The originary hypothesis repels the kind of initiatory revelatory “download” that is nevertheless the only way of understanding it. Eric Gans, and with him every participant in GA will insist that GA is not a faith or religion, and, of course, they are right—in a way it is the antithesis of faith and religion by disclosing the originary possibility of all faiths and religions. There are believers within GA who reconcile the originary hypothesis with their faith, but if you are taking the originary hypothesis literally, without any suspension or bracketing to allow for your specific faith tradition to also be taken literally, then you can only see your faith tradition as an approximation of a configuration you consider prior and irreducible to that tradition. At the same time, GA cannot claim to be an “Enlightenment” philosophy that stands outside of faith and “debunks” its pretensions—on the contrary, the implication of the originary hypothesis is that the faiths are truer than philosophy, and it’s not even close. But while philosophy and science allow us to speak of “approximation,” faith resists such an approach—if you’re not all in, you’re suspect, even to yourself. Nor can GA subordinate itself to faith and justify it, or paternalistically confer upon it a. kind of local legitimacy for those in need it of it, as philosophy can easily do (or have done to it). So, the originary hypothesis finds itself in the position of being both closest and furthest from any faith tradition, while remaining completely indigestible to philosophy and philosophy’s children, the human sciences. It’s like a perfectly materialist refutation of materialism, the one true faith masquerading as subversive heresy.
Originary Hypothesis as Mobius Strip
Originary Hypothesis as Mobius Strip
Originary Hypothesis as Mobius Strip
The originary hypothesis repels the kind of initiatory revelatory “download” that is nevertheless the only way of understanding it. Eric Gans, and with him every participant in GA will insist that GA is not a faith or religion, and, of course, they are right—in a way it is the antithesis of faith and religion by disclosing the originary possibility of all faiths and religions. There are believers within GA who reconcile the originary hypothesis with their faith, but if you are taking the originary hypothesis literally, without any suspension or bracketing to allow for your specific faith tradition to also be taken literally, then you can only see your faith tradition as an approximation of a configuration you consider prior and irreducible to that tradition. At the same time, GA cannot claim to be an “Enlightenment” philosophy that stands outside of faith and “debunks” its pretensions—on the contrary, the implication of the originary hypothesis is that the faiths are truer than philosophy, and it’s not even close. But while philosophy and science allow us to speak of “approximation,” faith resists such an approach—if you’re not all in, you’re suspect, even to yourself. Nor can GA subordinate itself to faith and justify it, or paternalistically confer upon it a. kind of local legitimacy for those in need it of it, as philosophy can easily do (or have done to it). So, the originary hypothesis finds itself in the position of being both closest and furthest from any faith tradition, while remaining completely indigestible to philosophy and philosophy’s children, the human sciences. It’s like a perfectly materialist refutation of materialism, the one true faith masquerading as subversive heresy.