The Fundamental Unit of Thinking
The fundamental unit of thinking is the troika of question, answer and foundation. They are the subatomic particles that form the nucleus of a conception. A question and an answer are neutral particles.They do not bear any persuasive force. A foundation is a charged particle. It is the only particle that bears the persuasive force. An answer to a question derives its strength from its foundation. A weak foundation begets a weak answer; a strong foundation begets a strong answer.
The truth itself packs a more persuasive punch than representations of the truth. God exploits this fact to rid our perception of reality of all illusions that distort it. He puts us in intimate contact with the truth - both the sour truth and the sweet truth. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” .
Our faculty of rationality is more sensitive to the truth than our faculty of obedience is sensitive to authority. We are disobediant not irrational. Our faculty of obedience has been broken since the age of Adam and Eve. It is our original sin. Adam and Eve have passed this trait down to us. Our insensitivity to authority is the same as theirs. Therefore, our God works to save us through our faculty of rationality not through our faculty of obedience.
The appeal that God makes to us is an appeal to our faculty of rationality not to our faculty of obedience. Our faculty of obedience is broken. It has been broken since Adam and Eve. [Unlike God, the Church tries to appeal to our faculty of obedience.] Furthermore, to appeal to our faculty of rationality, God does not use words. God puts us in intimate contact with the truth itself - both the sour truth and the sweet truth. God is the artist who paints the masterpiece of reality on the canvas of our rationality in the pigments of truth. Rationality steers the ship. The truth is the fuel of our rationality. When fueled by the the truth, our rationality steers us in the right direction. When the fuel of truth is fouled by a lie, our rationality leads us astray . God wields the sledgehammer of truth to shatter the illusions that distort our perception of reality.
The sledgehammer of truth shatters the illusions that distort our perception of reality. Therefore, God puts us in intimate contact with the truth as we make our way through the Valley of Tears.
The methodology of the Church is to appeal to our faculty of obedience by means of authority. For many reasons, fewer and fewer of the children of Adam and Eve respect the authority of the Church. The Church has lost the confidence of its rank and file. Clerics despair over the erosion of their authority. However, the erosion of clerical authority is a good thing not a bad thing. It forces them to use the methodology of salvation that God uses. It forces them to appeal to our faculty of rationality with the truth instead of to our faculty of obedience with authority. The truth works better than authority. It packs a superior persuasive punch.
The Sour Truth
The sour truth is the glue that binds us to the gift of paradise.
The Sweet Truth
The bombshell of revelation that Jesus released on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection is the foundation to which the wise anchor their understanding of God. “Who are you, Jesus? Identify yourself. Friend or foe?” On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, we discovered that God is our friend not our foe. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. We assumed that our God was like us. The reasonable expectation was that the evil that we did to him would trigger his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. "An eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Exodus 21:24). Thankfully, he did not respond to our evil in kind (Isaiah 55:8-9). He changed the tone of the conversation (1 Kings 19:11-13). His answer to the evil that we did to him was asymmetrical - radically asymmetrical (Isaiah 55:8-9) (Psalm 8:4-8). Why? Why was his answer to the evil that we did to him asymmetrical - radically asymmetrical? Love. Our God is head over heels in love with us. His love for us survived the evil we did to him. His love for us took the symmetry out of the never ending and ever escalating cycle of evil. The dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place. Not even the evil we did to him could budge it.
