Augustine Was Right

Augustine was an ecclesiastical theologian who wrote letters, and delivered his North African sermons, in the years around 400CE. He is generally recognized to be one of the most intellectual religious thinker of his day. His Sermons and writings also reveal him to be one of the most devout Catholic Anti-Semites of his day. It is same to say, where he not such a great rhetorician, the Inquisitions and Holocaust might never have happened.

Once we get past racist stupidity, and blatant misrepresentation of fact, upon which he premised his oration – once we get past that – theologically his “defense” of the Jews was right. What was his defense of this race he branded as evil, as of the earth and therefore not worthy, and too stupid to comprehend their own scripture? What was his defense? THEY WERE NECESSARY for the spiritual to exist.

Those who aren’t familiar with Augustine should read the book – “Augustine and the Jews”. It certainly beats going through the millions of words which comprise his know letters and transcribed sermons (recorded by a church scribe as they were delivered). Catholic anti-Semitism of the second to forth century is abundantly clear – to the point where it was the basis of their, and the competing Christian, theology. With the exception of Judeo-Christians who followed the Laws of Moses, anti-Semitism was the order of the day – and, as we know, succeeding generations.

Where was Augustine right ... what did he get correct? Augustine, basing his views on Paul, focused on two elements of religion: Faith and Law. In his canon, Augustine identified these as Earth and Spirit. The Jews were of the Earth, the followers of his version of Christ were of Spirit. If we view it in spiritual terms defined by physical, or mathematical laws, he was right.

Consider Einstein’s famous formula where energy is equal to the square of the speed of light times matter. This is the basic law of atomic energy – and probably all of reality. And it is on that premise – that Einstein’s formula is the basic reality, thus the basis of theology as well as physiology – that I now see the truth which Augustine had, though actually blind to the real teachings, produced in his thinking.

Consider: Zero and infinity are the same point. Mathematicians know this without question. Multiply anything by zero and you get zero. Divide anything by zero and you get infinity. Divide anything by infinity and you have zero, Multiply anything by infinity and the result is a new order of the infinite. Now do the math with zero and infinity as the two functions. Zero time infinity is both infinite and zero. Mathematically that appears to be the very definition of G-d. The ancients viewed it as the serpent eating its own tail – no beginning and no end.

It is only in the realm of Mathematical Practicality that zero and infinity exist. In reality – our realm of existence – because neither can ever be achieved, neither zero nor infinity exist. Those who are there is such a thing as nothing cannot establish its existence without reference to something and therefore are actually saying that the something is not in a specific location (though, obviously, something else must be).

What we have is a universe which has either mass (matter) or energy. The universe – our reality – is measured, or defined, by the degree of the two as determined by their motion or speed. That’s what Einstein realized and codified. It is also the reality of Augustine’s arguments. The Spiritual is Pure Energy, and the Earth is Pure (stagnant) Mass. As the mass is slowed the energy decreases. Thus, as we are increasingly part of the theological earth, we too are of lessened motion and thus decreased energy (spiritual).

There must always be some motion and some mass. Without it – if nothing really existed – there could be no spirituality. The deity is the point where zero meets infinity – like the Kline Bottle of Topographic Theory, the deity has no inside of outside, but everything is relative to it as a constant surface.

If we think of the concept of Heaven and Hell. Heaven brings us closer to the deity because our energy increases and our mass declines. Hell is a torment where our energy is decreased to consciousness without the power of motion. There are no demons torturing those in Hell – those people have effectively become rock. Native Americans and others were correct – there is a spirit within the inanimate; it is the spirit of those who were sufficiently “sinful” as to lose their energy. Ghosts would be those whose energy levels have moved them beyond the physical, but not sufficiently to the spiritual – the accepted concept behind the mythology is correct.

All things can be explained in terms of Einstein’s simple formulation demanding motion and mass to produce energy. Augustine was on the right path. Of course, this than argues that there are rules which must be followed – laws to increase the energy levels – and those laws should be the theology which we follow. Those whose theology cannot demonstrably establish there is an increase in energy are, thus, students of a false theology.