Siegfried's Article on Gell-Man & Hartle's Work on Quantum Consistent Histories & Decoherence

Tom Siegfried wrote a good post on Gell-Mann and Hartle's work on consistent histories and decoherence. 

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/gell-mann-hartle-spin-quantum-narrative-about-reality

I commented...

Decoherence and consistent histories remind me that in a sense the prospects for variable quanta in a monistic field are epiphenomenal temporally speaking, so what if the Higgs field membrane is itself just one state or matrix of a more complex, complete system?

White House Seeks Ethnic, Religious & Economic Purge to Transitional Government

It takes a lot of power to form a transitional government that purges another government. The Obama administration, the prime revolution organizer for the Syrian conflict appears to have confidence in its power to fulfill a racial, ethnic, religious and economic purge of Syria
.

The White House is demanding that Iran support the ouster of the Syrian Government and that  sign aboard the unconditional surrender to fomentation of a transitional Syrian government team. Those multi-revolutionary party talks in Switzerland have the support of United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon. The question of if a government should be purged and its population subject to years of civil strife was evidently decided affirmatively a priori by the Obama foreign policy team some years ago. One imagines the temptation for a global ruling class to snatch up a national target of opportunity exists.

Perhaps an international team should convene to study the issue of formulating criteria for purging lawful governments through protracted external support for internal civil strife in order to form a more humanitarian method of purging governments that won't go quietly.

After more than two years of stimulating terrorism, revolution and civil war against the Syrian Government the United States Government has advanced the agenda to including or excluding Iran from taking part in the 'talks' on stipulating that there should be a transitional government instead of support for the existing government of Syria. The American Democratic Party prefers war as foreign policy through the machinations of other military players and perhaps the resurgence of Al Qaeda an other fundamentally terror organizations in the middle east is a fruit of the Obama administration method of Arab springboarding regime change without a good idea of what will follow-a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy procedures since the Bush II administration.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/20/syria-summit-brink-iran-refusal

On Paul's 2nd letter to the Thessalonian Church

Lois Berkhof wrote an analysis of the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians. Here is my summary of his report mirroring Berkhof’s outlining method...

Content- Paul wrote this elegant, well balanced letter with three chapters each of which comprises a self-standing unit. Berkhof finds that the epistle “naturally falls into three parts”.

1) “Introduction, ch. 1.

This comprises Paul’s usual greeting followed by emendations and edification with practical concerns implicitly serving doctrinal and even prophetic points. Berkhof divides the chapter one into two sections.

2) “Instruction respecting the Parousia, ch. 2.” Berkof divides the second chapter in two sections.; 1-12 and 13-17. Paul warns of the deceptions of the anti-Christ (aka. son of perdition) and reassures the church that they shall be fine.

3) “Practical Exhortations, ch. 3.” Berkhof divides chapter three into four sections. Somewhat neatly Berkhof noted Paul’s structure as two sections each in the preceding two sections followed by four in the last chapter of the epistle. The ancients sometimes used veritably a poetic structure with prose since historically prose originated as poetry and he was writing to Greeks. It is good Paul didn’t use dactylic hexameter as did the Homeric poets.

Paul instructs the faithful to keep working and be not idle, to withdraw from the disorderly, do what the Apostle commanded and beware of false instruction.

Characteristics- Paul’s description of characteristics of events leading to the apocalypse and the second coming of Jesus Christ are the central point the epistle Berkhof finds. Berkhof points out the arrival of ‘the man of sin’ or anti-Christ that need appear to lead the unsaved, anti-Christian worldly forces prior to the conclusion of this generation of mankind living on Earth.

“1. The main characteristic of this letter is found in the apocalyptic passage, 2:1-12. In these verses, that contain the most essential part of the Epistle, Paul speaks as a prophet, revealing to his beloved church that the return of Christ will be preceded by a great final apostacy and by the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition who, as the instrument of satan, will deceive men, so that they accept the lie and are condemned in the great day of Christ. II Thessalonians, no doubt, was written primarily for the sake of this instruction.”

Berkhof’s paradigm of analysis for the leader of the world of the lost is itself an illumination of the present times we live in. Evidently the forms of existing political rule such as that of the Roman Empire would need to disappear in order not to conflict with a unified global empowerment of the anti-Christ. Obviously one might discern a present trend toward economic globalism and networking that could develop over time into a de facto planetary unified economic and indirectly political power that the anti-Christ could find a convenient stage for putting him or herself/itself into power as the pseudo-omnipotent one perhaps assisted by bionic appendages, steroids, nano-bot healing from wounds and nano-computer-enhanced synapses and intellect plugged into a quantum computer. When Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Universe appears it will probably be historically necessary that he appears to end a perpetual dictatorship of absolute corrupt power in comparison to which contemporary corrupt power is trivial.

There are two additional characteristics of the epistle that Berkhof notes. One is the practical and direct reinforcement of the persecuted church and the second regards the language of the epistle that has several unique words. Elsewhere Berkhof and others have noted that this letter bears substantial content with the prior letter. In a brief letter to the same church congregation accentuating some key points that isn’t too unusual.

Authorship

Berkhof writes; “The external testimony for the authenticity of this Epistle is just as strong as that for the genuineness of the first letter. Marcion has it in his canon, the Muratorian Fragment names it, and it is also found in the old Latin and Syriac Versions. From the time of Irenaeus it is regularly quoted as a letter of Paul, and Origen and Eusebius claim that it was universally received in their time. The Epistle itself claims to be the work of Paul, 1: 1; and again in 3:17”

Composition

Occasion and Purpose- “The persecution of the Thessalonians still continued and had probably increased in force, and in some way the impression had been created that the day of the Lord was at hand. This led on the one hand to feverish anxiety, and on the other, to idleness. Hence the apostle deemed it necessary to write a second letter to the Thessalonians. The purpose of the writer was to encourage the sorely pressed church; to calm the excitement by pointing out that the second advent of the Lord could not be expected immediately, since the mystery of lawlessness had to develop first and to issue.”-Berkhof

Time and Place- Berkhof’s best estimate is the middle of A.D. 53

Canonical Significance

Berkhof concludes his analysis of the second epistle to the church of Thessalonica writing that “It is quite evident, however, that Polycarp used the Epistle. Moreover it has a place in the canon of Marcion, is mentioned among the Pauline letters in the Muratorian Fragment, and is contained in the old Latin and Syriac Versions. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and others since their time, quote it by name. The great permanent value of this Epistle lies in the fact that it corrects false notions regarding the second advent of Christ, notions that led to indolence and disorderliness. We are taught in this Epistle that the great day of Christ will not come until the mystery of iniquity that is working in the world receives its full development, and brings forth the son of perdition who as the very incarnation of satan will set himself against Christ and his Church.”

This letter of Paul’s is an expression of the apocalyptic criterion following those remarks of The Lord such as given in the Gospel according to Matthew. The timing of the Apostle’s martyrdom perhaps in 67 A.D., three years before the destruction of Jerusalem, seems meaningful regarding God’s structuring of history. The work of the Apostle to the Gentiles was complete and the seat of the old covenant destroyed, yet it to would be resurrected from the ashes.

The Lord was crucified circa 33 A.D. , the Apostle Paul was martyred about 33 years later and John’s Revelation published perhaps 33 years after that. The dating of the composition of the Revelation is inexact yet it was noted that Emperor Domitian popularized banishments and John was banished to Patmos. Domitian was emperor from A.D. 81 to 96, and John may have been released from the prison isle after the death of Domitian (he was murdered for oppressing the aristocrats and his wife expedited his death) with his vision ready to be set down in print for the edification of the church.

The Apostle Paul spent three years in Ephesus and it was to Ephesus that he sent his ‘spiritual son’ Timothy to instruct the congregation in the right way. Paul’s apocalyptic remarks (2:1-12) undoubtedly were encountered by the Disciple and Evangelist John who lived in Ephesus (incld, Patmos nearby) for a quarter century until his own death in old age circa 101 A.D. John may have developed his thoughts about the apocalypse for some time, especially with the recent experience of the destruction of Jerusalem and his own exile. His vision of the Lord’s return apparently encompassed multiple time paradigms. Even the end of the Eastern Roman Empire and of Constantinople as the capitol of an Orthodox neo-theocratic state brought Ephesus into the rule of a non-Christian theocratic imperium, one that would be the foe of Jews as nationalists and occupier of the Temple Mount for something approaching 700 years starting in the 15^th century. Well, there is much history one may adduce to illustrate the relationship of temporal Earthly history to teleogical constructions I would venture to guess. The Apostle Paul in his letters to the Thessalonicans did help set the stage for the following Revelation of John.

Berkhof writes a little more on the enduring value of the letter to the church.

Politics, Power, Wealth & the Envy Equilibrium

Nearly 2000 years ago a brother of Jesus named James wrote a good article on ethics for the edification of church goers. James 3:1-12 is still an excellent reminder of the better ethics from Heaven than the bitter envy and strivings of mankind in a social environment. Politics and economics are interwoven though and democracy requires active citizen participation so the high ground of ethical conduct and definition of virtue are important concerns for anyone seeking to be free from oppressive political power and the repression of classes and networks of concentrated wealth.

There is an equilibrium of envy, power, wealth and democracy somewhat like a feedback loop regulating the decline and fall of quality of life, utilitarian pragmatism and the prospect for an eternity in heaven or hell. Duplicity makes difficulties for political credibility; Rush Limbaugh-a talk radio ‘host’ of a few million listeners criticizes Democrat Party political pablum for low information voters while sardonically Rush’s audience is largely  comprised of low information voters  tired of watching Nazcar for a few laps. Limbaugh’s machinations haven’t coincided with Republican Party Presidential victories except for that of George W. Bush who presented the appearance of a low information President tired of T-Ball.

Plainly money buys political power not only in elections and lobbying but in getting favorable judicial decisions. Concentrated wealth may also exist in collective social organizations in various forms from corporations to class identity groups. Neutrality is difficult when political abhors a vacuum; to be unconcerned with the evolution of corrupt economic networks of power is to become effectively powerless and ruled by unrepresentative powers that govern through economic force.

Some pundits would have the masses believe that fair taxation of the rich is just envy they ought to lose. Yek when wealth is not taxed adequately and it concentrates too much the masses lose political liberty; democracy dies in all but name only.

Do the wealthy envy power as much as some of their lap dogs believe the poor envy the wealthy? Perhaps yet for some the idea that they as wealthy people admired by the masses seeking to peer through a lens at their personages seems important. Yet other may simply enjoy the quiet satisfaction of pulling the strings of millions whom are impotent yes-persons without balls jumping like mutts at meat held above them.

Without doubt wealth may follow technical innovation that improves the well being of society. Political oppression may arise from the adverse influence of sundry forms of repression collectively applied some of which are wealth or some that are like Mexican drug mafias seeking to knock off top gang guns and get a bigger piece of the action. Envy is certainly an existing element in over-reaching for power yet envy as a psychological factor does not mean that economic and political security aren’t real and really important per individual social standing when there are so many cold-blooded, impersonal exploiters ready to reapportion one’s organs or redistribute one’s inheritance amongst the social mix.

During the post-second world war U.S. economy when wealth was least concentrated and political power most responsive the nation worked best. True there were oppressed Negroes in the Jim Crow south yet that civilization was steadily evolving improvement while the ability of women to have more prosperous lifestyles was increasing too. Generally speaking the decay of American nationalism and decline of the nation’s comparative economic standing in the world coincided with the return to a concentration of wealth. History shows that with the concentration of wealth develops moral decay for some reason. The ethics of the wealthy may become depraved, cocaine using and interfere sardonically in the individual lives of citizens capriciously. They may own their own propaganda media reinforcing the way of concentrated wealth as God’s gift to the world and the only alternative to godless communism and a return to the dark night of an evil empire when the truth is something like the evil empire evolves from both directions of concentrated wealth and godless socialist evil empires. I hope that made at least one thing perfectly clear.

Transitioning Libraries and Schools to E-Book Format

Having read an e-book on a Nook reader for the first time recently I was surprised how much I liked it. The first thing I thought of was how much money public libraries across America could save if they ditched the anachronistic paper books and bought just e-books. Traditionalists such as me usually would profess allegiance to the paper book into a future even when one’s fellow citizens have cold, sharp cyborg fingers yet that changed when I read an e-book on the Nook and even one of my own (A Universal Widget in The Realm of Forms). An e-book reader is actually more comfortable than a paper back book, is cheaper and hundreds of books can be loaded onto a single low-cost reading device.

If public libraries went paperless they could go librarianless too saving the tax-stressed public millions and millions annually. For every new hard bound junk novel purchased several e-books could be bought. Even small libraries could have good academic and technical selections. Overdue fines would disappear; perhaps the book would disappear into electrons when the check-out time is it? There would be no time wasted reshelving books or checking them in or out. Patrons could get a read without mustard stains on it or the more common coffee slop-ons. Many libraries lunk as locus classicus of occlusion of comparative advantage for readers and that needs changing.

With bookshelves removed from libraries more space could be given to placing quiet cubical for reading nooks perhaps with magazine and newspaper electronic editions available for reading on secured low-cost tablet computers. Children’s books could be loaded onto cheap, durable, solar power and USB micro-rechargeable tablet and turn forward when baby says something like mitt or backward when baby says ga ga and dancing bunnies appear to scold for backsliding. Hands free reading is useful when one is juggling, cooking or otherwise busy yet wants to turn the page. Libraries could check out readers to some of those with cards though patrons would be encouraged to buy their own.

Libraries could readily become automated with vast numbers of e-books and venerable paper books converted to digital format. Local libraries could store in-the-cloud and on optical discs if they like too with redundant storage forms for security a useful expense. Automating libraries with audio-visual monitoring by a security and patron consulting firm from a central facility would again reduce cost and travel time to satellite or branch libraries. About the only thing needed in a modern library is lots of quiet reading space for the humble reader of books, magazines and news on the Internet.

I would think that within a decade every poor nation on Earth will have access to low cost e-book readers via public libraries hooked into a free global e-book database of millions of titles. Some will be public domain books, others will be purchased and available for check-out, perhaps though a U.N,. Public Library project that would be rivaled I am sure by national libraries spanning the globe with the excitement of books by their own citizens as well as numerous private and public libraries intended by benefactors to serve especially the poor readers of the world yearning for a better database.

Unfairly gouging taxpayers to pay high wages (a starting library assistant gets 23 dollars per hour in a job a chimpanzee might be able to perform with equal opportunity training) to librarians and school teachers for superfluous tasks better accomplished by taxpayers themselves is just wrong. One 35,000 dollar teacher salary could better be used to buy 310 factory reconditioned Nook readers. One trashy politically correct ideological book packaged novel by committee purchased for 35 dollars is nearly enough to buy a reconditioned Nook at $50 dollars. Librarians and schools ought to evolve into a modern era of public service and away from the Soviet-style sluzhba bureaucracies of stuffed sinecures for the corrupt degrading the nation and reducing human potential. Instead of minimal public spaces for quiet enjoyment of reading and maximal pay, retirement and benefits for redundant staff a constellation of new public reading and media quiet spaces with e-books and libraries of free videos for downloading should develop to let the American public get more books for the taxed buck.

Though libraries seem another swollen pork trough for corrupt government workers serving themselves instead of the public it is important to note that it doesn’t mean they are possessed by homocentric no-boundary government-media-corporate insiders-of=evil temporal lunatics subverting the peace, security and order of traditional values in the United States with massive electronic surveillance and Harvard development of court composition and micro-fly surveillance drone airbugs. If public screwls are developing the tax-dollar absorbent function to indoctrinate and move mindless masses to insiders-of- evil thinking as far away from independent intellectual development as possible it doesn’t follow that libraries and government bureaucracies, courts and corporations are too. It is still possible to reform and improve public libraries locally, nationally and globally to well-serve vital egalitarian, independent opportunities of the masses to live free reading good books.

Dope Smokin, Cheatin W.M.D. Officers Purged From Montana Missile Base

Thirty odd military officers of uncertain service branch orientation were purged by internal security forceps from a Montana weapons of mass destruction base when sensitivity trainers determined that cheating was being done on readiness testing. We have learned that the military officers succumbed to reefer madness in the line of duty. It is vital to the nation’s security that if a foreign or domestic enemy launches missiles upon innocent people of Boston or Washington D.C. that military officers of uncertain branch orientation aren’t doin stuff like sayin “Don’t Bogart that joint, pass it to me” while they is supposed to be launching missiles at the missiles passing overhead or wherever they were comin from even when the President’s team has the football on the golf course and the launch codes can’t be sent or found on the Internet.

Washington insiders concerned too much with rogue, stoned military officers launching missiles on Washington D.C. from Montana bases in order to play a practical joke and say ‘this is only a test of the emergency launching system’ have considered outsourcing missile operations to private contractors. In order to defeat regressive forces of bigotry and hate the administration points to FSD, a U.A.E. company owned by Sunni royals operating the national rail transporter handling most of the freight of the U.S.A. If a quality cheap Sunni fundamentalist firm were given the weapons of mass destruction missile operations contract the cost savings over ten years would be 4 billion, nine-hundred and eighty dollars and twenty four cents.

On a related point administration positive optimism inflection gurus say that scientific research has determined that even though matter can only be changed into another form and not destroyed, weapons of mass destruction have converted matter to anti-matter technically sort of qualifying as weapons of mass destruction in addition to thinks like rot, mildew and Wall Street scams that destroy social structures as well as physical structures. They warn that the Republican Party technically qualifies too as weapon of mass de-structurin of democrat policy and homojudiciary enhancement.

A popular late-night radio show informed us that the administration had been working closely with tall-white-contract-mongering-aliens from another Universe who can account for the missing mass of this Universe. An alien insider known only as ET said that higots of Earth forced it to move from Roswell to a basement apartment below Area 51. Protestirs of administration policies of positive economic inflection are the enemy at the gates howling for precious green bodily fluid, yep that enemy, holding the picket signs that say; E.T. Go Home!

Global Heating CO2 Parts Per Million Chart

Atmospheric global heating of the atmosphere in the Anthropocene era is largely a consequence of surplus CO₂ added to the atmosphere. Scientists have charted the increase of carbon dioxide levels for some time. 

The increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels seems associated with change in the biosphere of the era. The p.p.m. levels of the Earth seem to have reached as high as 6000 p.p.m in the distant past, yet those wouldn't have been good times for human life to exist, or even many plants. Mass change such as formation of the Antarctic ice sheet occurred when the p.p.m. dropped below 600 so there does seem to be a correlation between CO₂  and atmospheric temperature and life on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vanishing-Face-Gaia-Warning/dp/0465019072

Current  measurements of  CO₂ levels can be found at ...


http://co2now.org/current-co2/co2-now/

and

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html

Image Credit of Hypothetical 3 Future Tracks for Global Warming - U.S. E.P.A.

Image credit N.O.A.A.

Where Gnosticism Went Wrong

The Jewish Kabala of the 13^th century Zohar with its esoteric, astral projection style concepts of the metaphysics of the Universe and realms surrounding has a far earlier expression in the first century contemporary of Jesus from Alexandria Egypt, Philo Judaeus, who wrote a very nice metaphysical neo-Kabbalah of his own expressing ideas about mystical realms like ghost Universes of higher spiritual planes and reality. Evidently Christian disputes with Gnostics were fundamentally because Gnostics tended to believe in a dualism such that the material world is evil and was made by an evil demi-urge. While some might regard original sin in a fallen Universe of thermodynamics instead of eternal spiritual perfection as another way of saying that, the practical consequences of belief are substantial. Gnostics tended to deny Jehovah as the true God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to overcome sin. The emanationist (simplified for Christian practical purposes to’ let their be light’) theories of Gnostics are however coincident with at least some aspects of logical insight into the nature of the material Universe such as the big bang, inflaton or even a cyclical Universe expanding and flowing through a thermodynamic process. Paradoxically those that believe the Universe had no real beginning-just proximal ones such as time=0 located at a temporal hourglass very small singularity before an oppositely sequenced pre-Universe shrinking down in scale, share the idea with Christians that all things that exist are ultimately based in the eternal with temporality being expressions of phases within eternity. At this point though physical cosmology hasn’t ventured too deeply into physical reality and temporality of a multiverse within an eternal context replete with conservation of energy.

Paul as a student of Gamaliel might have been somewhat learned himself in Jewish mysticism a little. Philo of Alexandria was marginally mainstream and perhaps not unknown to Jewish theology training centers. By the time of the third century Plotinus-a famous student of Ammonius Saccus developed a beautiful, logically satisfying mystic theologically simplified cosmology that is similar in many respect to contemporary cosmological paradigms including origin from a singularity or One (En Sof-the ineffable infinite) and universal forms acceptable to Plato and quantum mechanics. It is a bit of a paradox that the mysterious, spiritual Kabbalah shares with Mohammadanism the term for spirit –Ka that the Egyptians used as well as ba or shelter. Hence one gets the spirit house or Ka-ba such as at Mecca and the Kabballah going even further in honor of a transcending spirit. The spirit house of Mecca existed long before Mohammad’s syncretistic enterprise.

The danger of simply becoming intellectually lost as an individual self-standing within the created material world is a danger that Lucifer succumbed to. Since everything exists and one may reason within the given steady-state field or any existing alternate spiritual field, there is a temptation for the ego to alienate itself from the transcendent God and the opportunity to renormalize from sin in the contingent field of being and try exist forever as a contingent being or even an nearly omnipotent contingent being without God and even a false consciousness denying His existence. That effort is in disregard to the actual facts of being-that God is all-in-all and the Son is the sole way to renormalize the estranged-by-sin relationship.

A generic emantionist paradigm for cosmological origin of quanta of any sort from a state ‘void and without form’ requires some emanation of virtual quanta or proto-particles/strings/membranes etc from an existing field containing or heteronymous with the void. Math isn’t theoretically of much help in describing the non-dimensional infinite, indivisible field that emanates with quantum uncertainty perhaps on occasion into a void. Mathematics represent some form of a coordinate system-even theoretical ones with scalable dimensions. Without coordinates or quantum it would be challenging to use math references to describe One infinite field with all possible dimensions unactualized prior to emanating into a formless void. Theological contemplation might be easier, although it’s better and simpler to recognize Jesus Christ as the only way to understand God who contains the one field engendering any potential or actual Universe.

Ultimately Plotinus’ paradigm is mostly a successful horse-shoe toss approximation of the theosophical state of the cosmos without either modern technical description or information about how to be saved from the fallen realm of materially imperfect forms that is the world. Living a couple centuries after The Lord he may have felt that wasn’t his role. The age was philosophically confused enough and just the canonized Bible such as the Muratorian fragment provided was a plain and accurate guide to eternity. Gnostics tended not to recognize the material Universe as a solid state entanglement phase (in a Higgs Field) that would be objectively changed with the second coming of Christ (everyone will recognize when he actually appears for it will be as plain as a lightning bolt across the sky). Gnostics thought they would slip out to a higher reality plain through their own awareness (they didn’t live in very cold weather much).

Innovate Private School Vouchers to Alleviate Public School Mediocrity

Funding more private schools with federal school vouchers would help stimulate future U.S. economic development by the increase of students learning outside the mediocrity of mass public education. With a mass socialization in public education fewer pockets of individual brilliance occur as would in small schools with brilliant educators unshackled from the dictates of mass public education mediocrity.

As mass development generated mass extinction as an externality, mass education brought students of all abilities and possibilities toward minimum standard levels of learning. There is an implicit reductionism in the standard values of mass public education as presently delivered. Rather than being an experiment in diversity it is a law of conformity and mediocratization of public educational achievement potential. Quality teachers are reduced to being standardized union mouthpieces. As an unintended consequence of mass public education the richness and diversity of a constellation of individuated private schools in the United States was lost for most primary, secondary and post-secondary students.

Though not all secondary and post-secondary schools would have brilliant educators some inevitably would and all would be required to meet acceptable minimum education value standards. Some schools with just five educators might have fifty students with a few very bright students mentored and encouraged to develop their individual genius. It is entirely possible to imagine a Thomas Edison of today being given drugs for attention deficit disorder, encouraged to out on a football helmet and butt heads with the team. One understands that a school with three thousand students even with a vast budget tends towards producing mass conformity developing managers for mass corporations always seeking to follow best mass-value labor costs anywhere on the planet, outsourcing jobs instead of inventing them or alternatively trained to follow the lead of the best of mass mediocrity in mindless rave drudgery relieved by large screen TV’s and consumerism.

With enough small private schools some pockets of excellence in education will arise and more Thomas Edisons will learn and be encouraged to learn in sufficient numbers to have a positive effect on the economy. As it is generally only the rich can afford private education and those prosperous families are the best of the mediocre too often. Many of the best of the mediocre are rich yet not inventive, popular yet not brilliant, good athletes yet unable too understand science or synthetically form engineered artifacts of material and spiritual value.

 

With the national; economy hiding a strengthening undertow and the media reporting happy economic news only to please the elites concentrating wealth it would be helpful for the Congress to approve legislation apportion just one-third of the nation’s public education budget to private school vouchers; that infrastructure change ought to create jobs straight way and in the long run.

A Summary of Berkhof's Analysis of the Letter to the Colossians

Recently I have continued reading Berkhof's venerable ‘Intro to the New Testament’. Here is my summary of his comments on the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae (in Asia Minor a.k.a. Turkey).

Content-Berkhof divides the epistles in two parts…

1)   The Doctrinal Part, emphasizing the unique Significance of Christ, 1:1—2: 23.

2)   The Practical Part, containing divers Directions and Exhortations, 3: 1—4:18.

Characteristics- Berkhof and others find this letter much like the letter to the Ephesians. Some regard it as a twin, and the similarity of the two letters have brought some to discredit Pauline authorship though of course not Berkhof. He writes;

“1. On its formal side this Epistle differs from that to the Ephesians in its polemical character. It is not a general exposition of the truth that is in Christ Jesus, without reference to antagonistic principles, but a statement of it with a special view to the errors that were gradually creeping into the Colossian church, insidious errors of which the Colossians, so it seems, little realized the danger. It is true that we find none of the fiery polemics of the Epistle to the Galatians here, nor any of the sharp invective of II Corinthians;—yet the controversial character of this letter is very evident.

Berkhof notes that this letter has a Christological focus while the letter to the Ephesians is largely theological. “While that contained in Ephesians is in the main Theological, that found in Colossians is primarily Christological, the summing up of all things in Christ, the Head. Essentially the Christology of this letter is in perfect harmony with that of previous Epistles, but there is a difference of emphasis. The writer here places prominently before his readers, not only the Soteriological, but also the Cosmical significance of Christ. He is the Head both of the Church and of the new creation. All things were created by him, and find the purpose of their existence in him.”

Berkhof presents some points on technical verbal content analysis of the epistle contrasted to his other letters.

Authorship

Berkhof presents and rebuffs several challenges to Pauline authorship that are based upon the language use and concepts that could be regarded as anti-deictic e.g Gnostic concepts.

On challenges to Paul’s elaboration upon Christology Berkhof writes: “we do not see why the further development of the Pauline Christology cannot have been the work of Paul himself. There is nothing in the Christology of this Epistle that conflicts with the recognized representation of Paul. We clearly find the essence of it in Rom. 8:19-22; I Cor. 8:6; II Cor. 4:4; Phil, 2:5-11. These passages prepare us for the statement of Paul regarding the Cosmical significance of Christ,. 1: 16,17. And the representation that all the forces of creation culminate in the glory of Christ does not necessarily run counter to Rom. 11: 36 and I Cor. 15 : 28, according to which all things exist to the praise of God, their Creator.”

The Church at Colossae- Phyrigia is in Asia Minor-the region that is today called Turkey (see map above). The Romans had fought the Celts in Asia Minor slaughtering one of the tribes of Celt warriors fighting naked until arrows pinned their feet through to the ground. It was something of a last redoubt of those politically recalcitrant to Roman rule before being subdued. Berkhof writes that Paul’s three years at Ephesus probably was the proximal cause for the hearing of the word and foundation of the church at Colossae yet he writes “Colossae was one of the cities of the beautiful Lycus Valley in Phrygia, situated but a short distance from Laodicea and Hierapolis. Herodotus speaks of it as a great city, but it did not retain its magnitude until New Testament times, for Strabo only reckons it as a πόλισμα. We have no information respecting the founding of the Colossian church. From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that Paul passed through Phrygia twice, once at the start of his second, and again at the beginning of his third missionary journey, Acts 16: 6; 18: 23. But on the first of these journeys he remained well to the East of Western Phrygia, where Collosae was situated; and though on the second he may have gone into the Lycus Valley, he certainly did not find nor found the Colossian church there, since he himself says in Col. 2: 1 that the Colossians had not seen his face in the flesh.”

The Apostle Paul could be regarded as the founder of the churches in Asia Minor that would in time emerge as the Orthodox Church in the Eastern Roman Empire refounded by Emperor Constantine as Constantinople at Byzantium. Some of those churches lasted through the vicissitudes of icon vs. iconoclasts, schism with the western Catholic Church and invasion and conquest by Osmanli tribesmen of Mohammedan faith when even the Church of Holy Wisdom-the Haggia Sofia, was converted into a mosque.

Berkhof writes “In all probability Paul’s prolonged residence at Ephesus and his preaching there for three years, so that “all those in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus,” Acts 19:10, was indirectly responsible for the founding of the churches in the Lycus Valley. The most plausible theory is that Epaphras was one of Paul’s Ephesian converts and became the founder of the Colossian church.”

Berkhof notes interestingly that Antiochus the Great moved 2000 Jewish families from Babylonia to a region near Lydia and Phrygia, why I cannot say. The region has a long history of forced displacements and relocations of various peoples continuing into the present day. The church was mostly gentiles though false doctrine did assail it from numerous sources.

I will provide an example of some of Berkhof’s substantive analysis; “According to the Epistle the Colossians were in danger of being misled by certain false teachings. As to the exact nature of the Colossian heresy there is a great variety of opinion. Some regard it as a mixture of Judaeistic and theosophic elements; others dub it Gnosticism or Gnostic Ebionism; and still others consider it to be a form of Essenism. We can infer from the Epistle that the errorists were members of the congregation, for they are described as those “not holding the head,” 2:19, an expression that is applicable only to those that had accepted Christ.”

Jesus Christ is of course the head of the church.

Composition

1) Occasion and Purpose- Berkhof illuminates some points that are a little obscure to moderns, though interesting enough still to historians and others on what people believed in error that departed from the gospel and doctrine of The Lord. The belief in the mediation of angels in everything as if they were the animistic spirits of pagan Romans-(i.e. Janus the Door goddess whose temple was only open during times of war) was theologically made anachronistic. Politically however the concept is still significant for the evolutionist camp often regards Christians as evolving from an animistic paradigm and generally still having that although in a consolidated monotheistic context. That is a somewhat shaky anti-philosophical, anti-God intellectual edifice obviously.

Quoting Berkhof; “Epaphras, the founder and probably also the minister of the congregation, had evidently seen the danger, gradually increasing, that was threatening the spiritual welfare of the church. The errorists did not directly antagonize him or Paul; yet their teaching was a subversion of the Pauline gospel. Hence he informed the apostle of the state of affairs, and this information led to the composition of the Epistle. The object Paul has in view is the correction of the Colossian heresy. Hence he clearly sets forth the unique significance of Christ, and the all-sufficient character of his redemption. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the Creator of the world, and also of the angels, and the only Mediator between God and man. He in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells, has reconciled all things to God and has delivered men from the power of sin and death. In his death He abrogated the shadows of the Old Testament and terminated the special ministry of the angels that was connected with the law, so that even this vestige of a supposed Biblical foundation for the worship of angels has been removed. In him believers are perfect and in him only.’

2) Time and Place- Berkhof dates Paul’s writing to A.D. 61 or 62

Canonical Significance

Berkhof writes “The canonical character of this Epistle has never been doubted by the Church. There are slight but uncertain indications of its use in Clement of Rome, Barnabas and Ignatius. More important references to it are found in Justin Martyr and Theophilus. Marcion gave it a place in his canon, and in the Muratorian Fragment it is named as one of the Pauline Epistles. With Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian the quotations increase both in number and definiteness. That the Epistle is not quoted as often as Ephesians is probably due to its polemical character. The permanent value of this letter is found primarily in its central teaching, that the Church of God is made perfect in Christ, its glorious Head. Since He is a perfect Mediator and the complete redemption of his people, they grow into him, as the Head of the body, they find the fulfillment of all their desires in him, as their Saviour, and they reach their perfection in him, as the Goal of the new creation. His perfect life is the life of the entire Church.”

It is somewhat miraculous, or perhaps an illustration of the divine ordering of history that the foundation of the churches of Asia Minor and Paul’s opportunity to write to the Colossian church from gaol before martyrdom occurred in a region that would be and remain Hellenized and infused with the thought of Plato and his work the Republic with it’s description of the realm of forms and metaphysical ideas in general that would become inspiration to Plotinus later. Plotinus, a neo-Platonist in essence develops Paul’s Christology from Colossians and explains the nature of the Universe and of cosmology emitted from the One in 54 tractates called The Enneads.

From my pointy of view the worldview of Plotinus is very much like a paradigm for contemporary physical cosmology with a theistic understanding. Forms of matter were and are a [perennial philosophical and scientific question, and Universal forms occur in the quantum world and also in gravitational characteristic such as drawing matter together. The mystery about The One that Plotinus wrote about pertain to God as well; why did the perfect One actualize anything at all. Even a thought implies less than omniscience I suppose for God has the answer to every question. The extension of anything into temporal form is a great mystery. Some physicists speculate that for practical purposes the Universe may be regarded as a hologram. Steady states of mass are quantum entanglement of waveforms in a Higgs field (that remind me of the sacrificial sheep being found by AVRM caught in a bush). With that thought I guess one could consider that our reality is God’s thought, and that all thought exists for God with all things existing even an infinite multiverse, without need for physical dimensions or scale in order to be, for those would all be contingent so it is best to use General Relativity as a metric for regarding the physical realm.

Jesus Christ as the Creator of the Universe and Head of the Church is represented by Plotinus as The Intelligence who brings everything into existence. Imperfection and sin were considered by Plotinus to be broken forms. Writing a couple of centuries after Paul it is easy enough to discern the development of Plotinus’ ideas in the history of ideas. Plotinus was something of a mystic himself, was condemned b y the Orthodox Church as a pagan representing a heresy and sort of marginalized.

Today the concept of continuing direct revelation from God is controversial for good reason. Heyschasm was the term for Plotinus’ direct encounter with the goodness of God, and that was something like that written of in The Cloud of Unknowing. Christian mysticism aside, as if they were investigating transcendent quantum cosmology issued by God within a holograph or Bishop Berklean pure-idea paradigm, the elucidation by Plotinus of cosmological concepts implicit in the Christology of the Epistle to the Colossians is worth a comment.