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Purely theological matters, which are the subject of revelation, being of a spiritual nature, are not objectively verifiable in this world.

But Patrick, you continue to evade the very point I'm trying to make. The revelation, the "spiritual nature," is trying to tell you about the very shape of nature itself, of the Universe. Or more specifically, the relations that obtain between God and man and nature and society, the whole and part, humanity and the Universe -- in all their variegated mutual, synergistic relations.

And if you have the eyes to observe what is around you in nature, and the ears to "hear" what that means, then you can rationally, "objectively verify" the dual account we have from God Himself, revealed in the Book of Scripture (revelation by Creator), and the Book of Nature (revelation by Creation). Both accounts accord beautifully.

If you think there is an ounce of "religiosity" or "sectarianism" in that view, I would think you are mistaken. My love is philosophy (after God only), but my very next loves are human history and culture. I consider mathematics the "queen" of human inquiry, and science her "handmaiden." And based on all the things that I have worked at and studied and lived through in my life so far, my center of Truth is to be found in Revelation and Creation, as attested to by millennia of human experience and insight, as confirmed by me by means of reflection on my own personal experience.

As a student of human cultures, I think I can say with some confidence that the central problems/insights of human existential experience are the same across all human cultures. Different cultures articulate their experiences differently. But at the end of the day, all cultures manifest the same concerns, and answer them in remarkably similar ways.

The shorthand description of how humans have historically managed to do this is they simply acknowledged: God is Truth. There is no truth without God. I don't care whether you're a Greek or a Christian or a Viking or an American Indian or a Hindu or Buddhist or Taoist -- the cross-cultural, central insight of the human race has never varied from the acknowledgement of God as the foundation of Truth -- until very recent times.

Even the most primitive cultures extant in our own time acknowledge this central truth, and we can observe this in their living traditions and institutions.

FWIW dear, huggable Patrick.

But Patrick, you continue to evade the very point I'm trying to make. The revelation, the "spiritual nature," is trying to tell you about the very shape of nature itself, of the Universe.

I'm not evading the point. I just don't get it. Perhaps the problem is that I've never received a revelation, so I have no experience of such matters. That severely limits my ability to see what you see. All that I have to go on is what people tell me, and that's not the same thing as personally experiencing what they experience.

Umm.. Buddhism does not at all fixate on the precept: God is Truth. In fact, the Buddha dismissed the question of gods altogether as insignificant. His view was that people who indulge in such conjecture are like the man who has been shot with an arrow who then sits down to ask himself where the arrow might have come from and of what it has been made...

Similarly, the Tao of Taoism is not predicated by a godhead, nor is it contingent upon a godhead. Quite the contrary, the gods celebrated by Taoists are part of reality; it is not reality that is a part of them. The Tao is at its most basic "the Way" of reality; it is the pattern of space and time; and it is utterly detached from moral or normative doctrines.

The Greek and Viking gods lied, and did so quite regularly. While there was a spectrum of philosophical thought associated with each culture - too much to cover with any brevity - the gods were certainly not the source of Truth in any sort of absolute or ultimate fashion. In the former case, a swift review of Pythagorean, Platonist, and Aristotelian thought will inform you of the various strands of "truth" that were perceived within Greek thought, and none of them were attributed to the gods.

It's a gross oversimplification to condense the schools of Hinduism and the Amerindian spiritual belief systems in such a manner, but suffice to say that applying Judeo/Christian doctrine to them is no more applicable than is its application to the above.

Here is a rather decent summary of Hinduism - so much as it can be summarized - as it relates to the question at hand:

Within Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism (as it is commonly called), a variety of lesser gods are seen as aspects of the one impersonal divine ground, Brahman (not Brahma). Brahman is seen as the universal spirit. Brahman is the ultimate, both transcendent and immanent; the absolute infinite existence; the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. Brahman is not a God in the monotheistic sense, as it is not imbued with any limiting characteristics, not even those of being and non-being, and this is reflected in the fact that in Sanskrit, the word brahman is of neuter (as opposed to masculine or feminine) gender.

Yes, it is possible to transpose or impose Judeo/Christian tenets onto the Brahman, but it is a misnomer. The Brahman is not an entity. The Brahman instructs nothing. No temporal system can provide transcendent Truth. The Brahman just is what is.

I had to go eat, but I'm back! Wanted to post a bit more on a couple spiritual systems I glossed over above.

The one common trait, perhaps, between the Vikings and the Amerindians generally was that they perceived reality to have emerged more or less spontaneously from the primordial chaos. The Viking gods were not omnipotent; they were not omnisicient; they were by no means infinite or even eternal. They were certainly well beyond the capacity of men, but in little more than a sense of being "supermen" - they were all the features of humanity writ large. And not only could they die, but they would die, and then another universe would be born of the ruins, with its own reality and its own Truth.

Quite similarly, a common strand of much Amerindian philosophy was that the phenomenological world emerged gradually as a sort of nexus of all the spiritual and material entities within it. Reality was a dynamic function and the Truth was everchanging as it shaped and was shaped by the recombination and rearrangement of forms in the flux of time. One might say that it was a very holistic spiritualism, and the reality of the universe was akin to a growing, living creature.

Neither Vikings nor Amerindians would comprehend the statement "God is Truth" within the context of their pre-Christian spiritual beliefs.

One last comment about the Greeks. There were a variety of Greek cosmologies - precisely because there was no ultimate, absolute godhead envisioned from which all Truth emanated in an arbitrary fashion - that might best be summarized as follows: the Truth was the essence of the universe. There were two basic solutions to the search for Truth: (1) revelation; (2) reason.

Pythagoreanism is emblematic of the first: at its most basic, reality is the harmonics of the universe and you can reveal it by attuning yourself to the universe (a very 'Buddhistic' sensibility). There were variations depending on how one could achieve such a state and to what degree the Truth could be revealed, but they involved the same basic mindscape.

Of the second, there were two exemplars, one represented by Platonism and the other by Aristotelian thought, but one identical conclusion: The Truth was the essence of the universe. The difference between them was that the former perceived of this as independent Forms while the latter perceived of this as inherent forms. Now, it's worth noting that Plato was a rather bit eccentric by his own contemporary standards, but the basic conceptual division serves here.

In Plato's view, the universe was an illusion, and the Forms were eternal universals. The Forms were basically the archetypes of all that is, and could only be understood by pure reason. The gods were gods because they had no impediment between them and these ideals. They were not gods because they were the standard of Truth; rather, they were gods because they had a perfect knowledge of the Truth - i.e., the true essence of reality.

By contrast, Aristotle held that entities were self-contained forms - that an entity held within itself all the forms that it would express throughout the totality of its existence. So, although he agreed with Plato that the Truth was the essence of the universe, he disagree with Plato's notion that the essence of the universe was separate from the expression of the universe.

And all the Greeks basically fit to some degree or other within the boundaries outlined above: the Truth is the nature of the universe.

But Patrick, you continue to evade the very point I'm trying to make. The revelation, the "spiritual nature," is trying to tell you about the very shape of nature itself, of the Universe. Or more specifically, the relations that obtain between God and man and nature and society, the whole and part, humanity and the Universe -- in all their variegated mutual, synergistic relations.

God has revealed to me that you're mistaken.

Uhhhh... No. The "Book of Nature", for example, does not "accord beautifully" with the Noachian Flood of the "Book of Scripture", for just one example of many.

If you think there is an ounce of "religiosity" or "sectarianism" in that view, I would think you are mistaken.

Clearly, when you speak coyly of "the Book of Scripture", you're referring to the Christian Bible. So I find your denial of even an "ounce" of "sectarianism" to be dubious at best.