Ch 4 D - Default but Deniable

Notably but not solely in the U.S., the norm for daily life is the existential reality that life is a contradiction. Actions contradict beliefs, conditions contradict defining characteristics. Why, for example, does the wealthiest nation have the largest (and growing) population of the homeless—not to mention having the widest income disparity between the haves and have-nots?

In the lessons throughout this study, contradictions prevail among human collectives and persons. The examples noted are just the tip of the iceberg teaching that this is the rule rather than the exception. One of the most contradictory examples pervading human life exists among Christians. The issue is not about the diversity in the global church, nor is the disparity about theological views. The contradiction centers on the everyday practice of Christians that witnesses to what and how they believe, as well as where their priorities and loyalties are. No doubt you have witnessed their contradiction; and perhaps you (as a Christian) also bear such a witness subtly, for example, by silently being complicit with the contradiction rather than speaking inconvenient truth to the illusions of light. As declared by someone who learned from the contradictions in his own life, “do not be surprised at such things” (Eccl 5:8).

Becoming a Christian is not like a vaccine that makes one immune to infection from the human condition. On the contrary, a Christian should be more sensitive to and aware of being infected by the human condition both within oneself and surrounding them. Yet, this sensitivity and awareness are not automatic to Christian perception and are compromised by colored glasses darkening the eye. Blind spots start appearing, as if the eye has cataracts. The dynamics underlying all that’s taking place is the direct workings of reductionism intrinsic to the human condition.

Many aspects of reductionism’s counter-relational workings elude Christians whose faith is in a theological fog. Consequently, the negative presence of reductionism in Christian practice escapes the understanding of those who haven’t learned from its lessons. These teachable moments clarify the subtlety of reductionism that operates in Christian lives by default. The default condition automatically operates when a viable alternative is not implemented to negate reductionism—operating even under the guise of Christian faith. In his very own life, the apostle Peter witnessed to this default condition operating in his faith following Jesus—which confounded Jesus numerously.

Aside from the obvious negative presence of the human condition observed in human life, it operates mainly under the radar of human collectives and persons, not just Christians. Humanity in general still needs to learn about the prevailing reality of reductionism’s counter workings and how it subtly infects all of human life. This subtlety evolves to teach an inconvenient truth:

Many think that the human condition also includes a neutral condition that does not have a negative presence. Accordingly, much of human life is enacted under this neutrality assumption. What escapes this optimistic thinking is the lack of understanding the reductionist nature of the human condition, which has only a negative valence in the absence of the positivity of wholeness. Therefore, whenever and wherever wholeness is not a viable alternative to any aspect of reductionism, then the human condition operates by default in any and all human collectives and persons. Critical thinking notwithstanding, this is an inconvenient truth that a majority (including Christians) would rather avoid rather than face, because facing the truth of reality threatens one’s thinking and way of life.

Part of the thinking behind a human condition neutrality is the baseless assumption that the human condition can be dormant in its consequences in spite of its presence in human life. What is thought to be dormant is in reality the implicit workings of reductionism that shroud the activity of the human condition. Dormancy may not assume a neutral element in the human condition, but it interacts with it to render the human condition as less encompassing of and threatening to humanity. Without critical thinking, this perception evolves from an interpretive framework that stirs the imagination with illusions of light. With this bias the eye of the beholder does not see collateral consequences, for example, and it assumes to avoid the human condition. Such a result is exactly what the subtlety of reductionism generates to blur the distinction between good and bad, right and wrong. This resulting condition relegates the beholder to think of oneself as wise—even to be like God.

An important lesson to learn from this thinking is how it redacts the human condition’s playbook by collating the negative with an assumed positive—including neutrality and dormancy. These redactions compose misinformation that generates virtual alternatives of reality to represent the real and true condition of something or someone. A prime source of misinformation today evolves from AI, which generates the deepfakes noted earlier. What AI generates, however, is degenerating, as witnessed recently in early educational institutions, where students have been creating nude photos with the face of other students to bully them. Is this neutral, dormant, and just kids being kids?

Contrary to pervasive virtual realities captivating human life in multiple ways beside AI, the existential reality facing all human collectives and persons is the inescapable presence of the human condition in its monovalent nature. The sum of the A,B,Cs that compose the human condition in all its variations inescapably adds up to the limits and constraints encompassing what is the default condition of humanity in all its collectives and persons. These limits and constraints may seem normal or simply natural, and readily exist throughout life, so the thinking is to adapt and be resilient. Whether consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously, all of humanity falls into a reduced, fragmented or broken condition along the negative spectrum of the human condition by default. What is inescapable, however, can also be redacted by the human mind thinking virtually to make it deniable.

The human condition reducing, fragmenting and breaking down the persons and relationships integral to humanity is neither evasive nor dormant whenever sparks start flying. However, when this reduction seems to be dormant or even neutral, what is illuminated about the human condition is the glow of its slow burning down of the qualitative-relational wholeness innate to humanity’s origin. Moreover, not only is its slow burn deniable, but even more so the glow of its slow burn is obscured by the dominating use of human masks and masquerades to shield the existential reality of reductionism with the camouflaging of virtual realities prevailing in everyday life. In other words, what appears to be real or fact for others to observe is not the reality fully existing beneath its appearance. These are teachable conditions that highlight a critical lesson for humanity.

The genius of reductionism is to generate images of its workings to be neutral, as well as to cultivate the appearance of being dormant, when what underlies the neutral and dormant is actually fueling reductionism’s slow burn. This propagates a neutralized culture with a captivating influence from outer in that infects collectives and persons from inner out with its reductionist workings—as observed in popular cultures today.

Consider, for example, the political culture in the U.S. with an increasingly divisive climate. Participants would not consider themselves reduced, though they likely would impose this label on their adversaries as the heat increases. Yet, these cultural participants would neither recognize nor acknowledge the human condition prevailing until the sparks start flying, or at least when there is unmistakable collateral damage. By then, the political culture will have become a way of life that participants may not like but accept, or may affirm and submit to—all while washing their hands of the human condition. Would you consider this a neutralizing culture?

In recent years, it has come to the attention of the Christian community that contemporary Christian music (CCM) is in the grips of the secular music industry. Popular Christian worship artists have acceded to this culture and effectively surrendered their playbooks to its control—no doubt, under the assumption of the neutrality of the culture. Consequently, these artists have yet to learn, and thus fail to understand, how their identity and function are shaped by this neutralized culture. By default, therefore, these Christians reinforce and sustain the human condition subtly underlying a so-called neutralized culture. Notably in contrast, some secular artists have argued against the music industry’s negative dynamics. If the Christian community remains silent and does not act for redemptive changes to this compromising practice, its complicity will also by default reflect, reinforce and sustain the human condition. Christians need to face up to this default condition and to remove any masks necessary for their reckoning.

Such prevailing conditions are teachable moments to bring to the forefront reductionism’s workings. Its most significant lesson centers on the genius of reductionism’s process. The existential reality is that its genius relegates humanity to a skewed knowledge (epistemic field) and a conflated understanding of what’s going on in human life. This imposes limits on the epistemic field in the human context, which then precludes or biases conclusive knowledge and understanding of human life. These dynamics are critical to understand.

When the prevailing human condition is factored into the human context—a condition commonly ignored or even denied—not only are there limits imposed but also constraints. The dynamic interaction between limits and constraints evolved from reductionism’s origin. Consequently, not only was the accessible epistemic field (source of knowledge) limited to only the surrounding human context, but this epistemic field was further narrowed down and constrained in interpretation and meaning to reductionism’s bias. Even scientists have worked under these limiting constraints to render science variable based on the probability of facts. With deeper understanding of the workings of reductionism, what becomes apparent is that even in the presence of critical thinking the constraints of the human condition are always imposed to fulfill a reductionist purpose, and therefore quite naturally and very conveniently converge with the limits of the human context for this result. This is further demonstrated by the assumption “You will not surely be reduced” evolving from reductionism’s origin (Gen 3:4). Their convergence makes constraints less distinguishable and limits more reasonable, despite the pervasive existence of this defining interaction between them, and thereby render us to a default human condition.

What exists in and among us, however, is ongoingly contextualized in a neutralizing culture, which subtly limits and constrains human collectives and persons by snaring them in a darkening process of reductionism. The constraints, now inseparable from the human context, explicitly or implicitly diminish, minimalize or distort our knowledge and understanding of human life, such that without epistemological clarification and hermeneutic correction human life is rendered to epistemological illusions (e.g. “not be reduced”) and ontological simulations (e.g. “covered” and “hidden”). That is, not rendered necessarily to fictions—though many essentially live a lie or believe in lies about themselves—but to various facts of life that in actuality do not adequately or truly represent reality in human life, only the limits and constraints of the human context. Any view of the human person (anthropology) is subjected to these same limits and constraints, but whether a discourse on being human is subject to them or not depends directly on the presence or absence of epistemological clarification and hermeneutic correction from a larger epistemic field.

This prompts questions about our knowledge and understanding, their level and their basis in fact or reality. There is no doubt that fact and reality certainly overlap at various points. A fact may reliably observe and represent what exists, but whether it observes the extent of reality and represents its depth involve the further issue of validity. Validity statements on the extent and depth of reality cannot be based on a limited epistemic field that is also narrowed down by the constraints of a biased interpretive framework. A reliable fact does not necessarily mean it has validity for reality, but only reliable on the basis of its limits and constraints. Therefore, fact and reality should not be considered synonymous or confused as the other.

There is a critical distinction between fact and reality that needs to be maintained:

Facts are established from the limited epistemic field of the human context, which are observed and interpreted from a framework and lens influenced by the constraints of the human context—and thereby raising issues of how valid the facts represent what truly exists (what is). Reality is subjected to these limits and constraints, and to some extent is shaped by them but not defined and determined by them as facts are; and reality also can go beyond these limits and constraints, and does so when constituted in an epistemic field beyond the human context. However, facts are unable to go beyond these limits and constraints by the nature of their probability framework that inescapably limits and constrains them to the human context and the reductionist bias of the human condition.

The parameters of anthropology, for example, are defined by the human context. Understandably, anthropology depends on the facts from this narrow and biased epistemic field to compose its discourse on the human person. Given these limits and constraints, whenever human being and being human cannot be distinguished in the wholeness of their humanity from reductionism, then they are relegated to the human condition by default.

Our knowledge and understanding of reductionism need to advance to the depth level of its counter-relational work. The primary means for this heuristic epistemic process is contingent on ‘the existential presence of the whole’ for the integral function to expose reductionism and illuminate the whole. Indeed, the reality of reductionism also needs the definitive presence of the whole, since reductionism’s sole purpose for existence is to counter the whole—the whole of creation, the whole person and the whole of God. The reality interacting here that we need to embrace is the presence of the whole with its subsequent reduction—an inconvenient truth that is threatening to many, including Christians.

The qualitative relational presence of the whole emerged in the human context from the beginning prior to reductionism’s intrusion and unfolding, which is why those persons knew what was “good and not good (apart from the whole)” before experiencing reductionism. Ever since, however, there has been an ongoing difficulty, struggle and even confusion distinguishing the reality of the whole and its distinction from reductionism. This reflects in part the genius of reductionism to confuse fact (and related assumptions) and reality and blur their distinction, hereby obscuring the primary focus on what is whole from inner out with a secondary focus on fragmentary parts from outer in.

Being embedded in the human condition is not an admission commonly heard. Aside from being snared by reductionism, most human collectives and persons don’t realize their condition of being entangled in the wide net of reductionism’s slow-burn workings. Its wide net casts virtual realities around humanity, which becomes the basis for denying its presence in human life.

Virtual realities create the illusions that dispel the reality of humanity being reduced and fragmented from its original integrity of wholeness. These virtual realities substitute for the existential reality of the human condition in order to propagate illusions of wholeness. As noted, this has evolved with technology to generate the virtual realities of AI captivating life today, which have become more and more difficult to distinguish from real life. Since many would consider this a helpful tool, the implications of the virtual for humanity cannot be underestimated and thus overstated.

In everyday life, the virtual net of reductionism casts illusions that simulate life. This becomes the basis to virtually deny any underlying condition of human life composed and conducted with the paradigm of anything less and any substitutes. Thus, anything less and any substitutes of the whole, particularly the whole ontology and function of the person, can be found along a wide spectrum of expression. We tend to look at human fragmentation and reduction at one end of this spectrum, located in more extreme forms of expression. The genius of reductionism even promotes this perception so that our interpretive lens either does not pay attention to or even tends to essentially deny the wider range of the spectrum, thus making it difficult to locate anything less and any substitutes of the whole. The consequence is that most of the spectrum engages the human condition by default.

In its subtlety, reductionism composes neutralizing cultures that darken the human lens to perceive “that that resource was good for daily life and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for advancing one’s life” (Gen 3:6). Guided by this culture, advocates and builders evolved to promote the survival of the fittest, thereby reflecting, reinforcing and sustaining the underlying self-centered nature of the human condition. The consequences remain deniable but are inescapable. Under reductionism’s evasive influence, even Christians are entangled to practice their faith in a theological fog, and thus mired in the secondary things of life from outer in at the expense of the primary from inner out—without having the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness to know the difference and understand the consequences (as noted about CCM). In the absence of this essential sensitivity and awareness, Christians fail to fulfill their defining covenant with God: “be relationally involved ongoingly with me and be whole in your person and relationships” (Gen 17:1).

Reductionism’s contrary dynamic is ongoingly consequential most significantly for the person and relationships, and this immeasurable influence has shaped our theology and practice. The accumulation of knowledge (“desired to make one wise”), for example, emerged from the beginning to define many human identities and status today, which are clearly enhanced and embellished by reductionism’s limiting referential knowledge (as evident in the academy). How much has this shaped the identity and function of Jesus’ followers today? The redefinition of the person based on the parts of what they possess and can do in referential terms becomes the defining basis by which relationships with other persons so defined are engaged according to these reduced terms—evidencing the inescapable issues for human ontology and function.

Basic to reductionism counteracting the design of God’s wholeness is its ongoing counter-relational work that transposes the primacy of reciprocal relationships together. This reduction shapes relationships with others (including God) on one’s own limited terms, which is its most subtle practice located on the full spectrum of anything less and any substitutes. The relational consequence is converting complex (vulnerable) relationships into simple associations with a minimum of involvement measured according to one’s own self-definition from outer in. One’s own terms are composed at the loss of both the qualitative of the whole person from inner out and the relational of persons together in wholeness in their innermost.

If we do not acknowledge and understand the loss of the qualitative and the primacy of relationship together that emerged from the beginning, we certainly have no significant basis to recognize their loss in our midst, including in our own person and relationships.

The emergence of reductionism is not a human construction, for example, by selfish genes in natural selection, though such thinking does emerge from reductionism. The initial appearance of reductionism is often insufficient to understand the scope of this contrary dynamic in both its breadth and depth, and thus its ongoing implications and collateral consequences. We, therefore, also need to recognize unmistakably and to understand entirely:

Reductionism by its nature routinely imposes a narrowed perceptual-interpretive framework that reduces, clouds and darkens our lens with the following unavoidable consequences:

Referentialization of our epistemic source—which includes the creation narrative and the Word from God—is the most significant and least understood consequence emerging from the dynamic of reductionism: “Did God really say that?...you will not surely be reduced.” Moreover, this dynamic has evolved, been long established and continues to extend itself in human contexts, even as the norm for the common notion of ‘the common good’. This notion may in fact seek for wholeness but in reality reflects, reinforces or even sustains reductionism by default. This addresses us both to the globalization of reductionism and the matter of globalization as a social phenomenon of growing fact today that is a mere illusion and simulation of the whole and what wholeness is in reality.

If it is not apparent in your daily life, the influence of modernism as a worldview and its primacy of rationalizing in search of knowledge and truth have prevailed in determining the quality of life in most human contexts. We are all ongoingly influenced and shaped by the outcome of the modern enterprise of progress—whether from the physical and natural sciences or from related applied technologies, and even from theology. As noted earlier, a most far-reaching result of this human project impacting humanity in its innermost is the globalization of the economy; and we are only beginning to grasp the impact of media technology on persons and relationships. Positive or negative, further development of globalization can be expected—and needs to be anticipated by those in the theological context—since, as sociologist Anthony Giddens states, “Modernity is inherently globalizing.”^{^[1]} Both how globalization is evolving and why it has emerged are equally important to recognize and understand. Understanding this age we live in necessitates understanding the scope of reductionism.

Along with the economic impact globalization has on peoples of the world, there is a dual phenomenon somewhat paradoxically characterizing globalization. On the one hand, the process is distinctly reductionist, for example, reducing the whole of persons and people to cheap labor, disposable goods or market pawns. On the other hand, globalization is breaking down national boundaries and provincialism to give us a glimpse of the interrelated whole of humanity, albeit in a convoluted sense.

Systems theory (for example, in ecology and family process) has provided further understanding of a whole as a working system of interrelated parts. There is a general tendency to perceive the sum of these parts as determining the whole, without the need for further understanding; yet in a process of synergism the whole functioning together is greater than the sum effects from the function of its individual parts. Inherent to the whole, however, is not merely a quantitative effect greater than the sum of its parts but more importantly a qualitative effect. Systems theory is a quantitative framework, the use of which tends not to account for qualitative aspects. Thus its value is limited though nonetheless useful to help us understand the whole.

While philosophical postmodernism insightfully has exposed the reductionism in modernity and perhaps points to a holistic direction, postmodernity is neither instrumental in fully grasping reductionism nor significant in understanding the whole. Since the main voices of postmodernism do not speak of a definitive whole—only the need for it—a part (e.g. a person) cannot truly know the importance of who one is and is a part of, nor understand the primacy of what one is apart from, therefore never really understanding the full significance of how being apart from the whole reduces that part(s) to something qualitatively less (or as God said, “not good,” Gen 2:18). In other words, we need a definitive whole in order to fully understand reductionism, so that we unequivocally both acknowledge the presence of the whole emerging from the beginning and affirm the whole’s trajectory in the human context.

Without the ongoing presence and trajectory of the whole, we have no epistemological, hermeneutical, ontological and relational means to recognize, expose, confront and make whole the fragmentation of persons and relationships together to reduced ontology and function in our midst. Moreover, we need the presence and involvement of the Whole to provide the epistemological clarification and hermeneutic correction needed for our own theology and practice that prevail according to this human condition by default.

It is evident today that there is a critical gap in our understanding of the human condition, and perhaps a failure to take the human condition seriously. Directly interrelated, and most likely its determinant, a reduced theological anthropology not only fails to address the depth of the human condition but in reality obscures its depth, reinforces its breadth, or even conforms to this inescapable and unavoidable condition by default. The repercussions for us, of course, are that we do not account for our own practice of reductionism, and, interrelated, that we do not address our own function in the human condition; and this could subtly exist even if we are advocating change of the status quo.

Our function manifests in three notable areas, which are three interrelated issues of ongoing major importance for ontology and function:

These ongoing issues are the three inescapable issues for our ontology and function needing accountability. The pivotal shift from “embodied whole from inner out and not confused, disappointed in relationship together” (as in Gen 2:25) to “embodied parts from outer in and reduced to relational distance” (as in Gen 3:7,10) has ongoing consequences. The inconvenient truth of their implications directly challenge our theological anthropology and hold us accountable for its assumptions of ontology and function.

This shift to reductionism expressed in these inescapable issues for our ontology and function further expresses itself in direct interaction with three unavoidable issues for all practice, which are necessary to account for in all moments:

Regardless of who we are and what our place is in the human context, we all must account ongoingly for the type of person presented, the nature of our communication and the level of involvement engaged in our relationships. These are unavoidable issues that interact with the three inescapable issues, which together influence and shape our lives and need accountability even in the commonest expressions along the full width of the spectrum locating anything less and any substitutes of the whole.

The qualitative and relational aspects in human life necessary for whole ontology and function are neither sufficiently addressed nor deeply accounted for in theological anthropology discourse—including with the prominence of dualism, the emergence of supervenience and the focus on relationality. In spite of recent focus on the latter, there appears to be a status quo in theology and function above which we rarely rise—perhaps evident of a lack of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness—and from which likely indicates our need for a critical and pivotal shift from reductionism back to the whole. This juncture prompts a related question for theological anthropology: On what basis is the human condition defined and its resolution determined? The answer is either good news in relational terms or so-so news in referential terms, or perhaps disappointing news because it lacks qualitative and relational significance.

The surrounding human context (namely culture) commonly establishes the priorities of importance for life and practice. In the current global context, this larger context is having a further effect in reducing the priorities of local contexts by increasingly shifting, embedding and enslaving persons in secondary priorities and away from the primary qualitative and relational priorities. As neuroscience would confirm, this development is taking its toll on the minds and bodies of those affected.

The shift to the primacy of the secondary must further be understood in the underlying quest for certainty and/or the search for identity. This process engages a narrowing of the epistemic field to better grasp, explain and have certainty, for example, about what holds the person and world together in their innermost. Functionally, the process also necessitates reducing the qualitative-relational field of expectations from inner out (too demanding, vulnerable with uncertain results) to outer in for quantitative- referential terms that are easier to measure, perform and quantify the results of, for example, in the search for identity and finding one’s place in human contexts (including church and academy). In other words, the shift to the primacy of the secondary and its preoccupation in a neutralized culture are not without specific purpose that motivates persons even in the theological task and the practice of faith. Yet whatever certainty and identity result in secondary terms can only be incomplete, ambiguous or shallow.

To whatever the extent the human condition is denied virtually, the existential reality is that in the absence of a viable alternative constituted in wholeness, reductionism rules by default—with AI generating its evasive kingdom.

This lesson begs the question for each and every one of us: At what level of depth is our person present, and also does that person engage in daily life at that level, whereby our person is involved in our relationships, both with others and with God?

Psychology and neuroscience have worked with human persons in their emotions and related brain activity in order to take them to a deeper level of understanding.[2] As helpful as this is, persons need to go even deeper to understand their condition. The above proverb directs us to that depth: As water reflects the face, so the person’s heart reflects the person (Prov 27:19).

The whole person from inner out signified by the qualitative function of the heart needs renewed focus for understanding the human condition, and needs to be restored in Christian theology and function; yet, merely discussing spirituality is inadequate (e.g. see Prov 4:23; 14:30; 27:19). We cannot avoid addressing the human heart (our own to start) and the feelings associated with it, because the whole of human identity is rooted in it, and the depths of the human condition is tied to it.

If neuroscience can talk about feelings as integral to the human function—as Damasio reveals about the consciousness of self^{^[3]}—why doesn’t the theological academy discuss feelings as at the core of the human person? A major part of the answer relates to our theological anthropology having redefined the person without the primacy of the qualitative and relational. But interrelated, the main reason involves the human condition, that is, our intentional, unintentional or inadvertent engagement by default in the reductionism composing the human condition. The subtlety of this engagement is notably in the self-determination (or survival) preoccupied in the secondary and in the shaping of relationships. Consciousness as a person necessarily involves feelings—even for the whole of God (e.g. Gen 6:6; Jn 11:33,35; Eph 4:30)[4]—which Damasio defines as essential for the self but locates feelings only in brain function to integrate mind and body.

The teaching about the person in theological anthropology, however, can and needs to go deeper to the inner out in order to get to the qualitative function of heart to distinguish the whole person. Yet, this is not about dualism, which goes ‘inner’ for an elusive soul but not ‘out’ adequately to embody the whole person without fragmenting into parts (soul and body); and nonreductive physicality has ‘outer’ but not sufficiently ‘in’ to constitute the depth of the whole person in ontology and function. The whole person is pointed to but is either fragmentary or not distinguished.

The qualitative inner out signified by heart function is more definitive to distinguish the whole person, with its integral function irreplaceable for both the body to be whole and relationships together to be whole. Therefore, a turn away from the heart in any context or function has an unavoidable consequence of devolving into the human condition by default. The qualitative loss signified in the human condition reduces our identity and function when we become distant from our heart, constrained or detached from feelings, thereby insensitive or hardened—just as Jesus exposed (Mk 7:6; Jn 5:42) and Paul critiqued (Eph 4:17-19). This increasingly embeds human function in the outer in and reduces human ontology to ontological simulation.

This elusive condition is evidenced in the function of “hypocrites” (hypokrites, Mk 7:6). In referential terms, hypokrites and hypokrisis (hypocrisy, cf. Lk 12:1) are limited to pretension or falsehood, in acts to dissemble or deceive. In relational terms, the dynamic involves the person presented to others, who presents only from outer in and thus different from the whole person distinguished from inner out. Just as ancient Greek actors put on masks in a play, hypokrites engages in ontological simulation, not necessarily with the intent to deceive but from what emerges by the nature of function from outer in. In other words, whatever the person presents to others, it is not whole and consequently cannot be counted on to be who and what the person is, which is not about the outer-in issue of deception but the inner-out issue of one’s whole integrity (who, what and how the person truly is).

This masking dynamic engages the pivotal issue involving the ontology of the person and its effect on relationships. The consequence of such function in relational terms is always a qualitative relational consequence that may not be apparent at the quantitative level from outer in. The outer-in simulation masking its qualitative relational consequence is exposed by Jesus notably in the relational act of worship: “This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me” (Mk 7:6). Paul also later confronted Peter and exposed his outer-in simulation (hypokrisis) by the role-playing he engaged in focused on secondary matters, which even influenced Barnabas and others to function outer in (Gal 2:11-14). All this magnifies the three unavoidable issues for all practice that must be accounted for ongoingly.

The prevalence of human masks worn by persons in everyday life—notably in a neutralizing culture—functions not only to distance persons from their heart but more consequentially to deny the condition of their heart. Reductionism works to dull the sensitivity and awareness of persons’ hearts. Consequently, getting down into one’s heart requires removing its shrouds. That is to say paradigmatically:

● To be vulnerable necessitates to be humble about what one finds in their heart, including one’s mistakes and shortcomings.

To be vulnerable from inner out unlocks the door to a person’s heart, and that person’s epistemic and ontological humility opens the door to the person’s heartfelt condition, which is no longer denied. Thus, the specter of reductionism prevailing by default is brought to light for persons to change from inner out. Until then, the human condition, our human condition, continues to be evasive in the daily composition of persons and their relationships; and they populate the collectives whose structures, institutions and cultures are reduced, fragmented and broken in likeness.

Learning the A,B,C & Ds of humanity’s human condition is an education challenging all persons and collectives with inconvenient truths. Therefore, it should not be surprising to have this education misplaced, misinterpreted or misinformed.

As Christians, there is a convicting conclusions necessary for this education, so that we will be clearly distinguished in the uncommon identity and function from their prevailing counterparts in the common human condition surrounding us.

[1] Anthony Giddens, The Consequence of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 63.

[2] Of related interest, Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, has discovered that frequent short testing of students better opens their eyes to their mistakes and weaknesses. This has humbled them to work on these and not hide or avoid that reality, which students are prone to do. As a result, their brains have been wired to learn better and remember more. Los Angeles Times, OpEd, 2/19/24.

[3] Discussed by Antonio Damasio in Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010).

[4] For a further account of Jesus’s feelings, see my study The Feelings of Jesus’ Heart: His Whole Person’s Affective Narrative. Online at http://www.4X12.org.