Precepts Foundations Cornerstones
Is there any other way to explain the precepts of Genesis other than the author knew the God he was writing about? Sit down in your comfortable place, get a cup of beverage or a glass of wine or spirits, and roll the precepts of scripture through your mind, then your soul, and finally let it settle down into your spirit. If you cannot start with God as a focus and must start with yourself, start there: if you cannot accept mind/body, soul/other, spirit/beyond then read the first 100 pages of Heidegger’s Being and Time and understand that within ourselves, each and everyone of us these phenomena exist and function.
The author of Genesis had firm hold on these realities. He is no longer speaking of experiences that have morphed into myths and then become stories that entertain or contain a moral justification or mystical experience, but he has gone to the bedrock, the founding principle, the logical conclusion as the beginning of knowledge and understanding.
“In the beginning God …”
It is presented as fact that the author, Moses, knew God and in fact spoke with Him regularly, spoke with Him from everything concerning the way to build the tabernacle, manage the camp, document the moral and philosophical practices of the society, present the history of the world and our place in it, down to his specific problem and challenge of the day, whether it was the Egyptian army behind them intent on destruction to the cases of individuals challenging his authority. Consistent throughout all of it, the fact of being in relationship, knowing God is present.
Rationality is not set aside or compartmentalized in this, just the opposite. Rationality is engaged at its highest level in this conversation with the First Precept, the Foundation, the Chief Cornerstone. How can it be otherwise? Think about it: we as the individual are engaging God in conversation. Feel challenged by the idea? try the practice. My experience is that at times it is stunningly direct, and other conversations have lasted years with a continuous thread of progress and understanding, but the same conversation with the same God. How can this rationally be? Scripture presents it at one point in the context of weather;
Isaiah 55:8-11 (ESV)
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
As my starting point, my “beginning”, my experiences of these physical/metaphysical realities, I set forth these precepts in concise form:
God – knowable
Creation – bears witness
Triunity – Father, Son, Spirit: spirit soul body as we experience them physically
Entanglement of the metaphysical and physical reality: metaphysical reality underlies the physical reality
Existence of Time – the movement of time – the progression of time – the relativity of time – our consciousness of time and time existing outside of our consciousness
The preeminence of the God/Man Who preexisted before any metaphysical or physical existence came into being
God’s Being is in and of Itself: I Am
Our being is in and of God ; metaphysically, this is fact, consciously we know this reality by choice. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”
All physical being is composed of water: all physical existence is derived from metaphysical water(s)
God’s metaphysical/physical Creation is by God’s choice : our physical/metaphysical existence is by God’s choice
Our knowledge and experience of our physical/metaphysical existence is contingent on God’s choices and our choices as expressed in the function of our spirit, soul, and body, and Their actions as Father, Son, Spirit
Will (defined as choice) is a function of our reality, metaphysically and physically, Divinely and Humanly.
What occurs in Time as experiences of physical/metaphysical realities is determined by Collective Choice: God has made it this way, We/we are all subject to it.
To be continued ~
