Logos Rising Book Review Chapter Notes

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 3, 2023, 19:08

Preface and Chapter 1 (The Beginning of Everything)

Ok Wow.

So in this Chapter, which is really the beginning of the book EMJ basically paints the Struggle over ultimate reality as a battle between British Atheism trying to impose itself on everybody else.

As a Polemic against Atheism, and scientism, which is mostly what this chapter is, it actually reads very well. Jones is able to dissect modern Atheists like Dawkins, and Hitchens with ease and he carves their arguments up like a Chinese army advancing on a peaceful demonstration.

However as a chapter in the book on “Ultimate Reality” this chapter really is misleading. Atheism in not some sort of Enlightenment era British operation, that Jones tries to make it seem. I am pretty sure Atheism goes back a long ways in history and the British contributions to it are probably pretty small. Jones is trying really hard to set up the British as this evil “anti-logos” mustache twirling villain, but with just a little understanding of history its pretty laughable. For instance in the beginning of the chapter Jones jumps around a lot from Isaac Newton to the Hegel, to Darwin before finally settling on contemporary Atheists' Dawkins and Hitchens for the last half of the Chapter. However going from Darwin to Dawkins left me feeling as if Jones was intentionally leaving something out. Like some sort of massive political Atheistic movement run by which captured a lot of countries in the world.

Forgive my pen marks, but in this passage Jones says that Russia is now a Christian Country, Athiesm is he Core belief of the English Ideology. (I didn't know England even had an Ideology) As for Russia we, ie the west, lived under Christendom for 1,000 years, we can know what it is and looks like and it ain't Russia. If Russia was Christian then wouldn't it produce Christian Art, Music, Culture, Movies? A Christian country is a moral, homogenous, people tied together by blood and faith. Does that Describe Russia to you?

Now I’ll just say I don’t have any great love for British philosophers, so its fine by me to pick their arguments apart. In fact I think that any attempt to separate philosophy from religion is doomed to fail, which is why philosophers outside of the Catholic Church who try to build a philosophical system without God are really just exercising their pride and vanity.

With that said if we are discussing a book on Ultimate reality, Logos, God, I don’t think the conflict begins with enlightenment British philosophers and ends with British Atheists.  Making this the Thesis of the chapter creates so many problems and quite frankly its just absurd. Now maybe this chapter is just Jones laying down the ground work against atheism before he gets into his thesis of Logos so I will give him some leeway here. This brings up another point which is that Jones has yet to say what his thesis is. He is yet to tell us or give us a definition of what Logos is. Really I think this should be done in the first chapter.

Jones also really tries to Ham in some ridiculous things. First he blames the French Revolution on the English, specifically Newton’s cosmology. Now I think this because the French Revolution was so Atheistic that Jones has to pin it on the British to make his thesis work. Which is why Jones glosses over the French revolution because he knows that if the French revolution is examined his thesis of British imperial Atheism will fall apart. It’s really a shame because I don’t know how you build up the philosophy behind Atheism and not talk about the French Revolution and Communism? Those two things are probably the biggest contributors, yet instead of we are only left with Newton and Darwin. Sad.

Jones also ropes Adam Smith into the whole affair. Somehow Newton really just plagerized Empedocles, making gravity and inertia out of his concepts of Love and strife. Somehow. Even though Newton is considered perhaps the greatest scientist ever and we still use his formulas of Gravity and Inertia today. Adam Smith comes along later and creates the free market philosophy by plagerizing newton. Ergo, though Jones doesn’t say it, Capitalism, its main ideas of Self interest and competition (in Jones words) are really just Love and strife. Capitalism is British Imperial Atheism. You can’t make this up.

Jones doesn't actually prove anything about Newton, the Whigs, Adam Smith, Voltaire. He just states it and expects you to go along. Really statements of this magnitude should be the topics of books themselves, yet we do not get a single quote or proof from Jones at all. Just a footnote which checking the back of the chapter is a footnote to Jones book: The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit. Great academics Jones, citing yourself. (WTF is weaponized cosmology anyways?) Also Newton was not an Atheist. He may have dabbled in Kabballah and the occult a bit, I don't know that much about it, but in his time there wasn't really much of a difference between being a scientist and an alchemist. The modern understanding of Science had yet to emerge. Ironically it was Newton who may have contributed the most to our understanding of what science is today. 

One last thing, as someone who knows a little bit about medieval Cosmology. We would certainly call that pagan today, even though the medieval people who lived at the time did not view their cosmology as pagan. Newton led a great leap forward in our understanding and demystification of the Cosmos, I think we can cut him a little slack.

That’s about all I take away from this Chapter. Most of the chapter is devoted to Jones picking apart modern day atheists and again Jones polemics against Atheism and evolution are very good. Yet his historicism is very biased.

 

 

A thought that occurred to me is that Logos is an irrelevant dead end. If Logos what we call the natural order of the Universe as known from natural reasoning then it is irrelevant because it was replaced by Christ 2,000 years ago. We’ve already moved on Jones. Christ Supercedes Logos just as Divine Revelation supersedes Natural Reasoning. We’ve had something better than LOGOS for 2,000 years. Even St. John only uses the Term Logos to tell the Greeks that it is Christ. Gettting them to convert and advance in thinking.  Making Logos a battle between British Atheism and Logos is like, oddly enough, the Mythicist relying on modern day Rabbis to tell us what the Bible really means. The Jews already had their battle with Christ 2,000 years ago and lost. They lost so bad they had to Crucify him. What they say about the Bible 2,000 later is irrelevant because they weren’t even right about it when it was being written.

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 3, 2023, 19:27

Chapter 2

"The Beginning of Man"

In this chapter Jones again goes on the attack, this time his Victim is Yoel Harrari the gay World forum Jewish Professor. This chapter is really one long polemic against the Material, evolutionary, Atheistic concept of Man and Jones uses Harrari as his punching bag to drive home his points and attack the atheistic, materialist philosphy. Jones main point is that Man is a rational creature and not an animal as atheists, Anglo-American commisars like the gay Jewish professor say. Man is a rational creature because he can speak, which animals cannot do argues Jones. And to be fair Jones is makes a lot of good points and does a good job tearing down Harrari’s arguments.

However I don’t think this chapter really needed to be written as a separate chapter and could have easily been a few pages added onto the first chapter which already heavily deals with Atheism, materialism and evolution.

There really isn’t that much to this chapter, even though it is about 50 pages long. Fortunately Jones keeps his smear campaign against the English and Americans to a minimum (for Jones which means every other page has some libel against us), but he still manages to get in some swipes which are just silly when you analyze them. The thing which puzzles me most about this book is that for a book centered around what is the history Ultimate reality Jones has spent the first two chapters basically identifying and going after post enlightenment British Atheism, which I think is a ridiculous starting point. It is my assumption reading forward that the Thesis of Logos, which Jones has yet to define two chapters in (Although he did begin to give some sort of a working definition in this chapter that Logos is being able to talk) is really going to be the conflict of British Imperial Atheism vs. the rest of the world. I say this because Jones seems really desperate to frame everything bad as coming from England and America. Such as the quotes below.

 

Ya Jones, the gay Israeli professor and World Economic Advisor is really a Whig Meta-historian. Everything bad just has to be English doesn't it?

I don't think Whig Metahistory is a real thing. The Whigs were the predecessors of the Republican Party, would you ever say "Republican Metahistory?" What does that even mean? Also Newtonian Physics has worked for the last 400 years so I don't think its magic Jones. We use Newton's formulas everyday, You should be thankful to Isaac the next time you get on a plane to Iran. 

One of the things which I am picking up about jones is that he likes to slap Labels onto people which don’t apply and then use them to attack America and Britain. For instance Harrari never once says in any of the quotes Jones uses in this chapter That he is American or that he supports America. But Jones repeatedly calls him a commissar of the American Empire. Jones doesn’t back up his ascertains and he doesn’t even try. He just throws out these pejoratives and expects that they will stick because EMJ says so. I guess Jones believes he can author Ultimate Reality a bit.

Where does Harrari say America Jones? Stop shoehorning.

Jones Also likes to tell EMJ™ stories that he is fond of in this chapter he devotes about 3 full pages to talking about the Sackler family and how they poisoned America with Opioids. But what exactly does that have to do with the “beginning of man?” I think Jones wants to get his stories out there and on print.

Last Thought:

Its pretty odd to label the British as this evil Atheistic force contra Logos. Since throughout most of human history there wasn’t even a Britain. And I think people were a lot less rational, before British rule than after it.

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 4, 2023, 21:35

Chapter 3

“The beginning of Civilization”

In this chapter EMJ documents the development of the Human Race from the Time when, as EMJ calls it, Mitochondrial Adam and Mitochondrial Eve first appeared 120,000 years ago through humanities time as a hunter gatherer, to the cultivation of crops, the founding of city states, the Yammana/Aryan culture and the creation of the Proto Indo-European (PIE) Language to the Gilgamesh Epic, the first Mesopotamian empires, the development of the Chariot, Egypt, and Finally Moses.

In this Chapter EMJ IMO gives special importance to the creation of the PIE as he says it was a development forward which allowed for precision, specifically in declarative grammar which enabled Oaths, Bonds, Contracts, which are necessary for civilization and had been lacking in the other languages. This Linguistical advantage coupled with the physical superiority of the Yammana allowed them to spread their language across Eurasia. EMJ also gives a special nod to the Yammana and their worship of the masculine Sky God.

EMJ then jumps to the Middle east and explains how the Epic of Gilgamesh showed man’s search for metaphysical answers of life and death. How the Hammurabi code was the first system of law necessitated by the creation of the first empire. The importance of Chariot warfare, and how Egyptian language was not abstract enough for the Egyptians to develop Logos. EMJ ends the chapter writing that God had to intervene personally with Moses to get the Egyptians to adopt Monotheism and failed.

 

This Chapter is pretty interesting and I certainly learned quite a bit. There are a few problematic things with it however, but fortunately English Imperialism isn’t one of them, as England would have to wait for thousands of years to develop into a country.

The first problem is that EMJ calls the people living between the time of “Mitochondrial Adam and Eve and the first civilizations scavengers. From what little I know this is demonstrably false. Humans don’t have the strong jaws or strong stomachs to be scavengers, No hunter-gather society in recorded history was scavenger based. Scavenging flies in the face of a being created in the Image and Likeness of God. The only reason I can think of is that EMJ wants to show this grand sweeping social evolution of man where Man begins at the lowest point and progressively gets better as he learns about LOGOS. (Kinda Ironic since EMJ spent the Last two chapters bashing evolution, but hey)

Unfortunately that brings us to the second problem we are three chapters in and EMJ still hasn’t given us a definition of LOGOS. Now to be fair it seems he is slowly painting a picture of what Logos is by association, for instance he tells us things like Language is the closest thing to LOGOS because man is a rational creature. EMJ writes a section entitled “Hammurabi and the Logos of the moral order” and finishes it saying:

Ending with:

“Then with the writing of the Gospel of St. John, Logos and God became synonyms”

This leaves me, the reader a bit confused. Is Logos language, rationality, or God, all the above? The bigger metaphysical question is that if EMJ is writing that all these pagan early civilizations are developing Logos, IE God, are they not then still Pagan? Is LOGOS really Perennialism? Is LOGOS the heretical Perennial Idea that All peoples, religions have this metaphysical truth called rationality, or Logos? If peoples can develop this Logos Godliness within themselves outside God isn’t that really the gnostic Idea of the divine spark? Well it’s a little early to tell, but we have to be on the watch for it. What is certain is since EMJ keeps using the word LOGOS and applying it to all these things in his book he really has to give his definition for what it is. I think EMJ hasn’t given us the definition because either he is building up to it in later chapters, or because, what is more likely, is that he wants LOGOS to be this amorphous perennial term, which can be applied to anything, but really doesn’t mean much.

 

I will end this analysis by pointing out a couple of EMJ’s inconsistencies:

The first is this passage which makes an odd juxtaposition between Newton’s pagan cosmology which EMJ condemns in the previous two chapters and the real pagan cosmology of the Sumerians which EMJ marks as a civilizing leap forward.

The Second is the ending of the Chapter Where EMJ says God Sent Moses because he wanted to convert the Egyptian people to monotheism, but God failed. I’m pretty sure this is heresy.

Conclusion

While there is a lot of Information to be gleaned from this Chapter and EMJ covers a lot of ground which would make any history professor jealous this is simply not a Catholic work. I don’t believe it reflects the Christian Ideas of early civilization. For an self proclaimed Ersatz Catholic reactionary EMJ sure thinks of History in theistic evolutionary terms. Ironic.

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 5, 2023, 18:44

Chapter 4

“The Beginning of Philosophy”

In this Chapter Jones charts the beginning of philosophy and devotes the entire chapter to chronicling chronologically the contributions of about 20 Greek philosophers. It makes for a hard read because not only is the material very dense, but there are so many different Greeks and ideas that keeping track of it all is a Sisyphean effort. Just as Jones shows how Greek thought evolved and matured he likewise demonstrates that the concept of Logos underwent a similar evolution writing:

“Eventually the concept of Logos would mature until it stood in judgment over the behavior of the gods themselves” 146

“It is no coincidence that the polis, the hoplite phalanx, and philosophy arose at the same time. They are all manifestations of the logos that was now dimly perceived as the underlying cause of order in the universe, in human society, and in the human soul.” 155

“Logos us therefore the basis of the social order because it “connects humans with disinterested wonder and innovation and with the leisurely satisfaction of their natural desire for knowledge, that is, with philosophia,: which is a form of love” 179

Empedocles proposed by claiming that the fundamental forces of the universe are philia and logos, love and order. 179

Finally Jones settles on at last giving us a working definition of Logos, on page 180.

“Logos in its most fundamental for is “speech” which can relay the meaning of experiences “we never had, may never have, or cannot ever have first-hand.” Logos means standard, ratio, reason, and speech. The syllogism is “a logos in which certain things have been put, something else necessarily follows through them.” 180

On the next page jones writes:

“Logos is not merely static. There is also a logos of growth which explains motion as the transition from potentiality to actuality”

Maybe I am being a bit uncharitable to Jones here, but taking all these quotations into account I just find it hard to accept Jones' proposition of Logos being this divine all pervasive ordering force evolving humans into better more civilized people. Jones’ Idea of Logos seems to me to be a kind of new age perennial, pantheistic mystical metaphysics which is dressed up in a conservative catholic bowtie. In fact by the way Jones writes Logos is more of a catch-all. Like what does speech, rationality, standards, and ratios have to do with the hoplite phalanx? Every advancement which happened in history happened because of the logos, why? Because the logos is the force behind all order and advancement. Circular reasoning. If you were to substitute Logos for social evolution, or enlightenment the text would read the same.

Jones also writes that: “Empedocles proposed by claiming that the fundamental forces of the universe are philia and logos, love and order.” 179

But on the next page Jones says

“Because philia and order pervade everything the universe is called kosmos” (order) 180

This strikes me as pantheism because if logos is this divine metaphysical (catch-all) thing which pervades all of the universe then Jones is really saying God is the universe isn’t he? But Christians believe God is separate from the universe.

 

Jones also writes a couple of weird passages. One is that he seems to equate Zoroastrian fire worship, albeit in a somewhat roundabout way with logos. I can’t think of anything less rational that worship fire Jones. In fact, God told Abraham to leave Ur because they were worshipping fire.

The other is that jones writes that:

“Without love there would be no motion. Philia implies motion, and motion implies time, since as Aristotle put it, time is the number of motion.” 182

Ok Jones so you’re going to put down Isaac Newton for his “weaponized pagan cosmology” but instead of gravity and inertia the planets really move because of love? You can’t make this stuff up.

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 6, 2023, 20:44

Chapter 5

Part 1 (there are three parts)

“Paul and the Philosophers”

This chapter focuses on St. Paul and his missionary work. It’s mostly just chronicles St. Paul’s missionary duties in Greece and builds up to his confrontation with the philosophers of Athens. In this confrontation Jones says Paul failed because he did not use the Logos to prove Jesus was God. But rather Paul chastised them for worshipping false gods and idols.

Jones then goes on to say that Paul has sour grapes about the whole Athenian affair when he wrote 1^st Corinthians, which seems a little heretical to me. Whose side are you on Jones?

There is also this weird passage where Jones writes:

“Time was more than the number of motion, as Aristotle had put it. Time was the matrix of history, and history was God’s plan fulfilling itself in time every bit as much as the universe was God’s plan fulfilling itself in space. Both were manifestation of the divine Logos, whose relationship to God was one of the top priorities for Christianity’s earliest spokesmen, who wanted to explain who Jesus Christ was to a pagan world.” 190

Like what does this even mean? Everything happens because God wills it? Inshallah Mullah Jones? It sounds a lot like Bergoglio who once said: “Time is always much greater than space” really deep Frank.

What does both were manifestations of the divine logos mean? History and the universe are Divine Logos? EMJ ends the chapter saying: "John would learn from that mistake when he wrote at the beginning of his Gospel that Christ was the Logos and that the Logos was God, so the universe being divine logos, ie Christ, sounds an awful lot like pantheism. Is Pantheism. Though its hard for me to guess what exactly EMJ is saying here so maybe I’m off. The whole passage reads like V2 claptrap, like a stoner who tries to sound enlightened but just says a bunch of nonsense.  Why not just write God’s plan for history is called Logos, if that is what you mean?

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 11, 2023, 21:50

Chapter 5

Part 2

John and the Logos

This chapter gave me more fits that any other one which preceded it. I'll try my best to write a coherent summary.

In this Chapter EMJ talks about St. John uniting Greek philosophy with the Hebrew Historical religion, with his syllogism on LOGOS. Most of the Chapter deals with the rectification of Christ being Logos with Greek Philosophy. This was a necessary solution because the problem with Greek philosophy stems from the Idea that If a God was Eternal, perfectly self sufficient how and why would it create a universe and interact with it? If such a God did create a Universe and interact with it, Such a God would not be changeless, perfectly self sufficient.

EMJ tells us that this was solved by John's prologue where he says Christ is LOGOS: "John's prologue solved the problem of incoherence which had plagued Greek philosophy because the Logos incarnate of the second person of the Trinity brought together the God of Aristotle, self subsistent being with Plato's forms, which became Ideas in the mind of God, the logos, who became an ultimate efficient cause," the Role previously assigned (but not in any ultimate sense) to the demiurge." (217) 

Wait what? the Demiurge? Ok before I tackle that lets just finish getting through the chapter. Actually that sums up the chapters main point. After that statement, which is kinda weird, the Chapter gets really weird with EMJ spending a full page on Zorastrian fire worship (again), then delving into his cosmological theories, bringing up the Whigs (again) then finally ending with Ratzinger pontificating for a couple pages. But if we are to take away one thing from this Chapter it is that according to EMJ Christ is Logos.

Ok so now for the fun stuff

EMJ finally deals with the problem of Pantheism 

“The writings of the stoics and Philo of Alexandria remained: “Once you assume the Infinite transcendence and unknowableness of God, as the Absolute, you cannot bridge of the great gulf fixed between God and the world by any Hypothesis consistent with monotheism.” The only solution available to the classical world was “the pantheistic monism of the Stoics,” which allowed a “Logos Idea” (212)

-Judging from early quotes EMJ still hasn’t solved the Pantheism problem.

EMJ tries to solve this problem by stating: "“By saying that “Logos was with God, John took the first step toward adumbrating the Trinity. Without positing that claim, the following sentence “And Logos is God” could have been understood in some pantheistic sense” 222

The problem is that EMJ Logos isn't a Christian concept, but is Greek. For instance EMJ admits here that he prefers Origen's heretical Demiurges definition of Logos:  "Aquinas denounced Origen as a heretic, but the latter's commentary on the Gospel of St. John preserves the proliferation of meanings implicit in the Greek term. In his reading of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John Origen describes Christ as the Demiurge:" (220)

Furthermore EMJ's main thesis that Logos is this pervasive metaphysical force which runs throughout history really does sound like Perennialism and Pantheism when we substitute Christ, or God, for Logos in his writing. (EMJ's thesis is afterall that Christ is Logos)

For instance when we go back to Chapter three we can read

"Gilgamesh ruled the city-state of Uruk as the fifth ruler of its first dynasty which would place his reign around 2750 BC. His existence as an actual ruler however soon paled in comparison to the mythic figure he became by epitomizing the state of Christ [Logos] in Mesopotamia." (114)

"Gilgamesh epitomized the state of God [Logos] in his age he was "The first to dig oases in the desert, the first to fell cedars on Mount Lebanon, the first to...." (115)

Better yet when EMJ is talking about the pagan sacred cities of Mesopotamia he writes:

"As the size of the sacred city increased, record keeping became increasingly important, bringing about the invention of writing. The origin of writing, like every other advance in Christ [Logos] which took place in the sacred city, was intimately connected with the temple and the state religion." (104)

This is Heresy. There is no sin withing Christ and to say that Logos is Christ and that it is intimately connected with the pagan Mesopotamian pagan religions is pure Perennialist heresy.

Once we understand that Christ is Logos as EMJ states then it makes sense why he would not give us a definition of Logos until he had gotten his beginning chapters out of the way. Because when we go back and read them his perennialism is so obvious.

"The God [logos] of being would make its entry into Egypt unexpectedly as part of intercultural strife because that is the only way which the immobile world view of the Egyptians would allow its entrance (pretty sure God can do what he wants EMJ) The Egyptians tamed Ma'at by turning their inchoate understanding of Christ [logos] into a goddess. She would become an icon impervious to change and since Ma'at was the underlying principle of Egyptian life, Egypt became impervious to change as well." (127)

"If Socrates was influenced by his mother the midwife, Aristotle was influenced by his father the physician. Health is a form of God [Logos] which..." (181)

Here's a couple of EMJ's quotes on cosmology which hint at pantheism when we do our substitution:

"Christ [Logos] is not merely static. There is also a Christ [logos] of growth which explains motion as the transition from potentiality to actuality" (181)

"Aristotle's Understanding of motion as a concrete manifestation of Christ [logos} differed from the understanding of those who denied the principle of non-contradiction." (181)

Ok enough on perennialism and pantheism.

 

EMJ also seems to suggest that Christ may be the demiurge:

First EMJ tells us Plato tried to get around the Problem by creating the demiurge which would be an intermediary between god and creation.

“Plato posited the Demiurgus, which is etymologically a ‘worker for the people” 216

EMJ tells us then that

"John's prologue solved the problem of incoherence which had plagued Greek philosophy because the Logos incarnate of the second person of the Trinity brought together the God of Aristotle, self subsistent being with Plato's forms, which became Ideas in the mind of God, the logos, who became an ultimate efficient cause," the Role previously assigned (but not in any ultimate sense) to the demiurge." (217) 

 "Aquinas denounced Origen as a heretic, but the latter's commentary on the Gospel of St. John preserves the proliferation of meanings implicit in the Greek term. In his reading of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John Origen describes Christ as the Demiurge:" (220)

 

EMJ gives us two more definitions of Logos in the Chapter, as if we don't have enough

“In both Greek philosophy and Christian theology , logos refers to: “the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning” 218

“St. John got his idea of Logos not directly from Heraclitus but from the Stoics who “defined Logos as an active rational and spiritual principle that permeated all reality.” 218

Ok I said I was done with pantheism but really EMJ?

“St. John got his idea of  Christ [Logos] not directly from Heraclitus but from the Stoics who “defined Christ [Logos] as an active rational and spiritual principle that permeated all reality.” 218

Ya I know that's really not fair but really the stoic definition is pretty much exactly what EMJ's thesis is in this book.

 

EMJ tries to work his way around the pantheism issue 

This will be a bit complex by EMJ’s thesis of Logos is very much in danger of being pantheistic so EMJ is forced to give a very complicated syllogism which I will do my best to summarize here:

For reasons unknown to me EMJ goes off on this weird tangent how Logos is really fire

Is EMJ's secret Zoroastrian fire worship the source of his insane Iranophilia? lol

Basically God the father is the Being “I am who Am. Christ, the Logos, is the Knowing of the Father. The Holy Ghost is the love between them. pg. 226

EMJ then uses this to tell us that: “the truth that the ultimate law of the universe is the law of love” 226

This love is also known as divine providence and it is therefore Love that moves the Cosmos around. Because everything has a Telos, which is an divinely ordered end. Therefore the love of God is what moves everything in the Heaven's.

EMJ then uses his cosmology to Attack Newton, Adam smith, and the root of all evil in the world: the Whigs for the next 2 pages in veiled marxistish terms. Yes that’s right Even when EMJ is writing a chapter on St. John writing the Logos he has to attack the English Whigs. EMJ just can’t help himself.

 

 

Wrapping up loose ends

As a dig at Paul who allegedly could not convert the philosophers of Athens because he did not explain to them that Christ was the Logos EMJ begins his chapter with this thought experiment

“As a thought Experiment try to imagine what might have happened if Paul had begun his speech before the Areopagus by saying, “In the beginning there was Logos” (211)

Except in the previous chapter we learned that Athens would not convert for 500 years, meaning they knew all about St. John, Christ, and Logos and still did not convert thus disproving all of EMJ’s conjectures regarding Paul’s alleged faliure.

“The church of Athens was one of the last churches to be established in Greece. According to one theologian, it came into being around the year 500 A.D.” 207

Haydock Bible Commentary on St. John Chapter 1:

I'll include this here without comment since I think it shows there is a difference in thought between EMJ's "Logos" and the Catholic version

"Ver. 1. In the beginning was the word:[1] or rather, the word was in the beginning. The eternal word, the increated wisdom, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, the only begotten Son of the Father, as he is here called (v. 14.) of the same nature and substance, and the same God, with the Father and Holy Ghost. This word was always; so that it was never true to say, he was not, as the Arians blasphemed. This word was in the beginning. Some, by the beginning, expound the Father himself, in whom he was always. Others give this plain and obvious sense, that the word, or the Son of God, was, when all other things began to have a being; he never began, but was from all eternity. — And the word was with God; i.e. was with the Father; and as it is said, (v. 18) in the bosom of the Father; which implies, that he is indeed a distinct person, but the same in nature and substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost. This is repeated again in the second verse, as repetitions are very frequent in S. John. — And the word was God. This without question is the construction; where, according to the letter we read, and God was the word. Wi. — The Greek for the word is LogoV, which signifies not only the exterior word, but also the interior word, or thought; and in this latter sense it is taken here. V. — Philo Judæus, in the apostolic age, uses the word LogoV, p. 823, to personify the wisdom and the power of God. LogoV estin eikwn Qeou di ou sumpaV o KosmoV edhmiourgeito. By a similar metonymy, Jesus Christ is called the way, the truth, the life, the resurrection. — And the word was God. Here the eternity and the divinity of the second Person are incontrovertibly established; or, we must say that language has no longer a fixed meaning, and that it is impossible to establish any point whatever from the words of Scripture. A." https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment74.shtml

Kinda amazing really "Logos" is used just once in the whole book of St. John yet EMJ managed to write a whole book on it himself.

One last thing. This book is such a headache, all further chapter reviews will be much shorter, I simply can't go on like this lol

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 18, 2023, 13:56

 

Chapter 5

Part three

Augustine and the Discovery of Time

 

Fairly long chapter, about 50 pages. In this Chapter EMJ explains the fall of the Roman empire as being the result of its hyper-militaristic policies, which were the result of Barbarian pressure in the North. EMJ believes that the Roman Empire could cover up the ethnic differences between its people, but when it became culturally weakened by over taxation these differences began to show and Roman receded and was replaced by Christianity which moved to fill a void. EMJ further believes that the idea of Ethnicities developed in the barbarian peoples during this time because Rome could no longer assimilate them.

But Jones spends most of the Chapter on Augustine and the main point of the chapter is that Time is divine providence. Basically, history has a point. A purpose if you will. EMJ also spends a fair amount of time dealing with the Arian Heresy and basically says that the western roman empire could not be ruled by the barbarians as an empire because Arianism is not of the logos.

Problems

It is my belief that EMJ's Logos is perennialism cloaked and packaged in such a way to appear orthodox. EMJ tries to writes about Logos in a way which is convoluted and hard to pin down so that he has a baked in orthodoxy escape if you interpret his writing, yet the casual reader will certainly get a perennialist philosophy when they read his work. with that said I'll present a couple passages which I found problematic to say the least

This passage, the part in parenthesis just doesn't strike me as very Catholic, now I'm not sure because I don't know theology well enough so let me know in the comments if I'm off here. Furthermore I checked EMJ's footnotes, and they don't support him. In fact the aforementioned passage reminds me of the pagan, pantheist idea that the universe is the god's dream.

 

Here in these passages EMJ hints that Christianity is a syncretic religion.

With the below passage EMJ writes in his typical confusing Logos way. My guess at what the passage means is this: Jones is writing that the Greek concept of a static God would render history meaningless because God's thoughts are what causes all motion. (Jones says these points in earlier passages) Therefore Logos had to evolve. Of course it would help if EMJ didn't use different meanings of Logos as different subjects within the same sentences, but Jones just can't write plainly when it comes to the Logos, because if he did he would have to declare his perennialism or abandon it.

Jones Also can't call Logos Christ, you know for reasons.

 

There are some interesting passages in this chapter which are moments I believe where EMJ does actually provide some value to the reader.

What's this an America compliment? Is Jones losing it?

Quote from Ryan Augustine on October 20, 2023, 15:43

Chapter 6

The Beginning of Islam

The Iran Chapter

In this Chapter EMJ covers the development of Islam philosophical thought, the various schools, ect.

He does this though the device of: tackling the question of why the Islamic world stagnated after they adopted Islam. His thesis is that the Muslims were not able to incorporate Greek philosophy accurately into Islam and therefore the concept of Logos, represented by the trinity, could never be developed. Thus without EMJ's Logos science and philosophy would die on the vine.

Thus the chapter is mostly an exploration into the failings of muslim philosophical schools in regards to how close they came to understanding EMJ's (stoic) logos.

Of course it's EMJ so obviously the Iranian schools are good, and everyone else is bad Lol

Problems:

Here EMJ says that Logos was spread into the east through heresy:

"The situation was different in the east, where the heresies which had been held in check by the police power of the western empire filled the intellectual vacuum created by the demise of the Catholic Church and became, in spite of their defects, the vector for the transmission of Logos in Asia Minor." (296)

This quote really makes no sense when you realize that Asia Minor was one of the first places to recieve the Gospel. The heresies came about 300 years later and were therefore "anti-logos"

Furthermore if Logos is Christ, who is the truth, how can he be transmitted by the lies of heresy?

....where the works of Aristotle and Porphyry were translated into Persian. In each instance, heresy was the vector of Logos into the east (297)

Oh wait its just that heretics brought Aristotle to Iran. But wait wasn't Iran ruled by Alexander who was taught by Aristotle? hard to believe the Persians would have no concept of Aristotle.

Logos failed in Iran because they didn't have the language to understand it:

According to EMJ Islam is backwards because it doesn't have Greek philosophy, so they couldn't get Logos I guess Islam would be ok if the Arabs had studied Plato? Perhaps Islam can be fixed if it can be taught Jones' stoic Logos?

It becomes funny in the next subchapter when EMJ says that Islam couldn't comprehend Logos because they relied on Greek cosmology. Apparently EMJ can't really go after mohammed because, you know, Iranian blasphemy laws. 

From my twitter:

So according to Jones the Islamic world adopted the idea from the Greeks that the heavens were essentially alive. This cosmology killed Logos in Islam because it is basically astrology.

However EMJ's reasoning is really dumb. First off if I know my CS Lewis the Greek cosmological view was the view of pre-Newtonian Christendom. People looked up at the heavens and viewed the stars as engaging in a celestial dance. It was Newton that killed that idea, how ironic!

Secondly it is such a tenuous argument to say that because the Islamic world believed in astrology that they couldn't accept the Logos and couldn't develope science. Progress had been going on under the Greeks and they held the astrological view. It may have a retarding effect...

But there's nothing to suggest it would kill science because the Muslim world believed stars were being moved by obedience to God rather than objects moved by the love of God as EMJ would have us believe. The whole argument is absurd.

Also if Greek development of Logos was such a great Logos thing then how did the Greeks Logos with their platonic cosmology and the Muslims can't Logos with the same Greek platonic cosmology? Where's the Logos in that?

EMJ loves the Mu'tazilites 

(they're Iranian)

Views the problem with Islam, sunni/ shia split as an extension of the Mu'tazilites/Asharite conflict. Mu'tazilites' being representative of Logos, Asharites anti-logos. Alas if only there was some way the Iranians could understand the word Logos....

And Logos followed the 12th Imam into a state of occultation from which it has yet to emerge (320)

I guess when Iranian shiite apocalyptic 12th Mahdi prophesies are fulfilled then (EMJ) Logos can reenter the Islamic world. Sounds great. 

:/

Other problems

Well it was only a matter of time before EMJ compared the anti-logos forces of Muslim philosophy, the Asharites, to the English. We all knew it was coming.

EMJ ends the chapter with this:

I always believed that Iran was one of the most fundamentalist Islamic countries since the ayatollah took over. With obvious exceptions like Iranian love of sex change operations and drug smuggling Iran has been hardline.

But hey I've never been invited to Iranian Bond villain conferences so what do I know?

Edit:

After reading this chapter I realized EMJ doesn't really criticize Mohammed in it, or Islamic theology in fact he only covers  Mohammed in a couple passages, which to be fair are not complimentary. it's not as bad, but it's similar to him not mentioning communism in his atheism chapters, it's a glaring omission which speaks to intellectual dishonesty. Maybe the problem isn't that Arabs can't understand the Greek word Logos, but that Mohammed gave them a crappy religion Jones, ever think of that?