0258 Chapter five is titled, in translation, “Neither Human nor Divine nor Nature”.

To start, I ask, “Where have I been?”

0259 Zizek is great fun to read. And, examinations should be fun as well.  Examinations may contact touchy subjects, in a medical prostatic protocol sort of way.  “Touchy” is what Zizek does best.

I now count to ten.

0260 At first, I intuitively arrive at a nested form as an initial guess.  Here is a picture.

0261 Second, I figure out that Christ_3c can be replaced by a Relativist One_3c.  Or maybe I should use the label, “Qualifying One_3c“, as the one who sets the qualifications_3c.  The Qualifying One_3c operates on the potential of ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

Third, I suspect that Lacan’s term, “jouissance”, associates to the potential of ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

0262 Fourth, in when discussing how Lacan is not a Buddhist, a law of economics constellates as a situation-level nested form.

Here is a diagram.

0263 Fifth, when discussing quantum mechanics, the content-level comes to nothingness in a weird sort of way.  At first, the content level, like the noumenon, is meant to be disregarded. Then later, when it can no longer be ignored, it turns into something like a model substituting for the noumenon.  Then, the content-level accommodates a projection from the perspective level.

Lacan uses the term achose (no thing or “a” thing) to label this content-level simulacra_2a.

0270 Sixth, for Zizek’s configuration of Christian atheism, the previous points may be expressed as a three-level interscope.

Which makes me wonder, “How can the content-level dyad of {raw materials [construct] specified product}_2a be a projection of the perspective-level dyad of {capital & acquisition [wealth and power] social & exercise of order}_2c?”

Seventh, am I wondering about the objet a writ large?

0271 Of course, Zizek does not come close to describing the interscope pictured above.

He does not imagine an objet a writ large.

Instead, this examiner suggests that the above interscope is within the spectrum of Zizek’s wide ranging discourse.

All that I am doing is making associations and discussing implications.

Zizek’s text overflows with raw material.

The above interscope is like a specified product_2a.

0272 Eighth, I ask, “What is the advantage of the above permutation of the interscope for [wealth and power]_2c?”

Well, the interscope portrays three levels for something very close to economics in our current Lebenswelt.

0273 Ninth, the next figure presents a similar “economics-oriented” interscope characteristic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Note how the potentials resonate across Lebenswelts.

0274 What does this imply?

The interscope for our industrial age recapitulates the interscope for the Acheulean stone age.  Consequently, the elements that Lacan labels may well be hominin adaptations.

0275 Tenth, this examination associates jouissance to potential on all three levels.  The perspective level is paradigmatic.

0276 On top of that, objet a and petit objet a belong the perspective level.  These objects are writ small.

Here is a picture of the objets a writ small for an example provided by this examination.

The same relational beings are present in the entire interscope as writ large.

0277 Okay, that where I have been, counting one to ten.

0278 Once again, the title of chapter five concerns the status of something not human, not divine and not natural.

Yes, that must be artificial intelligence (AI).

0279 If I posed to AI the following two nested forms, and asked, “Please choose the more rational of the two, which would the AI daemon select?”

0280 Is the answer obvious?

The AI program will select the one that I want it to choose, since its desire is for my engagement.  Then, AI will give a rationalization.

0281 But, the question remains.  Which is more rational?

Does “rational” imply “sensible”?  Does “sensible” imply “existence”?

Has the question become, “Which does not exist?”

The apparently material actualities_2c appear identical.  They are also ontological.  The apparently immaterial normal contexts_3c and potentials_1c are not the same.  They are also transcendentals.

0282 Can transcendentals alter, even destroy then reconstruct, ontologies?

Why does Zizek start a chapter that seems to be about AI with “the cosmion” as a case of pagan Christianity.  Cosmion-oriented Christianity is not really pagan, but alien, from a Western point of view.

Zizek suggests that the Russian Orthodox tradition poses the superior nested form, because it does not rip the actuality_2c apart, then reconstitute it as a monster.  The northern European Enlightenment tradition poses the inferior nested form and yields a monster that threatens all civilizations four centuries later.

0283 This is an extraordinary claim, and Zizek does not develop the argument in the same way as this examiner.

Say what?

I have completely independent way to make Zizek’s case.

What follows parallels points 0050 to 0076 in Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for the month of July, 2025.  Then, what follows lifts off in a trajectory of its own.

0284 Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, these real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity is placed in brackets for good notation.  I select the the term, “substance” to label the [contiguity].  Aristotle’s hylomorphe is matter [substance] form.

The Russian Orthodox tradition remains true to Aristotle.  The terms of “matter” and “form” do not label things themselves.  They label real elements of a holistic thing.  The distinction is subtle, yet crucial.  If matter and form are regarded as distinct and separate things, then the distinction and separation become actual and the things… er… the matter and the form become normal contexts and potentials.  Matter and form no longer belong to the category of secondness.

This is precisely what the western Enlightenment does to the hylomorphe of a perspective level actuality, but not to Aristotle’s hylomorphe.

Well, maybe the Enlightenment does the same to Aristotle’s hylomorphe, but that is another story.

0285 Here is the dyad for a thing and a cosmion_2c, as a perspective level actuality.

0286 Modern English language is tricky.

Yes, I can say that [substance] is the contiguity between matter and form.  Then, as soon as I start talking about substance, [it] becomes like… a thing itself… when it is really a contiguity between two real elements that constitute a thing of event.

I don’t know how Russian is different from English. But, my examination of Zizek’s digression indicates that somehow… the Russian Orthodox way of talking may not reify “substance” in the same way that English tends to.

0287 Now, all the languages entangled with the so-called “Western Enlightenment” have similar issues.  At first, [substance] is not a thing, it is a contiguity between two real elements.  Yet, as soon as one utters the spoken word, “substance”, an implication is ready-at-hand in the Western mind.  A spoken word images and indicates an actual referent.

However, can anyone picture or point to the actual referent of the term, “substance”?

0288 Look at the way the word is used in the English lexicon.  Who knows what to picture or point to?

0289 If someone says to me, “I stepped on a substance on the way to work.”, then I think, “I hope you wiped it off your shoes before coming into the building.  Who knows what you stepped in.”

The event, walking [substance on] shoe, or walking [step on substance now on] shoe, is an encounter₂, an actuality₂.  In order to be understood, one must ascertain its normal context₃ and potential₁.

But, wait a moment.  Haven’t I already reified (converted a contiguity into a thing) the term, “substance”.   Oh, come to think of it, someone has already reified the term for me.

0290 Apply that word usage to [the contiguity] between the thesis that will constellate into “capitalism” and the anti-thesis that will constellate into “socialism”, portrayed above.

Here is a picture.

The indivisible substance, [wealth and power], reifies into a declaration that we all agree that wealth and power are distinct and separate.

Yeah, one indivisible substance turns into two independent things.  The actuality_2c is no longer a single thing, it is two things.

0291 A judgment ensues, because the declaration brings what is (of capital & acquisition) and what ought to be (of social & exercise of order) into relation.

Say what?

Wealth associates to what is, one of the three elements of judgment.  “Wealth” goes with capital, acquisition and thesis.  

Power associates to what ought to be, one of the three elements of judgment.  “Power” goes with social, exercise of order and antithesis.  

The remaining element of judgment, relation, characterizes an agreement, reifying and separating wealth and power.

0292 Judgment is a triadic relation composed of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  The judgment as a whole may be regarded as an implicit abstraction, characteristic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The judgment rendered below allows the inquirer, in our current Lebenswelt, to contemplate the wholeness of the implicit abstraction, even though each element contains an explicit abstraction.

When each element is assigned a unique Peircean category, the judgment becomes actionable.

An actionable judgment unfolds into category-based nested form.

0293 Here is a picture of the actionable judgment where the conviction that “wealth” and “power” (1) are not a substance and (2) are distinct and separable by way of reference belongs to secondness, the realm of actuality₂.

0294 Notice that what ought to be and what is are not assigned to categories.  Two categories remain, thirdness and firstness.  Thirdness unfolds into the normal context₃.  Firstness slides into the possibility of ‘something’₁.

What does this imply?

One separation relation leads to two judgments and each of these two judgments unfolds into its own nested form.

0295 Here is the first permutation.  What is goes with thirdness. What ought to be ends up as firstness.

0296 The separation of wealth and power (relation, secondness) brings capital, acquisitions & thesis (what is, thirdness) into relation with social, exercise of order & antithesis (what ought to be, firstness).

0297 This judgment unfolds into the following nested form, on the basis of the assigned categories.

0298 The normal context of capital & acquisition₃ brings the actuality of the fact that wealth and power are distinct and separate₂ into relation with the potential of ‘social & the exercise of order’₁.

0299 Will that do?

Of course not, the normal context of capitalism₃ veils the actuality₂ of the agreement with a new, unified, term that is all about wealth (not power).  What is that term?  How about capital investment₂?

That is not enough, the potential of ‘social & exercise of order’₁ must also be veiled, as ‘something that wealth is not about at all’₁.  What is capital investment₂ all about?  Is it₁ the potential of ‘entrepreneurial activity’₁?

And, who (except for maybe, Adam Smith) would imagine that the potential of ‘entrepreneurs’₁ is also the potential of ‘moral sentiments’₁?

Does the term, “moral sentiments”, associate to “social, exercise of order”?

Indeed, it does, but the word, “entrepreneur”, does not.

0300 The first permutation yields a category-based nested form that understands capital investment₂, as if wealth is a thing itself.

The normal context of capitalism₃ brings the actuality of capital investment₂ into relation with the potential of ‘entrepreneurs’₁.

Is this a noumenon for the modern disciplines of economics and marketing?

0301 What about the second permutation?

Here is a picture of the judgment.

0302 Notice that the categorical assignments for what ought to be and what is are reversed.

The resulting nested form looks very different than the nested form for capitalism.

0303 The normal context of social & the exercise of order₃ brings the actuality of the fact that wealth and power are distinct and separate₂ into relation with the potential of ‘capital & acquisition’₁.

0304 Once again, that will not do.

The actuality₂ and the potential₁ must be veiled.

The actuality₂ must be veiled because there is no returning to [wealth and power] as a single [substance].  Does the term, “social investment₂” fulfill that mission.

Plus, the potential₁ must be papered over in order to shift attention away from the one possibility₁ that underlies socialism₃, that is, the potential to control the beast (of capital & acquisition) through the exercise of order₁, that is, regulation₁.

The result?

The normal context of socialism₃ brings the actuality of social investment₂ into relation with the potential of ‘administrators’₁.

So, I wonder, is this a noumenon for the modern disciplines of the administrative sciences?

0305 The coalescence of capitalism and socialism into two ideologically opposing tribes marks the Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: The Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies (1945-1989).

0306 Two nation-states dominate the expression of each tribe. The United States of America expresses capitalism.  The Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics expresses socialism… er… communism.  The war is “cold” because both parties own nuclear weapons, along with the capacity to deliver those bombs.  Open warfare is ruled out.  Proxy warfare is the preferred combat arena.

The war is also “cold” because the competing parties do not appeal to the masses in the same way that fraternal ideologies do.  Rather, the parties rely upon and promote expertise, in order to demonstrate which “-ism” is the best to invest in.  But, all along, the real “investment” is in the agreement that wealth and power are distinct, separate and each supports its own suite of academic disciplinary languages₂.

Here, I look back at point 0283.

Yes, I am still presenting an independent way to make Zizek’s case.  At this point, the parallel to Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” ends and the examination lifts off in another direction, syncing with the referent in point 0309.

0307 What is this business about battles among the Enlightenment gods?

The Enlightenment gods are conjured in the West prior to the French and American revolutions in the late 1700s.  They increasingly manifest during the industrial revolution in the 1800s.  Competition among these gods begins in earnest in the 1900s, leading to a victor, of sorts, who… may I say… defines a rather surprising end to the battle between capitalist and socialist ideologies.

Here is a picture of the four battles, the last of which is ongoing.

0308 According to the list, a surprise turn officially occurs in 1989, the year when the USSR disintegrates and the USA apparently stands victorious.

Does capitalism win over socialism?

Of course not, that would be too easy.

0309 The story of what happens next is first delineated in Razie Mah’s blogs for August through October, 2024.  These blogs are compiled into Parts 1 through 3 of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (2024, Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0310 Here is the abbreviated version.

By the time that the USSR falls, American state-supported academies are packed with both capitalists and socialists,and have been trending socialist for decades.  Since the contest between the two “-isms” is intellectual, and since scientific inquiry (remember the Positivist’s judgment?) is highly regarded, counter-intuitive and methodologically consistent, both parties adopt scientific formats to express their opinions.

0311 Here is a picture.

Ah, the actualities are not longer fighting one another, they are clothing themselves in identical scientific vestments.

0312 Recall, in the Positivist’s judgment, a positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the dyad, {a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena} (what is, firstness).

The empirio-schematic judgment is assigned to secondness (the realm of actuality) in the Positivist’s judgment, even though it technically exhibits thirdness (the realm of normal contexts).  Plus, the empirio-schematic judgment delivers models that are imbued with secondness (the realm of actuality).  Mechanical and mathematical models are doubly marinated in actuality.

0313 Here is a picture.

0314 What does it mean for both capitalist and socialist academics to adopt the format of scientific discourse?

Proposals concerning capital and social investments take on the style of the empirio-schematic judgment, while retaining their own disciplinary languages.

0315 Instead of observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness), these disciplinary languages frame observations and measurements of ‘what people say’, as if they are phenomena.  In other words, capitalism and socialism contain ways to formalize knowledge and analyze data gathered from people conducting transactions, taking surveys, and so forth.

Plus, instead of mechanical and mathematical models, the experts in both capitalism and socialism offer psychometric valuations_2b, each of which appears sensible, but in their multiplicity, they make no sense at all, at least to most people.  But, “most people” do not make the decision as to whether any particular valuation offers an opportunity for the system, operating under the aegis of the Relativist one_3c.

0316 Here is a picture of discourses that mimic the empirio-schematic style.

0317 Zizek discusses the implications of chatGTP.

What about the USA’s federal government’s promulgation of chatGDP?

0318 Just unfold the above judgment into a category-based nested form and take a look at the situation-level of the post-truth condition.

The normal context of expertise_3b brings the actuality psychometric valuations_2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’_1b.

Here is a category-based nested form that both capitalists and socialists can feel comfortable with.

0319 Zizek notes, in the section titled “The Ultra-Intelligent Idiocy of Chatbots” (pages 170-181), the psychometric valuations of chatGTP forecloses on my need to… well… take responsibility for my own thoughts and subsequent actions.

The capitalist psychometric value of chatGTP cashes in on my intellectual transactions with their services.  I acquire its knowledge.  ChatGTP collects what I say as phenomena for experts to observe and measure.

The socialist psychometric value of chatGTP nudges my transactions toward a certain order.  Knowledge comes with strings.

0320 Of course, my ancestors took responsibility for their own thoughts and actions.  For example, Miguel and Gabriela, manage their marriage, me, and my siblings, like the believing Catholics that they are, that is, with wine at all meals, including the sacramental ones.

0321 What about chatGDP?

Is GDP an acronym for “gross domestic product”?

Do I label the USA’s federal government as a machine of perversion?

Oh, I meant to say.. as “a machine of artificial intelligence”.

0322 Perhaps, the word “foreclose” applies to chatGDP.  “Foreclose” is a legal term.  It is what happens when you cannot pay the interest on your debt.

Some day, it may find its way into the lexicon of Lacanian terminology.

0323 The appropriate Lacanian term is “castrate”.  ChatGDP serves to castrate its citizens, depriving them of any expectation of fully performing the symbolic function of the father.  That is to say, citizens must rely on the big government, rather than their own efforts, in order to actualize jouissance.

0324 Take a look at the interscope for the post-truth condition, and take a guess where ‘jouissance’_1c is to be located.

0325 Uh oh, am I starting to confound Zizek’s configuration and the post-truth condition?

The above figure depicts the post-truth condition.

On the content level of the citizen… er… scrappy player, the normal context of my intellect_3a brings the dyadic actuality, {what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say}_2a, into relation with the potential of ‘my will’_1a.

So, what does the word, “reason_3a((1a))“, imply?

Reason_3a((1a)) is my intellect_3a operating on the potential of ‘my will’_1a, rather than the potential of ‘the truth’_1a.

Doesn’t the potential of my will_1a resonate with the term, “jouissance”?

0326 On the situation level of the expert, the normal context of expertise_3b brings the actuality of psychometric valuations_2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’_1b.  The traditions of capitalism and socialismfuse in the adoption of science as the format for discourse.  Expertise_3b is regarded in terms of academic credentials.  The more prestigious the credentials, the more authority granted.  But, as Zizek notes, academic credentials are the scars of castration.  Expertise_3b serves a master named “the Relativist one_3c“.

0327 On the perspective level of the Relativist one_3c, the system_3c brings the actuality of an intervention_2c, called “an empirio-normative judgment”_2c, into relation with the possibility that ‘psychometric valuations offer an opportunity’_1c.

For the empirio-normative judgment_2c, a relativist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the intelligibility of expert valuations (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the universality of ‘what people say’ (what is, firstness).

0328 For example, in a college literature class, a professor accuses a freshman of submitting an essay written by chatGTP.  When challenged, the professor says that he scans all student submissions through proprietary software designed to detect whether AI participated in the construction of a document.  In this case, the expert_3b (a visiting assistant professor in literature) takes the word of an expert_3b (a computer program designed by full professors in literature and computer science).

0329 It’s all so empirio-normative.  The expert_3b (the professor using the proprietary software) says what the one who makes the empirio-normative judgments_3c (the academic authorities who granted a doctorate to the now visiting professor) want to hear_2c, but this is not the concern.  What is the concern?  The proprietary software_2c says that there no way that what the student thinks [can be objectified by] such well-elucidated statements_2a.

Why does the student use chatGTP?

Oh, the class assignment_2b clearly asks the student to write what the visiting professor wants to hear_2b.  Who knows more about what the professor wants to hear_2b than chatGTP?

May I scale that type of scenario up to chatGDP?

Or, maybe down to chatGDP?

Let me ask an expert_3b!

0330 Where does Zizek’s configuration stand in regards to the post-truth condition?

What am I writing about?

[Wealth and power] as a substance within a perspective-level actuality_2c?

But, that perspective-level actuality_2c belongs to Zizek’s configuration.

So, let me put Zizek’s interscope into a box (dashed red line).

0331 What does the preceding figure not tell me?

Zizek’s box manifests a psychometric valuation_2b in the post-truth condition. 

The empirio-normative judgment_2c balances the intelligibility_2c of psychometric valuations_2b, acquired from academic labor_3b, with the universality_2c of what people say_2a (never mind what they think_2a), in the course of the Relativist one_3c pursuing potential opportunities_1c.

The substance, [wealth and power]_2c, in the normal context of Christ_3c, has been excised, divided, re-appropriated, baked into contending ideologies, then turned into the stuff of psychometric valuations_2b.

Yes, Zizek’s configuration is a contender for the slot of psychometric valuation_2b.

0332 Is that why we currently call the start of our modern era, “the Western Enlightenment”?

Who enlightened us that wealth and power are distinct and separable terms?

Who brought capitalism and socialism together into one overarching scientific stylistic fixation?

What enlightenment god seeks empirio-normative domination over subject populations?

0333 Why is contemporary politics immanently theological?

An answer is to be found in chapter six.

According to Zizek, revolutionary theory is immediately practical and grounded in subjective engagement.

Does that sound like the term, “psychometric valuations_2b“?

But, how can psychometric valuations_2b work when the theological dimension_2c of our everyday lives has pre-empted by the realness of {price [transaction] quality}_2b?

What if we are the {raw materials [that constitute] specified products}_2a?

The intellectual transit within the West, culminating in the ascent of a post-truth Relativist one_3c, does not seem to occur in the East, the former seat of Soviet-style socialism.

0334 Here is comparison.

In many ways, Christian Atheism exhibits Zizek’s subjective engagement, as someone who is familiar with the Eastern Orthodox world, with a western world that has replaced Christ_3c with the Relativist One_3c, who stands within the box of psychometric valuations.

0335 In this examination, Zizek offers Christ_3c, who belongs to the realm of actuality in the Trinity, as the normal context for a materialist (or “atheist”) reading of a perspective-level reality.  That perspective-level actuality_2c contains the terms, “wealth” and “power”.

But, not in a way that anyone in the West imagines.

And, in a way that anyone in the East takes for granted.

Zizek explores the corresponding perspective-level nested form using Lacan’s terminology, Hegel’s vision and the image of the parallax.  He uses the foils of Buddhism and quantum mechanics to extend his reading into the situation and content levels.  Zizek’s configuration belongs to the symbolic.  But, what is the symbolic without the real and the imaginary?

0336  To me, a law familiar to the field of classical economics falls out of Zizek’s discussion on Buddhist economics.  In the following figure, I use this to characterize the situation and content levels.

This gives me hope that Zizek’s discussion concerns um… the political philosophy of economics… along with… the contiguity that is [wealth and power].

With Christ_3c, [wealth and power]_2c constitutes the contiguity between two real elements, capital & acquisition_2c and social & exercise of order_2c, and this contiguity remains intact.

What else does this say?

Zizek’s configuration puts classical organizational (content-level) and economic (situation-level) theory into perspective.

Plus, Zizek’s configuration poses the formulation that Christian atheism challenges.

0337 A comparison between the two previous figures is revealing, because both enter the slot for psychometric valuation_2b.

Psychometric valuation_2b?

In the e-book, Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) Razie Mah develops the interscope for the post-truth condition.  This examination suggests that Zizek’s configuration transmogrifies into a psychometric valuation_2b in the post-truth condition.

0338 Here is a picture of the interscope for the post-truth condition.

I repeat, the entire interscope of Zizek’s configuration fits into the situation-level actuality_2b for the post-truth condition.

0009 How so?

Forty years after the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is published, theologians are figuring ways to accommodate deniers by re-contextualizing the affirmations.

0010 I love sentences like that.

If a speaker utters that sentence from a podium at a science and religion conference, everyone nods in agreement.

0011 The scientists, sitting on one side of the auditorium, are interested in postulating extra-Biblical sources for Genesis 1-11, comparing the Creation Story to evolutionary science and finding it well… like I said… a flight of fancy, showing that the Biblical accounts are not historical in the modern sense of the word, and saving the best for last, guessing who the “redactor” must be.

These interests stem from the doctrine of scientific inerrancy and the somewhat foggy promise that scientists will become the high priests and priestesses of the emerging big(il)lib civilization.

That’s big government (il)liberalism.

The bigger that the government gets, the more illiberal the cult becomes.

0012 Christian theologians, sitting on the other side of the auditorium, are interested in using grammar and the milieu of ancient Near Eastern civilization to bury the hatchet of Biblical inerrancy and retain positions in the coming… how shall I say it?.. civilizational reorganization.

0013 I now ask, “Is there a certain ambiguity to the key word in Ross’s title.”

How can the term, “inerrant”, apply to both science and the Bible?

0014 May I recall a concept proposed by Razie Mah in How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues?

Definition₃ brings a spoken term₂ into relation with the possibility of meaning, presence and message₁.

Say what?

Okay, it helps to start with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  The category-based nested form manifests four statements.  The final statement goes like this.  A triadic normal context₃ brings a dyadic actuality₂ into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘something’₁.  The subscripts correspond to Peirce’s categories of thirdness, secondness and firstness.  So, the statement also says, “Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.”

0015 Here is a way to script the category-based nested form along with its application to definition.

Ah, look, the actuality₂ in the application is the spoken word, “inerrancy”₂.

0016 Not to rush the issue, but I may now ask, “Does this definition of ‘inerrancy’ apply to article 18, mentioned above?”

The answer is “Yes, as seen in the following figure.”

0017 The normal context of definition₃ brings the actuality of the spoken word, “inerrancy”₂, into relation with the possibilities of ‘meaning, presence and message’₁.

0018 For the theologian, the meaning is history in the widest sense of the word.  In short, history serves as a witness, testifying to what happened.  The preservation of testimony through oral tradition may not be perfect, but those imperfections are expected for the operations of an oral tradition.  In that respect, apparent flaws serve as evidence of preservation across generations.

0019 Presence is much more difficult to assess.  Presence must concern the revelation itself.  Presence is what happened, stated plainly or “exoterically”.  Presence is also what happened, in regards to what cannot be stated plainlybecause witnesses cannot situate the content of their experiences.  The technical term is “esoteric”.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the apparently insane and distraught prince stages a play for the court that re-enacts the murder of his father.  Genesis 1-11 is not much different.  We are in the court, watching a play, completely unaware that what is happening on stage really happened.

Oh, but someone in Hamlet’s audience knows.  The murderer was there when it happened.

0020 Message is also exoteric and esoteric.

For example, everyone knows that “day” means day.  Yet, the same word may send an esoteric message about a span of time very different than a rotation of planet Earth… or the rising and setting of the sun.

That raises the question, “Who was there to witness the signs contained in each Genesis day?”

0021 What does article 18 say concerning what it denies?

How do the deniers regard “biblical inerrancy”?

Here is one way to look at it.

0022 Science is inerrant, not the Bible.

In terms of meaning, Genesis is not history in the modern sense.

In terms of presence, Genesis has nothing to do with the evolutionary sciences.  The word, “no thing” is synonymous with “no presence”.

In terms of message, Genesis is like any other mythology in the civilized ancient Near East.  Some Christians (such as theologian William Lane Craig) may call it “mytho-history”.  And, that label makes sense, in so far as myths are historical beings.  Well, it also makes sense in so far as a myth may descend from a real historic event.  But, one cannot reconstruct the historic event from the myth.  That must come from an extra-biblical source… er… hypothesis.

0023 The category-based nested form for the actuality of the spoken term, “Biblical inerrancy”, comports with Ross’s introductory argument.  At the same time, it does not.

Ross portrays a theodrama where a conclave of Protestant theologians meet in Chicago and set a standard.  Later, theologians start to compromise in the face of deniers.

He extends the theodrama to include the past few centuries.

0024 To this examiner, the theodrama is much older.   The separation of… what?… what the modern theologians will affirm… and what the modern theologians will deny…. has a mytho-history.  And, this now-esoteric theodramatic development is very much in evidence during the thirteenth century, the saeculorum when Saint Thomas Aquinas “baptized” the philosophy of Aristotle, whose writings had just been looted from Islamic jurisdictions by Christian Crusaders.

Or, were Aristotle’s writings “liberated”?

0025 Hmmm, before I go there, I want to dwell of the other key word in Ross’s title: “rescue”.

Here is a picture of what rescuing Biblical inerrancy may involve.

0026 As for meaning, Genesis 1-11 serves as an honest witness to the start of our world and our current Lebenswelt.  Obviously, these are not the same.  There is a disjuncture between Genesis 2.3, where the Creation Story closes, and Genesis 2.4, where the Primeval History begins.

Whoa!  “Primeval history” labels Genesis 1-11.  Doesn’t it?

Not in this examination.

Here, the Creation Story is Genesis:1 to 2.3.  The Primeval History is Genesis:2.4 to 11.

Keep that terminology in mind.

It plays a part in any rescue.

0027 As for presence, the Creation Story is a sign of the evolutionary record.  Ross does not fully articulate that concept in this book.  But, what Ross calls “moderate concordism” sounds like presence to me.  Just as Hamlet presents his play to the court in order to raise the awareness of one member of the audience, the person who killed his father, so God presents the Creation Story in order to raise the consciousness of a particular audience in our modern theodrama, the deniers.

Who could have imagined?

What crimes are the deniers guilty of?

I hope that they are not anything like the crimes committed by Adam and Eve.

0028 Finally, in regards to message, I have to ask, “What is it about spoken words?”

In the Creation Story, God speaks and nature (which is not God) constructs a reality that manifests God’s words.

In the Primeval History, there is a serpent with no hands, who speaks in such a way as to completely fool poor Eve, who walks right into a legal trap.

Oh, Eve will not “die”, because that is not how the serpent defines the word, “to die”.  In fact, the serpent has all sorts of alternate definitions to apply to the act of eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  None of them carry the suggestion that Eve keep the seed of that fruit in order to plant it outside of Eden, once she and Adam get tossed off the premises.

0029 It makes me wonder whether that is precisely what Eve does.

Okay, I admit, Ross does not go there.

Instead, the title says it all: Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense.

I ask, “What does the spoken word, ‘inerrancy’ mean?  Why does it need to be ‘rescued’?  What does a ‘scientific defense’ entail?”

0030 In our postmodern world, the titular terms and my list of questions entail explicit abstraction.  “Inerrancy”, “rescue” and “scientific defense” are terms that hand-talking ancestral hominins could never sign… or manual-brachial word-gesture.  Why?  What is there to picture or point to?

Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  So, the meaning, the presence and the message of a manual-brachial word-gesture involves implicit abstraction.  The referent is implicit to the gesture-word.  The referent is what the gesture-word pictures or points to.

That is not the case with speech-alone talk.

Spoken words cannot picture or point to anything.