Outline of Content for
Letters to
Obvious truth content
“The weakness of modern intellectual movements”
“You will know the truth...” and “...the truth will set you
free”
“The credibility of the Christian message”
“He died for our sins”
“He is risen from the dead”
Messages that I take
He died for truth
Rising from the dead: speaks to the power present in the world
Human message
“Blessed are…” and “love thy neighbor...” examine “the beam in
your eye” ... and the message about who might “cast the first stone”
Universal message
“Jesus Christ has risen from the dead obtains in countless
cosmologies”
A recommendation
“Jesus Among Other Gods” by
Thinking
about your words about Jesus, here are some ideas. M.
Jesus (who claimed to be one and the same as the Father of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, namely, the God of the Jewish Bible, is entirely about
relationships
When asked (by those trying to trip him up) what the greatest
commandment was, he responded that the two greatest are to love the Lord thy
God with all one’s heart, mind, and soul, and also to do unto others as one
would have them do unto us
Jesus said the whole law given through Moses hangs on these two.
(Later, he gave what he called a new commandment - to go even further, to love
even one’s enemies)
The focus of Jesus and the entire Bible is God and our
relationship with him, not self. The commandment to “love the
Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
strength.” One can hear that as a one-way commandment, but I hear it as
two way, for how can we love him who we don’t know? So
God was promising to be a near God, God “Immanuel”, who could be known
intimately by us just as we are known intimately by him. That indeed is my
experience of him, of Jesus
The relationships in my life that tower now above all else are
my relationship with Jesus first, and with my wife Yisraela
second
Personal miracles of M.
One time, Yisraela was moving, so I
went over to help. We were leaving a room and I hit the light switch off and
she said NO (too late) because there was a short in that light switch and the
house would lose all power and restarting the oil burner would be a $50 service
call. So while we headed for the basement she asked the Lord to not let the oil
burner go off - not “fancy” prayingjust a sentence as
though talking to a person. We got to
the basement and, though there was no power anywhere else in the house, the oil
burner electric motor was still running. No, I didn’t “fall down and worship,”
as they say, but I did store it in the I-don’t-understand file. And I did start
asking her some questions about this “Lord” and she answered them
She shared scriptures, written long before Jesus, that
prophesized of his coming - he’d be born in Bethlehem, of a virgin, would live
in order to die for us - to pay the fine that is owed by us - would be born at
a certain time, from a certain tribal and family lineage, and so on, there
being about 300 such in the Bible. Anyway, I read what she gave me but simply
didn’t understand the words, even though with hindsight I can see that they
were quite plain
Something that was happening in the spiritual domain, and I did
“ask Jesus to come into my heart”, as Yisraela had
told me was the step that she had taken. The faith that you mentioned was
operating here, if only - faith in Yisraela, for the
issue was simple: if she was a reliable witness, then these things - whether I
understood them or not - were true; conversely if she were not a reliable
witness
Based on my knowledge of her I was clear that she was indeed
reliable and I stepped out - really “in faith.” But what happens next is that
Jesus does indeed deliver on his promises to come inside us and dine with us
Jesus spoke of wanting us to come to him not as lawyers but as
little children, and that is surely how I came. But he doesn’t keep us as
little children, and he didn’t give us good minds so that we should be stupid.
As the Lord tells us in Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together…”
Jesus had told Yisraela that he would
bring a husband to her, that I would be “saved” - a month before it happened.
She said she she didn’t WANT to be married again, but
in any case she had no idea that the Lord meant me. Well, when I did ask her to
marry me she said yes, but had reservations
Within a ceremony at that time I was having an enlarged prostate and
even a thimble full of red wine was enough to completely prevent urination for
enough hours for it to be painful in the extreme. And Yisraela
knew about that. Nonetheless, she gave me a whole water glass full of wine.
Next day, not only didn’t it “kill me dead”; now the condition was even gone!!
And it stayed like that for almost two weeks. Then, she asked again, around
then, how I was doing, and I told her that it seemed to have returned. She then
shared with me about a concern about about marrying
me and losing her relationship with the Lord, so she had asked him to make it
clear to her that the one he intended for her was me. She told him she would
give me the wine, and if I were the one, then he should please keep me from
having any ill effects. Then, to be 100% sure, she went back to the Lord and
said, Lord, if Michael is the one then give him the condition back again. He
did, and she was convinced
M.
recounts further miracles. Then:
Anil, the bottom line in the Bible, made clear even in Genesis
upon the fall of man through Adam, was that we cannot cover, annul, or cancel
our sins by our own works, and that God’s nature is such that he cannot abide
amidst sin - one sin or many, small or large, it doesn’t matter
The pre-Jesus Bible makes it clear that God himself would take
on flesh to come down, and be the sinless sacrifice for us, to cover our sins
past, present and future and to thereby restore us into the relationship the he
wants with us and for which he created us. (Sure enough, after Jesus, the
A miracle in M’s research in mathematics. (M. is an excellent applied mathematician)
So, I’ve shared with you not logic or philosophy but my
experience of the Lord (the Lord who loves you as much as me). As Paul said in
1 Corinthians (
Why is the world (universe) beautiful (before we invented
telephone poles)? Did it just turn out that way? How can we explain it?
You mention things Jesus said that you like. But realize that
you can’t take some of him and discard the rest
He also spoke at length about judgment and hell (though his
mission on that occasion was not judgment but to die for us and, by his blood,
to seal the new covenant that was promised to us in Jeremiah 31:31-34). The
same Jesus as you quoted also said: “I did not come to bring peace but a sword.
[The sword meaning the truth] For I have come to set a man against his father
[I can attest to the truth of that], a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it,
and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39) This
was no peacenik out of the 60s, and it’s interesting to imagine the scene of
him throwing the moneychangers out of the
He also issued a challenge to you all who seek the truth: “I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through
me.” (John 14:6) “... to him who asks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:8) “Enter
by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to
destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew 8:14)
He does not say there are many ways and “howsoever”, he says he
is the only way and there are no others that lead to life, but only to
destruction. And he promises to answer your questions, to open it up to you, if
you go to him and ask. I guarantee he will do that
My
Response
The nature of death. The boundary of the universe
One question I asked was ‘What is the nature of death?’
The apparently dominant modern secular view, starting from
‘reason’ and science concludes that there is nothing beyond death. Similarly,
it is typically concluded that there is nothing beyond the known universe at
the boundaries of
space, time, size and category. That there is nothing beyond death,
is similar to the idea that there is nothing beyond the known universe: the
life of the individual is the known personal universe. Once stated, the
absolute character of these convictions seems somewhat absurd and these
conclusions are not so much stated as tacit: we live as though they are true
and they are built into our language and myths (modern cosmolgy.)
Any claim that there is nothing beyond the known world is clearly more absurd
than a claim that there is something beyond it. The history of knowledge is one
of expanding boundaries. If we think of life beyond death as absurd then the
fact of our coming into existence is also absurd. What may be questioned is the
certain knowledge of life beyond the known
My Theory of Being
addresses this question and affirms that I am a speck within the greatest
identity; the known universe is a speck within all being
Bridging
One of the thoughts I had in writing was ‘how can I reconcile
M’s thinking with
mine.’ I believe that a mature Theory of
Being (expressed both analytically and in feeling and action) can make a
bridge between the different faiths and ways of life and between faith and the
secular view. I know, have shown, the bridging to be
possible on rational grounds but, of course, do not know whether it will be
achieved. The theory itself says that such achievement, on this earth, is
possible for a period of time. Naturally, I do not expect that you will think that my
effort at reconciliation is reconciliation…
On Beauty
The Theory of Being
does say something about the question of beauty. Given sentience, it follows
from the conditions of becoming that there will be positive and negative elements
in sentience. Some positive elements are labeled beauty. This idea can be
developed further from the theory of free vs. bound and inner vs. outer
elements of sentience. This shows a necessity to the origin of beauty and the
fact that beauty –the beautiful–
will have form but does not address the actual form. This is analogous to an
explanation of the origin of structure that does not tell us what the actual
structures are
[Jesus and Buddha went to nature for inspiration]
But why
is there sentience?
It is a mistake to demand that theory explain the origin of
sentience. Instead, one observes the empirical fact that there is sentience.
I.e. sentience is a label for experience. Then: what is actual
is possible and what is possible is materially necessary. Thus there will be
sentience in countless though not necessarily all cosmological systems. There
is a different line of argument in the document ‘Journey in Being’
that concludes that sentience –of some kind– is as universal as existence but
that argument is not as clear cut as the one here
M’s reply
Jesus
could not have gone to nature for inspiration
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. If I may make one observation about your reply, I think
you said in it that both Jesus and Buddha went to nature for their inspiration.
I understand that that reflects your belief that Jesus did not create the
universe, for if he did then it wouldn’t be reasonable to say that the creator
of nature found inspiration in his creation. I would say to the contrary that
Jesus doesn’t fit into anything, he is the
“singularity”, the only God, and the only path to redemption
If you
live as though what I have said is true then you will discover its truth
Perhaps the parting question might be this: IF the things I’ve
said are true, then would you “want them”? If not, then there’d be no point in
proceeding any further along this line. But if you would, then I’d suggest as a
first reading the book of JOHN - his gospel account which is the fourth book of
the New Testament. If you like, you could speak to the Lord first and ask him
to remove any veil from your eyes so that you could discern the truth - or
whatever you would ask of him
Hi M.
When I read the Bible, I will go, first, as a result of your suggestion, to JOHN
Nature
and inspiration
Regarding Jesus’ ‘inspiration,’ my point was that nature is
inspiring and that this is found in many stories of inspiration from ancient
myth to modern science. I too have found much inspiration in nature. Regarding
the logical point, if, e.g., ‘everything’ seeks inspiration where or in what
does it do so? If it cannot seek inspiration within itself then it cannot seek
inspiration at all. Does this imply that the net inspiration of ‘everything or
non-thing’ is zero?
Then, is it truly paradoxical for Jesus to have found
inspiration in his creation? I sometimes find inspiration in my creation, i.e.,
my writing
Additionally, there is a distinction between finding inspiration
while in nature and having nature as the source of inspiration. Why did Jesus
go to the desert? Does the Bible address this question? Perhaps he went to be
away from distraction, to find a place where he could be open to the truth. If
this is true, while he did not find inspiration in the forms of nature, it
could be said that the simplicity of that form (in contrast to the murky forms
of the social world) was the occasion for ‘inspiration’
Scriptures
as truth but not the only truth
As I have said, I do hold the Bible as truth but not the only
truth
Scripture
as truth: early thoughts
Early in life, I came up with ‘proofs’ that ‘God’ did not exist;
I did not hold religious scriptures to be true. Later, I came to doubt my
earlier convictions. I sought disproofs of my early convictions but did not
come up with anything satisfactory.
Scripture
as truth: the Theory of Being
Still later, I came to intuit what was a primitive form of my Theory of Being. I lived in this
intuitive epistemic state (regarding being) until I arrived at the Theory of Being
According to the Theory of
Being, the Biblical account, excepting
contradictions, if any, must have truth but not the only significant truth.
Further, the literal truth of the Bible is improbable in any given cosmological
system; therefore, the significance of the Biblical account must draw from the
possibility of the literal truth. This is what the logic of the Theory of Being requires
How can the truth of the Bible be seen? Empirical,
piecewise vs. systematic truth
Although I understand the reasoning
and experience that is the foundation of the Christian Faith, I do
not see how the Bible stands together as an integral document in the
sense that if it did so stand, its truth would then be manifest and it would
not be necessary to verify every part of the Bible
independently! How may the systematic or necessary truth, rather than merely
empirical truth, of the Bible as an integral document be seen?
States of
Faith
I see four significant possibilities regarding faith: atheism or
having no belief; agnosticism or a state of suspended judgment pending logic or
revelation; theism – a state of judgment regarding the possibilities i.e. a
selection of a system of faith; and liberalism, an open state of perception in
which belief is the
sum of all truths, or, rather, is on the path to that sum. The last is like
quantum superposition states in which systems can be simultaneously ‘up’ and
‘down’