Duelling Duals

Below is a quote from a study on Hegel:

"Hegel took logic to the next logical level, in what many consider to be a higher intellectual level, claiming an (A) ideology conflicting with its (B) opposite ideology = (C) a new and sometimes better philosophy. The dialectic pits A against B in a constant conflict and resolution, which eventually creates an outcome that may or may not have any resemblance to A and B. According to modern social scientists, C does not have to be a reasonable conclusion, since Hegel's dialectic takes pure reason out of the reasoning."

In the Garden of Eden story we encounter a tree that is said to have the "fruit" of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve is told not to sample it or she will die. So, of course, this "mother of all living" does as she pleases and we are all dead meat because of it. Thank you very much, Mother Eve.

The basic idea is that Eve is innocent until she sinks her incisors into this knowledge, and she is then enlightened to the presence, in the world, of both good and evil. This just has to be an allegory, folks. Perhaps it is the point in time that humanity began to realize that the world around them is malfunctioning: there is evil in the air/

the smell of dragon-gas is there/

coming from the lair.

But good and evil are polar opposites. There is a duel going on in the cosmos, and it consists of these duals. The duals are duelling.

Oriental thinking tries to balance the dualism, and says, basically, that good is not completely good and evil is not utterly evil. Okay. But Occidental folks ~ not by accident ~ have sought to understand how to utilize the cosmic argument to bring about progress. History, if you will.

One guy says, "I believe in apples." Another guy says,"I believe in oranges." They then battle over apples and oranges until they have amalgamated them into apple-orange pie. Is it an improvement? Maybe. Maybe not. But it will now be compared to banana-rhubarb pie, and the virtues and vices of each pie will yield to the new synthesis: apple-rhubarb-orange-banana pie, or some variance thereof.

Now that I have confused you thoroughly, what is the point?

One of the lasting dualities argued in the church is the tension between the realities of predestination and free will. The scriptures talk about them both. So one group focuses its doctrine on predestination and the next group focuses on free will. They come up with somewhat radically different prescriptions for how to live.

Knowledge is confusing, enlightening as it may be. This is why Solomon said,"In much knowledge is much grief." But he was listening to 700 wives talking; and they were all just like their mother Eve.

But, according to Hegel, all history is a progression of arguments resolving to sin-thesis (synthesis). The thesis and the antithesis (the duals duelling) resolve to the sin-thesis. In other words, we can't help but sin.

Actually, that is SYN-thesis. Syn means "together" and thesis means something like "to posit" or "place." To place together: to put the two things together. Now, if we put good and evil together, what have we got? We have the world as we know it. You see? "Know." Gnosis. The knowledge of good and evil.

I'd better not teach philosophy. I will ruin thousands of years of knowledge accumulations.

Anyway, when we come to God, God is UNO. One. He is not polarized like the church is. He is not polarized like His creation is: duelling over duals. He is not confused like we are. But then, He didn't eat that apple.

So, if you pit two football teams against each other, one wins. Is that a synthesis? It is a resolution. Then they hammer it out all season and, at Super Bowl, the best man wins. But what actually happened? A lot of advertising dollars were spent and more goods were sold everywhere. But was there any real resolution? Did the long arduous battle mean anything?

So Solomon, the wisest king, got to the end of all this and said,"It all vexes me." Killjoy.

But God, in all this, emerges as non-dual. That means He ain't divided up. He is in control of the whole mess. For, to Him, it ain't a mess. For Him it makes sense. He understands the synthesis: where all the theses are going.

So what are we all arguing about? Well, we're processing information, the knowledge of good and evil. We are making sense of it all.

Doesn't that make sense?