a reply to:
Itisnowagain
I'm afraid that you are misunderstanding what is going on within our conversations. I am merely trying to get you to behave consistently with what you
tell me you believe. I am not mad or angry with you, but I do have disdain for the ideas that you hold to for I think they keep you from the light of
truth, and thus I will continue to try and get you to see that your the way you view reality is incompatible with the idea that you could possibly
have knowledge. For example, you tell me that you believe in non-duality at the highest level of your ontological system. That the distinction between
"I" and "you" are illusory, yet here you are telling me that "I" do not comprehend something that "you" wrote. Given your ontological system this is
not meaningful. Given my own it is meaningful, which is why "we" can have an intelligible conversation about reality.
So Kant made famous a form of argumentation known as transcendental argumentation, which often uses what is called a reductio ad absurdum. A reductio
seeks to prove to someone that a position is true or false by showing that either it's acceptance or denial leads to an absurd result. I am
suggesting to you that your view of ontology does not provide you with the possibility of knowledge of any kind, and that because of this it ought to
be abandoned as false and untrue. So below I will give you a transcendental argument:
Premise 1 It is possible for you to have knowledge. (You have to accept this premise to enter into a disagreement about the nature of reality, for
example your claim that non-duality is a reality and my claim that reality is fundamentally personal.)
Premise 2 For it to be possible for you to have knowledge, you must exist. (It is not possible for you to have knowledge if what is referenced by the
term "you" is not real)
Conclusion: Therefore, you must exist as a person with identity.
Vasubandhu was a philosopher who held to positions similar to yours, and he recognized that people who hold to a view that is based in a divine
personhood. The forms of Hinduism he probably had in mind are monistic at their core, for the goal is to recognize that one's personhood is in fact
Brahman, and that the world of distinction is illusory. Orthodox Christianity which places realities ground in the triune God who harmonizes unity and
plurality without confusion is even more of terrifying adversary for such views.
Let me explain, you see in reality Truth itself is a person, and reality itself is based in communion. God the Father knowing himself in the light of
his spirit that proceeds forth from him generates the Logos of God. God the Father thus shares in with the Logos and the Spirit all of what he is, and
God the Father contemplating himself as distributive of goodness knows in his Logos of something other than himself that he will distribute his
goodness to at the proper moment. Thus we have the eternal knowledge of creation centered in God's knowledge of himself the Logos and his many Logoi.
Unity and plurality are synergized at the highest level of reality, and this then expands outward from God through his Logos giving us the ancient
image of the
monad. As each radii moves forth in an expansion held in order by a
procession that holds together from the logos we come to the each individual reality we experience be it a particular sentence, a sensation of taste,
or the recognition of a person. Man being made in the image of God has direct access to the logos in all things though a God given faculty known as
the nous. This view does not seek to find a way out of suffering but rather embraces it as the Lotus for through proper modes of suffering comes
something far more beautiful and mature.
Notice the reality I describe and the reality you describe are mutually exclusive. My view of reality seems to allow for access and communion with the
truth, where as your view seeks to transcend any notion of your own existence and those you love.