The two chunks of iron are two, but the two chunks of magnetite are three. (If we for the moment ignore forces which aren’t significant to our experience). Was the magnetism there before the two pieces of magnetite actualized it by being drawn together? The magnetism is invisible, yet, most definitely, there. But yes, I agree Will, the magnetism is to us abstract until the magnetite actualizes it.

In fact, magnetism IS abstract unless there is something it can interact with. But yet it is very real. So it is both abstract and actual, like the way light is both a wave and a particle.

YES YES AMEN YES!! Why don’t more Christians get this?? Why are we continually straining at the gnats of exactly how old the earth is according to Genesis or the OT geneologies, or all this Davinci Code crapola for that matter, and swallowing the camels of WHO CREATED IT AND HOW IT FITS INTO THE BIG PICTURE? Even some New Agers seem to understand this concept better than a lot of ground-bound Christians I have met.

This is why I left the organized church; there is a glass ceiling there that prevents the true believer from progressing beyond bible knowledge and scientific theology into a Fantastic Voyage of discovery into the heart and mind of God. Mystics like St Theresa, St John of the Cross, Madame Guyon and Brother Lawrence got it, as do modern-day ones like Edwards, Viola, and Peter Lord. This is also why, even as a Christian, I find myself open to the teachings of non-Christians at times; AT LEAST THEY HAVE SOME FREAKING IDEA OF THE CONCEPT OF A TRANSCENDANT GOD WHO IS NOT MARX OR SANTA CLAUSE.

Bob, superb post as aways, but you did leave out one important contradiction in the bible:

Free Will vs. Predestination (or Karma, if you will).

Both philosophers and religious authorities have been at war about this for centuries. I believe, in the spirit of Third Way unity, that they are both true, at the same time! How do you like them EveApples?

This just stimulates my Left/Right brain to no end.
Like a string that has been plucked and the sound sustains without deminishing, indeed it only gets louder with time.

This might sound crazy but i feel like i’m living in a microcosm.
And it sucks.
“The Lord is my shepard i shall not want”.
Truly painful.

Excellent! Act-You-All-I-Zing, Will!

Integrating the intheCreating Jim!

The fareassees not only missmisunderstand the mystery’s answer,
but they don’t even realeyes the questyon.

I typed ‘The joining of two identities without loss of entities’ which to me at the time seemed to mean the same thing.

Interesting ecclesiastes mention: Look for the part where he’s talking about partners– ‘if a man has a partner, if one slips, the other can lift him up’? And he gives 5 reasons why its good to have a partner. Then he says a curious thing: ‘A rope of three cords is not easily broken’. Ah! Solomon gets it.

“Back to the spiral of infinity again! Is the circle formed when the two opposite ends eat each other or connect? Then reversed and inside out?! Good mind boggle.”

The answer is yes!

Or, rather, YEAH, BABY!

Actually, I think it’s a good model for the ideal marriage in the conventional sense. The spiritual union of two, male and female, while not blurring the individual distinction of either, results in a shared spiritual ideal which is larger than either of them – and that ideal is a third entity, a “bubble” that encompasses them both. Male + female = bubble = holy triad.

Of course, the bubble might also materially manifest as a child. Or not. In either case, in the ideal marriage, a third entity is created.