Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Well, my friend Jamie warned bloggers earlier this year that you never know who is reading. Of course, did I listen? Well, at the time I did, but alas, in the heat of battle I forgot. My post on Thursday about a new book entitled The Theorem, reflected my reaction in a not so charitable tone I’m afraid. Here is the author’s response:

Dearest Gentleman,

I see you have taken an interest in The Theorem: A Complete Answer to Human Behavior. I am grateful for this to say the least, as right now, at this moment, this little book needs all the help it can get to be on it’s way. The fact that some of you gentlemen have looked so deeply into the work assures me that you are scholarly men, this is even more gratifying. You are also men of deep faith and if the Open Letter offended that faith, I am truly sorry. If I may however defend some of these lofty allegations against my work and myself by providing a few clarifications- this would be appreciated.

The first is that the publisher of The Theorem is a Christian man. In fact John Hunt has been a Christian publisher for over twenty years. Most all of his titles are Christian titles, either about religion or mans interpretation of religion. John is a man of tremendous faith and conviction, this is why I chose to publish The Theorem at his firm. It was the only reason I assure you.

The importance of The Theorem for the Christian community cannot be undervalued. The Theorem, beyond any shadow of a doubt proves that the human fetus is conscious. In fact I would challenge anyone of any conviction or opinion to read the work and come to a different conclusion. The model included in The Theorem is validated by over ten years of hard scientific research, as what I did not say in the letter, is that I was constantly attempting to disprove the model, thus saving myself and my family the initial embararasment of presenting this unified model of behavior to the general public. However the evidence was too strong and the model was too accurate to hold it back for the selfish reason of saving face and avoiding humiliation.

As you would imagine I have suffered much of it already, for this work, and as I see here it is likely only begining. While you think that it is odd that I do not publicly give credit to god for this discovery, I think the end result would be more bizzare if I did. Imagine if someone were to say that they made this great discovery and it was because of god, or worse, that god spoke directly to them and told them that these were the answers, well then ,from a modern and not historical perspective, I would be cautioned by such an individual.

Concerning the moment of discovery, I am only honestly portraying my interpretation of it. At that moment, over ten years ago, I experienced neither savior or devil, or any male spiritual presence at all. Instead I felt the feminine presence of Nature. This is my honest interpretation of those events.Now this is not to say that god does not deserve any credit, perhaps he chose to enlighten me, in a nontradional way. It is possible that I have not fully interpretated the experience, and it is likely that I will never fully interpret the experience to my satisfaction or to the satisfaction of gentlemen like you.

Comments about the letter, and about me personally are fair game, however in the end, those who believe most in the preservation of the fetal life will gain the most out of this work, regardless of my personal interpretations. On the other hand those that believe in the preservation of fetal life will have the most to lose by my demise in the eyes of the Christian community. Therefore please think of the long term benefits of the general acceptance and undrstanding by everyone of fetal consciousness and the impact this will have on the gradual elimination of abortion, which destroys the gift of Nature and God. This, in contrast to the enjoyment you realize by such baseless and hurtful remarks.

Douglas M. Arone

After reading rereading my remarks I decided that they were not sufficiently charitable. Here the response that I sent to Professor Arone.

Douglas,

I do appreciate your comments. On my part, I wish to apologize for the tone I set by my post. Regardless of your work or motivations, the post did not adequately reflect a spirit of Christian charity. Perhaps I should not have posted my reactions so soon after reading your book’s website. To be honest, trying to write in the conversational “blog” tone sometimes makes me not sufficiently cautious about what I say.

I do admit that the initial appearance from the book promotion appears to be making philosophical extrapolations solely from the basis of biological observations without a sound philosophical metaphysics to ground them. It also appears to suggest that one can exhaust the mystery of the human person and even control our destinies through knowledge obtained through the material world. This is the siren song proclaimed since the Enlightenment and reinforced by Laplacian determinism, which I do believe to be of demonic origin. This was the source my reaction, and that of others I believe. I say this by way of explanation, not excuse. However, you are correct in your chastisement, these assessment are prejudicial not having read the work.

My background is as an engineer and a systematic theologian. I did my PhD dissertation in Christian anthropology and this as well as the issue of religion and science are areas of particular interest for me.

Your letter describing your inspiration during your work is of interest to me. Regarding your experience of femaleness during your project, could both be understandable or perhaps troubling. I would like to suggest that you read my About page (http://cosmos-liturgy-sex.com/?page_id=3) and especially look at Peter Kreeft’s article about masculinity and femininity in God and in His creation (http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/sexual-symbolism.htm). I would be interested in discussing this, as well as your book, with you if you would be so inclined.

Again, I apologize on the blog’s for the lack of charity and I will attempt to get your book when it is released in the U.S. and post a more informed review of it then. I will also alert the biggest blog feeds to the post so that those who saw the post will see both your note and this apology, and later my review of your book when that becomes available.

Thank you for the time you took to write and the more charitable tone than we set. I also appreciate the personal correction which I do need from time to time.

God Bless

David Delaney

Let me be clear that I still have serious reservations about the book but I should not have implied any ad hominem evaluations of the author in attempting to speculate about his perpective. I will post a short book review here as soon I have a chance to get and read the book. I’m sorry if the tone I set caused any scandal.