by
Dean Gotcher
"Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:15
The Dia of Diaprax is the dialectic process, i.e., "self" 'justification,' i.e., dialogue. The prax of Diaprax is the practice (praxis) of dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., "self" 'justification,' i.e., dialogue in "building relationship" with others. Diaprax is you affirming, i.e., 'justifying' some one else's "self," as they affirm, i.e., 'justify' your "self," making you and them "of and for self" only. "In the dialogic relation of recognizing oneself [one's "self"] in the other, they experience the common ground of their existence." (Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge & Human Interest, Chapter Three: The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory) "Self" 'justification,' i.e., dialogue is what we all have in common. "Self" 'justification,' i.e., dialogue is therefore the "ground" of common-ism.
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." 1 John 2:16
Diaprax is dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., is "self" 'justification,' i.e., is dialogue being put into social action (praxis). It is the praxis (social action) of 'justifying' the child's carnal nature, i.e., the child's love of pleasure, i.e., the child's "lust of the flesh," "lust of the eyes," and "pride of life"—'justifying' the child's hate of restraint—over and therefore against the father's/Father's authority, negating the child having a guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning in the process. Diaprax is man living with himself (his "self") and the world in pleasure, in the 'moment'—as a child without restraint, hating anyone who gets in his way, i.e., in the way of pleasure.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful in that it sees pleasure (dopamine emancipation), which is stimulated by the world as the standard for "good" instead of doing the Father's' will and is wicked in that it hates the Father (and anyone who obeys Him) for getting in the way of pleasure. It can not see its hate as being wicked since "self," i.e., love of pleasure stands in the way. The only way the child can see the father's/Father's love for him is when he humbles, denies, dies to his "self," i.e., gets his "self" out of the way—which often requires chastening by the father/Father.
Following after pleasure (the love of, i.e., "lusting" after pleasure), i.e., the heart's desire comes hate (hate of restraint and the restrainer—hate of the two, i.e., the restraint and the restrainer can not be separated in the mind of the carnal, i.e., "self" willed child). Hate of restraint and the restrainer, i.e., hate of the father's/Father's authority naturally follows after the love of ("lusting" after) pleasure, which the world stimulates. Therefore what Karl Marx advocated is no small matter. "To enjoy the present reconciles us to the actual." (Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right') emphasis added. He knew that, according to "human nature," i.e., the nature of the child, hate, i.e., hate of the father's/Father's authority naturally follows after (as a result of) the child's "lusting" after pleasure. You do not have to tell the child to hate the father/Father and his/His authority. That will happen naturally when you 'justify' in the child's mind that his love of ("lusting" after) pleasure is normal, i.e., is the "norm." Dialogue, which requires setting aside the father's/Father's established commands, rules, facts, and truth—so all can "feel" safe, i.e., 'justified' in their "self"—accomplishes the deed (praxis).
Diaprax is the praxis of Genesis 3:1-6, i.e., "self" 'justification, i.e., dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., dialogue, i.e., setting aside the father's/Father's commands, rules, facts, and truth, negating Hebrews 12:5-11, i.e., the Father's authority—negating Romans 7:14-25, i.e., the guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning in the process—so all can do wrong, disobey, sin, i.e., be "human," i.e., be "of and for self" and the world only, with impunity, with no sense of guilt.
According to dialectic 'reasoning,' it is in, i.e., from the child's carnal nature, i.e., the child's love of "self," i.e., the child's natural love of pleasure and hate of restraint ("transcending" the father's/Father's authority) that "worldly peace and socialist harmony," i.e., globalism resides, i.e., is initiated ('created') and sustained, i.e., is "actualized," i.e., is made 'reality.' Abraham Maslow wrote (regarding Marx's "actual"): "Self-actualizing people have to a large extent transcended the values of their culture [their parent's, i.e., their father's/Father's way of thinking and acting]. They are not so much merely Americans as they are world citizens, members of the human species first and foremost." (Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature) emphasis added. "Third-Force psychology is also epi-Marxian in these senses, i.e., including the most basic scheme as true-good social conditions [where children are 'liberated' from their parent's, i.e., the father's/Father's authority] are necessary for personal growth, bad social conditions [where children must humble, deny, die to their "self" in order to do their parent's, i.e., the father's/Father's will] stunt human nature,... This is to say, one could reinterpret Marx into a self-actualization-fostering Third- and Fourth-Force psychology-philosophy. And my impression is anyway that this is the direction in which they are going now." "This is a realistic combination of the Marxian version & the Humanistic. (Better add to definition of "humanistic" that it also means one species, One World.)" (Abraham Maslow, The Journals of Abraham Maslow) This is why Maslow could write: "I have found whenever I ran across authoritarian students [those who honor their parent's, i.e., the father's/Father's authority] that the best thing for me to do was to break their backs immediately." "The correct thing to do with authoritarians is to take them realistically for the bastards they are and then behave toward them as if they were bastards." (Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management)
You have to focus on the children, i.e., negate the father's/Father's authority in the mind of the child, if you want 'change.' George Hegel wrote, regarding the child: "The child, contrary to appearance, is the absolute, the rationality of the relationship; he is what is enduring and everlasting, the totality which produces itself once again as such [as he is 'liberated' from the father's/Father's authority, becoming, through dialogue, his "self" again, as he was before the father's/Father's first command, rule, fact, and truth came into his life, i.e., carnal, i.e., of the world only]." (George Hegel, System of Ethical Life) All of Hegel's ideology stems from the child's "feelings," i.e., the child's affective domain, i.e. the child's "sense experience" of the past and the present, where his "sense perception" of his "self" and the world around him and his "sensuous (felt) need" to be at-one-with his "self" and the world in pleasure (along with his hate of restraint) 'drives' him into dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., dialoguing with his "self," 'justifying' his "self" over and therefore against the father's/Father's authority, negating faith in the father/Father, negating the guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning in the process.
According to dialectic 'reasoning' the Universal (society) lies hidden in the Particular (in the child's nature, i.e., the child's love of pleasure and hate of restraint, i.e., the child's carnal nature trying to "actualize" its "self"). Without the father's authority (the father's resistance against the child's carnal nature—which is common with all the children of the world) the child would never come to know his "self," i.e., the Particular. Yet it is the father/Father and his/His authority that keeps the children (collectively) from discovering their "self" in the Universal, i.e., in one another, i.e., in society. "The dialectical method was overthrown—the parts were prevented from finding their definition within the whole." (György Lukács, History & Class Consciousness: What is Orthodox Marxism?) Other than killing the fathers (and those who support them)—Traditional Marxism—dialogue is the only pathway by which the father/Father's authority can be overcoming in the lives of the children—Transformational Marxism.
By the children—with the "help" of a facilitator of 'change'—'justifying' their "self" before one another, i.e., through dialogue affirming their carnal nature, they are able to come to know their "self" as they are, i.e. of the Universal (society) only. According to dialectic 'reasoning,' reality does not reside in the father's/Father's authority but in dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., in dialogue, i.e. in the child's ability to 'justify' his "self," i.e., 'justify' his love, i.e., "lusting" after the carnal pleasures of the 'moment,' which the world stimulates and his hate of restraint—uniting with one another in consensus. Children therefore "actualize" their "self" as they participate in the social action (praxis) of 'liberating' their "self" and the world from the father's/Father's authority, negating the father's authority not only in their "self," i.e. in their feelings, thoughts, and actions but in the world as well.
"'The philosophy of praxis is the absolute secularization of thought, an absolute humanism of history.'" (Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the PRISON NOTEBOOKS) "The philosophy of praxis," i.e., the dialoguing of opinions to a consensus is the removal of any external voice directing the children. It is the children justifying' their "self," i.e. 'justifying' their own feelings, thoughts, and actions and their relationship with one another and the world, thinking and acting according to (in harmony with) their carnal nature only.
"The dialectic ["self" 'justification,' dialogue] will go on until we reach the absolute whole, that which includes everything within itself [is "of and for self" and the world only], and so cannot possibly depend upon anything outside itself [upon the father/Father, i.e. upon the parent/God] ." (Frederick Beiser, Hegel)
Karl Marx wrote: "Once the earthly family [where the children have to humble, deny, die to their "self" in order to do the father's will] is discovered to be the secret of the holy family [where the Son humbled, denied, died to his "self" in order to the Father's will, calling all who follow him to do the same], the former [the traditional family system with its father's authority (engendering prejudice and a guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning)] must itself be annihilated [vernichtet] theoretically [in the "thoughts" of the child] and practically [in accordance to (in agreement with) the law of the flesh—what all children have in common—which is the basis of common-ism]." (Karl Marx, Theses On Feuerbach #4)
Sigmund Freud wrote: "'It is not really a decisive matter whether one has killed one's father or abstained from the deed,' if the function of the conflict and its consequences are the same [in other words, the father no longer exercises his authority in the home]." According to Freud, incest and patricide are part of the child's deepest nature and must be expressed ('liberated') if he is to come to know himself as he is, i.e., of the world only: "... the hatred against patriarchal suppression—a 'barrier to incest,' ... the desire (for the sons) to return to the mother—culminates in the rebellion of the exiled sons, the collective killing and devouring of the father." (Sigmund Freud as quoted in Herbart Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A philosophical inquiry into Freud)
The "common" theme of dialectic 'reasoning' (from the garden in Eden on) is the child 1) "lusting" after the carnal pleasures of the 'moment, which the world stimulates, wanting to be "at-one-with" the world in pleasure, 2) resenting (hating) the father's authority which prevents him from attaining it, 3) 'justifying' himself (his carnal nature) over and therefore against the father's authority, negating the father's authority in his feelings, thoughts, and actions and in his relationship with himself, others, and the world, negating his having a guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning in the process, so he can do wrong, disobey, sin with impunity. What "common-ism" (globalism) and "common-unity" (community) have in common is Immanuel Kant's "lawfulness without law," where, through dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e. through "self" 'justification,' i.e., through dialogue, the carnal nature of the child, i.e. the law of the flesh ("lawfulness") negates the authority of the father/Father, i.e. the law of God ("law").
By bringing dialogue (the affective domain, i.e., "feelings," i.e., the children's hearts, i.e., "self" 'justification') into the classroom, making "self interest," i.e., the children's carnal nature a part of the curriculum (affirming their carnal nature as being "normal," i.e., the "norm," which is the 'purpose' of psychology), the father's/Father's authority is negated (along with the guilty conscience for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning) in the students thoughts and actions, 'justifying' their questioning, challenging, defying, disregarding, attacking their parent's, i.e., the father's/Father's authority. The age (or occupation) of the "student" does not matter. The "educator' does not have to tell the students to challenge, question, defy, disregard, attack their parents authority when they get home (or any authority for that matter, whether it be in the workplace, classroom, government, church, etc.,), they will do that automatically since Karl Marx is already in their hearts, just waiting to be 'liberated' ('justified,' i.e., affirmed) in the "group grade," i.e., "How do you 'feel'," "What do you 'think'," psychotherapy, facilitated, "safe zone/place/space," "be positive, not negative," dialoguing opinions to a consensus (French, Russian, Chinese, etc., revolution),"building relationship on self interest," soviet, brainwashing, Transformational Marxist, "lawfulness without law" classroom (they are all one and the same in method or formula—all of Georg Hegel's, Karl Marx's, and Sigmund Freud's dialectic ideology—dialogue, i.e., "self" 'justification' being put into social action, i.e., praxis).
"The affective domain is, in retrospect, a virtual 'Pandora's Box' [a "box" full of evils, which once opened can not be closed] ." "To keep the 'box' closed [to keep the parent's authority system in place in the child's thoughts and actions, engendering a "guilty conscience" in the child for doing wrong, disobeying, sinning] is to deny the existence of the powerful motivational forces that shapes the life of each of us [our carnal nature]." "There are many stories of the conflict and tension that these new practices are producing between parents and children." (David Krathwohl, Benjamin S. Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Book 2: Affective Domain) "For the dialectical method the central problem is to change reality.… reality with its 'obedience to laws'." (György Lukács, History & Class Consciousness: What is Orthodox Marxism?)
Overcoming diaprax: "Come to the Father, through Jesus Christ, the Son." There is no other way.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Proverb. 3: 5-6
"It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Jeremiah 10:23
After all, the gospel message is about the Father sending His Son to die for our sins (disobedience), who by his death (shed blood) on the cross paid for our sins, 'redeeming' us from His Father's wrath upon us for our disobedience, with the Father raising His Son from the grave in order to 'reconcile' us to Himself. The gospel message is in essence the Son saying "I want you to know my Father." "I want you to know my Father's love for you." It is the Father saying, "I want you to know me." "I want you to know my love for you." The prodigal son thought his inheritance (pleasure) was what life was all about, only (after loosing it all, humbling his "self," and returning home) to discover that it was his father's love for him.
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6
"For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." Matthew 12:50
"And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Matthew 23:9
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:9, 10
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;" 2 Corinthians 10:5
"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Luke 9:23
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:" "Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them." Ephesians 2:2; 5:6, 7
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them." Colossians 3:5-7
"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that " Matthew 10:32-39
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven." Matthew 7:21
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." John 18:36
"The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached," "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 16:16; 17:20, 21 19
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Revelation 3:19-21
People come up to me after meetings and ask me what they should do when they are caught in (and are caught up in) a diaprax meeting. First of all "choose your battles well," actually let the Lord choose them (discernment is God's gift to you, use it—it does not always tell you what is wrong but it does tell you "something is wrong").
Do not go into dialogue, you have already lost the battle if you do. Hold your "self" and others accountable to facts and truth, i.e., do not say "I believe ....," "I think ....," or "I feel ...." but just proclaim (discuss) the facts or truth (ad nauseum). If you believe 2 + 2 = 4 you do not say "I believe 2 + 2 = 4," making it an opinion, you say "2 + 2 = 4, making it a fact. If they say any other number just keep telling them they are "wrong." It is where the word protestant comes from, i.e., "thou dost protest too much." The Marxist György Lukács wrote: "For to accept that solution [where all dialogue their opinions to a consensus], even in theory [even to tolerating it, i.e., discuss doing it], would be tantamount to observing society from a class standpoint [from the child's perspective, from his carnal nature] other than that of the bourgeoisie [from the parent's, i.e., the father's/Father's authority]. And no class can do that-unless it is willing to abdicate its power freely." (György Lukács, History & Class Consciousness: What is Orthodox Marxism?) The idea being: You do not have to kill the fathers' outright, as in traditional Marxism (hard line Communism), offer to "help" them communicate with their children (through dialogue) instead—there is no father's/Father's authority in dialogue.
If you do not chasten, i.e., correct, reprove, rebuke your children when they do wrong, disobey, sin (preaching commands and rules to be obeyed as given, teaching facts and truth to be accepted as is, by faith, discussing, a your discretion, any questions they might have, providing they are able to understand, you have time, and they are not trying to take you into dialogue, questioning, challenging, defying, disregarding, attacking your authority, blessing or rewarding them when they do right and obey, forgiving, showing mercy and grace to them, after they have done wrong, when they repent, ask for forgiveness and, accepting your authority, 'purpose' in themselves to do what is right), you abdicate your authority to their carnal nature, making the child's "lust" for the carnal pleasures of the 'moment,' which the world stimulates, the 'drive' of life and "human relationship," i.e., "humanism" (affirmation), i.e., socialism the 'purpose'—what Karl Marx wanted, i.e., what 'liberals,' socialists want.
Karl Marx wrote: "It is not individualism [the child subject to the father's/Father's authority, humbling, denying, die to his "self" in order to do the father's/Father's will—instead of his own] that fulfills the individual, on the contrary it destroys him. Society ["human relationship based upon self interest," i.e., the child finding his identity in "the group," i.e., in society] is the necessary framework through which freedom [from the father's/Father's authority] and individuality [to be "of and for self" and the world only] are made realities." (Karl Marx, in John Lewis, The Life and Teachings of Karl Marx)
The question is: "Are you a Marxist?"—evaluating life, including your "self," from your carnal nature ("sense experience"—aufheben) instead of from the Word of God, where right is right and wrong is wrong, good is good and evil is evil, i.e., where right and good and wrong and evil are not subject to your opinion.
"Endure." The word "endure" is like changing diapers, i.e., not a dopamine moment. If you do not deny (die to) your "self," i.e., your "self interest," i.e., what you covet, including your natural desire for the approval of others, those in the room will bring you into the process. Picking up your cross is simply being willing to be crucified, rejected by others, including by your "friends," for holding to the truth and follow the Lord. You will go no deeper into the Word of God than your relationship, i.e., "friendship" with others will allow you. They will either, loving the Word of God, grow in the Word with you, or loving the world, reject the Word of God and you along with it.
In the end, all the problems of life, which we want to get rid of, are all about who we go to for the answers. Either to our "self," others, and the world or to the Father. It is why Jesus came. That we might go to the Father. We make the choice every time we have a problem. How would you like to be a father whose children never visit with or talk to.
At the end of the day it is not that we were successful or not successful in getting what we wanted. It is that we did what was right. Then and only then, despite the "loss," having turned it over to the Lord, we can place our head on the pillow and have a peaceful rest (in our soul), knowing that what we did was right before the Father, and His son, Jesus Christ.
"And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." 1 John 1:3 All the rest, including the fellowshipping of the saints, is a byproduct, i.e., the result of.
© Institution for Authority Research, Dean Gotcher 2015, 2018