Sharing of power is a shocking thing, and apparently the more evil someone is, the more shocking it would be that such an evil would share power. J.R.R. Tolkien captured this well when he penned, speaking of the main villain: “. . . and he does not share power.” When God created, He shared power. God’s act to make creation is the supreme act of decentralization. God Himself as based on Christian Trinitarianism is not a centralized Entity. The unity of God owes to His one nature, but the differentiation and decentralization of God owes to the Persons of the Trinity. In this sense, the immanent Trinity is a model that intimates that the highest form of existence is one of decentralized harmony. We can further postulate that true Personhood and community exists only in the context of perfect peace. This is the Christian myth–which I am not implying by my use of the word “myth” as meaning untrue–that undermines the idea that humankind should always be at war.

I’ve talked to quite a few friends who believe that humankind is largely a horrible species, destined to be cruel, exploitative, and killers. While I think there is credulity to this view as represented on the governmental and media world-stages, I remain skeptical that we don’t have great hope in humanity elsewhere. Forget the non-profit groups and forget the churches and forget the rest of the contenders for whom is the model or exemplary of how humankind should be. You need look no further than your kids. Kids model the highest form of humanity. Even when we admit that their cognitive abilities are far less than adults, we find that those features kids have in bounds are far more desirable for harmony than big cognitive skill. Kids care. Kids focus on a sense of fairness to wild extents. Kids love intimacy. Kids want to just have fun–pleasure in the good is arguably the highest form of human existing. Kids are not driven by necessities but have far greater cares to attend to like love, friendships, hugs, and spending time together. Notice that these are all things that take a back seat or disappear as we become adults and the necessities of life predominate.

God’s act to create was the supreme act of decentralization and if we take kids as how humanity could be, that act of decentralization was for harmony to exist. Enacting intent and influence is central to personal power. The Trinity is always already a decentralized harmony of personal power. Nevertheless, the Trinity created persons with wills that can enact intent and influence, and therefore the Trinity shared power in what is a jaw-dropping feature of the Christian myth. When I use “myth” in this way, I do so just to put the Christian myth up against the other contending myths including putative scientific explanations of the universe’s purpose, existence, and explanation. That the universe should be at all is the stuff of legends and miracles. It used to be the case that scientists thought the universe to be eternal, which would somehow make organized energy eternal at least until observable history, which goes against the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that energy moves from organized to unorganized until max entropy is reached. My point is that even this so-called scientific explanation of the universe is mythical. Similarly, proponents of the Big Bang theory of the universe recognized that the moment of the beginning of the bang was a moment “where all scientific laws break down.” Hence, such a view is likewise miraculous or mythical, depending on which terms you are more comfortable with using. Thus, when I speak of the Christian myth, it does not imply “untrue” just as I suspect when a scientist states “where all scientific laws break down” he or she does not mean to imply “untrue.” My larger point is that all explanations of the universe–whether scientific or faith-based–are equally mythical or miraculous. Even the famed Nobel-prize winning physicist, Penrose, with his theory of existence being a series of expanding and collapsing universes, faces the ongoing trouble of current scientific laws being upended, replaced, or otherwise only relative to this present universe. Of course, we could simply rewind all this discussion and note that the attribute “eternal” as soon as it enters the conversation, we are readily moving into divine talk whether we apply that attribute to God, karma, the universe, or otherwise.

Therefore, central to the Christian myth is the origin of decentralization, its explanation in the Trinity, and decentralization inherent good. In Christian patristics (study of church fathers), there is a known differentiation between different and division. Division is bad, evil. Differentiation is good, beautiful. Division leads to dissolution, destruction. Differentiation constitutes harmony, balance, and symmetry. In the famous words of lord Acton, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Absolute power is a singly power that has no check or balance to it. That Acton’s truism is cited as an obvious explanation of reality is supported by the Christian idea of Trinity: that decentralization is the model of the divine, the departure from that decentralized harmony in favor of a unitary power, with no other persons checking, balancing, or contributing, makes perfect sense. Humans were designed to mimic God the Trinity so leaving behind decentralization in whatever domain of life leads inexorably to corruption, denigration, at least on the Christian view.

Dr. Scalise

A developing subtext to planetary politics is the impact of population growth. With this development has come more explicit keywords: sustainability, reproductive-health, abortion. These keywords are repeated time and time again in the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 (https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda). The threat to the planet, according to the UN, isn’t really climate change but humanity itself: https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14445.doc.htm. This press release identifies humanity as the victim but also the cause of its own mass-extinction. It is interesting that in this article it is explicitly noted that it is not the lack of money that is the issue but humans themselves. I find this hard to believe since half of the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 a day income (https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2018-10-17/world-bank-half-the-world-lives-on-less-than-550-a-day). If I were to throw my hat in the ring to determine what is really the threat to the planet and humanity, I would name two: (1) usury, and (2) centralization of power. What do I mean by this? For those of us indoctrinated happily with Scripture, it is a bit shocking that the Old Testament Law repeatedly prohibits usury, which is the charging of interest on loaned money. Modern dictionaries define usury as “charging exorbitant interest on loaned money,” but this is a major change from the Old Testament definition, which is charging any interest at all on loaned money (cf., Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Deut. 23:19).

The early church through most of the medieval ages prohibited all usury, and it did not distinguish between Jew and Gentile in this prohibition. In the OT law, Deuteronomy 23:20 allowed only for the charging of interest on the foreigner. Those belonging to the community of Israel were never to be charged interest on loaned money. That the church would see this prohibition as effectively universal, with major condemnation towards it, is not strange based on its self-understanding as a new Israel or now “grafted in” part of Israel. Muether cites Ambrose, stating: “Ambrose agreed when he wrote: ‘If anyone commits usury, he commits robbery and no longer has life (John R. Muether, “Money and the Bible,” Christian History Magazine-Issue 14: Money in Christian History: Part I (Worcester, PA: Christian History Institute, 1987)).'” This early church teaching that charging interest was tantamount to or resulted in the loss of one’s salvation is shocking because of how wide spread the practice is in the modern world. We have now come full circle back to why it is the case that half the world makes $5.50 or less a day. In a word, usury. Jesus’ favorite teaching topic was the danger of money; perhaps the early church and the OT before it rightly understood the damning effect interest has on one’s soul.

Before we go on about usury destroying the livelihoods of half the planet, let’s consider the relationship between usury and centralization. Usury is a wildly successful tool to centralize power. To loan money and receive back more than loaned accrues power over the long term, there is little doubt. In the current era of modern monetary policy–which I cannot get into now with going on a huge digression, you can read about it here, https://againstallodds.site/2022/06/12/monetary-fascism/–the ability to loan governments money, after first creating those fiat, unbacked dollars, is demoralizing and insane, and it is even more monstrous by its enforcement through taxation. This present situation where banks loan governments fiat currency–instead of governments creating their own currency–is really the capstone of a long centralization of power over the control of money, or monetary policy. There is a reason Andrew Jackson destroyed and got rid of the 2nd central bank in the United States, the precursor to the current central bank, the so-called Federal Reserve. One question easily demonstrates how inane it is to think the Federal Reserve is fiscally part of the US government: why does the Federal Reserve charge the US government interest (usury) on the fiat dollars it prints? Whoever enjoys the benefit of this interest has potent centralized power.

How much money has been collected through usury over the past 124 years? How would the world be different if that currency remained with the families who produced it? Of course, we could investigate and see how those interest-payments flow from certain parts of the world to other parts of the world, effectively removing wealth from local economies. Since trees process and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the further developed local economies are, the better the chance that energy sources other than trees are used. This isn’t terribly insightful; local wealth results in improved infrastructure which results in better energy options. There are only two options for handling the increase in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: either (1) we plant more trees or (2) we reduce carbon emissions. Water produced energy is utterly efficient, clean, and sizable. The countries of northern Africa could have arguably built infrastructures to improve the habitats of deserts to be able to plant trees if local wealth remained local.

Before someone avers that we need to redistribute wealth from rich countries to poor countries, we must recognize the specter of centralized power hiding behind that suggestion. Who would decide what countries should receive it? What persons in that country get it? Who is the wealth taken from in rich countries? Why should someone have the power to decide who has to give up wealth and where it should go? No, centralized power of this sort over money and how it flows on the planet is precisely what led to this situation. How could it not? If tomorrow, you could be in a position to determine how money flows, who it flows to, who it is taken from, and the steps involved in its transfer, wouldn’t it seem reasonable to get the smallest of a fraction of that money for the kids? Taking the smallest of amounts from such large amounts of money won’t really hurt anyone, but it will change my kids’ futures. Fast forward a few generations, however, and that same family is likely in the same business but with far more resources and with far less inhibitions about what they are doing.

To try to summarize and bring this together, the danger of carbon dioxide to humanity is a symptom of the practice of usury in the service of centralized power. The root threat to humanity is usury, which today is the forcible removal of wealth from local economies to private interests. To repair the world to make it feasible for population growth, we must (1) build renewable energy infrastructure, (2) make habitats hostile to trees favorable to trees through investments in environmental projects, and (3) decentralize monetary policy and give it back to the local families. That a very few people on the planet determine how everyone else’s wealth will behave–i.e., monetary policy–will always lead to impoverishment, lack of modern infrastructure, and those who have always having more. It may be a dream, but the banishment of all usury would create the greatest financial revolution on this planet perhaps ever.

Dr. Scalise

I’ll grant the title is bombastic, but humans’ disconnection with humanities must be of some seismic consequence. An infamous quote from those at Google developing AI brings the consequence to bear: “why the worry over AI (artificial intelligence) and the loss of human connection, we spend much more time looking down at our phone screens than we do looking deeply into one another’s eyes?” This is an excellent microcosm of what the whole of Western culture faces. Do we want being human to be defined primarily by STEM (science, technology, engineering, math)? What type of humans will this produce? Should we embrace the androidification of the human race? Are humans really just complex science equations, routed through technology, social media, and phone screens? Does engineering and math produce better people? What do we even mean by “better?” STEM has a glaring missing piece: morality. Morality, by the way, is not the concern of those who embrace a faith. There are those who embrace the importance of morality while still being methodological naturalists. There are others who likewise find morality to be very important who have tried to ground morals as objective by appeal to a kind of neo-platonism rather than appealing to a transcendent Lawgiver (God). No, indeed, morality is important to many more people than only those inside a faith.

Humanities, it seems, is the contrast to STEM. Within humanities are history, rhetoric, argumentation, cinematography, speech, writing, singing, dancing, music, theology, administration, morality, ethics, law, politics, and social science. I am sure we could add more, but this list is warming. The amount of joy and satisfaction that comes just from music is a case in point. What would life be like without music? What warms the soul like a rousing speech? Why write if not to connect? Story-telling in terms of movies brings in outrageous revenue every year, testifying to the centrality and importance of this part of humanities. Why do we love a good story? Is it more human to spend time on humanities? If so, why the emphasis on STEM? Would less technology but more ethics improve the world? Would less science but more music make the world better or worse? These are difficult questions.

I would advocate for a return to the Renaissance ethos where all these subjects should be jointly pursued. Unfortunately, the Western countries are in a arms race over AI and space weapons. The only things that matter with those concerns are STEM topics, the rest just slow down the arms race. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, and there is no reset button. In this sense, the demise of the West as a civilized world seems all but certain. How can we expect kids who have stared at screens most of their lives and concerned themselves mainly with computer programing–as an example–to act in accord with values, virtues, and civil behaviors, all of which come from the humanities? Its obtuse to suppose the type of dignified behavior that the Great Generation and Baby-Boomers (those born from roughly 1900s – 1960s) exhibited could be replicated in humans fixated on screens and STEM. The West has to decide if STEM is more important than, say, freedom. Likewise, is STEM more important than privacy? Is the 4th amendment, which affirms we can keep our finances hidden, more important than digital, online banking? Yes, the rubber meets the road with this question. Would we Westerns inconvenience ourselves by reorganizing our lives to protect our fiscal privacy since we cannot trust the government not to violate our rights? Is online banking really an affirmation that we don’t care about our privacy (humanities) and that STEM is worth giving up our rights? I presume that the present god of the West is convenience, and I think there are very few who have the discipline to resist worshiping that god.

Dr. Scalise

There are some interesting developments in the Western world that has ushered in a post-truth era. Before someone thinks I am advocating for nihilism or defeatism, let me say at the outset that I believe such a development promotes narrative warfare and the inescapability of bias. These two themes have been integral to my developing thought over the past 5 years. Is there truth without a narrative contextualization? Is bias ultimately escapable and, even if it were, is that a good thing? We have seen the development of deep fakes and alleged stolen elections around the globe, from Russia to Venezuela to the United States. Whether software programs in these elections were part of the alleged steal is neither here nor there. The outworking of the data-scientists over the years to investigate election manipulation has resulted in largely a big question mark. Without access to source code, the data packets can only tell you so much. The point, therefore, is that accessibility to the truth of this or that election is not available except for maybe a few extremely talented hackers–and this is hard to say. If we accept this as an accurate description of reality, then we should pivot from getting at the truth of this or that election and get involved in narrative crafting, infrastructure building, and building critical interpersonal relationships.

The so-called great awakening–the celebrated freedom of those programed and brainwashed by legacy media outlets around the world, largely in Western countries–is less about returning people to truth and more about reorienting the masses to understand how knowledge is a political football and manipulated this way or that for some elite’s agenda. While there is a celebration in this freedom, without some underlying narrative that transcends this moment in history, we should wonder about its durability. The great-awakening is about showing humanity that the world is already in a post-truth era. The point is that the masses have been long-programmed to go along with and agree to the agenda of a political and elite class whose decisions are impossible to make sense of from the known facts. In this sense, the current great awakening is more a transition point than a movement. In this way, the original Great Awakening of the 16-18th century is strictly differentiated from this 21st century great awakening. The original Great Awakening was about solidifying a Judeo-Christian epistemic and value system into the framework of early American culture. That was a movement. This 21st century great awakening is about breaking a cult-like hold on the minds of the masses from the psychological programming of the legacy media. This is a transition point. What comes after breaking this hold is the question.

The covid-pandemic with its “trust the science,” “trust the medical professionals,” combined with the later exposures of how the science didn’t support it and how the medical professionals lined their pockets, points to making truth as those in power see fit so long as they control the lines of communication: social media and legacy media, as it stands today in 2024. To trust the science during the pandemic can be summed up in one word: ivermectin. Why not trust the medical professionals can be summed up in one short sentence: they abandoned the hippocratic oath. Much more could be said, but I will leave that to the more political involved commentators. These observations are designed to support the point that the great awakening of the 21st century is about showing the masses that we are in a post-truth era. It has not been about truth for quite some time; it seems that it has been about who controls the main lines of communication: i.e., who controls the ability to craft the epistemic framework in the minds of the masses.

Those who can control the narrative can win just about any conversation at least in this present world and time. It is a powerful tool to be able to frame the contours of a conversation since the populace at large will stay within the framework once it is rolled out. Those outside that framework will face months or years of being seen and discussed as a pariah. Thus, the pariah now must first build some credibility back before he/she can even refute the issue at hand; by the time this credibility has been built, the delay has allowed the contour of the framework to get seated in the collective minds of the people. Too little, too late, as they say.

I am not saying that truth doesn’t exist. I am saying that if the direction of civilization’s goals, values, and priorities, is guided by narratives rolled out by a very few centralized organizations, should we not assume such a process is a post-truth process? Certainly, it would be asinine to say that such centralized narratives are devoted to the truth. They may be “devoted to the truth” but whatever the central features of their narratives are, those are “their truths.” What’s the point to what I am saying? Narratives are as fashionable as ever, and there are underlying meta-narrative features interwoven into these narratives. The infamous postmodern attitude that the present world has incredulity towards meta-narratives must have failed to understand the media-apparatuses were advancing such meta-narratives in a very successful brainwashing of most Western countries. While the scholars bickered about deconstructionism and the validity of meta-narratives, the elites and their media-dogs were all the while meta-narrative constructing a post-truth world, where “truth” would be as the media framed it.

Two bigs admissions should follow from this discussion. That truth is used to compel behavior should not be denied. The postmodernist argues that truth is nothing more than a power play, a means to advancing one’s agenda. We just admit that truth does have a compelling force entailed in it, but this is not all truth is. The big question about truth is whose mind grounds truths (truth propositions); is it an elite, is it a media group, is it social media platform Facebook, or is it the Bible? We could say a lot here, but it would be a digression. Second, advancing a counter narrative is critical to any successful transition out of the 21st century great awakening. Simply, the 21st century’s great awakening does not have the resources to sustain it; it needs a meta-narrative to translate it from a transition point to an enduring movement. The Gospel would be best, but the version of God as interested in humanity’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of virtue” would suffice. And yes, you read that right, I said the pursuit of virtue because the idea of the pursuit of happiness has historically meant the pursuit of virtue. Of course, virtue is the behaviors attuned to internal attitude aligned with God’s commandments as revealed in the OT and NT. We cannot leave “virtue” open to endless interpretations since we know the media’s favorite game in the present information war is to redefine words and then repeat them with those definitions until that goes mainstream.

Dr. Scalise