The circle was closed, the confusion complete. Uncareful language at the service of unawareness produced intellectual and moral dyspepsia right at the core of Christian Canon and Tradition. We all pay the price.

Non-Dualistic reality is the highest, fullest, most complete reality that is indicatable. When Non-Dualistic reality is to be indicated, metaphors which indicate human relationships (anthropomorphisms) cannot be used. Only the syntax of abstraction can be used to indicate Non-Dualistic reality. Greek (Pythagorean) Geometry is such a syntax.

Jesus indicated Non-Duality between Himself and God. He did this well after His resurrection, after He had experience of Non-Duality. Then, He used the syntax of abstraction, rather than an anthropomorphical metaphor, to indicate the Non-Duality that He experienced.

Jesus declared, 'I and My Father are One.' His syntax suppressed the relational qualities of the categories I and Father. His statement cannot be taken as metaphorical. As metaphor it is nonsense, i.e., two entities being the same entity. His statement is a pure abstraction employing familiar terms deployed in an abstract construction, a non-representational stochastic structure.

All indications of Ultimate Reality, which is Non-Dualistic, have to be in terms of abstraction in order to avoid too much falsifying the indication they are trying to make. The subtle dynamics not only of the operational qualities of language but also of the epistemological process itself are at play here. Jesus was well aware of these dynamics and of how uncareful language can run amok because of them. He carefully employed an abstract construction to indicate his final experience of Divinity. Mercifully, the final redactors included it in the Canon even though they failed to take it as paradigmatic for their own labor. Neither the life of Jesus nor the Religion He inspired would make sense if this final experience of His were not in the record. This one sentence, and another like it from Paul, ameliorates the damage done by the Creedal statements and allows us to see through Canon and Tradition to the man Jesus was and to the wishes He had for humanity.

That the students/redactors at Alexandria included this best and final indication from Jesus demonstrates that they were aware of the importance of Non-Dualistic reality. Their error was employing a relational term, Son of God, which is not Non-Dualistic, 15 to indicate Non- Dualistic reality. What they meant and what they said were not the same thing. To some extent, what they said falsifies what they meant. This has caused confusion, as one might expect. But what they meant was correct.

The students/redactors were uncareful with logical types and with semantics. They were not enough knowing the subtleties of the operation of language and they were especially deficient in grasping the dynamics of epistemology. Really, only Sages are as careful as one can be with language. Only Sages are genuinely aware of the dynamics of the process of knowing, the process of epistemology, and only they employ language with a full appropriateness for this awareness. Yet, we owe gratitude to the students/redactors for being well enough informed to recognize and include the best and final indication from Jesus of his being with the Father. They meant mostly properly, but they were unable to say what they meant. They had insufficient experience and insufficient skill, the familiar epitaph of students.

Jesus was a reflection of a Person 16 of the Holy Trinity, but He was not an Incarnation of such a Person. His being with the Trinity was abstract, not relational. We may ask, therefore, what is the difference between a reflection of the Holy Trinity and an Incarnation of It? This amounts to the question, what is the difference between a Messiah and an Avathar? (Avathar is a Sanskrit word meaning "He Who comes down," in other words, an Incarnation or Embodiment of the Godhead.)

The difference between a Messiah and an Avathar is in the qualities that are present in these Personalities. An Avathar of the Lord -- Gott mit uns. / Der Herr ist hier. -- has the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence, all-knowing and all-powerful. A Messiah has neither of these qualities. A Messiah has powers that are associated with Divinity, including extra-ordinary controls of physical phenomena and extra-ordinary awareness within the poly-temporal matrix we call time. But these powers are conferred on the Messiah as equipment for accomplishing the Mission on which He is sent. And, they are not plenary. They are not His by nature and they are not full. They are neither owned nor omni. An Avathar of the Lord has the qualities of all-knowing, all-powerful and also all-present as intrinsic nature and plenarily.

Jesus was the Messiah looked for by Hebrew and other Sages (Prophets). He was not an Avathar. He was not an Incarnation of the Godhead or of a single Person of the Godhead. Jesus did not have the qualities of all-knowing and all-powerful. He did not have these qualities at any time or in any way before, during or after his earthly Career. Yet, His being was -- and was/is always -- not two with respect to the Holy Trinity.

Only the syntax of abstraction can express what was meant to be said (Non-Dualism) about Jesus and God in a Trinitarian stochastic structure. But virtually the whole Christian Tradition tries to say what was meant -- Non-Dualism -- by using a metaphor of human relationship, an anthropomorphism, which says something else, something less. 17 In its fundamental syntax, Christian Religion has its wires crossed and these are constantly shorting, causing tyrannies, schisms, anarchies and a witches' brew of ethical abnormalities parading themselves in the languages of respectability.

This is why no one is really happy with the Creeds from Nicæa and Chalcedon. It is why no one really takes these Creeds as standards of doctrine or piety. The Creeds cannot be taken for what they say. And this is a genuine inconvenience, an embarrassment, a palpable weakness right at the core of the Magisterium, the responsibility to teach the Truth. They, however, can be taken for what they mean.

The embarrassment is compounded by two facts. First, the Creeds' writers were not aware of the problem they were creating. And second, succeeding students have not been candid about the problem having been created, even when they knew that it was.

The tragedy of the Creeds is that they have stuck the definition of Christian Religion at a point of view (Qualified Non-Dualism) which is less than the point of view (Non-Dualism) finally given by Jesus and even intended by the final redactors or the Canon. This weakness is what gave later epistemological and moral off-tracks, such as Manicheans and today's New Age, such a huge go in the society. The Creeds, which were made for confounding heretics and keeping society strong by keeping heresy out, are not capable of doing their job. The experience of the Church and of Saints down through the years is doleful confirmation of this fact. These tools the Councils gave us don't work! Dominic just had to write everything down and throw the paper in the fire. And he still respected the Cathars' way of life, as all must.

The Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds have utility as topical material for intellectual drill and as indications of the history of thought. Inside the Church they are useful reminders. But outside the Church, where they were intended to operate, these Creeds excite confusion and disapprobation more than they confer illumination.

And there is a further problem. The tools for distinguishing between the Creeds' Non-Dualistic intent and their Qualified Non-Dualistic delivery are not in the European and American intellectual depository. Only Vedic epistemological parlance has the tools that are required. Therefore, until Vedic epistemological categories are brought in, no one of merely European and American training is going to uncross the wires of Christian Creedal Theology, re-insulate them and stop their shorting. Until we return to India we are not going to clarify much less expand the Church. Christian Religion derives from India and depends on Indian philosophical categories to make sense of itself, and especially its Creeds.

By forcing a Trinitarian Monotheism which places Jesus within the Trinity, the final redactors are also losing, deliberately, the Jewish community, which is now going to say, not without cause, that Christians are idolaters.

Jesus was right: Son of God should be disallowed for the ultimate description of Himself. It is a pen-ultimate and very misleading description of Him. Every being, human and otherwise, is a Son or Daughter of God. The Holy Trinity should be delineated not as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but as Father, Christ and Holy Spirit. Or, the Creeds should be taken as indicating the Nature and Destiny of every being. In other words, we require a syntax for including Arian and Orthodox 18 intentions in the same construction.

15- It is Qualified Non-Dualistic. Return

16- In Tertullian's sense of this technical word. Return

17- Namely, Qualified Non-Dualism. Return

18- Or, Mohammedan and Christian. Too much was lost at Nicaea. A right point was made, clumsily. But the cost was grievous. A discourtesy was done. Truth was lost. Humanity excluded. Confusion given a platform. It is not unreasonable to suggest that with a syntax of inclusion, the great and unresolvable debate of the late Middle Ages, between Realism and Nominalism, would not have occurred. Or, it would not have riven the culture, as it does to this day. The costs of a cheap and dirty victory -- such as that obtained at Nicaea -- always outweigh its benefits.

Nicaea was the first great abrogation of the principle of collegiality. Athanasius' authorization of homoiousias with the meaning of homoousias was acknowledgement of this fact and that the damage needed to be undone.

Not winning but playing should be our goal. The desire to win is an unChristian desire. It is anti-religious and productive of unspiritual conduct. Winning and loving do not coexist. Winning is a discourteous activity. Loving is courtesy defined. Return