than merely the manipulation of symbols according to (linguistic) rules, then how much more different is human experience from statistical inference (and even learning itself), and how much even greater is the difference between human emotion, such as empathy or compassion, and AI. To the extent that ethical judgment is, as David Hume claimed, a sentiment of disapprobation (i.e., a visceral emotional reaction of disapproval), ethics can only be on the human side, where the heart resides.

The ethical dimension is salient in the advantages and (especially) the disadvantages of AI. On the one hand, the Pope said, AI has potential in regard to the “democratization of access to knowledge,” the “exponential advancement of scientific research,” and a reduction in “demanding and arduous work.”[2] Given the absolute value of reason (which assigns value to things), according to Kant, rational beings should be treated not just as means, but also as ends in ourselves. For all the advantages of specialization of labor as discussed in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, at some point rote repetition of the same small action conflicts with Kant’s ethical imperative. In contrast, opening up knowledge and advancing it are fully in line both with rational nature and us being regarded as ends in ourselves and not merely means to other ends.

Even so, as the Pope pointed out, AI could also contribute towards a “greater injustice between advanced and developing nations or between dominant and oppressed social classes.”[3] Such a consequence would certainly violate Rawls’ ethical theory of justice in which societal systems, whether political, economic, or social, should be designed in such a way to disproportionately benefit the people at the bottom rather than disproportionately harm them.

Public policy enters the picture because we want to protect and perhaps even encourage the advantages and minimize or obviate the downsides by government policy. From Rawls theory, for instance, legislators might propose a law making college free for poor students in a society in which AI has a significant presence. Another law could mandate that the state provide computers to poor people free of charge. Rather than being technical policy prescriptions having the semblance of objectivity, these examples stem from the ethical dimension of AI.

Being that the Pope is the head of a religious institution, it is only natural that he would attempt to tack on the religious dimension. I submit that in doing so, he over-stepped. In discussing wisdom, for example, his addition of “listening to Sacred Scripture” in regard to the ancient Greek notion of phronesis (a type of intelligence concerned with practical action) doesn’t really fit, or is not pertinent.[4] It does not make phronesis religious in nature. Furthermore, he describes algorithms in terms of only being able to “examine realities formalized in numerical terms.”[5] The metaphysical term, realities, is out of place here. The Pope’s choice of the term was no accident. He sourced the mediating role of tools between us and our environment from us being “inclined to what lies outside of us,” which, and here is the stretch, in turn is in term so us being beings “radically open to the beyond.”[6] Such a beyond, as suggested by the use of the word radically, is transcendent, and thus in reference to God being wholly other rather than just immanent in Creation. In making this leap from humans needing to relate to the environment in which we live (e.g., for food) to humans having an aptitude for transcendence in a religious sense, the Pope jumped to another domain that is not relevant. For we do not use tools to grow or get food, for example, because we have an aptitude to transcend the limits of conception, perception, and emotion to posit or yearn for another world. AI pertains to what the Pope himself called the “techno-human condition.”[7] In contrast, the religious domain is sourced in, and thus relates to—as its reference point—that which transcends that condition. Even though AI represents “a true cognitive-industrial revolution” that will lead to “complex epochal transformations,” that revolution and the reverberating transformations emanating from it are firmly in this world. Even the ethical dimension of AI is likewise in the human condition; we need not be creatures radically open to beyondness to be able to address the ethical implications of AI.

I conclude, moreover, that only the religious domain includes the radically transcendent and in fact can be defined or characterized in terms of it. This is not to say that the domain cannot influence or be influenced by other domains; rather, that which makes domains distinct should not be skipped over lest category mistakes and faulty overreaches occur. Historically, the Church has overreached in superimposing the religious domain on that of natural science (e.g., astronomy). Likewise, the domain of history has been allowed to overreach in serving as a litmus test for religious truth or meaning, as if the latter were only valid pending credible historical evidence of an event or a person. Several neighborhood children at play who run onto the front yard of an elderly couple’s house and make noise—something I remember from my own childhood—is one thing; should they start moving the lawn furniture around and demand that the couple keep the chairs in their new positions—would be much worse. Imposing from one’s own domain implies a basic lack of recognition (or respect) of boundaries and thus of domains as distinct territories. The ethics house may be next door to the religious house, but the two are distinct. Similarly, AI might be next to human understanding, but the two are distinct. That algorithms are “neither objective nor neutral” does not men that they share in human subjectivity.[8] In fact, the Pope claimed that AI is not even really generative; it does not “develop new analyses or concepts.”[9] Instead, it “repeats those that it finds, giving them an appealing form.”[10] Whether this is so or not is beyond my fields of study, but my point is merely that a fundamental qualitative distinction between us and machines exists, and that the ethical dimension, as distinct from the religious, pertains to AI from our side.

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1, Joseph Tulloch, “Pope to G7: AI Is ‘Neither Objective nor Neutral,” Vatican News, June 14, 2024.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

Miracles as a Literary Device

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is known for being the first Hollywood movie in which the face of Jesus is shown. From the standpoint of the next century, the scandal in showing Jesus could only seem antiquated, if not outright silly. Rarely can such perspective on a scandal exist as it is occurring. In its own time, a scandal seems all-important and critically in need of being addressed lest life as we know it would otherwise come to an end. Ten years earlier, Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, had also been controversial, as was the 1988 film of the same name (and based on the novel) because Jesus imagines himself in the sexual act and he may struggle with mental illness. This scandal was more serious than was that which greeted The Greatest Story Ever Told even though the Jesus of Last Temptation ends up rejecting the temptation to avoid the cross and is thus faithful to his Father in the end. The viewer is left, however, without a decisive answer as to whether the film's Jesus suffers from mental fits because the film ends with Jesus dying on the cross. The theological validation of Jesus is made in Greatest Story, though curiously not chiefly in the usual way this is done in narratives about him. I submit that this deviation makes the film highly significant in that it emphasizes religious experience as a reaction. 

The full essay is at "The Greatest Story Ever Told."

On Believing in Jesus Christ as the Preeminent Focus of Christianity

Jesus’ identity as the Son of God is salient in the four canonical gospels, as well as in Paul’s letters. Hence, christology has been an important field of theology. While the benefits to the Christian have been touted so much in historical and contemporary theological writings, the costs and vulnerabilities of the nearly monopolistic focus have largely gone unnoticed. The realization of them would allow Christians (including extant theologians) to gain a fuller (i.e., holistic) perception and understanding of the religion, and even a better practice thereof.  I will begin with the theology then provide a practical example of the problems involved in having a willowed-down focus at the expense of the drawbacks.

In approximately 170 CE, Irenaeus, a bishop in Lyon in the Roman Empire’s province of Gual (in modern-day France), selected Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John as the four canonical gospels. He wrote, “The heretics boast that they have many more gospels than there really are. But really they don’t have any gospels that aren’t full of blasphemy. There actually are only four authentic gospels. And this is obviously true because there are four corners of the universe and there are four principal winds, and therefore there can be only four gospels that are authentic.”[1] To the extent that such a rationale held any sway in his day and beyond, we can surmise just how flimsy what we literally take as gospel can be. Irenaeus assumed that the four gospels were authentically written by the four disciples, but slapping a prominent name on a piece of religious writing was commonly done in ancient times. The Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Peter could also have been said to be written by two disciples.

Irenaeus viewed the negative stance on the material realm in the Gnostic texts as heretical (even though Augustine would write in his later texts very negatively of the earthly realm—seven the physicality of sex is not to be enjoyed even when done to reproduce). I contend that Irenaeus was even in this respect motivated especially to highlight the divinity of Christ.  

Irenaeus didn’t like there being “many gospels circulating with different accounts about Jesus, particularly a number of these accounts [that] rather down-play the materiality and physicality of Jesus’ body.”[2] Ironically, dismissing the physicality of Jesus’ body goes against the christological doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God because as such, God is made flesh (i.e., corporeal). Hence the resurrected Jesus not only walks through a door of the Upper Room, but also asks his disciples for fish, as he is hungry. By implication, that the god-man is fully human and fully divine, which the Council of Nicaea would make official dogma in 325 CE, must have been important to Irenaeus when he was selecting gospels to include in the canon. That is, the identity of Jesus Christ as a god-man must have played an important role in Irenaeus’ selection of the four canonical gospels, within which Jesus’ christological identity is not only the central theme, but also the basis of the salvation of souls in transformed, resurrected bodies, which is the ultimate goal in the faith narratives. God sent his only son to reunite the human species from its sordid earthly condition due to original sin. Jesus’ identity is absolutely crucial to Christ being the second Adam, vicariously undoing Adam’s mistake in having sought divine knowledge of good and evil. I submit that the prideful presumption of seeking divinity is the original sin.

The problem is that presumptuous pride can flourish even though a Christian’s religious focus is on his or her belief that Jesus is divine and that accepting Christ as such means that the he or she is saved and will thus be reunited with God; hence Luther’s doctrine, solo fides, or only by faith. I submit that good works are also necessary. By good works, I don’t mean the liturgical Eucharistic process of sanctification, which is salient in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox doctrine. I don’t even mean good works generally, such as volunteering at a charity. Rather, I mean the putting Jesus’ teachings of neighbor love into practice, and especially of not violating them. Such teachings include turning the other cheek, and even going on to help people who are, in modern parlance, being jerks or assholes. The application of self-emptying love goes well beyond people who are persecuting.

On Easter one year, when I lived in an apartment complex, a resident below one of the units just next to mine played loud, high-bass music with his front door open for hours. Passing by with my garbage at one point, I saw the man in his doorway and asked him to turn his music down. He stared at me for a second, then turned his back. He did not lower his music’s volume or even close his front door. I surmised that the man’s attitude was the underlying problem. Indeed, he even went outside to laugh about my request with another resident who had blasted racist lyrics containing much profanity out in the courtyard (even though kids were in the courtyard). That other resident, who just a week earlier had told police that playing  loud racist, swearing music was part of his culture and thus to be respected, then went to another resident and pointed to my apartment. I knew I was being targeted (with racial overtones), which is at two degrees of separation from being considerate. A bit later, I called the police, who asked the man to turn down his volume. I could hear the man shouting at the police. This is really bad, I thought in reference to the man’s attitude.  

The irony is that the very inconsiderate man was playing the loud music in anticipation of relatives coming over for Easter! He was like the person who goes to hell thinking all the while that he is going to heaven. Aggressively violating Jesus’ teachings on how to enter the Kingdom of God while having an Easter party suggests the presence of gaping cognitive dissidence. The same sort of cognitive dissidence applies when a person celebrates Gandhi’s birthday by being violent. The mind should be able to be conscious of such contradictions, and yet this is not the case, at least in the realm of religious ideas. It is precisely this disconnect that has provoked so much of my analytical thinking on religion. Perhaps the human brain contains a weakness or vulnerability in reasoning and being conscious of discordances between religious ideas and practice. Even in terms of religious ideas, such as inflame self-idolatry, the human mind may be handicapped organically. Such a handicap could warp the use of logic. For instance, a person might think, I’m going to annoy my neighbors intentionally as I celebrate Easter. That such an approach not only undoes any religious merit in celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, but also adds sin is something obviously worth realizing, and yet it is not, and has not, been acted on, let alone realized.

The narrow focus on Jesus’ religious identity and even his role in the history of salvation can mean that his instructions for how to get into the Kingdom of God are eclipsed such that they are violated even, it is presumed, in the service of Christ. Crusaders, for example, killed their enemies in Jerusalem and Constantinople for Christ. It never dawned on the four Medieval popes and their soldiers appropriated by Christian kings that killing Muslims in Jerusalem and eastern Christians in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) violates Jesus’ important injunction against harming enemies (as they are to be loved). In going on offence to take back one or the other city, the Crusaders could not even resort to Christian just-war justifications. That the leaders of the Christian Church in Western Europe were leading the charge demonstrates just how great the cognitive dissidence can be even in proclaimed vicars—earthly representatives of Christ. To represent Jesus by killing enemies is such an oxymoron that the human faculties of mind are themselves implicated as they apply themselves to religion.

I recommend, therefore, that Christians shift their focus from the christological and soteriological beliefs to Jesus’ teachings on how to enter the Kingdom of God. That is, rather than focusing on a belief about Jesus’ divine, salvific identity, focus on following and not violating Jesus’ example and teachings in the gospels. Even in self-questioning whether an attitude or conduct violates Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek and even proactively care for neighbors even if they are a pain in the ass or an outright enemy, a Christian can rest assured that beliefs about Jesus’s identity and role in salvation will take care of themselves, like lilies in the field. Perhaps the human mind is not good at holding very abstract beliefs and very concrete conduct together such that they can be compared and contrasted. Beliefs concerning conduct may be easier to hold, and thus a stronger focus for the believing Christian.

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[1] Elaine Pagels, “The Emergence of the Canon,” in “Emergence of the Four Gospels,” Frontline: From Jesus to Christ, PBS.org , April, 1998 (accessed April 12, 2020).

[2] Elizabeth Clark, “Irenaeus and the Heretics,” in “Emergence of the Four Gospels,” Frontline: From Jesus to Christ, PBS.org , April, 1998 (accessed April 12, 2020).