6.   The Determination of the Religious Viability of Theological Work, etc.

	The theologian et al will be gladdened to know that research to date has revealed the transcendental necessity for the Life-World to have a theological complexion (all things being equal in those arguments that support this hypothetical conclusion), but, will also be disappointed to discover that, to date, the theological viability of such a focus need not be supportive of this type of profession, indeed, need not be supportive of the existence at all of this type of profession(al), except to the extent that it be treated merely as a topic for philosophical examination. In this section of this extended essay let me now examine the transcendental viability of various genres that invoke various forms of theologically oriented religious practice to see which, if any, are competent in their invocation of their associated practices, or, where possible, at least what might be salvaged from that type of enterprise? (815)

	In a hypothetical economy between the relatively Divine and the non-divine what types of practices are conventionally invoked by theologians, etc., in order to intentionally focus on a simulation of this type of relationship? One way this list could be approached is to articulate from what participant this relationship is being established and what forms of mediation and purpose might also be invoked in order to assist in establishing a simulation of this type of desired relationship. (816)

By simulation is meant the apparent intentional enactment of those claims without supporting the validity or non-validity of those experiences and/or their interpretations. Hence the adoption in this regard of an overall transcendental suspension. Such a practice also allows us to maintain a hypothetical orientation in our research despite the findings of that particular program. (817)

Similarly, in the exercise of this concept of transcendental necessity what is being claimed is the hypothetical necessity, all argument being valid, for the corresponding structures to apply in all cases under all conditions in the idealization of that construction. Without a doubt there are many types of transcendental necessity although, ideally, one and only one set of conditions for that to be realized. E.g., the number two plus the number two in natural mathematics is the number four and only the number four. Hence the transcendental necessity, given (the internal rules of) this natural numerical context, that the sum of ‘two’ ‘plus’ ‘two’ when summed be ‘equal’ to ‘four’ and ‘only’ four! E.g., that in Euclidian geometry the sum of the angles of a triangle can only be one hundred and eighty degrees precisely. E.g., that an empirically perceivable non-virtual object must have form, mass, colour, a sense of an encapsulated identity, an existential-causal history, etc., etc. E.g., that the relatively Divine be considerably more advanced in epistemological(-like) organizational complexity, etc. (818)
	
	Thus, we have in our tentative and provisional catalogue, in order to conduct this type of hypothetical research., a noting of the reputed direction of emissions, the presence or absence of mediation, and, a phenomenological description or similar of the intentional context of those apparent emissions (which can be disposed chronologically as pre-emissional, emissional and post-emissional in orientation). E.g., in acts of prayer a person prays towards their imputed sense of the Divine. Whereas, e.g., in so-called processes of Divine instigated insight and/or revelation that direction, by definition, is in the opposite direction. Hence this difference between prayer and revelation (even when these two directions are heavily interleaved) regardless of the non-hypothetical reality of these two modes of religiously oriented theological conduct. What other practices might join this list (and are there any forms of practice that are effectively neutral in this regard?)? (819)
	
	Essentially, all these acts are intentional acts and are intended or could be intended to be read as to-be-read-intentional acts. So, e.g., a person prays to their ‘vision’ of the divine and expects their prayers to be ‘heard’ regardless of whether those prayers were thought and/or said and/or written down, etc. Conversely, from the theologian’s point of view, the Divine ‘speaks’ to a certain person or persons and expects to be heard in some form or other. On one hand this simplifies things – all religiously performed practices are intentionally delivered with that type of intention by all the parties concerned, and, on the other, just what sort of intentional act is this when intentional acts are performed and addressed to, from, and between agents, when one or more parties in this emissive relationship are not clearly defined in embodied terms of reference since as previously argued, emissions whether intentionally oriented or non-intentionally oriented can only pass between emitters and receptors that are clearly defined as identified or potentially identifiable entities, i.e., as completely encapsulated and thereby and therein embodied as embodied participants in this World-of-Life! Of course this difficulty, as an associated process of cognitive dissonance, is immediately obviated if those participants in these religious acts are all accepted and treated as embodied identities. Then, the problem is transferred to asking in what form these identified participants are manifested, and, given differences in their epistemological organization, how is communication to be arrived at between such apparently incommensurable states of affairs? It is almost on par with ‘a choir of worms singing to the gardener in the hope they will be heard and not trampled upon by this gardener in the course of their work’.  Perhaps, at this stage of our research, it would be infinitely wise to just give up and either accept the religious metaphor as viable literally and/or metaphorically or to just concede the sheer impossibility of this these types of relationships regardless of the existence or the non-existence of the Divine. However, this type of scenario is continually invoked by our theologically-oriented religious fraternity regardless of religion or denomination. So, with little expectation of resolving these issues, let us continue in the vain hope that we might at least make more sense of what appears to be an almost completely hopeless task. Still, it is wrong to say that these theologically oriented types of intentional acts are performed in a nonsensical manner so, on these grounds of intended sense, let us continue this hypothetical style of research. (820)

	Often, if not always, some vision of the Divine is simulated in the emission and/or reception of information that is regarded as passing between non-divine participants and the conjectured imputation of the Divine in some form/s or other. So, e.g., the priest go to the altar and stands before symbolic representations of their understanding of the Divine. In private prayer the head is bowed before the hopefully attentive presence of the Divine, etc. Or, in reverse and its conjectured interpretation the Divine ‘speaks’ through symbols of a holy nature and/or natural objects treated in a sacred or sanctified manner such as specially nominated trees, the observation of unusual cloud formations, the reading of variations found in various entrails, through intuitions gained in or from sacred places, sacred spaces, etc., insights or revelations gained through religious practices, sleep, mediation, trance states, etc., etc. Throughout such projects of sacred communication and/or interpretation the understanding is that such genres of activity already exist and have some form of validity (as modes of religious expression). (821)

	This semblance of sense is still, however, shrouded in a aura of intentional dissonance to that extent that these anomalous features of these ‘relationships’ are experienced as anomalous. When we are involved in a personal relationship we directly experience the other person or persons present in that relationship. If someone were to declare a photo of their dearly departed partner to be their now no longer departed partner we might well have grounds for concern as to the real state of their mental health. However, if that person were merely to talk to that photo as if it were their partner knowing that this identification cannot be real then we might look upon such an act of ‘communication’ as understandable if not completely wise if it were to continue on a long term basis. So, in the light of these variations upon a theme, if a  priest were to address their vision of the Divine through the use of an icon to what extent is this a different situation intentionally, etc? (822)

	Iconoclasts are certainly ambivalent over the use of images, in accordance with my understanding. On one hand, they think their use to be non-religiously productive for a variety of reasons. Then, on the other hand, they somehow intuitively seem to fear either their power over others or quite possibly their power over themselves. Why attack the eyes of a statue if you think it a mere idol. Iconoclast are often not subtle. Certainly not subtle enough to realize, if not accept cognitively, that most religionists, if not all, children included, perceive the image merely as some form of a non-divine mediation of the Divine at best, or, at worst, as some form of a token representation of the Divine but one that is imperfect and very inadequate at that type of task. E.g., Catholics might accuse Buddhist as being idolaters thinking that the latter worship images of the Buddha as if it were the Buddha or acted as a spiritual proxy for the same. But, then, some Protestants might think that Catholics did the same thing in their use of religious imagery. A neutral observer examining this type of phenomenon might be hard pressed to tell these types of religious practice apart except in their use of different sets of religious symbols. Close attention to the intentions evinced in the exercise of such practices should alert the observer to this fact that although representations of the Divine these instances were not to be seen as substitutions for the same. The icon might appear to be the recipient of an act of worship, prayer, etc. Yet, a close attention to the intentions of those worshippers, etc, should reveal this use of the image, etc., merely as a means or prop and not the end of such directed devotion. This can usually be clearly demonstrated by the use of various hermeneutical strategies. E.g., substituting different icons, icons that do not belong to their religious tradition, removing icons altogether from the process of worship, etc. So, in respect to the same, we should find that different icons of the same Divinity are equally useful for that religious person and thus the Divinity in question does not fully inhabit the sacred confines of any one of them nor merely all of them since additional ones could be manufactured. Similarly, symbols from another tradition would be rejected unless understood as an extensions of their own tradition. Lastly, the removal of examples of Divine representation rarely disrupts the complete course of an act of religious devotion. The devotee may be disconcerted to find no representation to hand in the course of their acts of worship, still, the show must go on and go on it usually does, albeit in a slightly modified form (by invoking the sense of the divine without the use of the usual representations of the same). This could be achieved by sacralizing other normal substitutes as per the normal course of that service or though the invocation of others not usually adopted. But let us not be distracted here by these considerations. (823)

	Returning to this theme of a cognitive dissonance in the exercise of a religious service through the apparent absence of an instantiated Divine presence or person (in the formal or informal exercise of that religious service that calls for the invocation of the same in some form or other) let us merely note some of the techniques the religionist will or must invest in in order to reinvest a religious service with the requisite qualifications that befit the apparent invocation of the Divine. Needless to say this anxiety will forever remain and cannot be completely eliminated, that overall, this anxiety and the methods adopted for its amelioration need not be unhealthy. Surely, the suspicion that the service is falling on deaf ears, be they the Divine or the congregation, must remain a permanent fact of life in which the religionist is forever going to have to cope with. Now, it could also be perceived, intuitively, that the entire raison d’être of the religious service is enacted in order to reduce various anxieties that instigated its performance in the first place, and, it could also be argued that the existence of that service and all its associated religious practice and ideology is founded on a cycle of anxiety both created and resolved in a perpetual cycle of anxiety production/anxiety resolution/anxiety re-production, etc. Indeed, it could be argued that a distinctive religious practice creates its own distinctive sense of religious need, a variety of needs that can nether be completely fulfilled nor resolved and hence the perpetuated permanence of that style of religious practice. In this context of a cycle of anxieties we could talk about the perpetual encirclement of cognitive dissonance that grounds and circles various types of religious practice. With this particular understanding of this aspect of religious motivation let us now try to understand the nature of communication attempted through various forms of religious practice. (824)

	It could well be considered a moot point that in processes of religious communication, ostensively between the Divine and the non-divine, that no such process in this form takes place at all. But, then, it is not our brief to decide this type of issue, merely to examine its transcendental possibility, etc. Therefore, let us take at face value those types of religious situations that appear to invoke that type of intention and interpretation. Therefore, with this demand for hypothetical neutrality, we must take into account those features that influence and/or are influenced by these processes of cognitive dissonance just alluded to. To that extent thought possible, we need to subtract the same from the overall phenomenological descriptions elicited for that ‘religious-theological type of experience. Because these descriptions are interpreted it behooves the examiner to subtract in their re-interpretations those features that appear to directly involve this type of interpretation. The question must now be asked, are there neutral grounds for both parties to conduct this type of procedure and come to some form of a consensus in this regard? As long as both parties are not doctrinaire in this regard I believe this type of interrogation is possible. Moreover, this type of re-analysis could be conducted under the terms of reference of an overall transcendental suspension through the use of parallel texts wherein all descriptive-prescriptive assertions are mirrored by anti-statements to the same, but opposite, effect. If the religious experience can be communicated then to that extent it can be made inter-subjective property, albeit in a non-direct form (unless co-experienced in a similarly recognizable form). Those statements once uttered can then be subjected to this lens of the overall transcendental suspension. Under, these critical or non-critical hermeneutical conditions we can now test for this element of cognitive dissonance by asking a series of appropriate conditions to elicit this type of experiential aspect, such questions as: did you experience a change in your levels of stress or similar, and, did the experience seem to directly contribute to further increases and/or decreases in the same, etc? In the same vein, is there a qualitative and/or quantitative difference in your overall sense of well-being in this world before, during and after such experiences (regardless of whether those initiated religious experiences could be positively asserted by those experiential subjects as being instigated by those religious practices, and v.v., or, as non-related). Determination of well-being would need to take a psychological approach here in order to determine the characteristic changes in the same felt to be related to those religious-types of experience. Some suggestions here might include an ability to better concentrate, an ability to better reflect on one’s current condition, an overall appreciation of mood, body-tone, sense of gestalt-integrity, etc., along with fluctuations in the same, etc. (825)

	Of course all of this complicates this issue of divine communication. But, we must merely ask if it were possible in what form or forms might it occur? In the process discounting this influence of cognitive dissonance should it be present. In effect, accepting that a residue of possibility is indeed a possibility. Now the question must be asked is such a possibility a real or transcendental possibility? In other words, is it possible to completely discount this ‘possibility’ on the grounds that it is transcendentally impossible. Surely, if such a situation is conceivable it must possess some degree or residue of actuality (as previously argued by this type of argument wherein ‘pure’ positions as polarities are unable to be obtained either epistemologically and/or ontologically). Is there an asymmetry here between the transcendental proof of possibility versus the transcendental proof of impossibility? I.e., we can never disprove this type of situation if it is thought conceivable, whereas, its possibility must establish its actuality in some dialectical form or other to some extent or other. However, taking a position in and through an overall transcendental suspension allows us to steer clear of such concerns to the extent that possibility is ideally established through the adequate dialectical resolution of all prominent forms of conceptual dissonance. In effect, the overall suspension reveals the grounds for such a dialectical context wherein surface anomalies are gestated, but, also equally, resolved. Thence, given this degree of resolution, re-integration, etc., what remains is allowed to exist in that transcendentally treated translation or condition. Furthermore, on the grounds already explicated as to the existent ideality of the unifying process of the Life-World it follows that this theological complexion must be experientially open in some form or other, directly and/or indirectly (although, as noted, not necessarily in a form amenable to theological work as traditionally and/or non-traditionally defined). So, with these considerations as a background let us now examine the various parameters that might be transcendentally associated (in their ideality) with divine communication from the perspectives of intentional direction/s, presence or absence of mediation and perceived sense of purpose, etc., being assisted in this by our initial acceptance of religious genres already defined for this type of task ostensively associated with divine communication. (826)

	First, let me re-visit the problem of reporting. Our relatively non-theoretical, non-critical material here resides in the practical field of reports. Reports made either by others or ourselves (or both others and ourselves). As critical transcendental phenomenologists (etc.) how should we approach such reported material utilized in our research? As always, through the overall transcendental suspension! However, in this case, to do this properly, we need to suspend both the report as reported-to-us and the report-as-received-by-ourselves. So, e.g., if a certain person claims that “the Virgin Mary spoke to them and said x” we must first suspend this claim, and, then we must also suspend our reception of the same. Hence these two parallel suspensions in this manner. How do we go about this set of parallel suspensions? In this instance, more or less along the following lines: person p stated that they had an experience they regarded as religious in which what they claimed to be the Virgin Mary spoke to them and said x. Then, from our point of view we can treat this report by noting the context of its utterance and neutral observations as to the apparent credibility or non-credibility of this statement bearer, and, noting the genre-type of this statement we can then ask ourselves in what manner it conforms and/or does not conform to that type of genre or set of genres. If we find other statements made by this person or other persons that appear to conform to that sense of type then we find ourselves closer to determining the sense of that utterance as a type of phenomenon (noting that there is always an element of the co-authored to some extent in this production of utterances since each individual person is also trying to make sense of their experiences in the light of inter-subjective genre expectations although, correctly, co-authorial input, is on a more actively co-engaged basis). (827)

Now, what do we hope to gain from this type of critical exercise? Wisely, we cannot say. On the other hand, as a general exercise, treated on a neutral level in the examination of the formation of a certain type of phenomenon what we hope to gain is a phenomenal-phenomenological set of insights into how this person engaged with that (imputed) type of phenomenal formation, and, how we find ourselves engaging with this person reporting of the same in and through phenomenal-phenomenological, hermeneutical and existential points of view, etc. Essentially, we are concerned with the overall nature of the engagement apparently involved in the totality of this exercise. Similarly, in our attempting to understand the range and nature of theological work our emphasis should be on the quality of those entailed processes of engagement (ostensively through process of divine communication or divine engagement in which the possibility is not suspended but the actual actuality is!). Ideally, a point in time would be reached by the philosophical-theologian or theological-philosopher, etc., in which we can stand aside from our research conducted under the auspices of the overall transcendental suspension and argue on the nature of the engagement apparently involved, one way or the other, as to the viability or non-viability of this concept of divine engagement. Although never being able to absolutely discount (the verification and truth of) this type of interpretation nor being able to absolutely promote (the verification and truth of) the same the theologist must operate under the intuition that as the Divine is defined as epistemologically superior to human intelligence, in the superior extent of its epistemological organization, etc., it follows, in accordance with this argument, that our engagement with its imputed existence at some point of time should reveal a much greater richness of detail that more truly reflects this natural superiority in epistemological organization. Hence our interest in this general concept of engagement (and its specific application to this particular area involving the imputation of a theologically-oriented form of engagement). So, let us resume this general level of research into the ideal, transcendental elements that should be involved in a process of relational interaction (and, by extension, made applicable to the field of the theological and the formation, therein, of the concept of real, i.e., non-virtual, theological work imputed, defined and promoted by the committed theologian should they be able to properly, appropriately and validly thematize such an avenue in practice given that that form of engagement is both open and obtainable, and, furthermore, worthwhile to any of the parties concerned?). (828)

	At this point let me introduce a philosophical problem in order to offer a context for the following research into the relational nature of engagement. Let us ask what must be involved, from a theoretical-transcendental perspective, in order to account for a ‘direct relationship’? Now, as it stands, this is not problematic in so far as some form of direct relational connection needs to be demonstrated in our claiming a direct relationship between two or more parties in a certain relationship. The problem arises when we consider the theoretical totality of facts as a basis upon which all facts could be determined both as to their possibility or potentiality and actuality or non-virtual facticity. If in an existential description of this world we note the accepted existences of such historical figures as Gautama, Jesus, Plato, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Husserl, etc., along with your own sense of agency then we need to ask in what relationship do we stand before all other individual factual human entities in this world as enumerated in this listed fashion? Regardless of the current status of these individuals as to whether they are dead or alive what would it mean, if it could be meaningfully entertained, to be in a direct relationship with some other instance of human agency (whether dead or alive, non-virtual or virtual)? So, as all non-virtual agents could be considered as timeless, ahistorical facts let us ask in what manner such factual entities could directly interact, if at all? In the light of this question what does it mean to ask could I be in a direct relationship with Gautama, etc., and by extension, in a direct relationship with the Divine in some form or other? What parallels might exist between a direct relationship with another person in the same room as your self, or, your ringing a friend who is currently overseas. To what extent is a relationship not a direct relationship since to be in a relationship we must be in a relationship to be in that relationship?! And, what is the nature of the relationship between the factual existences of a set of unique existential descriptors? If all facts already stand in a factual relationship to each other then how meaningful is this expression ‘being in a direct relationship?’ So, what counts for a direct relationship when all relationships are directly related to each other in order to be in a relationship between one and the other? In other words, what does a process of direct relational involvement and engagement mean, etc? (829) 

As noted (in paragraph no. 826) a relationship can be (transcendentally) examined from the perspectives of intentional direction/s, presence or absence of mediation and perceived sense of purpose, etc. To this we can add evidence/non-evidence of engagement. How should we define this last feature of engagement? What exactly alerts us to a process of engagement? Let us tentatively surmise that a process of engagement (for us) releases a greater degree of existential value than that invested in that initial act of examination. That directness of engagement is realized in our recognition of (this definition of) an existential surplus in our engagement with that relationship being focused upon. I.e., a greater degree of value is released than that initially invested. Similarly, we now need to ask how, as a factual descriptor, how this apparent surplus of value is realized and experienced, etc? That, in and through those modalities intentionally delineated a surplus of value is experienced that concentrates and continues our concentration and appreciation upon the same. As long as a surplus of value is being realized then to that degree and in that manner our concentration is reinforced to that same extent as that surplus. Indeed, the assessment of the qualitative nature of this surplus tells us the nature of our engagement, and, the assessment of the quantitative nature tells us to what extent that relationship is currently direct, or at least engaged? (830)

To explore this feature of direct engagement more closely let us start with an obviously direct relationship between, say, two friends in the same room. Here the two existential descriptors of these two agents are practically contiguous being in that same room at the same time. Moreover, a relationship is actually being engaged by a common mutuality of modes currently in operation in that process of direct relational engagement. So, e.g., a engages b as a friend, and v.v. They do so by discussing certain common topics, e.g., the weather, work, other friends, old times, current projects, etc., and, engaging in shared activities like having a coffee together, sharing a meal, watching television together, dancing, telling jokes, etc., etc. In detail we note a contiguity of existential descriptors in time and space, adoption of shared intentional modalities of interaction with a certain sense of purpose. To this we can add that a distinctive existential surplus of value is being shared from within that relationship as evidence of a direct engagement (and that, currently, no forms of overt mediation are being co-opted in the process and progress of that relationship). If, on the other hand, one of these two friends decides to go home then that relationship is now no longer fully contiguous (in a temporal-spatial proximity of their existential descriptors, mutual modes of intentional engagement and overall intent). Now, if this friend who has just gone home had inadvertently left their house keys on the coffee table where they had been seated and the other friend noticed them there how could that person inform their friend that they had left their house keys behind? If they were to shout out the window what good would this be if the other friend was already out of earshot? Or, in this day and age, perhaps that friend could ring the other to let them know that they had left their house keys behind. Here we see the importation of mediation into this relationship. On answering their phones both friends are now in a mediated state of direct communication. Furthermore, once the second friend realizes that they have left these keys behind they can now return to pick up these keys or collect them in some other fashion. In this scenario, our two friends could be considered as sharing in an existential surplus of value; a sense of value discerned in the progress of their relational engagement by virtue of this considerable degree of an existential surplus of value being mutually elicited and shared. Now, let us examine how mediation substitutes for relatively direct processes of immediate association. (831)

	Imagine wandering through an art gallery. Now a certain number of people could be found in the same room. Are they involved in a direct relationship with each other? Certainly not on the level of friends or associates unless some of these individuals went there as friends or as school party perhaps. As previously noted elsewhere, all intentional depositions are multi-modal and imply a multi-modal engagement in the world. Similarly, in our analysis of letter writing we noted the implication of an obligational field in the existential imprint of a relationship between two letter writers in order to account for the persistence of a letter writing relationship since letters, Xmas cards, etc., cannot be continuously written, received and replied to (even in this day of emails, mobiles and immediate messaging technologies, etc.). Even though we might be all strangers in that art gallery we are all gathered there, seemingly, to view the works of art currently on display. In this fact we all have a common purpose and operate in accordance with current ideas on how we should behave in that respect, etc. We don’t normally walk up towards some person in that art gallery and look at them as if they too were works of art on display, not at least overtly. But, then, as they inhabit our immediate visual field then on this level and in this manner we are directly relating to them, and v.v. Discreetly, we might inspect our fellow viewers and in this form of engagement we will find ourselves adequately rewarded by virtue of the fact that we can see them and see them clearly even if our circumspection is conducted discreetly. And if we should go with a friend and discuss our inspection of these works of art then we also relate in that type of manner too. Hence the point of my analogy is this: we are directly engaged in a certain field of interaction when we consider no form of mediation is present and our engagement is being rewarded with an excess of value over its mere investment. I look at a great work of art and I find myself being rewarded in and through my interest. I discuss there the same painting with a friend and gain some insight into their insights into the same, and v.v. I look around me at the other people and my discreetly exercised curiosity is also rewarded by the richness of observation that is normally gained from the immediacy of direct sense perception. Hence a definition for an active or direct relationship, and, thence a definition for engagement as a process of value enrichment derived in and through its direct relationship. Now we need to ask in what manner mediation augments and/or substitutes for the same? (832)

	Imagine you happen to be in this art gallery with me and I wish to re-engage with you for some reason or other. We had become separated and you are now down the other end of this large room. I wish to engage your attention. I might discreetly wave at you in the hope you will see me. But to no avail. I could easily shout “Hey mate, come over here and look at the Mona Lisa!” Or, seeing you about to wander into the next room I could ring you on your mobile and tell you what you might be about to miss. In this instance my use of the mobile act as a form of relational mediation. But, in what manner is it different from waving at you, shouting across the room, the very air in that room, the passage of reflected, absorbed and re-emitted light photons engaged in our visual perception, etc., etc? (833)

	Just what counts as a form of mediation might seem to be rather arbitrary.  As a rule of thumb a form of mediation could be seen as a process that augments or substitutes for the immediacy of a direct relationship. Mediation being exercised through a set of tools, devices and/or persons that allows contact to be indirectly established and/or re-established by such means when direct contact is not possible through a separation of the participating existential descriptors from a temporal-spatial perspective given the appropriate type of restraints exercised in that type of situation. Yes, we could yell at our friend in the Louvre but, normally, we would not do that. So, in that instance I phoned them. The use of my mobile acting as an instrument of mediation. Theoretically, I could have shouted so using my mobile was a form of substitution. On the other hand, normal etiquette would not allow me to do that so it was also a form of augmentation, i.e., an extension of or beyond my normal powers of direct interaction. (834)

	Hitherto, explicitly or implicitly, a relationship has been defined as a process of reciprocity. E.g., in a putative relationship between a and b we would say a interacts with b and b interact with a, i.e., in a mutual process of interactive reciprocity. How then could we have a relationship with a person who has died, or a person who died before we were born, or, for that matter, with a text in some form or other? By reading a relationship as a process of engagement, and, engagement as a process that elicits an existential surplus of value, can we re-define  the nature of interaction to include these forms of non-direct relationship. Or, must the relationship be mediated in order to be achieved in and through a process of non-direct engagement? A resolution of this puzzle, I believe, is easily realized through this concept of engagement and a recognition that interaction is also always multi-modal. Establish one modality of interaction either directly or indirectly and you have established a relational connection. Furthermore, as no modality is purely exercised it follows that there cannot be a pure uni-modal form of interaction when examined on a deeper level of analysis. Reciprocity, either non-virtual and/or virtual in nature further disestablishing the appearance of a uni-modal form of interaction. Then, the non-absolute precise determination of the appropriate hermeneutic mode of interaction in the interpretation of this transference of informational content must also complicate this exercise of practice (regardless of whether human agency is actually involved in this process of interaction). Adoption of an appropriate ‘hermeneutic’ modality being determined through this engaged process wherein an existential excess of value is realized, the relative excess of value released in that process determining appropriateness, etc. That, only a comparative process that quantitatively and/or qualitatively evaluates the release of a existential excess of value in and through the adoption of a variety of modes of engagement can guide us to a determination in this matter. The intuitive appreciation of what modalities of engagement are going to be more productive being realized through the education or pre-constructed nature of that ‘receiver’ (as well as through their discovery and exploration). So, in that art gallery I treat the other viewers of the artwork as equal viewers of that artwork, and, I treat my friend as a friend, etc., knowing from experience how to determine such and exercise such modalities ‘profitably’. On the other hand the pictures in that gallery are hanging on the wall through the nature of their interaction with the same by virtue of their being physically aligned in that manner. Hence the universal nature of the application of this understanding in order to subsume forms of interaction without agency, forms of interaction within or between agents, etc. With this understanding to date let me now see if I can unify this distinction between ‘intentional object’ and ‘intentional objective’, i.e., ‘the intentional’ and ‘intent’ embedded in this examination of interactive engagement from the perspective of agency. (835)

	Value is always experienced in an economy. The circulation of value is always conducted within the appropriate hermeneutic circle (of comprehension). By theoretically observing their most likely theoretical relationship to the hermeneutic circle we should then be able to determine the relationship between ‘intent(ional objective)’ and ‘intentional object(-state)’. The intentional object or intentional object-state (wherein the latter is not defined so much in a ‘concrete’ sense like an object but more like a certain state of affairs but which, nonetheless, is still focused upon in our dealings with that type of phenomenon. Now, whatever the type of intentional focus being bought to bear upon the intentional simulation of that phenomenon, the intentional object would usually be seen as occurring at the object pole of our hermeneutic circle. On the other hand, the intent that orchestrates an intentional act (of focus) seems to demonstrate a meta-textual sense of discrimination upon the overall modality of that intentional object about to-be-determined. Whereas the object pole seems to subsume a sense of the past passive, i.e., that having been focused upon, the intent seems to subsume a sense of the future passive in that about to-be-focused-upon. So, if that be generally correct, then intent is more a field phenomenon in which focus then particularizes our investigation therein. Lastly, a sense of the relevant intentional ego then is developed through both the mutual dialectical relationship between these two poles along with their joint suspension (as already discussed elsewhere in our dealings with the psycho-dynamics of the hermeneutic circle). Hence the dialectical relationship between meta-textual intent and textual intent. Arising from this dialectical interaction arises the co-responding sense of agency. E.g., it is my intention (intent) to see something that has just caught my attention… focusing on that part of the visual field allows me to thematize that aspect of my current visual field as an intentional object-state. Hence my ongoing self-thematization as a visual perceiver through the exercise and exercising of this ability to see, etc. In the process my consciousness is simulating an awareness of my visual environment. What then is the nature of the relationship between this simulation and this visual environment per se (disregarding imputations of an external world and its content therein, etc.)? (836)

	The ‘position’ of the transcendentalist (as a transcendental idealist) by virtue of the imposition of the ongoing overall transcendental suspension is that there can be no absolute dichotomy between any sense of a subjective world and its objective correlation. Indeed, both these possibilities as pure possibilities are ruled out! As a result we are left with the one World-of-Life in which all things therein are viewed from their own points of view in accordance with the points of view adopted by ourselves. As already argued, we cannot inhabit a uni-modal perspective, therefore, even our own position or perspective must be multi-modal in orientation (just as the letter writer writes letters, sends letters, receives letters, reads letters and participates in a field of ‘perceived’ obligations, etc. By ‘ect.’ we could note the overall genre of letter-writing, the types of letters that can be written, etc., and all other genres brought to bear in our processes of letter writing (such as narration, moralizing, reflecting, describing, gossiping, expressing endearment, etc.). Moreover, entailed in such a complex field of activity are the influences of all other letters written and received, how others view this process of letter writing, the complex influences of language and life along with ‘our’ perceptions of our sense of ‘place’ in this world-with-others. Our point/s of view therefore can only be a complex point of view! Between a sense of empirical embodiment and transcendental disembodiment we have the ability to empathize with others and perceptively simulate their points of view besides also being able to virtually simulate the ‘points of view’ of non-agentally oriented object and states. We may be able to only walk down one side of the street at any one time transcendentally we can cross over and imagine what it might be like to be on the other side. Indeed, if our desire to ‘know’ the other side is too great we find ourselves crossing over to be there on that other side. Hence this overall intentional ability to be able to co-simulate the world from an open-ended set of perspective that could be entertained between a transcendental perspective and an empirically embodied perspective simultaneously. Indeed, the world is simulated in just that manner. This ability to share establishing the co-mutual unity of this World-of-Life as this ‘one’ Life-World. That granted, what is meant when we use this word ‘simulate’ in this transcendentalist sense? (837)

	In asking this question we need to note the associated question of how do we differentiate the relatively virtual from the relatively non-virtual? First, we need to realize that we are no longer operating in a conventional frame of reference based upon a metaphor of correspondence. We are directly dealing with that with which we are actively engaged, i.e., directly relating to (in exact proportion to the degree there is an existential surplus of value)! Moreover, that being the case, we can no longer correctly assume we are dealing with absolute actuality. Pure actuality is as impossible to ontological engage with and epistemologically recognize as pure potentiality. Thence all is a simulation with varying degrees of relative virtuality and relative non-virtuality, thence the use of these expressions such as simulation, relative virtuality, etc. Hence, it also follows, that to some extent we must be directly engaged with that under examination, and, that that engagement is in and through the complex set of modalities (and changes therein) being utilized in the thematization of that simulation, i.e., in and through its simulated engagement. Hence all forms of engagement must be direct in some sense or other and should only be described as relatively satisfactory or relatively unsatisfactory (to the extent an overall, multi-modal existential excess is or is not actually being elicited in and through that overall process of engagement and the same is found to be reasonably re-iteratable, etc.)! The philosophical ramification of this ‘position’ are vast and also have a profound resonance in a theological philosophy founded upon such (dialectically treated) principles. First, let me deal with the formation of active modalities of engagement and the role played by the same in the natures of our engagements in this World-of-Life. (838)

	We only ‘see’ what we are in a position to see! This transcendentalist ‘position’ of ours (which is more a non-position through the critical imposition of an overall transcendental suspension) is not an engagement in which all is made manifest to us as it-stand-before-us. The eyes are not transparent windows. We just do not see through them. Our world is intentionally constructed by the exercise of the interpretative modes being adopted and adapted in this actively interactive, mutual engagement with this sense of world. Only a certain set of meta-textual modes is being adopted and adapted from moment to moment, period to period. In the light of those modalities, in accordance with our sense of position and ability to exercise such modalities are we able to see in accordance with the same. Let me vividly illustrate this point. E.g., there has been a psychological study dealing with the topic of non-intentional blindness that demonstrates this type of position that claims we selectively engage the world through the exercise of a self-pre-constructed frame of reference and that what is not in harmony with the hegemony of this overall mental set is not able to be actively engaged consciously (i.e., in a fully intentional manner). In this study people were told to view the video of a basketball match and count the number of goals that go through the hoop at one end or other of that basketball court. Unknown to them a person dressed in a gorilla outfit came onto the court for a few minutes and then left. After everyone separately watched this video they were asked if they noticed anything unusual during the game. Only forty percent noticed this figure in a gorilla outfit. It would seem that people were so preoccupied in getting the number of goals correctly counted that they just did not notice this unusual occurrence of a ‘gorilla’ on the court. Non-intentional blindness is a recognition that we only see what we are currently set up to see. That there can be no absolute global awareness, only a selective ability to note what is actively being engaged currently. Of course, although we can never be absolutely mindful we can be more mindful of what might need to be attended to by concentrating our attention on both that-to-hand and the overall field of consciousness that attends to both that which is currently thought to-be-to-hand and that which is not-yet-found-to-hand. Leaving ourselves open to both old possibilities and new possibilities opens us up to being more mindful to that extent we are capable of the same. Applying this insight to (the possibility of ) a hypothetical theology might allow us to re-formulate the manner in which a non-intentional blindness is obviated in that regard. Not being able to see the Divine we just cannot see the Divine. Which begs the question how could we be talking about the same in the first place?! (839)

Now, in the light of the above, let me deal with this conundrum of whether we can have a direct relationship with that which is not-to-hand including absent friends, authors that have never been met, dead authors, people we don’t even know about, various forms of texts, etc? (840)

	As previously noted, a relationship is in evidence when there is a process of active engagement, i.e., the eliciting of an existential surplus of value. Moreover, the degree to which that relationship is in existential existence is in direct proportion to extent of that excess. Furthermore, the nature of that relationship is directly related to the complex of modalities utilized in that process of engagement; the balance of that mix of modalities reflecting the degree to which each interdependent modality is able to contribute to this overall surplus of value. Now, we must ask the question, if a relationship is interactive and supposedly ‘two-way’ then what reciprocity could possibly be present in our dealings with an already inscribed text, etc? To resolve this puzzle first we need to note that we inhabit the same Life-World. Second, because the other, what ever it be, is partially constructed by us both individually (as a text-there-for-us) and collectively (through meta-textual genres, etc.) it follows that its nature, correctly, is in a sense virtual, i.e., as a simulation. Third, this simulation is partially constructed by us and so there is always a region that effectively is unexplored (and not well explored), interactive, subconscious(ly below intentional construction), open to re-evaluation and re-contextualization, etc. Into this space within a space we experience the virtuality between that-from-its-own-points-of-view and that there-for-us as it is constructively experienced by us. Hence in this fringe (which metaphorically is neither in focus nor exactly out of focus) we come to experience the otherness of that simulated construction (despite being partially constructed by us). And it is in this space within a space, so to speak, we can meet the other be it an other person, an other author, even he otherness of our own sense of self, and, hypothetically, the otherness of the Divine…. (841)

	Let me now explore some of the ramifications of this concept of otherness in and through ‘the otherness of this fringe’ as a phenomenon. First, let me refine its definition, and, second, explore the philosophical consequences of this important, novel concept. (842)

Of course the whole world is a fringe phenomenon! Because the world-for-us, and its contents therein, as the Life-World, cannot be absolutely appropriated by us. Neither as a collective fact, nor as a set of facts nor in the form of any individual fact! Since a fact can be neither recognized nor entertained in either a state of pure actuality or in a state of pure potentiality. But, because the process of appropriation is realized in a transformation (of intentional information) from the relatively potential to the relatively actual, between the dialectical space of the relatively unknown and the relatively known, it follows that such appropriation is a revelation of this fringe territory between the relatively known and the unknown. Therefore, that which cannot be absolutely appropriated but can be relatively appropriated must be of the ‘otherness’ of that which cannot be currently appropriated but an otherness that is also there-for-us to some extent or other by virtue of its being already there-for-us-in-part as that-to-be-appropriated. This dialectical sense of otherness is as an otherness-that-can-be-approached, etc. Even that which appears to be a phenomenon purely fabricated by us, e.g., a feeling of pain, a cry for help, a secretly kept opinion about someone or something is as an intentional objective that, being virtually emitted by us, in some sense must equally escape us (to that same degree more or less). Moreover, being meta-textually circumscribed it is also fabricated by a sense of others through the fact that language, etc., is also, necessarily, to some considerable extent already determined by others. Hence even this facet of otherness in that fabricated by ourselves. Thus, to define this phenomenal aspect of our phenomenological world we also need to recognize this dialectical sense in which all intentional formations are both (existentially) authored by the simulation of an intentional author, (hermeneutically) authored by others meta-textually, are (phenomenologically) authored by themselves, and, are thematized in and through an overall sense of otherness as yet not-intentionally thematized by-us (in the overall dimension of the not-textual, i.e., the hermeneutic circle in its overall function). Hence, therefore, (within the hermeneutic circle) the further recognition of these three types of otherness in this overall concept of the other. Let me respectively denominate them as meta-textual otherness, auto-textual otherness and trans-textual otherness. (as they map out, respectively, the meta-textual, the textual and the non-textual dimensions of textual experience). Thence to define otherness in general we would need to define these three facets of this overall phenomenon of otherness (which being constituted by us, albeit in part, cannot be absolutely other) (and which must also recognize an overall not-textual sense of otherness in general). To some extent this has already been done through a recognition of the type of textuality implicit in that aspect of this overall phenomenon of otherness under consideration. Hence the meta-textual presence and virtual autonomy of others in the pre-constructed conventional nature of language and its dictates of genres, hybrid genres, contextual interpretation, modes-of-life, etc. Hence the auto-textual life of its own that manifests in the relative interdependence of our own textual depositions once emitted or deposited. Hence the trans-textual sense of beyond the text that allows us to uncover and experience the existential richness of the world as situated in and through its non-textual immediacy as revealed through the very simulation of the apparent text itself. That, to complete this definition of the other we have also noted the necessary dependence of all three of these facets along with a ‘first’ or  ‘fourth’ facet of the intentionally not-textual as they mutually interact one upon the other in the formation of this fringe phenomenon of the world in which we both actively construct the world-as-lived and in which this same world (as living) also constructs us and all ‘therein’. Thence both ‘the open value of experience and the experience of value’ without which, transcendentally, there could be no experience of textuality, value, world, a world of value, etc. (843)

	One could say that the circulation of value in the hermeneutic circle is essentially an economy of otherness. Since the hermeneutic circle thematizes the formation of value in this fringe economy one could be forgiven for perceiving this process as akin, in some respects, to the tuning in of a radio or television to a radio station or a television station. One qualification, though, is that we can never absolutely tune in, although, given the right access we could perceive this alignment as being adequate or inadequate in the realization of our intentional objectives, or, simply, as just not effectively aligned. So, with this in mind, just how do we deal with a desired interaction with a person who no longer exists (or as yet has not come into existence) or a person who is just not currently contactable? In the same vein, how do we interact with a text in a reciprocated manner as would indicate a directly established relationship? Could a text actually reciprocate this sense of an interactive alignment? In a resolution of this puzzle let me restate the fact that as there is only one Life-World it follows that the  possibility of this interactive alignment is pre-established by virtue of this common ‘space’ and that the success or otherwise of our intentional course in that regard can only be evaluated in terms of its adequacy or inadequacy. So, how could we interact with that which now no longer exists, such as the author of  certain text? A bit like imagining a bridge across a river with one bank missing – could we imagine otherwise? A bridge needs two banks to span. Similarly, a relationship needs the existence of all its concerned or implicated parties to that process of interaction. So, in that light, let us question the absolute non-existence of a certain party in an intentionally desired interaction. Say a particular author. The author is being addressed through their text. When we read their text we are virtually interacting with the intentional world of that author whose intentional decisions established that textual deposition of a text. On one hand we can say when that author existed that from an absolute point of transcendental view that they have no absolute intrinsic existence and, therefore, their empirical existence from a conventional, relative point of view is as a simulation (where the simulation itself is re-iterated and not as an iteration of something that is not iterated or existed before that process of iteration). Now, in certain frames of reference, that simulation is properly, appropriately and validly established as a simulation denominated as that being nominated. In that form it must possess an existential descriptor (that would describe its existential existence in those denominated frames of nominal reference [to that degree that degree of fine tuning would permit that descriptor to describe its passage through this World-of-Life moment by moment, etc.]). So, author a wrote text x over a certain passage of time t in a certain area or areas of the world s. Now, if we were to be aligned with those coordinates we would be there with that author as they wrote that text, etc. The inability of our own existential descriptor from finding this degree of alignment would preclude our direct interaction with this author. On the other hand, we can interact with this text x either as the original text or through a dissemination of it, or through a dissemination of a dissemination, etc. Now, just as an author can interact with their own text through a re-reading of the same, so too can we interact with that text to that extent we are conversant with its meta-textual conventions for reading it. Then, as the author can interact with themselves through a mutual process of thematizing the potentially possible and actualizing the same, within in all the limitations placed upon them in accordance with the limitations attendant upon their point of view so too could they interact with others and others interact with them in a similar fashion, i.e.,, through a mutual interaction one-upon-the-other (through an alignment and/or aligned mediation of their existential descriptors). Now, we ask again, can this same type of mutual reciprocity occur in our interaction with a text and could it substitute for the unique existence of its associated author? To affirm this we would need to establish that a process of reciprocity can occur between a person and a text. Obviously that occurs between the author and their text! Moreover, as a simulated interaction, in the virtual space of the reading of that text, surely the same must be able to occur for the reader of that text who is not the author of that text? I believe this can be established by virtue of the fact that in a reading of a text an existential surplus of value is elicited that re-establishes this necessary sense of a reciprocity, albeit in virtual terms of reference. That granted then it follows that our interaction with the author must follow to, albeit in the same virtual terms of reference. Then, to that extent those virtual terms of reference are not absolutely virtual it must necessarily follow that a degree of non-virtual interaction is involved albeit most likely in predominantly virtual terms of contextual reference. In a sense we meet with a substitute of the author through the dissemination of its authorial aura attached to that text. I.e., its self-systematized simulation of the intentional mindset of that author along with a re-visiting of the problematics that provoked the initial realization of that text. Therein, this semblance of the author-by-proxy is simulated in our engagement with this vision of the author, albeit as a substitute. Still, through establishing an engagement with that text we must meet with a simulation of the author’s world and their intentionally decisive and indecisive interactions established within it as deposited through the formation and dissemination of that text. Furthermore, as the simulation of an author is self-rectifying within the context of our ongoing reading, within certain limits, it follows that our alignment with that simulation is going to also align itself, to some extent, in some manner or other, with the original alignment of that author that may or may not be considered adequate or inadequate according to the terms of that engagement. E.g., did the Indian person known as Mahatma Gandhi truly preach and practice a philosophy of ahimsa or passivism? We can read newspaper reports of the time that report that he did just that. We can read (summaries of) speeches he himself made to that effect. Collectively they would be found to support that contention. So we have already elicited information about this ‘author’ that would correct align ourselves in our reading of his position-in-his-world. As, in a sense all people are authors through their own intentional depositions its must necessary follow that to the degree they can be read then to that degree we might find ourselves in a position to adequate read the same, and ‘meet’ therein, a reasonably accurate simulation of that author, albeit by proxy. But, just as the meaning and meaningfulness of a text can be read, can be simulated, then, its follows, that the virtual author is also simulated therein, albeit as apparently reflected in their texts and depositions. (844)

	If you were to meet someone, say outside a certain coffee shop, and they do not appear, as they stated they would, how would we describe that scene as seen by yourself? It is as if there is the scene of that coffee shop, etc., as seen by others, but, for you, yourself, with the important addition of the perceived absence of your friend. You would feel their absence imprinted upon your perception of that scene, whereas, others, not privy to this unique sense of absence, would not experience this part of the world in quite the same manner. Absence of a certain expected party in a relationship, in a certain expected manner, is experienced as a sense of otherness. Similarly, your absence from a certain expected meeting would be experienced in a similar fashion by the other party or parties. In the process you, yourself, would also feel as if you were absenting yourself, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Or, if both parties were to attend a certain location and did so and for various reasons were not able to meet and/or recognize each other being there that too would be experienced as a sense of absence, and absence of a direct relationship when the same could have been present. What is this difference or absence or otherness when the parties are present but are not present to each other for what ever reason. Perhaps that spot is too crowded, or, the two parties have not met and are not sure of who’s who in this crowded spot, etc. Perhaps they just miss each other by a few seconds. Obviously, mere presence is not enough to establish a direct relationship, and, that this missing ingredient is the fact of an engagement, an existential encountering (whether that be in real time or by proxy or by substitute [etc?]). So, a relationship in real time is established through this sense of an existential engagement wherein a surplus of existential value is realized through that encountering. Hence, the engagement is realized through the non-absence of the parties and an active and productive process of interaction. That an act of engagement can be realized either in real time, or through mediated extension or through a mediated proxy, etc. Either non-virtually or virtually an existential process of interaction is realized once all the factors for that process of engagement are necessarily present and collectively cooperate in that manner. Non-virtually as defined (through the confluence of parties and their interaction in those modes nominated). Semi-virtually through extension, and virtually by proxy. (845)

	In the light of the above, how might a theologian hypothetically envisage a process of interaction with the Divine? In what sense is the dialectical otherness of the Divine engaged? Given an envisaged circulation of theological value, how might such a process work if at all? In what sense is that semblance of otherness to-be-revealed? Then, to what extent are texts implicated and which texts might be involved; what meta-textual genres would need to be involved, etc; to what extent is the trans-textual otherness of the Divine to be revealed non-textually; and, the collective interaction of the same to be revealed not-textually? Furthermore, to what extent does the apparent absence of a particular party and/or the apparent absence of an engagement affect our reading of the possible phenomenology of that type of engagement as lived and/or under examination? Then, what would evidentially count as evidence for such a relationship, in a certain proposed narrative, and, does the presentation of evidence make any real difference in their/our readings of this speculative type of engagement? Lastly, what consequential reading or readings can we make of that type of imputed encounter, and its associated interpretations, in order to account for the associated theological work apparently being exercised within that particular situation (as interpreted/being re-interpreted by that critical or non-critical ‘reader’)? (846)

	Obviously, with respect to our last round of questions, we can turn this concern for an evaluation of the nature of theological work around by invoking a Darwinian type of approach. If the concept of the Divine, in what ever form/s or name/s it has been culturally thematized, it follows that the (memetic) persistence of such ideas (as memes) must imply that such concepts must work, be working, in order to account for their cultural persistence (and intercultural transmission and dissemination)? In  a continuation of our hypothetical frame of reference let me now explore this type of concern, etc. (847)

	To date, non-hypothetically, we have accepted the viability of a process theology, and, that the Divine must manifest itself, either directly and/or indirectly, as a phenomenon or set of phenomena in this World-of-Life in order for the theologian to find gainful employment. All that granted, hypothetically, how might the theologian argue for a sense of divine involvement in this World-of-Life? To what extent is a relationship here to be engendered non-virtually, through extensional mediation or by the use of a proxy or proxies? (848)

	To answer these questions we would need to assume the mantle of a meta-theologian, albeit a hypothetical one, or, at least one working on that level of transcendental neutrality (through the critical imposition of a thorough overall transcendental suspension ). From that type of perspective one could then seek the following shortcut: “what motivates a theologically-oriented philosopher, or theologist, to seek this type of interaction and investigate that type of imputation?” Indeed, this type of question could be recast: “what difference does a theological difference make for that type of theologist?” Simply, what difference does the imputation of the Divine make for this type of person? In a vision of the world plus a vision of the Divine what does this addition of the Divine make in an ontology of value, etc. Hence the existential implications implicit in this type of narrative construction whose imputation of the Divine needs to be philosophically explicated in those terms of reference. Let us attempt to address this type of issue in those neutral terms of reference, albeit on both descriptive and prescriptive levels of explication. As this type of narrative is already a memetic reality in terms of current narratives (and may or may not participate in an institutionalized or non-institutionalized grand narrative) thence its description; such depiction, however, not occurring without some form of a prescriptive complexion, and v.v. No theology is usually described in purely descriptive terms. Rather, such descriptions are usually meant to inform our behaviour in such a manner that directly or indirectly demand our conformity to a pattern, or set of patterns, of behaviour preferentially treated in such a system. E.g., a certain theological narrative might set up the need for the practical differentiation of various types of distinctions such as those that might involve a need for lay persons, congregations, theologians, priests, monks and nuns, religious edifices, religious texts, and/or various religious institutions, etc., etc. In essence the perception of a theological difference wittingly or unwittingly is translated into a perceived and instantiated need for various institutions with various types of professional and non-professional roles, edifices, texts, etc. So, our transcendental phenomenological descriptions, etc., could well have their formulations better refined through this emphasis upon a clarification of apparent motivation or motivations exercised in this regard. Does this approach assist us in this project of typologically identifying the apparent motivation that both promotes this type of narrative and also apparently creates this type of project? Then, that granted, how are we to evaluate the merits of such narratives? (849)

	As all forms of theological value, etc., are created/re-created within a hermeneutic circle, and in this type of instance, namely in a hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension, and the same has been already investigated through our three moments of the phenomenological/analytical, hermeneutical/synthetical, and the existential/egological, therefore, let me attempt an examination of this proposition of theological motivation in the same vein (as it might be textually articulated and exercised archetypally in a theologically oriented narrative). (850)

	Determining this sense of theological motivation can be examined either in hypothetical terms of reference or on a more practical basis by interrogating the theologist in question and asking them what difference does their vision of the theological make in accordance with their understanding of how they should ‘be’ in this world-to-be-lived-with-others. But, as no specific theologist is to be questioned in this text at this point in time let us treat this interrogative technique as hypothetical. Politely the question could be phrased “what difference does your sense of the Divine make in your understanding of the world-as-lived?” Less politely, the same question could be proposed in a more rhetorical tone as “does your vision of the divine make any difference as to how one should live in the world?” In other words, put simply, this difference is that difference between a sense of the world constituted in theological terms of reference minus a sense of the world constituted in non-theological terms of reference. This difference is ostensively the ‘Divine’. However, for the theologist and the non-theologist the resulting sense of ‘world’ would be constituted in different terms of reference through the differences in contextual input. How do we then re-write a sense of ‘world’ that is neutral to both parties in order to put forward that concept in order to determine that differential sense of the Divine for that particular religious frame of reference (or for that specific religious frame of reference for that theologist in question)? So, if a theological frame of reference is going to re-define your sense of world how do we then re-create a sense of world that is neutral to both types of party? My suggestion is to practice an overall transcendental suspension of that sense of world in order to recover a sense of world that is relatively more neutral in that regard. In other words, religious treatment and descriptions of the religionist’s vision of their ‘world’ would be suspended and de-theologically treated. Then, it would follow that the difference between a theologically constituted vision of the world and a transcendentally suspended vision of that same would be that very sense of a theological difference in the first place, albeit constituted in indirect terms of reference. E.g., if in your theological vision of the world you ‘perceived’ trees in a spiritual light as ‘sacred’, as ‘possessing a sacred, non-mundane aspect or character’, then it follows that your sense of theological difference would include that sense of a ‘sacred, non-mundane aspect or character’. With this residue how would one then seek to discern your overall sense of the Divine by such means? No doubt though an open integration of all such residues; with the implicit understanding that that integration could not be reductively reduced to the mere addition, open-ended or non-open-ended, of those residue descriptions. Hence my reference to this method as an indirect way of determining that sense of theological difference. So, a direct way of determining this theological difference is to investigate the difference between an overall theological vision of the world minus a neutrally treated vision of the world. Or, alternatively, taking a theologically invested vision of the world minus its transcendentally suspended treatment; a process, as noted, would realize an indirect vision of this sense of theological difference. Now, both methods granted, what relationship would there be between the same that would allow us to go from one formulation to the other (through such an operative process of transformation)? In other words, how do we go from the direct sense of theological difference to an indirect formulation of the same, and v.v? E.g., in our example of sacred trees being a part of your vision of the sacred how would we go from this set of ‘descriptions’ as a partial sense of the Divine to an integrated vision of the same should such a vision also be present in that theological system? No doubt one would have inductively propose, or realize by some other manner, an overall vision of the Divine that was inclusive of the same without being reductively reduced to a mere summation of parts. In other words how do we logically (metaphysically, etc.) go from a relatively partial analysis-synthesis to a relatively non-partial analysis-synthesis. As already noted in a philosophy of transformation processes of synthesis and analysis are assumed to mirror each other in order to allow one to travel between the same, contextually formulate each other as a contextual field of appreciation, etc. On the grounds of this being given then it follows that rules could be formulated that would allow us to go from one to the other, and v.v., to some extent or other (as long as we recognized that synthesis can neither be absolutely reductively treated nor analysis be absolutely de-reductively treated). That, in essence, a certain deficit must exist in our passage from one mode to another (or in our passage from one mode of identification to some other, and v.v.), that, an additional imputation could be made to account for the same in such a manner that an increase or decrease in the degree of the associated epistemological organization would be noted (as an adjustment that recognized the same). In other words, acts of synthesis increase the degree or level of epistemological organization by one meta-degree (and v.v. with respect to acts of reduction). In this light we should also note that the very definition of the Divine is that (considerably) higher by several degrees or dimensions than that epistemological organization demonstrated by a human agent and/or a community or institution of human agents (and that the latter are subsumed within the organization of that sense of the Divine in order to account for processes of theologically oriented interaction between the same in order to establish a viable theology for any theologian in question who desires to properly, appropriately and validly establish a viable theology!). (851)

	With the above qualifications in mind we could now question a particular theological system or a specific theologist by politely asking what this sense of a theological difference is, either directly or indirectly, and/or, by less politely asking does their sense of a theological difference make any difference whatsoever?! And to the point, if there is a difference, as there must be (on the grounds of a theological synthesis), then what exactly is it (in direct and/or indirect terms of reference?)? (852)

	Effectively we are asking what work does the associated sense of the divine do in that theological economy? In order to ascertain this input, or non-input, we need to ascertain the nature of that economy and the relationship the terms defined in that economy have with respect each other and to what extent they implicate that associated sense of the Divine. A number of options present themselves in this sort of descriptive task. We could adopt a broad spectrum approach and title that economy and then enquire to what degree the associated sense of the Divine does work, what type of work is done, etc. E.g., in a certain type of theological system it could well be the case that the Divine is ‘seen’ only as a creator that creates the world and then stands aside from the same. Its implication in a soteriological economy, if present, would then be as absent element or only in a very indirect sense. The Divine then would appear to be ‘seen’ to do little in a current religious economy centered on an individual and/or community. On the other hand, in the opposite type of situation, in a highly devotional system, it might well be case that the Divine is ‘seen’ to be absolutely necessary for soteriological purposes. Then, in that system, the sense of the Divine would have a crucial implication in a soteriological economy, indeed, in that total religious economy (and not just the soteriological aspect of the same). In all this typological ascertainment I am making a number of points here. First, we can typologically ascertain the type of system involved and therein divine the degree to which the element of the Divine per se is seen to be involved within the same. Second, all this can be thematized to various degrees and titled accordingly. Third, within that religious economy and its subsections, if and when present, such as the theological per se, the devotional, the soteriological, etc., we then need to ascertain to what degree theological work is implicated in those systematic connections. That all of this, as just noted, can be titled to varying degrees. That to further explicate such detail other additional approaches will need to be adopted and adapted. Thence, lastly, various forms of narrative will need to be bought to bear in order to create/re-create the sense of value realized through the interaction of its key motifs or key motives. That the circulation of such value is always within a hermeneutic circle of comprehension in some form or other (as narrated) and must transcendentally exist as a semblance of complex value to be thematized between, on one hand, the archetypal moments of the hermeneutic circle and, on the other hand, the archetypal moments of the hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension, i.e., between the moments of Divine Identity, Divine Value, and Divine Work (corresponding to the archetypal moments of the hermeneutic circle of respectively of analysis or object, synthesis or world, and, identity or ego; corresponding, in turn, to sense, meaning and meaningfulness, etc.). Of course, various labels can be applied to various religious/theological systems with varying degrees of adequacy. To more properly ascertain value therein one would need to follow the associated narrations associated with the same. By ‘critically’ re-simulating such ‘myths’ one would then need to be able to ascertain to what degree those labels adequate represent, misrepresent and de-misrepresent that entitled system. By what means then are such mythic re-simulations critically appreciated? To answer that rhetorical question I propose that one would need to impose an overall transcendental suspension that adequately dealt with the same, i.e., properly, appropriately and validly. (853)

Now, the crucial question must be asked to what extent is an outsider able to enter that religious/theological system in order to critically re-live the mythic metaphoricality re-simulated by transcendently re-enacting the appropriately associated mythic sequences in order to re-create that narration in a critical transcendental field of philosophical inspection? With difficulty but not as an incomprehensible non-commensurable topic of research (and comparative typological evaluation). In this task, as argued elsewhere, mediation is realized through the adoption and adaptation of similar genres of activity, in this case religious activity (if only through their critical re-simulation). Such processes of thematization are assisted by the adequate imposition of an overall transcendental suspension operating within and without the necessary hermeneutic circles of simulation necessary for both the simulation enacted within the mythic complexion of that narrative or set of narratives in question and without in its critically detached treatment of that re-simulation, and, through the auto-critical nature of such mythic re-simulations to re-create their associated economies of religious value. That such narrations have the habit of thematizing their associated structures and processes of value along with an ongoing, eventual rectification of the same (by virtue of the systematic nature of their induced economies). By understanding that all forms of value are realized through the associated economy in question we should realize by now that no element, or mere set of elements, is going to realize that for us without their associated economic re-association. And, as noted, this is a process that rectifies itself in the goodness of time; although never absolutely since re-alignment will always maintain some lesser degree of a preferentially treated off-centeredness. (854)

	What, in general, motivates motivation (in this regard)? In my opinion motivation is the resultant of a perceived deficit realized from the pre-interpretatively constructed transformation of a descriptive deficit into prescriptive terms of reference. Let me demonstrate this position in greater detail and depth. In a certain pre-constructed inter-subjective frame of reference, as an idealized genre of activity, mode-of-life, a certain idealized state of affairs, as a model-of-life, is pre-constructed and re-iterated disseminated as the norm-to-be-achieved. Then, realistic pre-selected phenomenological descriptions describe the current state of play within that same pre-constructed frame of reference. Then, in thematizing a difference between these two states of affairs, i.e., between the future oriented idealistic version and the current realistic version/s, a sense of deficit is experienced. This described deficit is then transformed into a prescriptive mode as a metaphorical ‘call to arms’. This sense of a gap between ‘what ought to be the case’ and ‘what is the case’ is experienced as a deficit which when re-iterated within those same pre-constructed terms of reference is re-experienced as a need to cross this gap; that internalized sense of difference as induced by this personalized sense of a deficit. A religious frame of reference then, from this philosophical-psychological perspective, could then be treated, in accordance with those narrow terms of reference, as the historically induced sense of an overall deficit induced in accordance with the pre-constructed nature of that religious genre or mode of life. That religious acts of behaviour, in keeping with the tenor of that religious philosophy, could then be seen to be both carved out through the induction of an overall sense of deficit and the means supplied by that same frame of reference to minimize the same; certain dictates declared by that religious philosophy as able to assist one in crossing the same and, therein, negate it or at least minimize its sense of religious anomaly. In this regard we could say behaviour, in its intentionally directed formation, is the result of either such motivation or of habit (that may or may not have arise from that type of motivation). We do things because we are motivated to do them, then, we may merely re-continue in such responses through having learnt to react in that manner in the same or similar situations in a habitually directed type of response. Or, we are (re-)instructed to behave in such and such a manner inter-subjectively which can then become an inter-subjectively habitually driven response. All patterns of intentionally directed behaviour being a mix of these four interrelated types of response, namely, subjectively-determined, subjectively-habitualized, inter-subjectively-determined and(/or) inter-subjectively-habitualized. (855)

	Let me illustrate what I am trying to articulate here. In the Buddhist religious frame of reference, e.g., much Buddhistic motivation is apparently motivated from an aspiration to become enlightened. Why such motivation? In the light of the above model what is the pre-constructed perception of a deficit that is driving this type of economy? Our current description as unenlightened and doomed therein to continuing cycles of existence and the ensuing discomfit of such an imperfect style of existence! Of course the picture is always more complex than this because the perception of an overall sense of deficit is always complex through the competition of a number of overlapping economies in this regard. E.g., the element of devotion is usually missing from Western interpretations of this religious philosophy, yet, when in the field, this simplistic model of ‘ignorance’ just does not do justice, in this regard, e.g., to the individual social complexities of different traditions within the overall Buddhist religious frame of reference. Why, e.g., the use of ‘images’ if the desired goal is nirvana? What role then could devotion possibly have in this type of philosophy? Without noting and analyzing the various senses of an overall deficit realized in and through various competing economies (that redefine this perceived difference between the ideal and the real) how could the complexity of this situation be answered in a simple answer? Therefore, my simple responses to this question can only be illustrative in part. Perhaps the devotee feels the only way they will be able to realize nirvana is to find divine assistance in this regard. Perhaps they feel the need for forms of spiritual protection until such a time they are able to directly realize nirvana, hence the invocation of deities, various sense of the Divine, etc. Perhaps they feel this ideal vision of the world to have a divine flavor and hence the need to invoke the Divine in the realization of their safe passage through this world and through those cycles of existence, etc. Etc., etc! All of these responses can then be ritualized and/or habitualized (through less intentionally directed patterns of response). Such patterns of behaviour occurring socially and imitated personally (hence this four-part scheme as just noted). So, I must conclude that to determine a particular instance of such an overall deficit the complexities of the same would need to take into account the varying degrees various economies are involved in the formation of such behavioural responses. Let me briefly note some possibilities in regards to our hypothetical examination of these different and overlapping primary/secondary economies. (856)

	Already implicated is the presence, or absence, of a soteriological economy in some form or other in keeping with the religious tenor of the associated religious milieu. Hence the presence or absence of a soteriological deficit. Also as alluded to, there could be the relative presence, or absence, of a devotional economy and its associated devotional sense of a devotional deficit. Some religious philosophies imply the need for a strong sense of the ritualistic hence the induction of a ritualistic deficit. Similarly, with respect to sacrificially oriented religions, those that have an emphasis upon good works, strict adherence to certain ethical norms, etc., etc. (857)

	Now, what might be meant by a devotional deficit, e.g? Applying our model of a religiously perceived sense of need and its motivational input to overall behaviour how might we attempt to explain this type of deficit? By inserting it into its associated religious economy! I.e., in a pre-defined devotional economy there is the idealized vision of the devotional economy – devotees devoted to their perceived sense of the Divine and acting in accordance with the same in and through prescribed acts of devotion. However, in a pre-determined ‘realistic’ description the current state of play there is perceived the absence and/or inadequate performance of the same. Thence a sense of descriptive deficit. Within the context of this pre-determined religious frame of reference this descriptive deficit is then re-experienced in a prescriptive light as an internalized exhortation to perform prescribed acts of devotion and as a desire to see the same ‘internalized’ within that cultural setting by the execution of the ‘appropriate means of dissemination’ that might expedite the re-iterative instantiation of the same, etc. Hence the experience of a devotional deficit and its prescriptive transformation through the performance of (additional) acts of devotion and the cultural/intercultural dissemination of the same need for the same, etc. (858) 

In what type of language might a devotee describe this sense of need from their own perspective? No doubt metaphorical language would be used, and, arguments supporting the same would be conducted within a type of circular structure (that might possess various degrees of logical cogency or illogical cogency). E.g., “God loves us like a father. We should love our parents, even more so God who is a greater parent. Therefore, we should love God the Father, and, to do that we say (scriptures states) we should do a, b, c, etc. By doing a, b, c… we show our love of the Divine and more closely reflect their love for us…” Of course this is only one version of this type of vision. That the competing influences of various economies will construct their own versions of this ‘need’ for devotion and how this ‘need’ is best met. A salient observation to be made here is that such metaphorical language is conducted in a circular edifice already pre-constructed to achieve that ideal (regardless of whether that ideal is achievable or not since I suspect this type of ‘set-up’ is never going to realize its goals and that in the progress of time such goals would be made even more unobtainable historically with an exaggeration of that sense of deficit [until various other process of normalization can successfully set out to offer some form of relief in the meantime?]?)? A simple argument for stating this obvious fact (about the functioning of metaphors) is that all metaphors are indeed circular enterprises. How otherwise could a metaphor be appropriately read! (859)

	Just as a metaphor is read in the economy of the hermeneutic circle as a metaphor so too is the non-metaphor read within the same as a non-metaphor. How is one to determine whether a metaphor is intended and/or the literal meaning of the same expression is intended? An intuitive hermeneutic rule here is to adopt what has worked in the past. Furthermore, we can rationalize past usage on the grounds that it was productive of value. Moreover, that greater value was realized through the recognition that this type of expression released a greater degree of value when read in a particular context and not in some other; that, in effect, the greatest degree of value seemed to be released when a certain particular literary genre was adopted and not some other, or, for that matter, any other. Thus a metaphor, e.g., is read metaphorically because more value is released in that type of reading. Hence, this description of the appearance of the greatest value released in a certain particular style of reading would take on an injunctive flavour, i.e., should be read in that frame of reference! Hence this economic view on how we should differentiate the appropriate style of reading, define propriety and determine validity, etc., along with a determination of the overall adequacy of the adopted and adapted reading/s, etc. Now, let us address the argument by some types of theologists that the Divine cannot be a party to any economy whether ontological and/or epistemological in orientation? (860)

	As hitherto argued, what is not there for us might as well not be there for us! What cannot be imprinted in the form of a text through intentional textualization/re-textualization cannot be there for us to read. Thence the Divine could not be there for us without tracing its existence in the world in some form or other! By ‘some form or other’ is meant directly and/or indirectly. Could the Divine take place in a hermeneutic economy indirectly through some form of a proxy or set of proxies? Under those circumstances how could our hermeneutic economy, etc., deal with the same and allow us to discern the extent of that element of the Divine as an essential input/output? However, some religionists would argue that the Divine cannot enter into any economy, directly and/or indirectly, since the nature of the Divine is such that it cannot be a party to any form of a mundane economy (because of its non-mundane nature, etc.). Is this a tenable position? No! Since, as argued, what cannot interact with us, directly and/or indirectly can have no existence-for-us even if it were to have existence-for-itself within the context of its own sense of world. The important implication of this (transcendental) position being that theological relevance is predicated on just such a process of interaction be it direct and/or indirect. (861)

This then leads me to make another philosophical observation, that direct and/or indirect input has a degree of relevance if its hypothetical absence were seen to make a difference in the constitution of that received state of affairs! Or, conversely, that its real (or virtual) input were seen to make no difference than that input would be seen to have no relevant relevance! How do we differentiate the imputation of direct input from indirect input, and, how should we determine relevance? In direct input the actor or acter is directly implicated. On the other hand, in discrete interaction, if its presence and/or absence were ‘seen’ to make no difference then the theologist, for all practical purposes, would surely find themselves out of a job if the truth were told! Let me examine the hypothetical possibility of these various permutations between real and/or virtual, direct and/or indirect, absence and/or presence, in the establishment of a Divine economy (both ontologically in the world and epistemologically as relating to intentional consciousness formation and intentional experience of the same. (862)

	In a court case relevant evidence is that evidence whose presence or absence would make a considerable difference to the course of that trial. Hence its admission or non-admission should make a difference! Ascertaining the relative impact of this ‘difference’ should assist us in determining the degree of relevance in that regard. If it should be the case, in one’s estimation, that the consequences of the judgment arrived at in that case were to be relatively different, with the admission or non-admission of such evidence, then one must assume that the addition or subtraction or non-presentation of such an input was an essential, highly relevant feature of that trial (regardless of its presence or absence within the historical course of the same). In what manner does this insight apply to the profession of the theologian or theologist? (863)

	If the theologian were to be on trial, so to speak, how could they assemble enough evidence to support the viable nature of their profession? If they were to claim a Divine economy and could give no evidence for the existence of the same how should we perceive the nature of their profession? Could we say they were gainfully employed? On the other hand, we have the persistence of theological memes and should be able to argue, on those grounds, that what motivates their existence must have a well-established basis. How are we to account for this professional discrepancy between evidence and expectation? (864)

	To some extent I perceive the world of physics to be in a similar quandary. If matter as we know it only constitutes say seven percent of the universe (the rest being constituted by dark energy and dark matter) then how is the physicist able to say they are in control of their profession when they are unable to account for ninety-three percent of their topic. Moreover, the scandal is even deeper since the small amount of  territory they do seem to be in control of is itself riven by the apparently incommensurable divide situated between micro-cosmically oriented quantum based descriptions and macro-cosmically oriented description based on relativity theory. Is the theologian any worse in this regard? Well, if they have no direct evidence to hand of a Divine economy could they argue that there is sufficient evidence of an indirect nature to establish the grounds of their profession? How should such claims in that direction be processed and critically evaluated? Then, how would those claims, in turn, be critically re-evaluated? (865)

	Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that a theologian is addressing his congregation in the middle of a storm and there is a sudden clap of thunder directly overhead. The theologian surmises out loud that that is the voice of God - “Hear the voice of God for he has spoken..!” However, this congregation is not a passive spectator of what the theologian does and says. One of the congregation shouts out: “But what does the voice of God say if that were to be the voice of God?” Another member of the congregation then adds: “He says nothing, he only makes a noise!” A person beside this last speaker adds: “This sound makes no sense, this God makes no sense!” Then another voice speaks out: “That is not the voice of God, that is only a bolt of lightening – nothing more and nothing less!” Then another voice cries out “There is no God, God does not exist!” Then a chorus of voices give voice to the thought: “That if God does not exist for-us then he may as well not exist for-us!” In the midst of all these observations and opinions the theologian feels he will be out of a job very soon at this rate. Thinking quickly, in a sonorous voice above the fray he proffers the following solution to calm their doubts…. (866)

	Now, if you were that theologian, what hypothetical solution might you proffer to account for the direct and/or indirect evidence of a Divine economy intersecting with our human economy (or at least account for the relative lack of direct evidence yet proffer a rational perspective in which to investigate indirect elements of Divine intervention and/or, at the very least, some minimal degree of Divine participation with or without the use of proxies?).  (867)

	Now, as a meta-theologian, or as a hypothetical theological-philosopher, it is not my job to indicate and prove the existence of the Divine along with the existence of a Divine economy. On the other hand, we could suggest some possibilities for the theologian to adopt in order to assist them in a validation of their own practice if that were at all possible. Do we have a hypothetical remedy, or, better, a set of options that would allow them to argue beyond some form of a puerile circularity of argument that might establish for them the existence of the Divine but would not inspire confidence in a neutral bystander? As an intellectual exercise how might you hypothetically extricate that theologian, any theologian for that matter, from the charge that their profession is ungainfully realized and, therein, obtained under false pretences? Or should we give our assent to the view that there is no way out for the theologian? That if the Divine cannot sensibly reveal itself to all and sundry then we must decry all such professions of faith as mere noise, no more nor no less, in sound, than that loud, simultaneous flash and clap of thunder that was to perplex that very vocal congregation with such a conflagration of reasonable doubts? (868)

	As noted in this extended essay, the religious economy is usually a complex mix of competing economies some of which are more dominant and others less dominant. So, e.g., a soteriological economy in a prominent religion/religious denomination might be philosophically constructed with associated devotional inputs, there might be ritualistic elements, sacrificial practices, moralistic prescriptions, meditational procedures, acts of mortification, etc., etc. Then, as the religious economy intersects with the economics of the world no absolute division of labour could be drawn between the same. We have to eat, we have to sleep, truly we are in the world even if we were to think we may not be off it! So, in a similar fashion to this non-absolute division between the complexities of a religious economy and non-religious economies is it not conceivable that the Divine economy, should it exist, might not be able to be absolutely separated from this mix of religious and non-religious economies as already found in the world? That, that granted, it then behooves the theologian, or the meta-theologian, to offer persuasive explanations that might be able to account for a religious basis in life (for those people naturally sympathetic to that type of life-project?)? In this task one would then need to parallel these parallel and intersecting economies in an interpretative framework that offers a considerably greater degree of explanatory power than that merely attendant upon a merely fabricated system regardless of the nature and manner of its synthetic constitution. In other words, in the narrations of the theologian what types of explanation might be considered acceptable and successful in the articulation of such a life-project? By what criteria other than these pragmatic aspirations should such a project be judged? By all those criteria that seem to support any hypothesis presented in the course of our existence through this World-of-Life! By utilizing all those means that are proper, appropriate and valid, and, are relatively consistent, internally, with that overall type of project! (868)

	So, we have these competing parallel economies intersecting with each other in various manners… let us ask to what extent parallel economies could intersect? To what extent is our metaphor of the parallel at odds with reality, or v.v? If these various simultaneous economies were truly parallel to each other they could not intersect. But we live in the openness of ‘one’-World-of-Life and nowhere do we find incommensurable universes of value! A landscape painter might view the land in a different manner to say a geologist or a farmer or a person looking for wild mushrooms, etc. Still, they each view the same landscape, albeit in their own manner in and through processes of mutual observation and discussion. By such means each person can then relate to how another might view that state of affairs in question. In this instance, they have the land in front of them to describe how they might see it from their particular set of perspectives. So, obviously, unlike some badly informed Postmodern philosophers, our metaphor of ‘parallel’ should not be taken too far! All these perspectives, all these ‘parallel’ economies could operate at the same time both semi-independently and collectively. Moreover, they can all be related to each other by various transformational rulings, etc. To do this various transformational rules are noted once processes of accommodation are adequately established. E.g., we could have two friends, one a geologist and the other a farmer. The geologist might say to their friend “that this upland region is volcanic in nature and, effectively, is a recent basalt poured over an ancient, eroded limestone region with very low soil nutrient properties, and, that from the weathering of this recent basaltic cap the soil here is high in prerequisite minerals and organic nutrients, and, that this explains why the vegetation and grass that grows here on this upland plateau is very green and luxurious.” So,” the dairy farmer might say in reply, “that is why my herd of cows on this farm here give such good quality milk.” The geologist nodding his head in assent. The province of the geologist is essentially below the surface of the land whereas the province of the diary farmer is the vegetation growing on the surface of their farm. Obviously, both disciplines can talk to each other in such a manner that is meaningful and can cross beyond the pure disciplines they each have professionally adopted! In comparison to eroded ancient continental soils the weathering of recent volcanic basalts produces a much better soil for farming! A theoretical connection is created that allows for a meaningful accommodation to be made between these two friends. (869)

	Can the theologian find a moral in this story? Should the theologian find a moral in this type of anecdote? Obviously, our two friends, the geologist and the farmer, can talk to each other. But does that imply all forms of discourse are commensurable? We have illustrated only that some discourse-types are commensurable! Furthermore, the description that some discourses can be accommodated does not imply that the injunction that ‘all discourses are commensurable to some degree or other’ necessarily follows! So, how could we universalize this type of observation and transform this into a universal observation with, consequently, a universalized moral for the theologian? (870)

	I believe our intuition ‘that all discourses are ultimately commensurable’ can be ‘grounded’ on intentional grounds and on the mutuality of an existentially shared Life-World. That these two grounds, effectively, exist back to back! Through the mutual interconnectivity of the Life-World ‘our’ individually experienced intentional life is also ‘our’ socially shared intentional life as members of a linguistic culture embedded in a world of linguistic culture/s. No thought is intentionally entertained without an inter-subjective meta-textual aspect. Equally, no meta-textual genre exists without its re-iteration in a world of culture within an overall World-of-Culture, i.e., the Life-World. As we must (transcendentally) think in the same fundamental intentional manner as all other thinkers (on transcendental grounds) and linguistic habit carves up the sense of our psychic universe it follows that all such linguistic artifacts can be ultimately accommodated by the mutuality of this linguistic expression of the Life-World as it is found there-for-‘us’! Of course the devil is in the detail. Some forms of accommodation may just not be worth the effort, producing little existential excess of value despite the systematic interconnections realized in their synthetic union. E.g., the game of chess is often compared to the art of warfare. Indeed, it may well have arisen out of a military context to the extent that various pieces might well have represented various elements of ancient warfare. We can still ‘see’ that in the names of the various pieces today. The game certainly seems to represent and simulate a political mode-of-life if not just a militaristic one! Now, these origins of chess granted, it could seem then quite natural to argue that the playing of this game could sharpen ones political and military instincts and that this observation could be validly argued for. On the other hand, what accommodations could be meaningfully drawn between the game of chess and a game more of mere chance where bets are made on the tossing of one or more coins despite that fact that both pursuits might be called ‘games’? (871)

	On this soil of the intentional and co-mutual nature of the Life-World we could state that all discourses can be accommodated, i.e., can be rendered commensurable! However, forming accommodations between some discourses (or ‘all’ discourses as a non-open-ended project of systematization) is just not a worthwhile exercise. A game of chess and a game of two-up or throwing a die may not have much in common other than the appellation of being a ‘game’. Still, as games, as a pastime, they do find a degree of accommodation, if only minimally. In this light, what further moral can the philosopher (and meta-theologian) draw as to the commensurability of competing economies be they theological, religious and/or non-religious in aspiration?! (872)

	Now, is it right to say that “a thunder bolt is no more nor no less than a bolt of lightening?” That “a scared tree is something more than a mere tree, or, that all trees are sacred?” That “The Divine economy is nothing more nor less than the Divine economy?” If something as seemingly simple as the landscape before us can be much greater than ten thousand things to each of ten thousand people, etc., then what hope have we to believe we could treat something, indeed anything, as something no more than its mere phenomenal presentation. No discourse can ever capture the full value, i.e., the full sense, meaning and meaningfulness of that phenomenon. We can recognize the apparent uniqueness of a phenomenon, as an instance of a certain type of phenomena, but we can never exhaust its value as that-phenomenon-as-it-presents-itself-to-us! So, in this light the theologian is right to say that thunder bolt is something more than a mere instance of weather. But, they should have good reasons for how and why they state as much. Then, what might count as evidence for such an implied or re-described ascription should be clearly spelt out! Similarly, to declare a tree, or all trees for that matter, as sacred objects is fine, but, to do so the value of such an exercise should deliver a dividend greatly in excess of that value initially invested, ontologically and/or epistemologically, in that particular type of enterprise. However, how should the nature of that particular type of dividend, as a process that discharges an existential excess, take form and in what manner? Given that religious memes are iconic-like cultural items that obviously find themselves, as innovations, developed within well-motivated economies then we should phenomenologically investigate the nature of their existence in order to determine why they so obviously seem to flourish in certain cultural niches and why some have even successfully transferred themselves between quite different cultures? (873)

	Truly, then, as a phenomenon, with respect to itself (to the extent it can be referred to non-absolutely), a bolt of lightening is no more nor no less than a bolt of lightening... However, all phenomena are experienced as phenomena-constituted by-us, and, as such, are always open-ended! The specific value of a specific phenomenon, therefore, cannot be pinned down and completely analyzed, perfectly represented, etc. The significance of a phenomenon for-us has infinite dimensions of possibility; but, not all modes of possibility are equal since some modes of possibility are found to be more productive of an existential excess of value than others (thence our recognition of a middle path between absolutism and anarchism). In this direct mutuality of engagement (between the center of the phenomenon as a phenomenal reference and all other reference-possibilities and the possibility of all participating agents) in this ‘natural’ evaluation of options we should find, with varying degrees of relevance and adequacy, we have a sedimentation of options-already-exercised through a habitualization of past responses (and in this we find the formation of the natural world when the same is non-critically examined, i.e., by non-transcendentally oriented means of appropriation as distributed in and through their associated economies of value-formation). It is through their pragmatic denomination that we feel we have a better understanding in our appropriation of that particular phenomenon-type or specific instance of that type of phenomena. Hence there, equally, can be no meaningful absolute open-endedness in our appropriation of phenomena! Thence there can be no practical philosophical utilization of an absolute relativism! Thus, in our direct or indirect dealings with the phenomenon/phenomena of the Divine, should it or they exist, there can be no definitive mode of approach and appropriation. Similarly, even in regards to the phenomenon/phenomena of the concept/s of the Divine equally there can be no definitive uni-vocal approach and appropriation of the same! In essence, a bolt of lightening is now no longer no more nor no less than a bolt of lightening!! Just how many philosophers and theologians are aware of this fact? Or, if they should have an intuitive awareness of this fact realize its important theological ramifications (whether regarded hypothetically and/or non-hypothetically)? (874)

	A bolt of lightening is engaged as an open-ended phenomenon in lived-reality in the same transcendental-phenomenological manner as all other phenomena, indeed, like all other phenomena including the imputed reality of the Divine and/or the concept/s of the same. All phenomena are experienced by-us as open-ended phenomena! In the open-ended transcendental economy of the Life-World the value of all economies can find a veritable choir of voices so to speak, a multitude of clearings in which to operate and be found productive of both apparent parallel and interactive phenomenologically distinctive forms of value in keeping with the nature of their associated economies…. (875)

	What are the important ramifications of this type of insight in a theological setting? For a start, traditional forms of a classical deism can no longer be seen to be allowed to operate since, in phenomenological reality, they could never do so in the first place. Such monolithic appearances are pure illusions, blinkered versions of an ideological reality that could have no real place in phenomenological reality, in life-as-lived! Second, and in equal importance, we should realize that this exciting open-endedness of phenomena is also not a recipe for a pure, unadulterated relativistic madness. We do not have a level playing field where all visions and versions of reality are equal. In a properly, appropriately and validly conducted phenomenological investigation we should find distinctive set of economies of varying degrees of value that are commensurable and potentially interactive to some extent but not equal in their production of value or in the value of their potential interactive frisson. Third, we must accept, therefore, in a Contemporary Theology, that all forms of philosophical appreciation must be in the form of an articulated version of a complex vista of semi-parallel and semi-interactive sets of visions that cannot be absolutely articulated and represented. Just as we have already noted a variety of competing economies in the formation of an individual overall religious economy in a similar fashion the presentation and/or representation of a Divine economy, or, more correctly, Divine economies, can be neither absolutely hegemonic nor absolutely anarchic! A task for the theologian, in this light, therefore, is to make better sense of this panorama of a world of living competition as it is found to already exist before-them! Thus, as a fourth point, we can note that the role of the Contemporary philosopher or theologian must be a creative one to the extent they can improvise techniques for discerning and appreciating the relative merits of these competing strands of systematization and produce/re-produce novel forms of accommodation, integration, synthesis, hybridization, conceptual emergence, etc. Surely, then, a bolt of lightening must become what you wish to make of it, but, this valorization must stand and fall on the relative merits of its semblance of finding a place in this world-as-lived before-others. Thence, as a fifth comment, we need to note that this sense of emplacement should be judged by its ‘fruits’ so to speak and hence, most importantly, our finding the acceptance of a need for our recognition of the vital import of creatively re-establishing an associated consequential philosophy along with it re-definition of an overall sense of morality, ethical concern, a desire to properly live-with-others in ‘our’ collective passage through this open-ended World of-Life! (876)

	Memes to some extent metaphorically picture the world. Formulated in our desire to understand the world they must in some measure reflect both the nature of this desire and the nature of their desired object or objective. We cannot expect these ‘reflections’ to be equal but we should expect to be able to discern them to some extent or other without insisting on either their absolute demarcation nor their absolute non-demarcation. In this light we could then ask to what manner and to what degree theological memes might reflect the world-as-lived and successful implicate particular senses of the Divine? In a list of theological attributes desired by a particular theologian how might they evaluate such a list and our selves, in turn, evaluate that same list (in the light of the theologian’s investigations’)? What non-theological parallels might we possess that would throw some light on this type of practice with its clarification of ‘definition’ and its ‘re-defined evaluation’? (877)

	One analogy might be the examination of the crime scene by the appropriate investigative professional. Or, the accountant at the end of the financial year assessing the profitability, etc., of a certain company. Or, the doctor examining their patient. In each of these three examples the distinctive coursing of reality is assumed to have left a textual trail which in the hands of the appropriate professional hermeneut is able, hopefully, to accurately re-constitute a version of the associated history that entered into the constitution of that specific trail of textual deposition.  In effect the professional in question, respectively, the investigator or detective, the accountant and the doctor, are able each to reconstitute a potted version of the history of their ‘subject’, and, to do this they must essentially narrate the outlines of the relevant story through whatever relevant lenses are brought to bear upon the same. Given such a narration, how do we know that it reasonably reflects the actual history of that process that realized that specific textual trail in the first place? And what relevance have these techniques to the evidential interpretation of the Divine as ‘they’ interact with those sections of the world-as-lived? (878)

	Basically, our investment in a theological vision of reality must find a degree of dividend whose interest is enough to continue those investigative reflections. In other words, the value released in a theological project should be greater, indeed, much greater, that the nature of your original investments. Interestingly, this value is re-realized in exactly the same economy that produced that value in the first place. I.e., value, re-evaluated, should equal the nature and degree of its original on-going re-valuation! Is this possible, and, if discrepancies are discovered between valuation and re-valuation what would be their import in this type of context? (879)

	Drawing together the various strands just explored what can we say about the presentation/re-presentation of a particular phenomenon-type/specific instance of a phenomenal event or situation? Do we have a potential conflict here, namely, if the phenomenon is always more than just a mere phenomenon then how, in accordance with a transcendental phenomenology, can we inspect the mere phenomenon itself as an appearance constituted by us, etc? Surely, without any extra difficulty by virtue of the fact that this existential excess itself is constituted in exactly the same manner as all phenomenal interaction should present itself to be assessed! Moreover, this existential open-endedness is already recognized in our acceptance of the phenomenological fact that all phenomena are presented in frames of reference whose horizons can never be exhausted through investigation, etc. Of course the situation may well be the case that further investigation of this horizon is not called for, would add little to our current research at that moment in time, etc. This element of the open-ended only being relevant to our investigations whenever and wherever its addition or subtraction should make an existential difference to the realization of those investigations and/or make a difference to any conclusions provisionally adopted therein. (880)

	It could be said, therefore, that in our interaction with a certain phenomenal event or situation our very interaction itself re-constitutes that phenomenon as that phenomenon-for-us. In essence, this additional existential overlay is realized and constituted through such interaction and is thus, consequently, an emergent feature of those investigations. As an emergent feature it should not be researched through the adoption and adaptation of a reductive mode of analysis! Correctly, its emergent value is constituted in a synthetic mode of examination and to investigate the same this same intentional direction must be brought to bear upon our topic. This intuitive observation has a primary role to play for the philosopher, the theologian and the philosophical theologian, etc. Let me demonstrate this type of point through the following analogy. (881)

	Imagine a huge mainframe computer, housed in its own building, has been in operation for a number of years. This electronic marvel has been used to model the weather, solve prime number combinations in order to crack codes, has been used to calculate tides for the next one hundred years around the coasts of various countries, has been used to monitor traffic in various cities, model the birth of the universe, mathematically model complex molecules and compounds in their interactions with each other, etc., etc. Sometimes these different sets of calculations are conducted at the same time. Now, unknown to the management and maintenance of such an institution a colony of ants is living within this machine. They forage for food outside this building and return through cracks in the floor. They happily co-exist with this machine. They have leant through experience that certain section of this machine are off-limits. They have noticed that venturing on to such sections has resulted in the death of those ants. So they no longer venture into these areas where the electricity would kill them and where panels are inserted into this mainframe from time to time. These ants can see in the semi-darkened confines of this machine and have its safe regions completely mapped. For them they see a universe of wires and slices of hardware occupying an enormous three dimensional space. They also know that it is connected to the outside world where they find their sustenance that allows them to live within its confines. But do they really see that computer as a ‘computer’? To the ants it is not much more than a sea of wires, segments of hardware, a lattice-work of supports, etc., that has become their home in the (life-)world (for ants). What is the metaphorical point of this analogy? (882)

If the theologian were to accept the concept of a process theology and the fact that that type of investigation is better conducted along emergent lines of enquiry then, I believe, we have here a model for how that type of enquiry might be better engineered? Imagine if we were like those ants looking out into the world of the cosmos. What do we see? What have we discovered? A sea of swirling matter congregating in the form of nebulae, star-formations, galaxies, galactic clusters… often with swirling filaments of stars and dust interconnecting the same… in between vast voids where no one would want to travel except in their imaginations… and if they were to visualize such travel they would find there nothing except vast regions of emptiness. In this we are like the ants! Still, in the use of this vast computer a whole new world of virtual worlds is made to unfold for the technicians and researchers using this sophisticated instrument in their research projects. Extending the parallel we must now ask if this cosmos could be compared to a vast computer, indeed, something even greater than a mere computer, indeed, in hypothetical truth treated as a realm of possibility, might even be the Divine body itself; the very embodiment of the Divine in its emergence through the richness and complexity of the epistemological organization enfolded and engendered within? Now the phenomenon of the universe itself is then no longer a mere universe (just as the phenomenon of the universe, or any other phenomenon, could not be treated as a mere phenomenon-for-itself since all phenomena are constituted as phenomena-for-us!)! We, who are no more than mere worms, mere ant-like creatures, miniscule specs of animated dust in the vast spectre of the world currently unable to see these elevated dimensions of reality but perhaps able to imagine a Divine world emerging within the same? So, in a parallel analogy, with the use of this computer various virtual worlds are simulated which cannot be reduced just to the mere nuts and bolts of that device. In a similar fashion, this analogy asks us to ‘see’ the cosmos as something more than the mere assemblage of dust swirling through the empty immensity of space (without reifying any form of phenomenal expression in an impossible mode of self-existence). Of course, whether that existential difference is to be treated as theological in complexion is another matter to consider entirely. Just as, e.g., to extend this metaphorical comparison, the cultural domain of the Life-World itself (and its interactive envelopment of different cultural families, cultures and sub-cultures, etc.) cannot be reduced to mere atoms and molecules, mere artifacts and actors, etc., nor, for that matter, a mere list/s of historical facts…. (883) 

	Now, I am not arguing that this theological complexion of the Life-World is a self-proven fact that must be the case, only that this hypothetical possibility is conceivable and is not internally self-contradictory (in a non-absolute modality) (even though we should also note that we should never extrapolate metaphors too far by literally treating the same or subjecting them to a degree of extrapolation beyond which they cannot sensibly pass). Furthermore, that granted, if only provisionally, we have here a general model for constructing a hypothetical theology. Is this option open to the theologian, whether they be hypothetical or non-hypothetical in their stance? And, is such an enterprise constrained by critical rules of engagement, and if so, what? In other words, how could a critical philosopher evaluate the merits or otherwise of that type of enterprise and curb, as a result, a proliferation of fictitious nonsense masquerading as soteriological fact or similar? (884)

	Of course it should be no surprise that I will invoke once more the critical use of the overall transcendental suspension! By what manner should it be exercised, first, by the constructive or speculative theologian and, second, by the critical philosophical meta-theologian, or, the congregation of that theologian, etc? (885)

	Let us now examine the point of my analogy lest it be too quickly misinterpreted. Although the ants live inside the building housing this mainframe and forage for food in the outside world I am not making this type of division and creating a duality between the so-called internal and external worlds, or, the mental and the non-mental, or, worlds that are real or virtual in nature! The correctly intended reading is realized when you recognize that this complex metaphor has been set-up to be read in the following fashion: that all reality is embodied in a world of phenomena, but, that all experiences of reality are realized through a variety of reference frames in which various perspectives and degrees of epistemological organization conspire to configure that experience in the manner it was entered into. Hence a reductive reading will not truly appreciate the ‘reality’ that is directly engaged if the manner of its associated engagement is displaced or absented or removed in any attempt to re-read the same. Similarly, a re-reading that displaces the nature of this associated emplacement will equally misunderstand that topic apparently about to-be-examined. Then, these pre-conditions understood, we can then come to realize that other forms of emplacement will produce/re-produce additional readings despite the apparent insertion of the same core phenomenal-content into the open-ended nature of our phenomenal-phenomenological investigations. Even though those ants lived most of the time within the frame of that computer they could not appreciate the actual reality of the virtual realities able to be projected through its use as a computer. This dimension of its epistemological organization would completely escape them. They would only see wires and segments of hardware that could be seen to be occasionally extracted and re-inserted within the hardware of the computer itself from time to time. The analogy is drawn, that when we look into the depths of space we ‘see’ only long filaments of starry material connecting the miscellaneous content of galactic clusters and vast regions of relative emptiness. Although I shudder to (over) use the simile of a computer we could equally treat this appearance of the cosmos as a like the Internet or a body, etc. The ‘life’ of a computer, the Internet or a body cannot be reductively reduced to a mere seeing of its wiring so to speak. So, in this type of metaphor the theologian could argue that there is always more to what is to be seen in a world that is treated as open-ended and constituted in varying degrees of epistemological organization. Of course, what a theologian does with their metaphorical constructions is their business and the business of their congregations. In this we should concede the possibility and viability of this avenue of approach and this multi-valency of context, noting, therefore, the apparent adequacy and/or inadequacy of their speculative and/or non-speculative constructions on other grounds. And this type of investigation is conducted, as already noted, on the critical grounds of a well-conducted overall transcendental suspension that is properly, appropriately and validly formulated and examined on both its level/s of introduced explication and its (meta-)level/s of critical hermeneutic re-construction! (886)

	Having ruled out a reductive mode of analysis in our investigations should a non-reductive, synthetic mode be adopted in the formulation and critical examination of this type of project and its critical appreciation? I would contend that this type of approach is equally flawed. To adopt this direction alone would be an open invitation for the advent of speculative mayhem and madness! No! We must adopt the middle path of a critical, balanced, overall transcendental suspension in order to hopefully make some validly argued progress in this regard. So, thus through an appropriate and creative mixture of parallel reductive and synthetic modes of appropriation we should be able to make some progress in the critical course of that project under current investigation. Needless to say, we do not begin anywhere nor do we begin from nowhere, but, make a beginning from a critical transcendental suspension of that very  position in our understanding of the world as we find we have already pre-judged it. Thence, from the relatively known to the relatively unknown we then proceed through an expansion of those horizons. A creative and critically balanced dialectic between that already-known and that about-to-be-known allows us then to proceed in such a manner that sees us advancing into territory that will naturally help us to understand our about-to-be-understood understanding of the Life-World in that regard from that perspective, etc. (887)

	Does the non-theologian or the critical philosopher with no theological aspirations have a place to begin in this respect? How could an anti-theologian meaningfully pursue an examination of that type of research if they were unable to empathetically re-live the type of theological emplacement necessary for the critical re-living and unraveling of that type of project? Although possessing differing intent, intentional objectives, ideally both parties could begin on the same intentional grounds, namely, the critically conducted phenomenal-phenomenological, transcendental investigation of the presentation/re-presentation of a variety of theological memes, pre-judgments, prejudices, theories, genres, mode of life, etc., as found already to hand culturally and/or inter-culturally. How then would the ardent theological critic criticize the theological project if one must already assume that the theological project should be read as an enterprise that can be meaningfully entertained, i.e., as a certain type of pursuit that must possess a certain degree of existential value and viability? By noting, no more nor no less, the extent to which they think and find those meaningful formulations cannot proceed beyond in the context of the over-extension apparently adopted, unwisely, by that theologian in question, etc. Equally, but in opposition, the theologian, or their supporters, would need to show how the current perception of those boundaries by their critics is misguided and unfounded and, consequently, should be re-extended (to re-encompass a theological realm with a degree of potential value commensurate with those aspirations). (888)

	Let us now examine what types of value are considerably positive in value and existentially rich enough to support a meaningful theological project. Just what sort of work should a theological system conduct? Given that a vast segment of religious life is devotionally oriented let us now examine the phenomenal-phenomenological grounds for this type of identity from a critical, hypothetical perspective…. (889)

	Where to begin? – where a beginning has already been made for us! Let us pay an imaginary visit to a church or temple. What practices might we find there that seem to exemplify this concept of theological work in a theological mode of life? By ‘work’ is meant ‘those practices that imply an interaction in some form or other with the Divine, or, at least, the inference by the practitioners of such practices that that this has, is or will occur’. We come to the door of this religious establishment to find a service is underway. We might hear the enunciation of prayers, sermons, hymns, chants, various rituals… perhaps even religious dances. At that moment we find the congregation starts singing. They seem keen but not very well-disciplined. The old ladies are out of breath and, consequently, a bit too slow, the men seem out of tune and the younger members seem to be a bit too fast, then, the cantor trying to singing over the top of this melee, is sounding rather hoarse. Why are they singing we might well ask? They seem to be singing to the Divine or about the Divine… or for some other set of reasons as yet not too clear to us. Let us enquire as to what motivates this over-exuberance of a collective untunefulness. When the service is finished we go over to the leader of the singing, the cantor, and quietly explain the nature of our enquiry and the reasons for our research in this regard. (890)

	What answers might the cantor, on the behalf of their congregation, give in response to this particular question “why do they sing in their religious service?”? What takes places proves to be an interesting philosophical encounter. We are invited to eat with the elders of this congregation. Around a large round table we are allowed to pose our question. As luck would have it a visiting theologian is also present and expresses his interest in helping us with this enquiry. This eminent person addresses those gathered by expressing his interest in this very question by stating that this is something we just do and it would be good for the faithful to reflect on the many reasons why they sing in the service. They suggest we go around the table in a clockwise fashion and each of us offer a possible reason which the table can then debate, and determine its merits, before moving on to the next person’s suggestion. Their first suggestion is that “we sing to the Lord.” (891)

	Now, the elders are not to be put off by the presence of the religious professionals gathered in their midst and decide to debate this issue in the spirit of an open enquiry seemingly enjoyed by all the parties present. The cantor, adopting the role of the devil’s advocate, asks “Respected theologian, why sing to the Lord if the Lord cannot hear us? Would the worms in the garden sing to the gardener, and if they did, would the gardener hear them? Surely the Lord is too far removed from the mundane and the profane to want to witness this type of event? Indeed, would they want to listen to us singing when even I find it hard to listen too?” He chuckles at this joke made at their own expense. And so the debate swings back and forth… with a variety of suggestions being made about this table. Some of those suggestions being that they do sing to the Lord; they sing as a profession of faith; that such an act inspires them to lead a religious life; that such an act brings them close to the Divine; that we seek salvation; that such an act alerts the Lord that we truly want to be saved and/or liberated from sin and/or enlightened, etc; that such an activity might inspire others; that they need to participate in the service in some form or other and that this activity wakes them up and refreshes them, along with restoring their faith, etc., etc. (892)

	Interestingly, no one suggestion seemed to be completely dominant in this discussion, and, not one suggestion finds an absolute degree of support. In this dialectical debate, a complexity of motivation is demonstrated along with a lack of an absolute degree of dogmatic clarity. Of course, some members felt very certain about certain propositions in this regard, but, then other members, whether as devil’s advocates or from their own convictions or lack of the same, could vehemently argue the opposite. There was, however, a general consensus, that singing was a valid part of the religious service for what ever reason or reasons in the end might be supported or not supported by individual members of the congregation. At the end of the meal the visiting theologian said they welcomed this question and that they would give it a lot of thought in the next few weeks before returning. Finally, they added the comment, that sometimes it is outsiders to our faith that reveal things about their faith that they had overlooked and that they were grateful for this occasion to stir the pot to see what might rise… hoping that this was a fruitful exchange for all parties even though he apologized for not being able to be absolutely dogmatic from both a professional and personal perspective. He then ventured the observation that how members of the faith answer this question would no doubt act as a template in how they dealt with similar questions about the role of prayer, sermons, good works, reading holy texts, indeed, finding the raison d’être for leading a religious life and entering into a theological mode of life. So, in this exchange, in the end we must ask what was gained in this lively debate that might answer this deeper question “What is the nature of theological work?” (893)

	In the light of this anecdote let us refine this same question by seeking to explore the hypothetical possibilities that might inhabit this aspect of our topic. (894)

	In our hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension we have three moments (that ideally mirror the three moments of the hermeneutic circle of, namely, analysis, synthesis and their interrelationship as a synthesis-and-analysis and which are reflected in the following moments of, respectively) theological identity, theological work and theological value. Because we can define any one moment through the joint negation of the other two dialectical moments what might this dialectical manoeuvre reveal about the phenomenal-phenomenological formation of our reception of theological work? (895)

	For a start, we should recognize that work implicates, directly or indirectly, our conceptual appreciation of identity and value, and v.v., etc. Moreover, in the hypothetical relationship between the imputation of the Divine and relatively non-divine, human agent, etc., this relationship itself can be treated through the same tripartite hermeneutic lens, i.e., from the hypothetical perspectives of the imputation of the Divine versus the Life-World, from the perspective of the Life-World versus the imputation of the Divine, and, from the perspective of the Life-world-and-the-imputation-of-the-Divine. Then, depending on the ascribed relative existential status of the members of this trinity we would then re-write our theological or contra-theological researches or at least in regard to the judged adequacy of theological practices, etc. In situations where there is an excessive differential in status the subtopic of mediation (by proxies and/or props) would need to be undertaken in conjunction with this hypothetical examination of work. Such an enquiry also being able to take a sociological and/or dogmatic turn towards descriptive and/or prescriptive formulations, etc. Let us now examine in greater detail some of our theoretical concerns in this regard. (896)

	Interestingly, metaphors are like tools that somehow much match the world being in essence picture-tools of that same world. In a similar manner, the central metaphors resident in a particular type or specific instance of a theology would operate in the same manner. Thus, in this light theological work would reflect, indirectly and/or directly the manner theological identity and/or theological value were formed in that particular or specific system. This stands to reason. E.g., if your God was a vengeful God then that theological identity would perform vengeful works, thence its vengeful theological nature of its work. Similarly, if you were to define your sense of the Divine in some other manner, e.g., with the epithets x, y, z then its work would be x’, y’, z’ and the overall value of that system would be x”, y”, z”. I am not saying that there is a simple correlation between x, x’ & x”, etc., only that by various transformational rules one should be able to go from x to x’ and from either to x”, and v.v., etc. Let me explore this aspect more closely. Quite simply, in effect, we are looking at the relationship between (a textual) metaphor, a (meta-textual) rhetorical reading of the same and the existential excess of (non-textual value) value that appears to arise from that interaction, all within a system of (not-textual) value predicated upon the same. In this a theological system would be no different form any other type of cognitively constructed system (as an attempt to phenomenologically appropriate the phenomenal world. (897)

	As argued from our model of the hermeneutic circle this correlation between theological identity, work and value is a matter of an interactive relationship between the negations of the other two parties. So, theological work should be defined as the joint interactive negations of theological identity and theological value. Is such a circle of value formation open or closed? Seemingly closed, but, actually open by virtue of the fact that all economies are found and recognized within meta-economies. So no one economy could be closed as it must be found and read in wider terms of reference. Furthermore, interaction involves a mutually reciprocity of influence on all levels of identity formation, etc. (898)

	Thence the theologian can define/re-define the nature of their theological system by merely inserting one type of value into the same since the other two aspects of that relational trinity are then automatically defined by negation. But, more correctly such a system is defined through the introduction of at least two values in order for the other third party to adequately defined through the joint negation of the first two factors. Still, we could define a theological system as vengeful, e.g., then why would we need a second factor to complete this process (of hermeneutic containment)? Because it is already implicit! In this instance there is the implication of an identity that is not always vengeful. That type of theological dynamic being driven through this dialectical differential between being-not-vengeful and being-vengeful. In this type of vengeful economy we might say a vengeful God is an angry God because of a particular reason or set of reasons. Thence that economy is defined in and through and across such a space. Competing economic variants complicating that picture and realizing a complex theological picture (in and through that complex theological-metaphorical system). So, in that particular theological type of narration, or specific instance of that type, we can say that in the light of its constructed reading (as apparently intended and reinforced through intentional patterns of re-iteration) that if x then y, if –x then –y is a description/prescription apparently embedded in that particular/specific system (and any system-type/specific system for that matter) since in a prescriptive reading we are given reasons for preferring x (or –x) (and that would universally open all systems to a deconstructive analysis based upon that preferential hierarchicalization [since the complexity of that system would be constructed in just that complex manner!]). (899)

	How do we account for this dialectical descriptive-prescriptive divide and its deeper accommodation? By virtue of the epistemological organization that has constructed that systematic philosophy through the partial, non-absolute duality embedded in that system (and which must represent/misrepresent its relatively inherent problematic as spelt out in the question that seeks to understand what motivation that is driving that particular metaphorical economy as it maps out that particular/specific theological economy). A complex dialectic obviously demanding a complex interaction of metaphors, and v.v. Thence the intimate connection and mutual reciprocity between description and prescription; identity, work and value; the characterization of the nature of the interactive processes envisaged as able to take place between the relatively Divine and the relatively non-divine; visions of a theologically influenced ‘formation’ and reading of a non-theological past, present and future; etc. So, correctly, as noted, all these factors of motivation, religious transformation, etc., are spelt our for us in these dialectical dynamics as just noted and sketched out in their ideality. Let me now ask how this type of research project that enquires into the dialectical nature of the dynamics of a theological system is best advanced? Ideally and practically through an examination of the non-absolute distance that traverses the idealistic and practical readings of the same! (900)

	At no stage am I advancing the thesis that we should privilege the idealistic over the realistic, or v.v. Indeed, to adequately understand this simultaneous dialectical relationship apparently between a non-interactive abyss and apparently interactive frisson we need to oversee the adequate imposition of an overall transcendental suspension by ensuring that our overall ongoing investigations are balanced between these and all other polarities noted as being apparently constructed within that system. An idealistic reading encompassing, e.g., motives, goals, etc., and, a realistic reading encompassing, e.g., responses, techniques, etc. as denominated with texts associated with the same, etc. What ramification can be derived form the above for a research program investing the structures and functions of a systematic theology to that extent it is cast in a systematic mould? (901)
	
	To investigate this type of question I would like to explore the role of intentional insertions into the matrix of a system. (902)

	Embedded in a theological system is the presupposition of intentional re-direction. Implicitly and/or explicitly a theological system (like all systems) spells out the existence and a need for processes of intentional re-direction. That this type of process is performed by agents or agental-like forces or parties in distinction to the chaotic processes of relatively non-agentally involved factors in that relationship/set of relationships. Assuming human individuals (and communities of individuals?) have intentional powers of re-direction, i.e., the ability to change direction (in whatever sense) above and beyond the mere laws of a physical determinism then we must assume that the intentional-like powers of the Divine must be equivalent if not greater than the same. Otherwise, the theologian must be able to argue how that sense of the Divine could support any form of a viable religious role? To illustrate this aspect of an intentional disposition to re-direct oneself by intentionally deliberative means let me discuss the following thought experiment (and in the process also introduce this parallel concept of Divine re-direction). (903)

	Earlier in this essay I discussed the concept of an implicate order. I mentioned there the experiment of a rotating vat of glycerin into which a small quantity of concentrated dye is dropped onto a randomly chosen specific point upon the surface of that container. Through chaotic mixing the dye gradually pervades the entire volume of that spinning glycerin. Then, the rotation of that vat is reversed… and we find ourselves amazed as the chaotic mixing of that dye is literally turned back in time. This mixing is gradually undone with the dye apparently concentrating itself back to the same point where it was introduced into that vat. This process, when allowed to continue, would once more chaotically mix in that vat till such a time the rotation of that vat is reversed where, once again, we would witness this miraculous reversal of the mixing, etc. It is almost as if the chaotically realized ‘decisions’ of that dye to mix are reversed and that all this micro-cosmic information, somehow, is stored in the very medium of that mixing. Hence this concept of an implicate order. Now, I would like to add an intentional component in this mixing and propose the following thought experiment as a form of differentiation in that regard; i.e., would allow us to propose a rule which would permit us to differentiate, theoretically if not practically, between the relatively intentional and the relatively non-intentional. Imagine the whole world, if not the entire universe, is like this rotating vat of glycerin. Now, we know chaotic-like processes are reversible under conditions similar to our rotating vat of glycerin, but, would intentionally enacted decisions superimposed upon this type of situation also be reversed in a reversal of the rotation of that medium? Imagine, if you would, within this spinning world, people going to the supermarket, buying various products, consuming those products, etc. Now, let us reverse the rotation of this universe to see what is unraveled so to speak. I don’t believe we would see various products consumed by us being re-constituted, nor, those products then returned to a state of not ‘having been consumed’ being returned to those supermarkets and thence to their shelves and thence to their manufacturers, etc., etc. Thus, we could assume, in the context of this thought experiment, that this non-reversibility, or non-commutational aspect, must alert us to an intentional input. Hence, this theoretical differentiation on the grounds that only non-intentional, completely chaotic behaviour is reversible (in a reversal of the rotation of that medium). (904)

I am not suggesting that this world is (simply) like a vat of glycerin, but, perhaps, certain parallels/non-parallels might be drawn? For a start, we might consider the proposition that there is an implicate order for intentional behaviour in other dimensions of the epistemological organization of the world? Intentional behaviour cannot be absolutely disentangled from the forms of embodiment that sustained its being in the world in the first place. That what might appear intentional on one level of epistemological organization on another level might well appear to be merely chaotic. Thence the implicate organization of that intentional behaviour on some other level of epistemological organization. Second, that this element of the intentional is essentially contra-chaotic in complexion. Hence its implication of some other form of organization, and, thence, an implicate order for the intentional contribution should be discoverable in and on some other organizational frame or frames of reference, at least, in theory? In turn, this would imply that all processes are commutational given the right mix of reference frames? No doubt an interesting insight that could be seized upon by the religionist including the theologist. So, how might we relate this implicate type of understanding to Divine intentionality? Would not the same type of rules of engagement more or less apply? And could this model be used to differentiate between processes that implicate a Divine agent or set or system of agents, on one hand, and, non-divine forms of intentional re-direction (and, at the same time, both types of intentional differentiation could both be differentiated from processes supposedly of a merely non-intentional-like complexion?)? At this point let me now discuss whether the cosmos is spinning or not (and what might or might not be entailed in the reversal of spin?)? (905)

	Our planet, Earth, spins whilst it revolves about the Sun. The Sun itself is spinning. The Solar System is spinning. The galactic arm on which we are situated is spinning around the center of our galaxy, itself a considerable part of a galactic cluster which, in turn, is also spinning… With all this rotation of everything everywhere we might ask does the cosmos itself spin? This question perplexes physics along with ten thousand and one other questions. To answer this question it is currently thought that no axis of preferred motion is apparently displayed with respect to the cosmological background radiation? One solution might be to invoke the existence once and/or now of a condensate like universal structure (in a fashion similar to the Bose-Einstein condensate where at extremely low temperatures some substances act as if one atom in dimension); the common presence of a universal fractal symmetry would seem to support that contention? It could then be argued that as the same is much like a super-fluid it would not spin (just like a certain liquefied isotope of helium) and that any attempt to set in rotation would merely create vortexes within that medium [that might be exemplified in the formation of galaxies and galactic clusters?] and not a rotation of that medium?)? This is quite an intriguing idea? With a superfluid medium could there then be an implicate order, or, would there only be the possibility of an implicate order within those areas, within a superfluid, that are no longer acting as a superfluid (within that superfluid)? Then, what connection or connections might or might not be in place between such non-superfluid anomalies? Then, lastly, is it not conceivable that that condensate might also be spinning in external terms of reference? That, if that were to be the case, then an implicate-like order could still function within and across such anomalies? Or, should the relatively intentionally-oriented input inserted into the processes of our relationships be essentially non-reversible, non-commutative in this regard? That, in essence, this non-commutativity is directly/indirectly related to entropy (and that the universe cannot be unwound so to speak?)? Then, in addition, what must be involved in the reversal of this cosmic rotation – to what extent would a process of rotational reversal loose such implicate information in the very process of the reversal itself? Or, is such information holistic in orientation and hence the only lose must be qualitatively and not quantitative in nature? (906)

	The question has been asked “what is theological work?” A recent answer is that work is one moment out of three that could be used to characterized that Divine economy into which that question is being inserted. Without the presupposition of such an economy there could be no such question. Therefore, such a presupposition has to be hypothetically accepted in order to proceed with this type of enquiry. In this light ‘work’ in a sense must already be intentionally thematized to some extent or other and, therefore, it merely behooves us to thematize that sense of definition already present. Our impact upon that sense of current thematization, and its reasonable representation, being essentially preserved in that core-overall transcendental suspension already operative in the asking of that question. However, without that aspect under the critical control of the overall transcendental suspension, the very act of the question would then distort the formation of its associated responses. Thence the critical import of attempting to maintain the hypothetical nature of our research. Although, granted, the very direction of our enquiry must re-formulate the nature of that enquiry and the nature of its discriminated responses that result from the same. That accepted, on both the formation of the initial or original representations of that economy and its critically conducted re-presentations, it is obvious that an examination of theological work (and all other forms of ‘economic’ work) must be an ‘economic’ question in this specialized sense as articulated in this extended essay! In many ways, work is demonstrated through the very definitions given to its associated economic senses of identity and value, and v.v. Hence an economic view of this topic (as with any other topic) must examine the nature of theological identity and value (or the nature of identity, etc., as already defined, about-to-be-re-defined, etc., etc., in that discourse in question). Of course this is not a simple equation by virtue of the hermeneutic fact that work is intentionally defined jointly as “‘not-identity’ and ‘not-value’”. Thence the dialectical interrelationships between these core concepts of ‘identity’, ‘value’ and ‘work’! With this (transcendental) understanding to hand let us look, in general terms of reference, at possible types of theological work. (907)

	In the formation of a typology of theological identity we can either examine descriptive forms of identity and/or prescriptive forms of identity. In this examination, as in all types of examination, we can either conduct a non-transcendental/relative interpretative reading of the transcendental/absolute, or v.v. Better though would be to conduct a critical ongoing balance between these two types of possibilities and realize, therein, an overall transcendental suspension as discussed elsewhere. It is not possible to conduct either an absolute, transcendental reading of the absolute or a relative, non-transcendental reading of the relative. Another way of stating this existential fact is to understand and note that all forms of appreciation cannot occur on the same meta-level of textual status. Thence a non-transcendental appreciation of the transcendental is possible by virtue of the de-transcendentalization of the transcendental, and v.v. (with the transcendentalization of the non-transcendental). A transcendental reading inspecting the intentional constitution of an intentionally formed topic qua its intentional constitution. A non-transcendental reading being the relativization of the transcendental wherein, e.g., judgmental processes are read as judgment (and no longer as the transcendental products formed in a process of transcendental judgment). Thence the Divine could never be understood from a Divine point of view (even by the Divine itself should it be able to self-appreciate the manner of its own existence). Similarly, there can be no science of science wherein judgments are appreciated as mere judgments pure and simple (without the formation of a meta-level of appreciation)! In the same manner we can either appreciate our embodiment from a transcendental perspective or appreciate our transcendental sense of self /selves from an embodied point of view. Keeping this in mind, what sort or sorts of typologies would best suit us in our attempting to comparatively read different theologies in this hypothetical-theoretical domain of activity? And what might we find? (908)

	From a cursory examination of various theologies it would appear that the identity of the Divine is more often than not personified. Hence vengeful identities (as already noted), Divine beings founded on love or compassion, wisdom, as forms of providence able to assist us in the mundane and profane courses of our existences through supplication, propitiation, etc., etc. To what extent, then, should these various characteristics be treated as metaphorical or analogical exemplifications, etc? To that extent the relevant texts dealing with this type of matter invite such caution and denominate various qualifications in that regard!? Such an observation also leads us on to the question: is it possible to construct theological identity in forms that are not personified nor are indicated directly or indirectly through the use of proxies (Divine mediators) or props (sacred objects or states)? Numerous theologians have answered that type of question through the invocation of a negative theology in some form or other. So, continuing in this same vein, let me rhetorically ask: is it possible to define Divine identity without recourse to either the imputation of certain characteristics directly and/or indirectly, literally or non-literally, or, the imputation of a negated economy in the previous sense, i.e., either through the positive assertion of various forms of  positive imputation or through contradicted forms of imputation or negative forms of imputation? E.g., is the Divine (literally/metaphorically) good or possess quality x, y, z, etc? Or, is the Divine not good (and evil) or beyond goodness… transcends the merely moral… transcends a mortal, geo-centric sense of morality, etc., etc? (909)

	Various theological styles are utilized in various theologies, i.e., positive and/or negative, literal and/or analogical, devotional and/or non-devotional, ritualistic and/or non-ritualistic, sacrificial and/or non-sacrificial, magical and/or non-magical, process and/non-process oriented, classical and/or non-classical in formulation, etc., etc. However, overlooked amongst these various styles is the articulated implication that a process theology, or any other for that matter, can also be conducted and embraced as a lived theology; as a process of theological engagement regardless of the substantiated existence of the imputation of a valid theological objective! Just as the phenomenon is never a mere phenomenon by virtue of its constitution by-us so too can the existence of a theological enterprise be engaged as something more than just a mere theological-like process of interaction! One should well suspect, in this regard, that all ideological enterprises are never conducted as mere exercises in ideological thinking, etc. That, indeed, theological work is only properly understood as a phenomenon when we take into account the overall value that arises through its engagement in a theological-like world as experienced in the open-endedness of a theological mode-of-life. How is this existential dimension of lived-existence, whether supplemented in a theological project or not, to be phenomenologically approached and critically evaluated? (910)
	
	To answer that rhetorical question in a non-rhetorical manner we can simply state that the existential dimension of a lived-project is re-lived through its simulation, and, critically re-enacted through its re-simulation subjected to an adequate overall transcendental suspension! That ultimately there can be no difference between simulation and re-simulation if an adequate overall transcendental suspension is equally operative on both levels of explication. That, as all processes of judgment must utilize an overall transcendental suspension it merely behooves us to purify that core of our research project, as it-is-found-to-be-enacted by-us, regardless of whether the lived nature of that project was being properly engaged in an existential manner or not. How then is this type of replication re-enacted in practice? Is such a process that seems to involve the re-living of the past possible? (911)

	The past itself can never be re-lived! However, the course of our intentional lives leaves a trail of intentionally deposited texts with which we might be able to find ourselves able to adequately re-live a simulation of those processes that appears to have deposited the same... such a re-simulation leaving a sequence of deposits that to a certain extent must mirror the original trail in which this process of re-simulation is seeking to emulate. However, in this task of comparison it may well be that comparative differences in replication may well be more informative here of thematization of the topic of our research project. (912)

	E.g., I remember ‘participating’ in a Pentacostal service over a few Sundays, attending their form of Bible study, etc. I asked if I could observe their religious practice as part of a sociological-like study required to be completed in the course of my university studies in the phenomenology of religion and was very grateful that they seemed happy to have me there. They knew ‘I was not one of them’, but, at the same time, my role was to observe and in that sense, or to that degree, was ‘neutral’. For their part they ‘treated’ me as just part of the congregation and I am sure they were hopefully entertaining the possibility that I might become ‘one of them’ if they were able to convert my way of thinking to theirs. Now I remember quite vividly a recurring period in the service when numerous members of the congregation started to loudly ‘talk in tongues’- some spoke in English and others made linguistic-like noises that did not quite sound like any real language. Some people would loudly confess their sins of the week, whilst others would make the strangest noises… and the children scattered throughout the congregation would look up at their parents and appear to be genuinely perplexed each time this type of phenomenon was to occur. They sort of looked on with a perplexed air of disbelief in much the same manner as I would have too if I were not attempting to remain ‘neutral’ in this type of situation; in the process dissimulating the apparent reality for-me of the real truth of my inner reactions. On one hand, overtly, everything seemed to be above board, yet, on the other, covertly, everything also seemed to be a bit contrived (an intuitive understanding that I would later phenomenologically analyze under the value-neutral heading of a type of co-authored phenomenon). On one level I was ‘present’ but much like those children I was also a distant observer. To what extent should I join in that service was one of the problems that faced me. I chose a minimalism in this regard. I stood up when the hymns were sung, but did not sing. I bowed my head in prayer but was also keenly observant of what happened when the congregation prayed. Now, the question might be posed, to what extent would my appreciation of that service have been different if I were to have participated more fully, less neutrally? Would singing of the hymns have made a difference? I doubt it. On the other hand this question does get to the (internally and externally controversial) center of religious faith. Should I have suspended my disbelief too and joined in rather than merely suspending my judgments (or at least my outward expressions of the same)? To what extent is it possible to simulate what others are experiencing/have apparently experienced if like a recipe the full instructions are not observed? This is an important difference, yet, I believe through sheer human empathy, we can, to a certain extent, re-live through re-simulation what these other people appeared to been experiencing (whether in the full goodness of a good faith or, also, in some lesser form of authenticity, or relative inauthenticity, wherein co-authored responses are not completely and spontaneously emitted ‘by us’ but are found to be more scripted-by-others for-others by-us…? Is there a moral here in how we should re-live the apparent simulations of others and to what extent we need to go to re-simulate the same in order to fully comprehend the significance and ramifications of that existential sense of ‘difference’? Basically, to what degree must a simulation be re-simulated  in order to phenomenologically re-simulate the essential phenomenal essence of that type of phenomenological experience and therein ‘locate’ its sense in a shared psychic mapping of the same cultural world-we-seem-to-share-with-others? (913)

	A solution to this puzzle of a mutual collective empathy can be found in the connection and centering put into effect by the necessary presence of an overall transcendental suspension as it must transcendentally occur at the very center of our phenomenal-phenomenological undertakings as exercised within the relevant hermeneutic circle/s of comprehension. Let me explain this point in detail. (914)

	All forms of judgment demand a transcendental suspension. The very thematization of the phenomenon in ‘question’ is conducted through processes of judgment that refine this process of simulation/re-simulation under review. Questioning involves a discontinuous transcendental suspension centered on the either/or, whereas, in contrast, an answering process revolves around a metaphorical application of like, itself an example of a non-dis-continuous suspension (centered on “it is both ‘like’ and ‘not like’”). Of course all this must take place within the economy of the relevant economy of a hermeneutic circle (wherein an ongoing balance is existentially set up between the rhetorical ‘either/or’ and the metaphorical ‘like and not-like’, and, an ongoing balance of all three aspects or moments, in turn, is set up to operate within a certain hermeneutic context/meta-economy, etc.). How does this common existence of an overall transcendental suspension help us to engage empathetically with others (even between individuals/communities situated in or coming from quite disparate cultures?)? (915)

	Even if we were to regard a certain reading of reality as self-evident, at least to us, it can still be called into question. Hence the (re-)imposition of an overall transcendental suspension in this state of treating an ‘actuality’ as merely possible, i.e., as a possible-actuality. In turn, a skeptical approach, the topic once understood, allows us to treat the possibility as an actual-possibility, i.e., one of a set of possibilities that might be actually possible in reality (however that might be interpreted/re-interpreted). So, a given conviction becomes treated thence through a lens of possibility as a possibility. Alternatively, a skeptical approach in some sense must accept the possibility of that which is being treated as a potential candidate for existence (as an actual-factual) in order to understand the constitution of the same. So, if we were to ask “is the current King of France bald?” what might transpire? Kings are males and males can be either bald, partially bald or not bald. If there were such an individual then one of these three possibilities would apply. However, there is no current King of France and so the presupposition ground of this statement means that this particular question has no supporting grounds for its existential evaluation. Still, should a king exist then they are either bald, partially bald or completely endowed with hair. Thence the criterion for the possibility of its substantiation and determination are effectively pre-understood…. (916)

	What is currently accepted as (non-self-contradictory and contextually consistent) fact can be treated as a possibility, and, what is a (non-self-contradictory and contextually consistent ) possibility can be envisaged as a fact. By such means the factualist and the skeptic can meet on common ground, i.e. that space between facts treated as possibilities (possible-factuals), and, possibilities treated as facts, i.e., as actual-factuals. Hence the overall transcendental suspension is the very means for bringing people closer and hence all forms of empathy have their ground situated upon this overall transcendental suspension. Then, in the very exercise of the overall transcendental suspension this inherent balance between the factualist and the skeptic is shrunk even more. Similarly, even between different factual interpretations, ostensively of the same situation, these various positions in a transcendental reading of their accommodations are brought even closer together as we enter into a process of understanding wherein such reduced differences are effectively meditated, circum-navigated or ignored. Lastly, the very dynamics of the hermeneutic circle complete this picture whether conducted critically or non-critically through the resolution of difference and dissonance, the opening of modes of commensurability, the formation of mediated processes of accommodation, the commencement of engaged forms of dialogue, etc. (917)

	What has just been articulated, through an overall transcendental suspension, is the transcendental ground for a particular genre of activity. The implication being that between specific instances of that particular type, and, the genre in question there can be very little difference. Hence, in the adoption and adaptation of the conventions of a genre such differences can only be peripheral (at least to begin with). Both the factualist and the skeptic will then meet each other on the same territory. Similarly, the engagement between various factualists among themselves, and/or various skeptics among themselves, will find that the invocation of the same genres through the exercise of the overall transcendental suspension, will ensure that a certain degree of proximity will prevail. Hence the grounds for empathy are essentially erected upon this central and self-centering territory of the overall transcendental suspension. ‘Central’ by virtue of the fact that whether as a factualist or as a skeptic our engagement with the relevant overall transcendental suspension ensures this degree of mutual coincidence. Similarly, ‘self-centering’ by virtue of the process that the thematization of the process of engagement itself is naturally self-centering phenomenologically.  Hence, for this variety of reasons, empathy is not only obtainable but is a transcendental given! Thence, our mutual engagement with others (being relatively easier to entertain between members of the same language and experiential-background, similarities of position and perspective, etc.). The very thematization of that topic-currently-to-hand being a process that can be theoretically performed by all the parties concerned. Let me now restate the above arguments in order to re-confirm this important fact of our being-together in this World-of-Life by virtue of the psychic center/centering of the overall transcendental suspension. (918)

	A number of aspects entailed in the imposition of an overall transcendental suspension, central to all intentional functioning (and its pre-intentional formations and post-intentional ramifications), assist in bringing disparate parties together. For a start, the treatment of facts as possibilities and possibilities as possible facts decreases the distance between factualists and skeptics. Then, the imposition of the overall transcendental suspension equally suspends all possibilities as equal possibilities. That psychic sense of center then allows the formation of genres of activities to become thematized about the same. Thence an appreciation of the phenomenologically essential whether found naturally or constructed. Lastly, genres are re-adopted and re-adapted in such a manner that radical adaptations can never be centrally re-enacted; such peripheral alterations effectively maintaining the degree of proximity already in play. The suspension of that suspension-in-play further removing differences in the nature of that praxis between engagement and non-engagement, etc. Thence the grounds for a common empathy based upon these common genres of activity discovered whenever discovered as being mutually present. Moreover, in our psychic mapping of the world our linguistic habits in a particular culture centered in genres of activity (as processes of sense-formation) reinforce these mutual habits of engagement both linguistically and practically. The discovery of a common phenomenology of the world allowing members of disparate cultures to also communicate, etc., and realize processes of a common empathy, etc. (919)

	I noted above that… the very dynamics of the hermeneutic circle complete this picture whether conducted critically or non-critically through the resolution of difference and dissonance, the opening of modes of commensurability, the formation of mediated processes of accommodation, the commencement of engaged forms of dialogue, etc. Briefly, in what manner does the overall transcendental suspension play in this task of intercommunication between diverse parties? The resolution of difference, dissonance, competition, distance, divergence, disagreement, etc., is achieved by the dialectical means encompassed within the hermeneutic circle. Applying an adequate overall transcendental suspension ensures that such a structural-process is engaged, and v.v. Through analysis difference is noted; through synthesis accommodation is realized; and, through a balanced existential suspension of both this dialectic is realized wherein such difference, distance etc., is effectively overcome. By these means modes of commensurability are opened although the existential worth of such access is another matter, being determined through the exercise of the same. The overt operation of a suspension, in any form, involves the covert enactment of its associated hermeneutic circle, and, conversely, the overt enactment of a hermeneutic circle involves the covert utilization of an overall transcendental suspension as examined throughout this extended essay and many others. Mediation is established through accommodations and merely requires the thematization of that dialectical moment in the hermeneutic circle that attends to processes of synthesis. Lastly, the mutual cooperation of the hermeneutic circle and the overall transcendental suspension realize a dialogue, a process of engagement that is conducted through processes of simulation/re-simulation. Because, metaphysically, there can only be one world-for-us, namely, the Life-World, it follows that all forms of interaction must take ‘within’ the same. But, that being the case, we must ask how this potentiality of access is to be achieved between one part of the Life-World and some other? How do we normally avail ourselves of such a possibility when all forms of identity are directly or indirectly embodied and that the spatio-temporal coordinates of the existential descriptor of a preferred set of identities might not allow us to enter into this promised sense of dialogue and our direct engagement therein? E.g., I live in Sydney how can I communicate with someone in the Blue Mountains, eighty kilometers as the crow flies? I could write a letter, or, use my mobile if that other person had a telephone or mobile. But how could I communicate with that person if the other party was dead, or v.v? Is this ‘promise’ of unlimited communication to be qualified. Obviously! But, then, we can eventually overcome distance, given the necessary extent of time needed to do that, is it also possible to overcome time by some means or other as implied in this promise of unlimited communication despite the qualifications naturally imposed upon us in and through the very nature of our embodiments? I believe, theoretically, that this is possible, but, practically, that intervening forms of resistance may well not give us access to the necessary pre-conditional ground that would allow us to operate conditionally on that level of accommodation. So, how might we theoretically obviate this impediment of death, e.g., in order to re-arm this promise of unlimited communication within the embrace of our-one-World-of-Life? Indirectly, you could read a poem written by a person who is now dead and feel that they are still communicating something about the nature of existence by such means. Or, in reverse? Through the re-invocation of a person’s name the memory of that person is re-invested in our conscious reception of the world. Then, the textual traces of that person, who is now dead, will remain (to get lost and fade away) and with the right forms of hermeneutic reception can be re-read, etc. All that granted, is communication with the future possible? How could I invoke a person not yet born? One could write an open letter with instructions for it to be opened on a particular date (much like the sealing of certain political records, e.g.), etc. Of course such forms of engagement hardly seem to be active and fully engaged. So how might we differentiate the preconditions for a relationship that can be meaningfully engaged in the here and now? By noting the spatio-temporal contiguity of those identities (in their mode/s of embodiment) party to that possible relationship and noting what modalities could be comprehensively engaged in such an interaction. Lastly, we might need to note what actions, etc., could initiate such a relationship. E.g., let us say we have moved to a new city, say Boston, USA, and I have an interest in paintings, art-history, aesthetics associated with the same, collecting pictures, etc., and, would like to make the acquaintance of similar minded people. How might I go about this? I could go to the various art galleries in that city, perhaps strike up a conversation with various patrons there, join societies centered on such pursuits, enter an Internet chat-room dealing with such a subject, etc., etc. So the moral of this story is this: all forms of relationship are possible but that potentiality is activated and fully engaged when there are forms of spatio-temporal contiguity and indirectly engaged when modes of mediation can be established; mutual engagement being realized when there is an equivalent reciprocity of engagement in those modes so engaged. So, e.g., I could walk past a particular person on the street and be only visually engaged with them, they, for their part might not be mutually engaged visually if they did not notice me walking past. Or, if we were to recognize each other and stop to chat then obviously our engagement is now more fully engaged on a number of other modalities of which a larger number would be more directly and more mutually engaged. (920)

	By such means theologians too can communicate with each other and be understood by non-theologians (whether these possibilities be entertained by theological factualists and/or theological skeptics). Understanding, as a process, being assisted by a common language in some form or other, similarity of experiential-backgrounds, similar processes of motivation, the acceptance of common processes of resolution (based upon a relatively non-contradictory formation of identity that is also relatively not-inconsistent contextually with its experiential environment). Hence the experiential basis and open access for a commensurability of dialogue between theologians, between theologians and non-theologians, and, between non-theologians! Thence the crucial ongoing role played by the adequate and central imposition of an overall transcendental suspension in the formation of a mutuality of comprehension! Given this role in all forms of intentional formation and communication, what ramifications might this type of understanding have for exponents of this type of profession? (921)

	Surely, hypothetically, given the phenomenal accessibility, directly and/or indirectly, with the Divine, in the form of a process theology anchored in phenomenal reality, then surely the overall transcendental suspension should act as a ‘door’ that could set up our direct and/or indirect engagement with the same, and v.v! Does this hypothetical insight have any practical applications for the theologian, etc? (922)

	The critical theologian cannot escape this recognition of the inescapable presence of a transcendental suspension, in conjunction with a hermeneutic circle, at the very center of all forms of intentional formation, and its thematization, be they theoretical, practical and/or critical in aspiration. So, this granted, let us hypothetically investigate the implications and ramifications of such a recognition (and the acceptance of its transcendental necessity). (923)

	As stated the precondition for an active engagement within a certain modality is the spatio-temporal contiguity of that embodied form of existence in some direct and/or indirect form or other. Must these identities be embodied in a spatio-temporal form and format? Yes! But let me qualify what is implicated in an acceptance of this type of statement. E.g., in a virtual engagement does this embodiment rule apply? Say we are playing a computer game on two monitors in two different rooms – could we still argue that images on that screen are actually interacting in an embodied fashion. Yes, by the mere presence and necessity of those two monitors, or, by the mere possibility that those monitors could be switched on and used. Then we could appeal to the existence of the computer hardware, etc., that such interactions are observed by embodied participants at those monitors, etc. Then, what accounts for direct and indirect forms of embodiment? The spatio-temporal configurement of the existential descriptors of those nominated forms of identity, i.e., its phenomenal-phenomenological constitution. That granted, can forms of existence exist without embodiment in a spatio-temporal form and format. What can we say in this regard about imaginary numbers? Or numbers in general? Indirectly, numbers are nominated by people and populate a variety mathematical discourses/sub-discourses. Mathematicians are embodied. Numbers can numerically individuate spatio-temporal identities. However, imaginary numbers cannot operate in this type of modality. Still, they operate in discourses dealing with imaginary numbers, etc. Within such discourses they can be used to individuate imaginary entities, namely, imaginary numbers. Such identities are dependent upon such discourses and, therefore, we cannot artificially divide and isolate them from those fields of thematization in absolute terms of reference. Hence their indirect form of embodiment, etc. Now, that granted, what implications and ramifications must exist for the theologian?! (924)

	The question arises, in the context of the above, can theological entities be separated from theological discourses? If the answer is “no” – then we must be dealing with imaginary theological entities. On the other hand, to answer “yes” would imply that such entities had an independent existence from theological discourses and did not need the same in order to exist. Still, for-us our understanding of theological existence cannot be separated from a theological discourse in which case we must ask how could theological independence of a theological discourse be demonstrated, i.e., be ontologically recognized and epistemologically entertained? In the light of this problematic understanding might it not be better to turn this question around and ask instead how is theological existence to be satisfactorily accounted for in a theological discourse? In reply I would answer, by exactly the same phenomenal-phenomenological means actual-factuals are normally differentiated from possible-factuals (or potential-factuals)! Usually this is achieved by ‘intuitive means’, i.e., when we see something we treat and accept as ‘real’ in the world that situation is usually treated as a ‘fact’. To explain how this feat of differentiation is achieved necessitates a scientific and/or philosophical commentary. The latter, treated in a critical mode, being constructed in a transcendental phenomenological-hermeneutical setting with the implication that ‘reality’ is modally assessed though an ‘intuitive’ appreciation of its modal richness in both quantitative and qualitative terms of reference. Quantitatively in terms of the number of modes that are relatively exercised in an active sense, i.e., those modalities that are engaged in such a manner that they appear to produce/re-produce a relatively excessive existential excess of value. Qualitatively in terms of the relative existential richness produced/re-produced in each of those modes actively being engaged. Thence, hypothetically or non-hypothetically, the reality of the Divine should be assessed in that manner. So, in this reversed manner, relative theological independence would be comparatively assessed in reference to the degree it is able to actively dominate a particular theological discourse through its demonstration of this degree of existential richness above and beyond the quantum of value introduced in the formation and exercise of that discourse or set of discourses (recognizing that the Divine cannot be entertained apart from its discourse/s of introduction and thematization be they conceptual and/or perceptual [or intuitively in some other form and format]). Essentially, a non-correspondence perspective is being adopted and adapted. In the process re-defining independence as this ability to dominate a discourse above and beyond those contributions merely introduced into that discourse/s. That accepted, we must now ask to what extent does our position vis-à-vis theological existence effect its ‘reception’ in that frame of reference associated with that theological discourse/s, and, to what extent if any an overall transcendental suspension might overcome the same (as suggested earlier)? (925)

	Upon reflection its seems to me that various types of position could be entertained with respect to a particular type/specific instance of a theological discourse (be that traditional or non-traditional, etc.). For a start we could note this distinction between a factualist and a skeptic, i.e., respectively a person who accepts x is an actual- fact (sixth order factual) and the person who treats x, at best, as only a possible-factual (fifth order factual) since to be skeptical implies that one can at least entertain the same in order to disbelieve that it could have existence in an actual-factual state. An absolute skeptic would claim that the item of your discourse is internally self-contradictory and/or externally inconsistent in that discourse, i.e., the intentional constitution of that in question is both internally self-contradictory and externally is consistent with that discourse, etc. As a consequence could not be entertained in the form proposed! But, once the possibility is granted then other positions could also be envisaged? E.g., we could adopt the position of a factualist-agnostic, i.e., open to the same but uncommitted as to its intentional form. Or, on the other side of this debate, we could be a skeptical-atheist and just assume, as a negative-factualist, that the concept has no merit in a sixth order as an actual-factual. In such a scheme then would a factualist-atheist make sense? One must assume only as a negative-factualist, in this instance as a person whose position is such that they consider the Divine to have absolutely no existence whatsoever. The scheme being completed by the adoption of a category described as skeptical-agnostic. Of course, it still remains my position that in the exercise of an adequate overall transcendental suspension these four positions would move closer to the metaphorical center of this field of discourse and therein allow them to more easily and fruitfully debate such a topic (without destroying the distinctive natures of those ‘positions’ when leaving that simulated/re-simulated process of transcendental interaction). Similarly, the various motivations for entering this type of discourse would be left untouched although modifications could be entered into in retrospectively (or prospectively) after that type of engagement in that type of discourse, etc. E.g., a theologian might become less convinced about the factuality of a theological entity independent of a theological discourse and shift from being a theological-factualist to theological-factualistic-agnostic, or, even as far as becoming a theological-skeptical-atheist, but, then, obviously, they could no longer operate in good faith as a theologian. (926)

	The above provisionally accepted, what would be the rules of the game so to speak if a theologically-oriented discourse were thought to be found to be engaged in a fruitful fashion? By what transcendental criteria might this type of task be attempted (regardless of whether that topic is theologically oriented or non-theologically oriented)? (927)

	Because the process theologian should be relatively wedded to the phenomenal-phenomenological-hermeneutical philosophy as here outlined in type then it follows that for them there can be no parallel, practically incommensurable universes of discourse but only one multi-valent world of discourse, namely, the Life-World. Therein, the world-for-us is as it-is-found-to-arise-for-us through the intersection of a number of discourses. Just as the earthly landscape can be read in many different ways so too can the theological landscape be read, rightly or wrongly, in a numerous ways! The task, therefore, for the theologian, is to find an accommodation between the apparently most fruitful of those visions of a theological landscape. In such a diverse light, or a diversity of illumination, obviously some readings can be effectively ruled out because they were manifestly inconsistent internally (to their intentional formation as objectives) and/or they were manifestly inappropriate externally (in their field of application as their objective-context). Once, however, these two conditions are positively constructed and in place by what criteria should such visions of the theological landscape be professionally ruled in or out of court? (928)

	A pragmatic answer might be best inserted here? Remembering that a particular theological-construction cannot be read per se but only treated as a theological-construction-for-us in which case the value of that construction must arise in the form of an existential difference; i.e., the greater the excess the greater the value, and, in turn, the greater the validity of that construction. Are we dancing on dangerous territory here? Could we not construct a fabulous theology in all senses of that expression ‘fabulous’, indeed, more than one fabulous vision of the theological and then, within such an edifice, live our existences within its light or penumbra depending, in hindsight, on what more critical philosophical point of view we might bring to this do-it-yourself style of workmanship? Or, can we bring no form of discipline to such a ‘discipline’ and as a result be forced to just accept a theological free-for-all? To some degree I am inclined to accept this type of a theological democracy. This is how we navigate an earthly landscape. When I am a traveler I look at the landscape as a traveler. When I am an artist I look at the landscape as an artist. When a particular aboriginal myth is being told about a key component of the landscape in my imagination, I, too, might be able to see the comparative connection (should it not be too obscure metaphorically or analogically), etc. None of these competing views does me any harm, so why should I regard diverse readings of the theological landscape any differently? How might an existentially open theologian treat this banquet of speculation? Then, how should we appreciated the relative worth of the same without subjecting it to a too definitive degree of evaluation or to a too rigid hierarchicalization of valuation? (929)

	They could run an argument that theological value just is the result of diverse readings, and, that a greater sense of value arises through our ability to find a commensurability of value between the dominant strands of that collective sense of vision tested and re-realized in that ongoing vision of a theological conversation or dialogue? Alternatively, or, rather, in parallel, a theologian might also like to run a parallel-argument to the effect that through the infinite-like complexity of the Divine process that overall sense of divinity can be all things to all people without ruling out any one of those visions of the Divine. Hypothetically, could this type of argument be run? Even if it were to be tempered by a limited senses of divinity operating within a process theology that were to include our own contribution to the same (as a living fragment of this entelechy?)? That, effectively, our engagement within a particular set of theological discourses realizes a sense of theological objective that to some extent must meet, through the relatively infinite complexity of that sense of the Divine, the intentionally formed objectives in those discourses. Of course, the devil is in the detail. All intentional-objectives will be met in some form or other to some degree or other. So, rhetorically, let us ask “is the Divine an old man with a flowing beard, a demon hurling thunderbolts towards human beings, a karmic computer tabulating our karmic destinies..,” etc? Rhetorically answering, “why not!” E.g., if you pray to an old man with a flowing white beard and that helps you to visualize a sense of the Divine to what extent might this attractive symbol actually function in a valuable theological sense? We do not to have concede that point, merely recognize that such a possibility could function as a positive expedient (until such a time a more complex and more ‘reality-based’ vision is constructed). Then, this expediency granted, to what extent does that metaphorical image of the Divine actually connect with a more real sense of the Divine should it and/or they exist? As metaphors always connect with the reality of the world-as-it-is-there-for-us it follows that the same must apply when the discourse or discourses in question are theologically oriented? So, given this jungle of competing visions of the theological-world how might the theologist navigate the same? (930)

	Our theological understanding, like any other form of understanding, whether adequate or inadequate to the overall ways of the world, should be seen as a dialectical affair. It is in this spirit that more traditional theological narratives should be viewed? Similarly, contemporary visions and their theological narratives of the Divine should also be accommodated within such an open framework. Not one theological frame of reference and its narrative ever being able to arise without the adoption and adaptation of prior theological narratives. Hence the dialectical continuity of this theological conversation through the re-iteration of this mode of discourse. That, as argued much earlier, our very navigation through this World-of-Life implies a unity of the Life-World, that, in turn, implies, whether recognized or not, that a theological complexion of the Life-World is a transcendental necessity to this extent that this transcendental sense of world must be ‘one’ world, albeit, as open-ended, with infinite horizons! That as this transcendental sense of world is as a world-there-for-us then it implies that this theological complexion, in its ongoing sense of integrity, must imply that the value of this overall sense of world must manifest itself in and through all forms of intentional life (be they religious or non-religious in personal orientation, be they theological or non-theological in orientation for the religious person). In a religious context, what is the value of this transcendental attitude towards this transcendental sense of world? (931)

	Surely, the world cannot be all things to all people? But, then, it never is to any one person. Nor could it be all things to all people considered collectively and in an equally absolute sense of totality. Many things – yes. Never absolutely all things! Furthermore, various discourses could also deconstruct each other, etc., i.e., cancel each other out. Then, other discourses could also emergently appear through forms of synthesis and analysis and their collective overall transcendental suspension. Deconstruction naturally deconstructing the hierarchical vision of the Divine order of things. So, we must ask, what exactly is left? Is there a theological residue in order to claim that there is, indeed, in life a positive theological difference? To what extent could it be found to surpass the mere appearance of the unity of the Life-World to be as one-world there-for-us?! Or, alternatively, is this residue minimal in extent and effectively without religious value for the religious person? (932)

	Suppose, for the sake of argument, that one theological tradition argued that their vision of the divine envisaged ‘an angelic old man with blue eyes’, whilst, on the other hand, another tradition argued more or less the opposite, namely, that their vision of the divine envisaged ‘a demonic young spirit with bloodshot eyes’. Surely, if both visions had some extra-metaphorical degree of reality then to that extent that they were to exist in that form as described they would cancel the existence of the other out of existence. Surely the theological universe is a ‘space’ large enough to accommodate a variety of divine forms… but to the extent any one of them is privileged would imply the privileging of some other vision and in the process they would cancel each other out in that privileged format? But, would such a canceling be absolute – what theological residue might be left after the privileged material was deconstructed (both epistemologically and ontologically)? In a process theology embodiment is neither privileged nor non-privileged (being regarded as transcendentally necessary for the simulation of identity in its associated field of presentation). Now, the privileging of demonic divinity (at the expense of angelic divinity) would cancel the privileging of angelic divinity (at the expense of demonic divinity. But, embodiment per se in a non-privileged form or format would be left untouched in this dialectical thought experiment. So, given the transcendental necessity of embodiment, and the relative uniqueness of the same, how should that phenomenal-phenomenological sense of uniqueness be approached other than through the use of the overall transcendental suspension? In a sense divinity is nominated but not denominated (except negatively through the use of transcendental guidelines as to what could be stated in general and what could not be stated in particular and/or specific terms of reference). So, under these rules the Divine could be spoken of as embodied (in and through its unique epistemological organization) but could not be particularized or specified. But, there is a sense, given the ambiance of the overall transcendental suspension, wherein as a phenomenon-for-us (both from its side and our side in that ensuing sense of relationship) it follows that the Divine could manifest a definitive sense of identity albeit proscribed by the nature of transcendental necessity. So, the Divine, in this hypothetically entertained framework, could be treated as embodied, unique by virtue of the same, could even be a demonic entity with bloodshot eyes but could not be privileged in such a manner… and this is just as well since no phenomenon could be reduced to either the mere phenomenon-in-itself or the mere phenomenon-for-us. Hence, in this transcendental climate, traditional analogies have a valid role to play as long as they not be reduced likewise to either mere phenomena-in-themselves or mere phenomena-for-us. In other words, what works for you in a religious setting is valid as long as you do not overstep the limits of such ascription and description and/or the forms of ethical prescription that would appear to most likely flow from such a metaphysical point of view. Dialectically we can have both the cake and eat it as long as we do not decide to either merely consume our cake or merely leave it intact. In essence, therefore, all metaphors are to be treated like ‘images’ but not ‘idols’; as ‘icons’ that refer us to the Divine but not as substitutes for the same. As proxies they would ‘put us in touch with that which they proximate’ as long as these processes are not absolutized, de-contextualized, naturalized, etc. Of course the value of such a stance is for the theologian to demonstrate although as their vision of the Divine is peculiar to their tradition and their interpretations/s of the same it follows the value of their formulations, albeit when treated in and through an overall transcendental suspension, is best for them to  evaluate and appreciate (to that extent their formulations are found to be relatively internally-consistent and relatively externally-appropriate, and, the transcendental complexion of their endeavour is neither relativized nor absolutized! (933)

	Now, hypothetically, the above if conceded, what if anything would the theologian, etc., be left with? In their transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical treatment of their theologically oriented narratives a critical theologist would find a transcendental residue whose value would be found to still operate in its associated religious frame of reference. Such a transcendental residue must be left since the operation of the overall transcendental suspension neither absolutely affirms the existence/non-existence of the same nor absolutely denies the same. In this domain the existential value of that residue can then be better appreciated since it is only in those transcendental terms of reference that that value is to-be-appreciated, indeed, could only be appreciated! The theological discourse being no different in that regard from the value of any other type of discourse. (934)

	Thematization of our investigations, what ever the topic, is a progressive affair and one whose transcendental center in rooted in this territory between these impossible domains of the mythical absolute and the merely relative. Consequently, our transcendental purification of such  domain merely exposes what value it was given in the first place. In such a context let us now ask “what is the value of such existential value that might be found there?” Under what transcendental conditions is value to be found? Since value is realized in the practical existentialization of its associated discourse, through its existential engagement therein (by means of an adequate overall transcendental suspension) what transcendental insights could be focused upon in order to help us come to an essential understanding of what should be both described and prescribed from the existential midst of such a lived-examination/re-examination? Surely, nothing other than a ‘purification’ of this engaged sense of the transcendental  as long as that engaged simulation is approached in and through the adequate imposition of an overall transcendental suspension! In this thematization of the existential and the existentialization of this thematization an ongoing sense of an essential perfection is being realized, i.e., a sense of perfecting and never an absolute sense of perfection. Similarly, the realization of a process of thematization implies that we are in a process of perfecting the very various processes and aspects of insight being sought after to some degree or other and, to some extent, already being actually thematized. In this dialectical engagement we are already in contact with that-which-is-already-thematized and in some sense also in contact with that-with-which-we-are-about-to-thematize. Given this element of thematizational perfecting (and not a thematizational perfection) to what ends might such an ongoing process be religiously directed and/or be found directed? Using the reference of the hermeneutic circle as interpreted in this extended essay and its archetypal underpinnings of Ego, World and Object we could interpret this ongoing process of thematizational-perfecting as operating on each of those moments in accordance with the metaphors, analogies, narratives associated with the same. In a religious context that would give us respectively a religious sense of whatever ego, world and object is/are being engaged with. Hence a sense of self perfecting, a sense of perfecting the world, a sense of perfecting our understanding of a certain object-state (be that its manufacture and/or understanding), etc. Now, it is in this context that we can introduce the sense of ‘the other’ since being engaged in a process of thematization implies a sense of the other being revealed in that process of thematization. (935)
		
	Thematization reveals a sense of the other that cannot be absolutely divorced from what is currently (and relatively) non-other. In a religious context the numinous sense of the other cannot be absolutely divorced from what is currently non-other and relatively non-numinous. Similarly, a theological complexion of the Life-World granted (if only hypothetically), then the numinous sense of the Holy Other cannot be absolutely divorced from what is currently being experienced as relatively not-Holy Other and non-numinous. Focusing on the moment of Ego in a religious frame of reference, be that theological or not theological in orientation, implies that this sense of perfecting reveals a dialectical sense of otherness be that a sense of self not previously revealed and/or a (personal and/or impersonal) sense of the Holy Other not previously revealed. In essence, this semblance of perfecting is realized in a transition of an engaged-comprehension taking place, dialectically, between the non-other and the other, or, i.e., the non-other-and-the-other. Put more economically, this semblance of perfecting is none other than a revelation of the associated sense of otherness under investigation. A simplicity of expression that effectively operates under the radar, or horizon, of our phenomenal-phenomenological engagement in this world, this World-of-Life! (936)
	
	Seen in this light, otherness, what ever its complexion, cannot be wholly other! The absolutely other cannot exist for us nor be recognized by-us! Therefore, no meaningful theology could utilize such an impossible concept! On the other hand, no concept either could be completely appropriated! To what ever extent it is there-for-us it is still not absolutely there-for-us! That phenomenon has not revealed everything about itself nor can it. Every phenomenon therefore is a mystery to that degree it currently cannot give itself up to us even though it must also to some extent have already given itself over to-us. Hence it is also a double mystery in the sense that it cannot give itself up entirely, and, that it has already revealed something of itself! Indeed, a triple mystery to the extent that this semblance of a double mystery is able to be further engaged, engaged more deeply and therein able to further shift those boundaries between that-already-known and that-about-to-be-known! Thus, within these parameters, the theologian also must operate, and, thereby, find themselves exploring a ‘world of revelation’ to that degree any phenomenon or phenomenal field is able to be subjected to further phenomenal-phenomenological scrutiny. That granted, how is this world of revelation to be engaged? In the same way we engage with own sense of existence, with our own sense of self… in exactly the same way we engage our own sense of the mental! So, let us examine this concept of engagement and see what relevance it might have, if at all, in the field of theological discourse? (937)

Self can never be just a self but that-self-there-for-us (as that-current-sense-of-self-there-for-us)! Why? Because all phenomena are intentionally constituted and being intentionally constituted by us they must be constituted by-us. Hence the sense of ‘our’ self is that sense of self currently constituted by-us for-us. But, surely, that sense of self must be ‘for-myself’ and not ‘for-us’? No! Because through its constitution in the hermeneutic circle the necessary presence of the meta-textual implies an inter-subjective component in this very intentional act of constitution (along with senses of the objective and the subjective by virtue of that intentional objectivity being constituted by us as realized in and through the uniqueness of our current intentional perspective/s upon the same). Similarly, the Divine could only be that-sense-of-the-Divine-as-found-to-be-there-for-us. In this there would be an engaged residue equal to the subtraction of one from the other. An existential residue equals this sense and semblance of an act of engagement. At the same time this residue can never be wholly other from its matrix of origination. Hence the (objective/subjective/inter-subjective) ‘for-us’ complexion of this phenomenon/phenomena and all other phenomena. Hence the phenomenal-phenomenological concept of engagement. Now, how is such to be enacted? Through its non-action, i.e., through what is spontaneously found to be there-for-us. Hence the invocation of a recognitional-phenomena/recognition of phenomena by virtue of the immediacy of this type of situation. ‘Spontaneous’ by virtue of the immediate connection being realized between the to-be recognized and the-having recognized in the immediacy of that being-recognized! Once the preconditions are in place then recognition can follow. The moment of recognition effectively being spontaneous in that moment and not between moments even though, conditionally, all processes are processes that occur in and though moments of time. Eidetic reflection merely confirming, hopefully, the veracity of that act of recognition and thence the stability of that initial moment of recognition even though our appreciation of the same must occur between sets of moments (since appreciation is an act of meta-recognition, and, all forms of truth recognition involve appreciative judgments in some form or other within the auspices of the hermeneutic circle  subjected to some degree of an overall transcendental suspension)! (938)

	It could be argued that appreciation is one thing and engagement is another. One could appreciate by various indirect means that there was a recent war in Lebanon, but, if one were on the ground there or above the same in the air and directly engaged in warfare then that is quite a different situation. Or, if one were on the ground there or in Israel and a bomb fell nearby, hopefully not too closely, one could now well be considered to be engaged in that war if only by default or passively. What is it about engagement that make an act of engagement an act of engagement whether that engagement be passively or actively encountered? Indeed, what are the transcendental conditions for an encounter to be considered as an act of engagement; an engagement that is recognized and appreciated for what it is, namely, an engaged encounter with another in some form or other? (939)

	Suppose for the sake of argument a friend is walking along a busy street and you, yourself, are behind that person. You overtake them and pass by without recognizing that the person beside you, whom you are overtaking, is actually a friend of yours. Now, more or less, four different types of scenario could devolve from this type of situation. Both of you could continue to walk on along that street without having encountered each other. One or both of you might recognize the other but not let on that they knew they were passing the other for what ever reason or reasons. Or, one or both of you could come to a moment of recognition and recognize the passing by of the other, in the process signaling the same to the other; in the process finding or not finding a mutuality of recognition, in part or in whole, in this act of a recognized-recognition. Obviously, the situation is more complicated when one considers all the combinations of recognitions, signaled acts of recognition, recognitions of those signaled acts of recognition should they should be present. The simplest scenario in which an engagement is more fully encountered would be, of course, where one of us recognizes the other, signals that recognition, to be met, in turn, with a recognition by the other as their friend, etc. Putting ourselves into this complexity, what provisional comments might we say about the nature of engagement in this light of an absent, partial or full reflexivity of recognition? (940)

	In the light of our non-representational model of perception, etc., we could argue that engagement entails the active co-opting of all the modalities of engagement that would define that relationship as fully engaged or partially engaged or relatively non-engaged, etc. Implicit, therefore, is a question of degrees of involvement realized in that altered process of relative engagement or relative non-engagement. Without some degree of alteration could we claim a process of engagement took place, say in our mere walking along the street? Or, is such engagement with the ground an engagement by default? E.g., am I engaged with the ground if I am in no position to leave the same? Or, does this engagement not take place in this moment of time because I am walking upstairs or sitting in an aeroplane? Whereas in all other moments of time I am necessarily engaged with the ground? Now, in what sense merely walking past a person is act of engagement or non-engagement? Their presence is engaged to the degree that I do not walk into them. Then, in that manner, to the degree they are seen or heard walking past, etc., and this is recognized then in that type of scenario our engagement is minimal, i.e., merely confined to those modalities of seeing or hearing another person passing us by upon that busy street. In a sense we could say our engagement is effectively one of non-engagement, certainly non-engagement in the sense of encountering that other person through the active utilization of some other mode of human encounter, such as speaking, active visual communication between people, attempting to identify them as people we might know, etc., etc. So, we might say, therefore, that engagement is the active adoption and adaptation of a mode of encountering, and, that the modal richness of that engagement is defined by the number of modes engaged and the quality of the engagement within those modalities actively engaged; defining active engagement as a process of engagement adopting that particular mode/s of engagement. So, e.g., I am engaged with the surface of that street by walking along it, and, I am engaged in not bumping into other pedestrians by looking out for them in that sense, and, I engage someone on the street when I signal to them that I wish to engage them in some manner or other, and, they engage me when they signal that they understand to some extent my signaling to them, and, a mutual engagement is encountered when there is an equality of modes engaged by those parties concerned in that engaged encounter, etc. (941)

	From this analysis, am I to assume that a process of engagement in depth is realized when a certain number of expected modes are actively engaged in a certain type of engagement, wherein, in interaction, that process is effectively recognized as relatively mutual through this recognition of this reciprocity of interaction? Now, to complicate this picture, we can add such features as active participation and passive participation, virtual and non-virtual processes of encountering, and, mediated forms of encounter, along with the various types of recognition that might or might not be had in the course of that process of engagement (and the determination of the mutuality of that process of engagement through a consideration of the relative symmetry or asymmetry of the same). Let me define these features. Passive participation is participation by default whereas, in contrast, an active process of participation necessitates the presence of an active act in order to ensure the initiation, continuation and/or cessation of that process of engagement. Virtual engagement is a process of engagement that is simulated whether instrumentally (by use of a computer, etc.) and/or by the use of ones imagination (although correctly the latter is also implicated in the appreciation of the former). Non-virtual engagement is a process of engagement that is simulated in both a full richness of modalities and modal richness in such a manner to such a degree as to be considered as non-merely virtual in nature, i.e., as actually occurring (and hence even a virtual act of engagement is actually occurring to some degree or other to that extent it is also non-virtually engaged). Mediated forms of engagement merely extend those modes of encountering that would have taken place if we were in a position of adequate proximity hence telescopes, mobile phones merely replace or substitute for modes that would have operated if we were to have possessed the necessary degree of proximity to that object and/or subject and/or state of engagement. Lastly, relative mutuality or relative non-mutuality can be defined by the degree of symmetry that, respectively, is relatively present or absent (so, e.g., when I greet a friend and they greet me in return we would have then a mutuality of engagement in that mode of greeting). Thus we have now broadly outlined a philosophy of engagement. Let us now see to what extent a theologian might be able to utilize the same in delineating the possible nature of theological forms of engagement, etc. But, first, let me re-examine phenomenologically this concept of engagement in greater detail and by delineating its transcendental form put ourselves in a position of possibly being able to supply this information to the theologian.  (942)

What does it mean to be truly engaged? I could, e.g., walk across a paddock and admire the rural landscape. If I were to be truly engaged in this activity what would be the difference? Would there be any real difference? Might I be actually less engaged in doing something else in my now being more engaged in my merely walking across this paddock admiring the scenery? This seems to suggest that intentionally formed tasks could be attended to with a greater degree of self-consciousness or mindfulness? So, let us limit our attention to the primary task or tasks to hand. In this instance, walking across this paddock whilst admiring the scenery. Now, if I am walking how is it possible to walk in a more engaged manner, and, if I am admiring the landscape how could I admire the scenery too in a more engage manner? (943)

	Just paying more attention does not seem to be the exact solution to our question here, namely, “how do we become more engaged?” It would appear that we should become more attuned to the nature of our objective or objectives in their own light whilst attending to this task in a more open, interactive fashion? If I am walking across a field of crops then it would be more responsible of me, e.g., to not trample upon them in the process. Or, if I am admiring the scenic qualities of the landscape and those scenic qualities that I am regarding are truly there then I should be attending to such a visual feast and not daydreaming about what I did last night or the year before or what I hope to do when I get to the final destination of my rambling across the countryside, etc! (944)

	It would appear, therefore, that to engage in activity x and activity y implies that I must cease or desist from engaging in all other intentional activities not relevant to the execution and experience of x and y. Or, at least to that degree that impede my proper and appropriate engagement with x and y. Now, with regard to these core activities, what might we say in regard to them? That we should promote our intentional mindfulness of the same to that degree and in that manner that assists us in this attempt to truly engage in those tasks chosen to be so engaged in. In this endeavour, therefore, it would behoove us to enquire as to the modal complexion of that activity under engaged focus and to see that there is a richness of engagement conducted therein! Now, this concept of richness has been utilized elsewhere in a double sense to imply a full engagement with all the modalities associated with the phenomenal nature of that activity, and, in such a manner as to fully engage the same, intentionally, on a mode by mode basis. As noted elsewhere, in a critique of the representational(istic) model of perception and truth determination, the phenomenon of reality, i.e., the experience of reality, is determined through the completeness of the modal complexion associated with that type of phenomenon or phenomena under examination, and, a relative completeness of the exercise of those modalities on a mode by mode basis. Hence this double sense of richness – a relatively richer encountering of the modes associated with a certain type of phenomena and a relatively richer exercise of all of those modalities associated with that particular type of phenomenon (in its specific specification). (945)

	As a process of interaction we also need to attend to the nature of that phenomenon to the extent that it appears to constitute itself within our constitution of it. All phenomena are there for us as phenomena-constituted-by-us. However, the phenomenon also ‘escapes’ our ability to merely constitute it for-ourselves. Because phenomena are also constituted from their own sense of perspective it follows that this constitutional deficit in our own mere encountering of that phenomenon, to that extent that it is constituted by-us, is that novel input supplied in addition to our own contributions. An input that is experienced as an existential excess by virtue of the additional value realized beyond the mere sum of the value/s of its parts, etc. In the light of these qualifications and additional considerations we must now ask ourselves ‘how is this process of evaluation to be conducted in a fully engaged manner?’ (946)

	A longer list of questions can now be entertained. What are the phenomenal limits of the phenomenon in question, i,.e., what modes should properly be engaged, to what extent should they be appropriately engaged, and, how do we go about putting ourselves in a receptive position in order to find ourselves attuned to the existential excess constituted by the phenomenon-itself to that extent it is a phenomenon there for-us above and beyond our mere constitution of it as a phenomenon-there-for-us? I suspect you might by now realize that again we must invoke the exercise of an overall transcendental suspension! Let me look into this last feature in greater detail. (947)

	No phenomenon can be absolutely appropriated! Equally, no phenomenon can be absolutely non-appropriated if we find ourselves being engaged with that phenomenon! In this, the middle path is the only viable alternative! Our knowledge of a certain phenomenon may be wrong, it cannot be absolutely wrong and entirely false. Alternatively, our engagement with a phenomenon cannot be absolutely valid and productive of an absolutely valid judgment… or are we allowed in our transcendental phenomenological investigations (as enacted either critically and/or non-critically in our very reflective and/or non-reflective engagement with the same) to come to an essential judgment that should be considered as entirely valid in that phenomenological frame of reference. E.g., if I taste some brackish water and realize it is salty by nature to what extent would my adding more salt to that water merely confirms my initial reading of the same as salty? Obviously, once that type of determination is clearly made then adding more salt is not going to alter the truth of that determination (but merely re-confirm it since the same could only reinforce the validity of the apparent validity of that phenomenological judgment in that regard). Only in the event that a radical re-evaluation would need to be called, for what ever reason, should we not consider that truth determination to be absolutely fixed and settled within that phenomenal-phenomenological frame of reference. However, under all other current known circumstances we have effectively settled the issue-to-hand. Hence given the adequate understanding of the relevant and prevalent preconditions in this regard, the same then allows us to make a valid truth determination in that phenomenal situation (in accordance with the current limits imposed upon that relativity of determination). Similarly, a valid determination of the prominent modalities associated with our understanding of a particular type of phenomenon should also allow us to evaluate to what extent they are being exercised in our current act of an overall evaluation of the phenomenon or phenomena to-hand. How are these considerations assisted by the conscious exercise of an overall transcendental suspension? Especially in the light of our need to be receptive to that aspect of the phenomenon that appears also to constitute itself from its own point of view? (948)

	Let us be clear in this. In the one world of the Life-World our metaphysical vista can only be of a ‘one-world’ variety. Our thorough critique, in general, of  a representationalistic perspective does away with a dual world or a multiple set of worlds (although not automatically discounting an interconnected set of possible, parallel universes in the form of a multiverse per se). That granted, how do we find ourselves in a position to be receptive to this existential excess constituted by the phenomenon-itself above and beyond the mere constitution of that phenomenon as a phenomenon for-us? By opening ourselves up to a recognition of the same! But, in this dialectic between the known and the unknown how is this process of phenomenal-phenomenological recognition to be arrived at and critically evaluated, etc? By observing where there is resistance to our going further in our phenomenological investigation, and, to what extent they are manufactured in their construction for-us but not by-us, i.e., to what extent that phenomenon-in-question appears to be existentially richer than that which would have been arrived at in our mere presentation/re-presentation of the same. So, e.g., I am looking at the sublime beauty of a landscape whose beauty of detail is found there by-us for-us as if put there by-it above and beyond our mere understanding of the same. In other words, in our selective interaction with the phenomenon in question, to what extent and in what manner does it appears to dictate the nature of that interaction above and beyond our mere input or inputs into that interaction. Such an understanding implying that all interaction will by necessity be two-way and with a degree of mutuality discovered in our overall transcendental suspension of the simulation/re-simulation of the same. Now, let me ask if this model can be applied to the situation of human interaction: are all forms of human interaction mutual in the manner as suggested by this model? (949)

	In this examination we need to ask, among other things, can we have an effective knowledge of other minds? How might we know these other minds? How could we know the mind of another person if we cannot directly experience what they intentionally find themselves experiencing? In reply I would merely echo that we know other minds in the same fashion we come to know our own mind! Let me explain by first relating the following anecdote. (950)

	From the window of the train going up into the Blue Mountains I recently observed a car making a turn into a side road. Thinking about this very issue I asked myself “how could I know the mind of this driver?” I could not see them from where I sat in the train. But I validly assumed that a driver was in charge. I was witnessing intentional behaviour of a person engaged in safely driving a car up the motorway and turning into a side street. He or she appeared to be in charge of their car. But how could I know the mind of this other person even if I were to be seated in that car itself with them? By what means, if at all, am I given to have a valid knowledge of the mind of that driver? For a start, I can argue that it is not the case that I have no knowledge whatsoever of the mind of that other person at the wheel of that car! I can see that their driving is safe and fully engaged intentionally with their desire to drive that car towards a certain destination. How do I know this – by my ability to introject my own mind into the apparent reality of that situation. I know that person is exercising an inter-subjective mode of activity, namely, the genre of safe car-driving. I know, through what I saw, through such simulated empathy, that they knew how to safely turn that car onto that side-road even if I, myself, did not know (directly and/or indirectly) how to turn a car or knew what exactly was entailed in the exercise of the same manoeuvre if it were to be the case that I have never driven a car before (or a bicycle or a children’s toy pedal car for that matter, etc.). Even the road in front of that driver could be re-simulated to some extent. It was of such and such a dimension in breath. Even as the road disappeared around a slight bend I knew in all probability that that road was a short one since the bush of the Blue Mountains National Park was obviously very close to envisaged end of that same side road. Most likely I have never met that person driving that car but I understood the apparent motivation of that driver through an examination of the intentional nature of my own mind. Of course this was not a route to obtain an absolute knowledge of what that driver fully intended and fully experienced because even that driver themselves could never be in a position to absolutely appropriate such ‘knowledge’! But, needless to say, they, and myself, are both in a position to understand what that driver themselves was apparently engaged in since to do what they did meant that they were fully engaged in ‘safely driving that car’. Through simulation I, too, was in a position to adequately understand what type of intentionality that person was then currently engaged in. To safely drive that car they must be intending to safely drive the same. They appeared to be safely driving that car, therefore, they must have been engaged in intentional processes that ensured they were, indeed, safely driving that car! I may not know why or where they were headed, but, I can assume that the driver must have had some idea of why and where they were headed. Again, I am not arguing for an absolute knowledge, only an adequate knowledge of the same. Similarly, conversely, I cannot claim, nor feel the need to claim, that I have an absolute knowledge of what that driver is doing since I have already told you that I am satisfied that this driver was ‘safely driving along the motorway and safely made a left-hand turn onto a side street’. Hence the relative adequacy of a relative knowledge in this regard [as situated within the limits imposed upon the (internal) propriety and (external/contextual) adequacy of the same]. Through a simulated understanding of my own mind I found myself in a position to relatively appropriate the apparent intentionality being exhibited to that extent I was privy to the perception of that same driver and understood the apparently unique set of genres of activity involved in the distinctive demonstration of that type of intentional behaviour (associated with a neutral description of the apparent intentional behaviour observed to have taken place in that situation in question). (951)

	But, even though we may have some minimal understanding of other minds in operation does this allow me to argue for a mutuality of reciprocity in this regard. I am sure the driver did not see me, in person, looking at them from this train. How could they, they were safely driving that car. They may have seen the train or they may not have not seen that train. Either way it makes no difference – what reciprocity could be argued for here? Does my perception, and my perception alone, of that car being driven along the motorway, etc., set up any degree of mutuality and reciprocity of interaction and engagement? Or, to what meaningful extent could a minimal degree of reciprocity and mutuality be claimed for in this overall interaction itself? Is this possible? (952)

	Perhaps this question is wrongly posed? Perhaps we should be asking to what degree is a non-mutuality of reciprocity taking place and could that be absolutely negative in extent? Set up like that it is obvious, for a number of reasons I will set out, that we cannot claim an absolute degree of non-mutuality and non-interaction. For a start, my invocation of this event itself it tantamount to a recognition of a minimal degree of mutual interaction? Let me explain. (953) 

	For a start that driver is driving in public. They expect to be seen when they are seen, and, under normal circumstances, hope to be seen as someone safely driving their car. In this they also assume that other drivers should normally be attempting to drive safely on the roads, and, that all non-drivers would generally keep off the streets to that extent possible. Even if they were to assume some drivers are not as responsible as they themselves, still, their treatment of those miscreant drivers as not conforming to expectations of safe driving they are then seen as exceptions to this expectation, and, thankfully, the exception and not the rule! So, a degree of mutuality is already written into this type of behaviour along with expectations that generally this expectation can be trusted. Hence, in the light of such considerations, all overall transcendental suspensions of the same should be generally productive of an inter-subjectively-oriented overall transcendental suspension. Then, from the understanding that all forms of hermeneutic comprehension involve this inter-subjective element of genres, etc., the following implication can be explicated, namely, that all processes of thought, intentionally constituted, demand the exercise of a public language and never an absolutely pure, subjective private language. Hence all forms of intentional constitution are by-us for-us (and never purely by-me for-me and me alone even though all intentional constitution is also always aspectivally oriented in perspective. Thence the dialectic involved in this interaction between the subjective and the inter-subjective, i.e., the textual and the meta-textual). (954)

	The above granted, how is an inter-subjective overall transcendental suspension realized; how is the same then critically appreciated; what implications has this for our understanding of the essential nature of this phenomenon of engagement (versus, in contrast, a relatively non-engaged engagement); and, what insights does this supply the theologian that they might be able to apply the same to their appreciation of the possibility of Divine interaction with/within the world, etc? (955)

	In essence, because we live in one-Life-World, and the same is defined through the dialectical interaction of the three moments of World, Object and Ego, it follows that our sense of self is not purely coincidental with itself but positioned, in effect, somewhere partially toward the middle of this semblance of a Life-World and thence open to being viewed as inter-subjectively and objectively oriented as well as subjectively oriented. Although embodied from an empirical point of view, transcendentally we are defined through the confluence of subjective, inter-subjective and objective modes. Hence our public face. Thence our exhibition as objectively and inter-subjectively oriented (and orientated) given these extensions into this World-of-Life itself. The exercise of a proper and an appropriate overall transcendental suspension reveals these dialectical facets in the deep constitution of personal identity, etc. So, the critical exercise of a suspension should reveal these dialectical facets upon our constitution constructed/re-constructed before others. (956)

	In my interaction with another person we should find that our relationship re-constitutes us from within this relational ‘space’ between the empirical sense of the other person as an embodied agent and my own empirical sense of an embodied self. This re-constituted sense of self is transcendental in orientation and is dialectically distinctive from this empirical sense of self, i.e., relatively distinctive but not absolutely distinctive since there is a dialectical relationship between the these two senses. Relatively dependent and in(ter)dependent but neither absolutely dependent nor absolutely independent. Just as I have argued that the transcendental is dependent upon the non-transcendental through transcendentalization, so too the non-transcendental can be seen as the de-transcendentalization of the transcendental. This is the very nature of the existential – a dialectical dynamic between the non-existential and the existential. The dialectical consequence of this interaction is the ongoing simulation/re-simulation of identity. In this instance that of my own sense of self as a person who is interacting with another person, and v.v. Similarly, when I interact with an object-state in my immediate environment. I define the phenomenon in question and in and through my interaction with it reinforce and/or revise my understanding of the same. Although under the overall transcendental suspension this phenomenon could be treated as a ‘mere phenomenon’ as the phenomenon is constituted by myself it can never in that sense be just a mere phenomenon since the phenomenality of the phenomenon can be neither absolutely encompassed by my constitution of it nor by the constitution of itself from its perspective (so to speak metaphorically). However, the phenomenal penumbra cast by my constitutional understanding of the same can be treated as a mere phenomenon for the purposes of applying the overall transcendental suspension in an open, critical fashion. Then, as noted earlier, the existential excess met in our engagement as a surplus of value is in turn treated in the same way, etc. By such a process the ongoing evolution of the realization of identity, in a passive and/or active senses, is more fully engaged. Indeed, engagement is the realization of this existential excess devolved across this dialectical territory wherein an ongoing process of semi-speculative envisioning is successfully met and where, from the opposite perspective, identity is existentially dictated from the epistemologically organized embodiment of that in question. Greater degrees of engagement meeting greater degrees of an existential excess, and v.v. Now, a third broad classification of interactive process can be passively observed, i.e., between other parties either objectively and/or subjectively interacting. E.g., the types of interaction say between a person throwing a rock at another person, or, merely throwing a rock, or, a rock rolling down a hillside (as a consequence of the former action of being thrown or merely by accident). In our passive perception of the same we are not directly involved but only witness the same in some form or other. Whereas, in contrast we can be actively and/or passively involved in either a relationship with another person or persons (or an institution) or involved with a non-subjectively, objectively oriented party. Now, the theologian would like to add a fourth category to this classification, namely, the element of a theological interaction. I.e., the interaction between some envisaged sense of the Divine and the non-divine be it objective and/or subjective in nature. In effect, in the sense that these three classifications of the directly oriented inter-subjective, the directly oriented inter-subjective-objective and the indirectly oriented inter-subjective/inter-objective are witnessed, as interacting, into that mix the theologian inserts the element of divine interaction be it Divine-non-divine in orientation, Non-divine-Divine in orientation, and/or, oriented towards an inter-Divine-non-divine style of a mutually interactive orientation. Let me look more closely, in a continuance of our open hypothetical attitude, at these three styles of interaction. (957)

	We have here, from our own perspective, three plus one fields, namely, interpersonal relationships, relationships with non-personal objects, relationships non-participated in by oneself (in three styles of the interpersonal, interpersonal-objective and the inter-objective), and, a possible theological intersection with one or more of these three fields (i.e., in one or more of those three styles). Having already argued that the relative unity of the Life-World is essentially theological in complexion, organization and orientation, on the assumption that this dialectical-process sense of the Divine must intersect all three field/styles we then have, on these minimal transcendental grounds, the hypothetical creation of a potentially viable mundane theology. ‘Mundane’ in the sense that it no more than the mere unity of the world as apparently ‘lived within’. Then, in considering this theological complexion from its own sense of perspective, from our own sense of perspective, or, from the perspective of an interactive process between its sense of perspective/s and our own sense of perspectives gives us three orientations or flavours of theological-like experience. But be that as it may, should it be the case to any meaningful degree of viability, a mundane theology cannot support a theologian, in their profession as a theologian, in any substantial, religious sense. Obviously, it would be their desire to see a mundane theology transformed into a trans-mundane theology., i.e., a theology with a full degree of religious value; i.e., with a significant religious semblance of sense, meaning and meaningfulness (as parallels our concepts of theological identity, theological work and theological value). The transformative construction of such an edifice would establish a theoretical trans-mundane theology. But, the practical religious ramifications of such an operation returned to its mundane basis, if paralleled in reality, would then establish a practical trans-mundane theology. The proper and appropriate balance between a theoretical trans-mundane theology and a practical trans-mundane theology would then establish, via this overall transcendental suspension, a critical trans-mundane theology. Hence these four task of the committed theologian or theologist, namely, the establishment of the domain of a mundane theology and its transformation in theoretical, practical and critical domains. The proper, appropriate and valid balance between these domains hypothetically creating, under such optimistic circumstances, a mutual, deep theology as an in-depth theology. Thence the viability of a trans-mundane theology would necessitate an in depth development of these four departments of theological concern. Through the exposition of this complex territory I have now established the professional limits involved in the formation of a balanced professional theology. Indeed, the work of the theologian can now be seen to operate within these four departments! Thence the complex nature of theological work. (958)

	Within these four departments various non-traditional and/or traditional topics can be arranged in various schema. E.g., in this light we can mention our work to date on the topic of engagement as examined from a hypothetical, transcendental form and point of view. Similarly, concepts of recognition, etc. At this stage let me combine these two topics and examine the (hybrid) concept of (an) engaged-recognition. (959)

	If we were to engage a friend by chance upon a street and both of us signaled that we were not in a hurry and happy to chat our ensuing engagement would not be merely visual, the statement of some formulae for greeting and parting, a handshake and a wave of the hand goodbye, etc. No, we would be engaging each other in a dialogue; discussing a certain number of topics in various degrees of depth, etc. This unique conversational ‘space’ would be mutually carved out by both of us as we proceeded to engage each other in conversation. We might well guess what we would be going to talk about, but, then, not know exactly where each of those topics might lead. In this we invite an existential surplus in the course of our conversation. Such an excess should be regarded as both supplementary and complementary. Supplementary in the sense that that additional value is added to our already understood understanding of that conversational topic, whereas, in contrast, complementary value is realized in the novelty of the existential space uniquely carved out through our conversational interaction with each other. In the latter there is not only a surplus of value but also a surplus of topicality in and through the unique novelty carved out as an existential consequence of that interaction in and through being-with-another. Meaning and significance is not just carved out but also carved out afresh so to speak! In this we go beyond mere reproduction of intentional simulation into a sphere of novel presentation and its iterated/re-iterated re-presentation thereafter. In this regard, engagement can be seen as invoking an existential surplus in both a supplementary sense and in a complementary sense. In this milieu the comparative quality of that interaction could be judged by the degree that existential value is able to be procured above and beyond that relational basis upon which it arose. (960)

	This surplus of value, beyond that invested in this process of engagement, is also an indication of the extent to which that relationship is being engaged. Furthermore, this value, in being re-invested, assists the ongoing continuance of that relationship as expressed in and through that current process of engagement. What, if any, is the relationship between these aspects of the quantitatively supplementary and the qualitative complementary? Positioned within the hermeneutic circle one might regard the former intensity as a feature of intentional objectivity whilst the latter sense of a novelty of field is a feature of intentional contextuality. Together, balanced against each other, helping us to determine the overall existential merit or value of that process of engagement. Engagement not only intensifies the accompanying sense of experience but also carves out for itself a unique and novel sense of field in the process. It being in this sense of contextual novelty that a sense of revelation opens itself up to us regardless of whether that sense of revelation is theological or non-theological, religious or non-religious in its reception. Thus, in this regard, all forms of engagement release a sense of power (whose successful re-investment will continue that process of engagement until such a time the continuity is disrupted and our focus is directed elsewhere through either a diminishment of that surplus for re-investment and/or our investment is re-directed elsewhere through association, etc., and/or a new field of interest is developed for what ever reasons). (961)

	This existential surplus does not seem to take two distinctively separated forms, namely the supplementary and the complementary, therefore, we must conclude that, in some form or other, they must co-occur through the third moment of this hermeneutic circle, and, that collectively they should be seen to form an overall sense of the existential (even though the existential moment is normally considered to be the third moment coinciding with Ego/existential/present historical moment/non-textual, etc.). (962)

	What are the possible ramifications of this type of insight, namely, that the existential carves out a novel territory or emergent space in our intentional interactions beyond the augmentation of the merely supplementary? For a start, what is the intentional nature of this field of innovative uniqueness that is synthesized between other fields and cannot be reductively reduced to fields upon which it is initially based and through which it expresses its relatively interdependent independence (and epistemologically sub-structured organizational dependence)? Some philosophers might suggest that this is a linguistic innovation or turn; a novel field of discourse that cannot be satisfactorily reduced to those fields that preceded its emergent origination. Other philosophers have debated whether its constitution is essentially with an intentional image or without an image (again, the latter along more linguistic/conceptual lines of intentional development). In my opinion ‘images’ are the visually projected and simulated concretization of metaphorical constructions that are amenable to such a process. On the other hand, the entertainment of concepts would project the objective-like shadow of an image if the concept or set of concepts in question is/are amenable to the second order of integration (as discussed in my vision of an ordered philosophy) and thence would be capable of being entertained as an integrated idea (whose content must be a fully integrated second order essential). But the intentional entertainment of a third order idea/concept does not imply that it can automatically pass fully into a fourth order as a percept and therein find some form of empirically based sensory-like treatment as a possible/actual empirical object-state regardless of whether it is being simulated in some particular sense or other (as an image, hallucination, delusion, desired project, imaginative construction/re-construction, re-constructed memory, etc., etc.). On the other hand, the integration of an idea does seem to cast a shadow of objectivity into the fourth order? Hence my middle path here between ‘images’ or ‘linguistic-like constructions’. An analogy here might throw some light on this ability of a conceptual idea to sometimes be able to project itself as an image and, perhaps, on other occasions to cast only the faint semblance of an objective-like shadow. In previous discussions of the inability of metaphor to be literalized there was one exception to be noted, namely, the realization, when it occurs, that x is like y and is found to be y. So, e.g., I see someone coming along the street who ‘looks like James’ and on closer inspection, when I put my glasses on perhaps, or when they come closer to me, I realize is ‘James’. In this sense of ‘like’ the metaphorical ‘is like’ can become an “‘is not just like’ but an ‘is’”! Otherwise there is an inability of the metaphorical as a concept (and v.v.) to be treated to a complete(d) process of literalization. On the other hand, as noted, the semblance of integrity in an integrated conceptual thought entertained as an integrated idea could be cashed out in an empirical-like, perceptually-oriented sensory mode/set of modes but only as a metaphorical-like shadow, the trace of an object, as an objective like penumbra, etc. In the context of this ordered analysis, therefore, one must gravitate more to the end of the spectrum of ‘without an image’ in our simulation of most non-supplementary and supplementary fields of experience and their reported discourse. That accepted, intentional objectivity would then be experienced, in reflection, as either poorly-integrated or well-integrated (in its objective-like satisfaction) and either able to be transformed into a sensory-like mode of simulation or not able to be so transformed (for what ever reasons that might inhibit this latter modality and degree of objective satisfaction). Then, once this novel field of emergence is thematized its re-iteration would consolidate its particular/specific value through its semblance of sense (as created through our personal/cultural/intercultural mapping of our experience of the Life-World). A(n intentionally simulated) state of affairs that not only augments traditional classifications but also additionally invests them with newly emergent fields of value-formation (as noted through our term of the ‘complementary’). Needless to say, the theologian would have to take this into account in their construction/re-construction of theological and theologically-oriented discourses. With this objective in mind let me now re-continue this investigation into the existential nature of this hybrid concept of engaged-recognition in order to understand the nature of insight in general (and in particular to see how it might be hypothetically applied to specific instances of religious thought and experience?). (963)

	A recognition of recognition is, essentially, insight; a process of insightfulness. Effectively, a seeing through the situation to hand and in the process re-seeing something in a new light - finding something that was already there but up to that point in time not then currently being consciously recollected. Sometimes, insight is a seeing again what had already been seen but was more recently overlooked. Or, insight is a sudden seeing more in a situation, i.e., finding our re-reading of that situation delivered a greater degree of interpretative understanding than that had in previous readings. Our reading either finding more that could be read into that situation, or, discovering a new way to read from an emergent re-organization of those styles of reading adopted through to the creation of newer styles of reading through a radical adaptation of the former (in addition to the former styles still being brought to bear upon our text/s in question subjected to this ongoing complex process of interpretation/re-interpretation). This general process of re-reading, therefore, being the realization of a mix of supplementary and complementary forms of a surplus in value. Now, all processes of re-reading are going to result in some degree of an existential excess even if only of a minimum quantum (in which event that reading event would then naturally terminate and a new reading event would be begun). Insightfulness, however, is when the addition of minor inputs realizes, through chaotic processes of re-organization, a considerably greater degree of value than the mere value approximately attached to those additional inputs. Insight therefore is achieved through a process of considerable re-organization. The intensity of that insight proportionately reflecting, in general, that degree of re-organization. Consequently, the different types of re-organizational processes should typologically classify the associated types of insightfulness realized therein within those attendant processes of re-organization. However, since insight, effectively, is the intentional recognition of intentionally perceived/apperceived changes in our conscious appreciation of our intentional object(ive)s then this more superficial formation and appreciation of structural change implies that differences in sub-structural processes that initiated those processes of insight would more likely be overlooked or not able to be looked into. So, in qualification, we can only say that differences in relatively more superficial processes might produce different types of insightful recognition despite the fact, that in general, insight is an expression applied to any process of re-reading that realizes a considerably greater degree of value in comparison to the (quanta of) value of those additional inputs that initiated that process of interpretative re-organization. In the light of this model, we now need to ask how the hermeneutic economy (within the hermeneutic circle) is able to be appreciated given the metaphorical confines of this ‘circulation’ between three archetypal moments (the textual, meta-textual and the non-textual, or their equivalents in some other field such as the gestalt, phenomenal, etc.)? By realizing there can be no completely confined economy by virtue of the fact that the hermeneutic circle is not mono-dimensional but dialectically poly-dimension in all aspects and on all levels of epistemological organization, i.e., as circles within circles within circles, etc. Now, given this more complex modeling, we can perceive the room that could be present for chaotic forms of re-organization to undermine and re-organize relatively more superficially oriented super-structural forms of intentional objectivity. The following rules, therefore, could be formulated: that sub-structural re-organization is necessary in order to initiate processes of super-structural re-organization; i.e., the insightful production/re-production of processes of insight, and, those processes of minor super-structural re-organization, essentially, are merely recognized if registered in intentional consciousness; i.e., are merely recognitional in nature and not overly insightful in intensity (through the relative lack of an interpretative re-organization and its ensuing productive lack of a relative hermeneutic excess-excess in value-formation). That, although the psyche in all aspects and on all levels of epistemological organization dialectically operates as a poly-dimensional hermeneutic circle a relative simplicity can be introduced when the resultant effect of such epistemological activity can be registered, metaphorically or analogically, as an emergent resultant of an overall, virtual hermeneutic circle representative of such presentation/re-presentation and all differences in intensity in value-formation therein. (964)

	Therefore, in the light of the above, all process of recognition and insightful recognition are realized in processes of epistemological re-organization, however, the (change in the) intensity of that change in intentional reception determines whether we are merely experiencing an apparent process of recognition or are the recipient of a process of relatively more insightful recognition. Now, given this artificial simplification of an overall virtual resultant hermeneutic circle, how are we to metaphorically explain this process of recognition be it insightful or merely recognitional in scope? If recognition is not realized, there, therefore, can be no recognition. If, on the other hand, recognition is realized (in conscious intentional reception) how do we go from the former state to the latter (since they logically contradict each other!)? Either there is no recognition or there is recognition, and, if that is the case, how do we go from the former to that latter? By recognizing that the mind is alive with continual processes of recognition be they micro-textual in nature or macro-textual in nature. The occurrence of macro-textual readings being more insightfully received! The realization and recognition of a relatively greater shift in the current process of reading probably over-writing our recognition of those pre-conditional minor inputs that contributed to that more dominant process realized in that insightful process of re-writing its basis (along with all or most minor inputs that contributed to that process of relatively radical re-organization). (965)

	Therefore, we can assume, if we are correct in our understanding of the process of recognition and its input into processes of insightfulness, and both recognition and insight are on a par as processes of re-organization, that an understanding of recognition should assist us in our understanding the nature of insight (assuming that the overall nature of insight, effectively, is the same despite possible typological differences from a sub-structural point of view?)? Now, being realized in an overall virtual resultant hermeneutic economy how should this process of recognition be understood within that type of analogical modeling? In other words, how is this dialectical process between seeing and re-seeing, between not seeing and then being able to see/re-see, augment our understanding of the process of insight? (966)

	Basically, we already dance with the other! The nature of the relevant hermeneutic field channels our expectations whilst, at the same time, that under intentional focus is effectively retrospective in orientation through a retention of that intentional objective, in effect attempting to fix it for the operative processes of analysis, projection, identification, etc., etc. Now, we could say, that recognition is realized when there is a (sudden) symmetry between expectational protentions and retrospective retentions, i.e., in our shift from the meta-textual to the textual, and v.v., a region of invariance is discovered between the same. This alignment between ‘the expected but not yet known’ and ‘the just known but not quite expected’ realizing a process of symmetry upon a core region of co-intentional invariance. The magnitude and ramifications of this process of recognition determining whether such a process of re-alignment is effectively insightful or not; such being determined through the degree of re-organization being experienced given this pre-conditional condition of alignment. How is all this ‘a dance with the other’? First, this sense of otherness cannot be absolute. Second, an element of expectation must be pre-conditionally present. Third, those expectations must be met to some degree or other. Fourth, this process of recognition must re-organize that field of recognition. Fifth, there must be a commutative symmetry between text and meta-text, etc. Sixth, such a symmetry must be productive of an existential surplus of value by virtue of this mutuality of access, the degree of that surplus determining the associated degree of recognitional-insightfulness. Effectively, this semblance of otherness conforms to all six of these requirements, therein, being neither (ahistorically) absolutely other nor (historically) absolutely non-other. In this meeting otherness is both revealed and cancelled simultaneously, hence the appearance of sudden illumination when ‘we shake hands with that (sense of) other(ness) and that (sense of) other(ness) shakes hands with us’ (or so its seems metaphorically). Re-iteration of that insightfully productive process merely re-confirming that process of insightfulness (eidetically). (967)

	Recognition is, effectively, a form of resolution. In essence a question(ing) is posed: is this event x-like in character, etc? An unknown otherness is approached and then assimilated its recognition, if this type of question can indeed be determined. This process of problematic formulation, approach, recognition and assimilation being realized within an overall transcendental suspension (whether we are cognitively aware of the mechanics and/or the nature of that fact or not). As a result of recognition and assimilation this state of resolution in effect changes our perception of the net projected psychic energy of that under examination. An insightful appreciation being realized, more or less, in equal proportion to the differential experienced in our changing experience and appreciation in the projection of this state of psychic energy. Now, should we perceive this change as an increase in energy (or entropy) or as a release or emission of energy or as a storage or banking of energy assets in our invocation of this metaphor of energy (or entropy or power?)? Then, what is implicated in our associated metaphor of a projection of power, or, rather, an augmented projection of power? (968)

For the sake of argument, let me examine the following: we give ourselves a chess problem; in looking for a resolution of this chess puzzle, say what is the best move for white, how is such a task to be undertaken? We examine a number of obvious moves, checking out some of the combinational possibilities that might stem from the same. We know there is a solution, we trust the title of the puzzle that states there is a solution and we hope that the form of the puzzle is correctly printed in our newspaper or magazine. Then we find one move and a combination from the same that appears to let us, as white, easily win. How do we experience this insight into this game and how do we evaluate its effectiveness as a solution, indeed, the solution to this puzzle? Whereas before this ‘discovery’ all ‘possible solutions’ appeared to be only possibilities now, once we are in possession of this apparent insight, we now may feel that this particular course is the solution. We feel a resolution of this puzzle with the solution being adopted finding a degree of psychic weight far beyond all the other possibilities that so far did not pan out as possible resolutions of this puzzle. We can confirm this solution as the solution by testing it, namely, by re-iterating this solution in the context of this puzzle. Then, as a final form of checking we can compare our solution with the solution posted by that newspaper or magazine. If we were to find that we had indeed found the same solution as posted we feel content that we have been able to resolve this puzzle. On the other hand, if we find we had the wrong solution we re-test our defective solution to see what we might have overlooked. Usually we find some defect in our reasoning, a state of affairs that most likely would annoy us; finding a degree of dissatisfaction in having overlooking that one detail or more that would have ruled out our defective solution. Now, it does appear to be the case that a false recognition can be recorded as positively as a valid recognition, or at least masquerade to that degree. But, once seen as defective, we find that newer ‘insight’ to be much stronger, more powerful in value. Overall, degrees of validity are experienced in the resolution of puzzles; resolutions that need to be tested for their validity and critically tested. Now, it seems that those readings of a certain textual situation are perceived as valid when there is this positive change in our overall appreciation of our perception of their overall energy (whose differentiation realizes an augmented projection of power). When we find ourselves feeling at home in a text, the re-simulation of that text takes on a transparent-like complexion. The shift to a relative transparency in our reading of a text has a certain greater forcefulness or facility about it. However, the existential characteristics of that energy cannot divorce it from the nature of that realization. If we cheat and look for the answer we experience the answer as an ‘answer’ but not as an ‘answer discovered by us’. Moreover, if the nature of our psychic condition is such that we adopt a predetermined pre-reading of that text, then our ‘reading’ of that text must dictate an answer, rightly or wrongly, that must be more-constructed-by-us rather than being-discovered-by-us. In this, in effect, degrees of authenticity and/or inauthenticity become attached to the overall experience of that resolution entered into. So, if someone has a strong commitment to a particular reading of a certain situation then their reading will be forced through such a filter and consequently will also demonstrate, rightly or wrongly, some degree of inauthenticity. Under such circumstances, there is a greater likelihood of an ontological psychosis being exercised; a state of affairs that a critical hermeneut could possibly demonstrate by examining the constitution of both that determinative process and its determination through an examination of its textual deposition and associated textuality. E.g., if a certain person were to be paranoid and thought their friend was trying to poison them then the apple given to them by this friend might well be regarded as ‘poisonous’, especially being ‘that bright red apple taken from the very top of the fruit-bowl’. Now, that friend might merely have wanted to give this person ‘the best looking and the most ripe of those apples from that-fruit bowl which just happened to be the apple on the top of the others in this fruit-bowl’. Whereas, on the other hand, the paranoid person perceives that apple as obviously ‘the poisoned one meant for them being he most red apple in that fruit bowl and being taken from the top’. The paranoid person may well feel that they are right in their appreciation of this situation. Why would their so-called friend want to give them the only apple that is completely red all over? Both readings of this situation are perceived as valid from their respective points of view but, I would argue, the paranoid person’s reading of the situation is more forced and more contrived. Ideally, it should more easily be able to be deconstruct the less authentically constructed text. Unfortunately, for the psychotic person, demolition of their arguments and interpretations is usually resisted in proportion to the degree that they are psychotically composed and the proximity we bear to those focal areas of psychosis or hot-spots (as I would also nominate them). The skilful hermeneut, however, has a variety of tricks in their profession that might allow them to ‘show’ this greater degree of forced fabrication in the formation of a psychotic phenomenon through its textual reportings and depositions (e.g., through challenging; probing ‘hot spots’; demonstrating resistance; performing a reversed role play [and asking what the psychotic person thinks others might say about their texts]; exhibiting faulty a priori logic; revealing an easier facility for the deconstruction of texts surrounding ‘false’ or ‘relatively fabricated readings’ versus readings of a more naturally constructed fashion, i.e., those readings constructed in conformance with the normal expectations of the appropriately associated genre/s, etc., etc.). Often, however, such attempts to show the faulty logic at work can be to no avail – a diagnostic indicator in itself and further evidence that the presence of a psychotic reading in some form or other, indeed, is actually present! Still, even for the psychotic person some degree of insight must also be still present for-them in some covered up form or format even though they manifestly adopt incorrect presuppositions, maintain invalid judgmental processes and continue to assert their mis-perceived senses of resolution in their relative mis-treatment of those relevant types of scenarios, etc. In the midst of all this pre-determined assertion forms of natural deconstruction can still manifest themselves suggesting that the transcendental sense of self is not so absolute convinced about the authenticity of such adopted and pre-adopted positions. (969)

How might we wish to characterize this transition between the relative opaqueness being experienced in our attempted interpretations of a text and the sometimes sudden, insightful-like, seemingly transparent realization of its resolution as constructed by themselves? How is this shift from relative opaqueness to relative transparency of a textual situation to be analogued and metaphorically treated (in terms of this model of energy?)? What is it about the apparently successful act of reading that creates this ‘illusion’ of textual transparency? When I come to a new text in Sanskrit I first feel it could be joking referred to as all ‘Greek’ to me (in an allusion to Shakespeare’s play McBeth, Act I). Then, with some closer scrutiny, an appreciation of grammar and vocabulary, etc., the text eventually takes on a transparent-like condition (assuming that the text is well-formed in Sanskrit in the first place). The problematic bits seem finally to coagulate into a coherent whole. The text takes on a unique powerfulness of its own. From this emerges an emergent reading with its associated sense of an existential excess – hence this perception of a certain distinctive power or powerfulness being emitted from this reading of that text, a reading that allows us to appear to ourselves as more powerful as if given instruction by this text once successfully read. In effect, the text defines us as a reader of that text and defines itself in and through its place in a literary universe (as a certain type of text, by a certain type of author, with certain unique characteristics, to be experienced with a certain definitive discharge/emission of an existential excess, etc.). Hence the sense, meaning and meaningfulness, i.e., the distinctive value, of that text is thematized by that successful reader. Thence the appearance of this phenomenon of a simulated/re-simulated textual-transparency. The transition to this state of understanding being experience, metaphorically, as a change of energy in our overall evaluation of that text to the extent that we find ourselves able to read it; remembering that no text can be absolutely appropriated nor absolutely non-appropriated. For under all circumstances we are able or read a text to some degree or other as a text by virtue of our recognition of it as a text delivered through some form of intentional activity be it as a letter or a few squiggling marks scratched upon the sand, etc! (970)

	This differentiated augmentation of energy in our reading of the world as it presents itself to us in this textualized format can also be regarded as a projection of power. If I found a treasure map and found myself able to correctly read it, and was able to carry out its instructions, then I am in a position to find that treasure should it still exist. Finding that treasure would more than likely make a difference to the quality of my existence. Recognition of a treasure map as a treasure map gives me a whole new set of options, in effect a greater degree of possible freedoms. I might not decide to search for that treasure should I believe it were to exist, but, still, that is still an option there for me. Of course, I am not suggesting that all texts are like treasure maps! However, overall, the more relevant texts we can read the more we find our passage through the world being facilitated. As a consequence, we could argue that we now ‘see more deeply’ into the fabric of the world and, therein and thereby, find our existence finding an easier and richer set of paths to chose from and follow. In the economy of our existence some texts may well prove to be distractions or obstacles, yet, overall, the very tenor of our existence depends upon our ability and facility in ‘reading this text of the world and all the infinite texts that could be found therein’. Furthermore, by entering new genres of activities we are presented with more options, additional modes of life, etc. Hence this treatment of an existential excess realized in recognition, and its associated insightfulness, can be treated as a projection of power even if all or any of those options we find presented to us do not get adopted and exercised in an active fashion. Power is the potential to adopt a new direction in our actively engaging the world. Such potential also continually recasts that world-for-us in such a form wherein we can project ourselves in that newly constituted manner. Whether we actively adopt that new configuration or not the constitution of the world-for-us is now a different place in that regard! Thence a projection of power in this sense as a possible genre of activity now open to us even if not adopted and adapted, entered and exercised, etc. (971)

	The nature of recognition, essentially, is dialectical in nature. We don’t deal with complete unknowns and wholly others, nor do we, equally, find ourselves being able to absolutely appropriate the absolute truths of our texts. The unknown is never absolutely unknown nor is the known absolutely known. In recognition we find the semi-unknown becoming the semi-known, and, in de-recognition, in the recognition of a false judgment, the semi-known can become the semi-unknown again. In this recognition and de-recognition are processes. However, given the way things are constituted for-us by-us from time to time progress is made by virtue of this progression wherein things are found to find themselves being sorted, into sheep and goats so to speak. A differentiated world differentiated in each and every mode of life adopted and adapted in our passage through this World-of-Life. A passage predicated on this very ability to differentiate this simulated fabric of the world, i.e., the world as intentionally textualized for-us by-us! (972)

	Is there a moral for the theologian in this analysis of recognition, insight and this projection of power as we navigate this open world of semi-otherness? Ultimately, the theologian will have to offer some form of evidential testimony for their theological vision of the Life-World. In this the theologian has much work to do (by virtue of their relative lack of what might count as evidential in character)! Even if the anthem “we must have faith” is supplied, still, we need to know what type of faith should we have and in what type of objective it is that we should have that faith in! Faith cannot be completely blind! Faith is ‘faith in something conducted in a certain fashion, etc.’ Openness is a different matter, but, still, we need to know how to be open ‘to what’ we should be open to, and, in that find we have already pre-defined what it might be that we should be looking out for should it happen to appear before us. Otherwise there could be no recognition and thence no process of insightfulness (into the nature of that objective). Thus, in this type of task, we have already laid the transcendental foundations, so to speak, as to what rules the theologian should comply with in order to expedite the nature of their discipline, etc. Furthermore, given such work, such theological discipline, they would then be in a position to define the distinctive nature of that work. In the same type of fashion, I might add, as any other worker in the world. But, as to gainful employment, that would be best left to an appraisal of the fruits of their labours in this regard! To conclude this segment of my extended essay let me discuss what I believe to be the structural nature of those foundations in so far as we are able to metaphorically analogue that type of endeavour from an overall point of view. The essence of the theological discipline is an examination of the divine economy. As a heuristic device I would like to propose that, more effectively, this is realized through a treatment of the relationship between a mundane theology and a trans-mundane theology as previously discussed in paragraph 958. Hopefully, the reasoning behind this strategy of mine will become more self-evident in time. In this I am not arguing that it is impossible to merely have a mundane theology, or, that a mundane theology is without the circulation of value, only, that within its sphere no theologian could be said to be gainfully employed, at least not in a traditional sense, or, at least find a satisfactory form of employment given their additional need for the explication of a religious dimension with a theological complexion in their experience of the world. (973)

	First, let me examine, hypothetically, a mundane theology and determine the nature of the circulation of value-expected-to-be-experience by-us within those terms of reference. Second, again hypothetically, let me introduce a trans-mundane theological dimension. Then, thereafter, in hypothetical terms, let me discuss the theoretical, practical and critical aspects of the relationship between a mundane theology and a trans-mundane theology. Lastly, I will exam, again hypothetically, both the logical ramifications and the dialectical ramifications that this relationship (and its deconstruction) might have for the committed theologist. (974)

	From the non-absolute unity of the Life-World we can formulate a mundane theology, i.e., through processes of non-absolute unification and its associated concomitant  epistemological organizational complexity the Life-World can be treated, by default, as possessing a theological complexion. However, an epistemological organization in advance of that possessed by the human agent is not in and of itself enough to qualitatively and quantitatively count for the exemplification of Divinity in a religious, theologically rich mode. Hence a mundane theology accepts that the Life-World is in possession of a theological-like complexion but is (provisionally) treated also as possessing no adequate or relevant religious ambiance or overtones (in those limited [pre-deconstructed] philosophical terms of reference). The qualified, non-absolute, limited transcendental unity of the Life-World does not imply the existence of a dimension of religious-like proportions as assumed in traditional and non-traditional theologies (with a fervent theologically directed/directable overlay). Thence the existence of a trans-mundane theology necessitates the qualitative and quantitative advancement upon a mundane theology as guaranteed through the limited transcendental unity of the Life-World. By qualitative advancement is meant an epistemological organization that is modally rich enough to be considered as qualitatively in advance by several orders of dimension than that obtained by default in and through a mundane theology. By quantitative advancement is meant an epistemological organization that is modally rich in the number of modalities being subsumed in advance by several orders of dimension than that obtained by default in and through a mundane theology. By theological complexion is meant an emergent existential surplus of value that is attendant upon the structure of the world as experienced as a world qua world. The extent that this emergent existential surplus is integrated and qualitatively and quantitatively exceeds the mere summation of world-value is the extent that its epistemological organization is epistemologically organized. Its epistemological organization automatically guarantees a theological or theological-like complexion hence its relative divinity in that regard. We should find this level of divinity, by definition, resident in parts of the world that demonstrate the unified initiation of chaotic like actions/reactions to the addition of additional minor inputs. So, e.g., the Earth could be treated as ‘Gaia’ in this regard, i.e., as possessing a sense of identity distinctively above and beyond its mere materiality (without, of course, reifying such identity through the necessary acceptance of the non-existence of self-existence as argued elsewhere). (975)

	What constitutes a trans-mundane theology, and, what allows us to shift from a mundane version to a trans-mundane vision of the same? The theoretical formulation and resolution of that type of question results in a theoretical trans-mundane theology. Such a transformation assumes its non-theoretical correlative in ontological and epistemological terms of reference although the assumption of a one-world metaphysical attitude towards the world recognizes the transcendental unity of the Life-World as reflected in both its mundane levels of epistemological configuration/s and its trans-mundane re-configuration/s as reflected ontologically, and v.v. (976)

	Now, the objection could be posed “do we have the need for a mundane theology?” Why not simply oppose the ‘world’ with a sense of ‘divinity’, a hierarchy of divinity, etc. (as might occur in a traditional theology)? However, in reply, I would like to say that as this hypothetical examination of the theological can only accept a process theology then it logically follows that there must be degrees of theological identity, etc. Moreover, as the theological is implicated in the world, directly and/or indirectly, in a meaningful theology it implies that a sense of world bereft of the theological, and v.v., cannot be conceived! However, to introduce a religious dimension to this transcendentally necessary theological-like complexion is another matter. Hence the theoretical transformation of this necessary mundane theological-like basis. Thence the need for a theoretical trans-mundane theology! (977)

	That granted, the consequences that devolve from this imputation of a non-self-existent trans-mundane theological identity, in some form or other, implies a consideration of the practical consequences of such a system. Hence a practical trans-mundane theology formulates a (complex) attitude towards the world wherein such considerations are thematized and applied as complementary and supplementary to a pre-constructed set of ethical attitudes towards the world and towards the world of others and towards the world of the Divine. (978)

	A critically balanced examination (and simulation/re-simulation) of these two attitudinal directions, of the theoretical and the practical, realizes a critical trans-mundane theology through the resulting exercise of an overall transcendental suspension! The value of a trans-mundane theological system being therefore realized within the simulation/re-simulation of a trans-mundane theological hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension when all three aspects of the theoretical, practical and critical are co-exercised in a state of an ongoing dynamic balance, etc. In this, as elsewhere, we do not make an absolute distinction between its simulation and re-simulation (as long as we do not invoke a sense of the theological that is pre-simulated, trans-simulated or simulated in some non-commensurable state of parallel existence and/or post-simulated, etc., i.e., treated in some sense that is just not simulated whether that be ‘by-us for-us’ and/or ‘by-itself for-us’). (979)

	Thus our theology, in these hypothetical terms of reference, can be explicated from a mundane variant to a theoretical, practical and critical version of the same. Thence these four hypothetical stages in the formulation of a non-absolute systematic theological philosophy with religious implications. (980)

	Let me now examine to what extent a mundane theological vision of the Life-World does or does not possess some degree of value, and, whether some portion or degree of that value might not be already religious in formulation, experience and aspiration? (981)

	It could be argued, on the whole, that animist and pagan attitudes towards the world are already religious in orientation and merely co-opt a mundane theological vista. Could this reading be correct? To some extent the experience of the numinous need not be formulated in some grand trans-mundane theological perspective in order to be experienced with a sense of numinous depth and numinous intensity, i.e., with an intensity of theological and theological-like depth! Can we be correct here, and, if we are correct what implications does this have for the importation of a trans-mundane theological vista, etc? (982)

	On one hand, this could well be correct, however, its theoretical examination automatically places that set of attitudes under the umbrella of a trans-mundane theological perspective. Isolation of the numinous experience, etc., sets in train this progress towards the trans-mundane. Hence its reflection and discussion, its formulation and dissemination establishes a trans-mundane point of view in this regard. (983)

	Now, that being the case, could we not re-consider the opposite proposition that since a trans-mundane theological perspective is already in play then what need have we for a mundane theological basis? Again, I would argue that the non-absolute dichotomy between the relatively theological and the relatively non-theological can not exist if the world is merely treated in a reductive, materialistic mode, etc. Hence the necessary implication of a mundane theological perspective as well as its trans-mundane forms of appreciation, and v.v!  That, in effect, careful reflections, etc., upon the theological-like complexion of the world can escape neither its mundane formulations nor its trans-mundane re-formulations, etc.! (984)

	In this dialectical light we can now pose the hypothetical question “is it possible to escape, wittingly or unwittingly, all forms of theological-like formulation in our appreciation of the world? No! By virtue of the fact that the relative unity of the world is essentially a transcendental pre-requisite for the intentional direction/re-direction of ourselves and our projects through this World-of-Life itself? Of course such considerations can be ignored, but, philosophically, etc., the necessary transcendental unity of the Life-World must exist (as a prerequisite for intentional experience, and, that  experience of the intentional qua intentional is dependent upon the same, if only in a residual form and format through the relative unity of field/s, etc.). (985)

	What can we sensibly say in the formulation of a trans-mundane theological perspective? (986)

	Because the hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension can be seen in the same way as the hermeneutic circle of non-theological comprehension it implies that we can approach the semblance and simulation of significance within it manufacture through the same moments that constituted it (as long as we do not absolutely isolate such products from this matrix of origination). Hence an examination according to metaphorical practices, rhetorical practices and existential pursuits. (987)

Under the analytical moment of the metaphorical we can approach this topic from the same perspective. In this we can either adopt a constructive point of view or a projective perspective, and, supply a critique of the same from the transcendental standpoint that equally recognizes the limits imposed by the nature of such patterns of comprehension. So, the Divine could be imaged or compared to a certain image, at the same time recognizing the limits that apply towards the same, namely, that no metaphor or metaphorical process can absolutely appropriate the nature of that imputed form of divinity. A projective project goes beyond the format of a constructive approach by concentrating more on the transcendental limits of the former. Hence imagining the Divine through the use of analogies and recognizing the limited nature of this form of imaging. Such an orientation inhabiting a dialectical-like space between the metaphorical image and its limits, and, that sense of the world beyond the same. Asking ourselves in what sense an image and its canceling both reflects the nature of the Life-World and does not reflect the nature of the Life-World. (988)

Under the synthetical moment of the rhetorical we can approach this topic from the same perspective. In what sense or senses then can the sense of the Divine be  approached and thematized through rhetorical practices? In traditional theologies there are often exhortations to conform to certain patterns of behaviour, etc., for a variety of spiritual reasons. E.g., we might find statements to the effect that ‘we are like the Divine’ and we should re-discover this aspect of our spiritual identity ‘by living a life in resemblance of the Divine,’ etc. Hence this element of the rhetorical in approaching and thematizing a definition of the nature of the Divine, etc. Because the metaphorical is exercised through an understanding of the explicit and implicit rhetorical instructions for its exercise we could also note, therefore, the intimate connection in this regard with the specialized use and/or rejection of metaphorical forms of analogy associated with that particular theological style. (989)

	Similarly, the sense of the theological can be approached and thematized, directly and/or indirectly, through the use of existentially inductive patterns of behaviour. In an immanent balance and transcendence of the metaphorical and the rhetorical the element of the existential is thematized. Traditional theologies supplying a long list of methods and techniques apparently productive of this element of value-formation with consequent implications in the thematization of theological identity. E.g., if a traditional or a non-traditional theology should state that “we should pray to the Divine” then it follows that the nature of this sense of the Divine is ‘something or someone to whom we can pray to (rightly or wrongly).’ Similarly when other techniques are rhetorically suggested such as, e.g., meditation, chanting, singing of hymns, doing good deeds, doing charitable works, etc., etc., are found to be inductive of an existential sense of value that is utilized, directly and/or indirectly in the formation of a sense of theological identity by such inductive means; this semblance of divinity being approached and conducted through this use of such existentially inductive practices. So, in this light, a practitioner might state, “one should pray to the Divine because the Divine will hear your prayers,” etc., etc. In the process defining (adequately and/or inadequately, rightly and/or wrongly) their vision or version of the Divine as ‘that which will listens to and answer your prayers,’ etc., etc. (990)

	Correctly, these three moments of the hermeneutic circle (of trans-mundane theological comprehension) mutually co-occur and define each other through their mutual negation and cooperation. Ideally, their distinctive interactions need to be properly mapped in order to more fully understand the nature of their cooperation, etc., and how they are implicated in practice in the formation of religious value and the formation of theological identity in that associated trans-mundane theology. Through such mappings we should be better able to articulate the systematic nature of that theology whether our position is as a committed adherent in that system or as an external person attempting to understand its formations of value as a distinctive mode-of-life? (991)

	By such means, as sketched above, the theologian, theologist or philosophical-theologian can map out the relatively systematic nature of that particular system under investigative focus. ‘Systematic’ by virtue of the integrated, interactive nature of the overall hermeneutic circle of trans-mundane theological value-formation and comprehension invoked by the proponents of such a system (and virtually simulated/re-simulated in the course of those investigations). But, is it possible to object to this (degree of) systematizational simulation/re-simulation by arguing that it is not possible to understand any system from an external perspective, i.e., as a mere observer who does not live the life ordered by such a systematic way-of-life? In other words, is there an absolute dichotomy between believers and non-believers, etc., with as a consequence our inability to properly understand the life of a person whose internal standpoint is committed to such a frame of reference? Let me now examine this quite controversial objection. (992)

	To affirm this position (of the absolute insider) would be tantamount to accepting that a private language could exist, and, could also be shared by a small group of privileged ‘insiders’. Both ‘consequences’ are impossible! Can neither be considered and certainly not performed! If intentional performance is realized within hermeneutic circles of comprehension (and hermeneutic-like circles of pre-intentional-comprehension, etc.) it follows that by those same types of procedure that ensured the formation of the intention-as-simulated-within-its-corresponding-intentional-context by the simulation/re-simulation of the same pre-conditions in general the same types of consequences can be made to follow almost as if one were to bake a cake? Now, each time that type of cake is baked we don’t say the same cake was baked each time, only, that the same type of cake were baked, given the same performance, more or less, of the same types of procedures needed to realize that type of cake. Moreover, it these ‘insiders’ are able to critically reflect upon the nature and productivity of their discipline then outsiders should also, given the existence of the necessary preconditions, can also perform the same. Hence this implication, that the construction of a certain theology, in principle, can be neither a private affair nor, ultimately, the domain of a group of privileged insiders. (993)

	Thus, given the above, how are intentional acts and contexts reconstructed? In the same manner that they are re-lived by the individual who first entertained them! How is this to be achieved? By attempting to re-simulate the phenomenal-phenomenological value that was initially entertained in their distinctive entertainment. So, the question now arises, how might we entertain a certain distinctive intentional act and then reconstruct the same (in type), and, convey enough information that might allow another person or set of persons to also construct/re-construct the same (in type)? Effectively, the resolution of this (problematic) task hinges on the re-construction of the same typological value, i.e., the re-constructed value of that construction/re-construction must be equivalent in general to its constructed value! How, then, is this general equivalence in value (between construction and reconstruction) to be both realized and critically appreciated as essentially coincident?! (994)

	This solution, so to speak, is already to wear (prêt-à-porter) since the nature of value has already been analyzed in the unfolding of this extended essay, namely, through a reconsideration of its moments of sense, meaning and meaningfulness (as mirrored in our understanding of the hermeneutic circle, etc.). The analytical nature of sense allows us to find our psychic position in our cosmic mapping of the world (as a linguistic mapping of the Life-World). This type of understanding is metaphorical, i.e., simulated through an invocation of like (and thence a demarcation between ‘like’ and ‘not-like’ to the extent that a non-specific generality can be simulated/re-simulated which then allows us to simulate a general understanding of that under this degree of focus). A rhetorical understanding then allows us to reconstruct context through a re-invocation of the approximate genre of activity (associated with that type of activity, mode-of-life, etc.). Lastly, the resolution of the tension between the analytical (that introduces a certain degree of relative dissonance) and the synthetical (that introduces a certain degree of relative consonance) allows a certain distinctive sense of resolutional style to be induced in a similar manner to that realized in its simulation as realized in its re-simulation. The exercise/re-exercise of that distinctive sense of a resolutional style then allows us to reconstruct an alignment with the re-construction of that construction (even if that construction were initially absent and its re-construction merely noted its possible re-alignment as a possibility). But, given that initial construction envisaged is already envisaged in some other time, possibly in some other place by another person how could such re-alignment be envisaged let alone be verified as aligned? Only when there is an approximate coincidence in sense, in meaning and in meaningfulness simultaneously! Therefore, how is this triple sense of coincidence to be achieved and critically evaluated? (995)

	By triangulation location can be determined upon the surface of the earth and in the skies. Similarly, by determining these three fields value can be pin-pointed. However, as these three fields are in a dialectical relationship with each other they can be accurately determined at the expense of an accurate determination of the others. Just as determining the nature of the objective under focus is at the expense of a determination of the gestalt field in which that intentional act of focusing is occurring it follows that overall accuracy can only be determined to a certain extent (in much the same way as the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle operates in the determination of quantum fields, etc.). Then, in relatively determining this complex value in these three fields we are presented with the provisional non-absolute truth determination of the same. A determination that necessitates the use of the overall transcendental suspension in order to arrive at and realize this distinctive value. Let me explore this in more detail. (996)

	The degree of focus in a determination of sense that is arrived at to some degree is achieved at the expense of a determination of the nature of the field in which that intentional act is occurring. We can determine both of their values to some extent but beyond a certain limit we cannot pass. I believe this limit reflects the degree our current gestalt integration is operating in that complex act of determination. The more alert we are, therefore, the more we can determine the overall value of these values (in intuitive terms of reference). Now, a determination of sense fundamentally involves a metaphorical act of coincidence and a rhetorical act of negation, i.e., this presentation of x is like x and at the same time is not like ~x. So, this cow-like object looks like a ‘cow’ and because it does not look like any of all things other than a ‘cow’, and, therefore, must be a cow! Moreover, it seems to function as a cow (as constructed by meta-textual genre of cow-ness) therefore, it is a specific cow (and not merely a particular cow-like presentation as in the painting or picture of a cow). Furthermore, we can find an existential excess of value fully in keeping with the expected nature of a cow-like object, i.e., it can give milk (and thence cheese, butter, etc.), suckling to baby calves, meat for the table, etc, etc. hence our non-absolute determination of x as a cow. Although, this determination is relatively and non-absolutely determined its truth value for most purposes would remain invariant given an adequate truth determination (i.e., as determined properly in textual terms of sense, as appropriately in meta-textual terms of genre and in non-textual terms of an existential sense of meaningfulness). Such an overall truth determination taking place within and through the utilization of an adequate overall transcendental suspension. (997)

	Now, surely, its determination of sense, e.g., can be achieved through a determination of the metaphorical ‘like’ (as a conjunctive suspension)? In a hierarchy of binary-like oppositions this cow-like object must be either a cow or not a cow? For most purposes that would be the case. However, the world is not itemized just through an exhaustive treatment of binary oppositions, e.g., animate versus inanimate object, animal versus non-animal, cow versus non-cow, etc. E.g., a dead cow is no longer an animate object. Or, if I were to ask you “are you manic?” and you were to answer “no” that does not imply that you were ‘depressed’ since not all forms of determination are simple binaries for a start. Then, a dead cow and a picture of a cow are all cow-like presentations in their own way but not fully cows in an adequate satisfaction of this type of conceptual- instantiation. So, the implication being that under the use of the overall transcendental suspension determinations of sense may involve simple binaries, simple ternary forms of complex opposition, metaphorical use of ‘like’, rhetorical utilization of the either/or or neither/or, etc. By what ever means invoked that determination is usually assumed to be replicable. Then, rhetorical meta-textual determinations of meaning and non-textual determinations of existential meaningfulness equally involve a complex of determinations in their own right, yet, however, all three fields (based upon these moments of the hermeneutic circle) have the ability to construct or deconstruct the determinations of each other. However, to that extent there is a mutual support of each other we find we have the presentation/re-presentation of a truth value in keeping with the phenomenal-phenomenological nature of that under investigation. (998)

	By extension, I must assume that research in a theological field of investigation should conform to the same transcendental conditions in the determination of the overall truth value of that under investigation (in and through the proper exercise of the overall transcendental suspension)! That this would necessitate the proper determination of sense in our psychic mapping of the Life-World, an appropriate determination of contextual considerations, and, an existentially replicable valid determination of the relevant meaningfulness of those investigations (as currently formulated and exercised, etc). That, ideally, in a full determination of theological identity and theological work we could then fully determine, eventually, and existential experience of theological value. Could it be argued that theological value (in an existential dimension) could be appreciated through the interactions of a trans-mundane theology conducted on simultaneous theoretical, practical and critical levels of simulated/re-simulated explication? Or, does the distinction between a mundane theology and a adequately determined trans-mundane theology ultimately collapse through a deconstruction of the privileging of the latter over the former? (999)

	As intimated, a trans-mundane theological investigation is ultimately provisional and subjected to a deconstruction of its privileging over a mundane theology. Let me explain. If a mundane theological-like complexion is the result of an epistemological organization several degrees in advance of that under examination, then, surely it follows that a degree of epistemological organization that continues in excess of the same must also automatically take on trans-mundane theological-like characteristics. Given no discernable limit to this process then, naturally, there can be no true difference between a mundane theological like explication of the world and a trans-mundane theological refinement upon the same! Thence, ultimately, the deconstruction of this privileged distinction between the mundane and the trans-mundane! However, the value of this distinction is arrived at only through their separate explications and then their eventual mutual deconstruction. That, essentially, deconstruction, without their relatively separate explications, would not be productive of any degree of value in a general sense of the expression ‘value’! (1000)
	
	Therefore, given the above arguments, what can we say, in the form of a conclusion, about this distinction between a mundane theology and a trans-mundane theology, and, as a form of preface, about their deconstruction and the formation of an particular integrated sense of overall theological value in general and its dissemination through some form of theological value in a more specific sense? (1001)

	Too often theologians have found themselves with no foundations upon which to establish their theological vision in the world on a relational basis in intentional experience. As ‘too other-worldly’ such a type of vision cannot, almost by definition, have the desired effect, i.e., establish a theologically productive mode-of-life! On the other hand, by basing their theological vision on the basis of a mundane theology this connectedness with the world is already established! Moreover, by its very process nature this extrapolation to a trans-mundane level of explication can be arrived at with a fully developed sense of connectedness already embedded in its fabric. Then, from this natural element of connectedness, a theological mode-of-life can be articulated with demonstrable set of values deemed proper, appropriate and valid by that theologian and their congregations, i.e., by all theologists committed to the descriptions and prescriptions entailed in that particular theological project. Indeed, this sense of a theological project, as a theological mode-of-life could not be adequately articulated if this were not already the case! (1002)

	This granted, the development of a mundane theology along with its transformation to a trans-mundane theological project also allows for an integrated thematization of that mode-of-life associated with that particular theological project. Then, in an ongoing, parallel deconstruction of this development, it is my perception that the ensuing dissolution of that sense of project should realize an existential release of value in excess of the original value of that development! This puts a new sense of meaning and meaningfulness into the concept of a theological difference as developed to date in these two volumes of essays. Let me finish this section of my extended essay with an examination of the new light cast upon this concept of theological difference and, as a preface, introduce the concept of an existential development and deployment of  theological value (along with its eventual input into an overall sense of theological value). (1003)
	
	Initially, this concept of a theological difference was defined, more or less, as the difference (for a theologian or philosopher) between ‘a vision of the world with a theological input and complexion’ and ‘a vision of the world without a theological input and complexion.’ Now, in the light of this deconstruction of any semblance of a dichotomous nature between a mundane theology and a trans-mundane theology we can now re-define this concept as the existential value released in the deconstruction of this sense of difference between the same! I.e., a theological difference is (now) that release of value above and beyond that merely invested in the articulation of a mundane theology and the development of a trans-mundane theology from the relative foundations of the former. To this extent we can also claim that no vision of the world qua world could be bereft of a sense of a theological difference (in the light cast by the initial definition of a theological difference) since the world cannot be a world qua world without some semblance of a theological-like complexion in the first place (by virtue of that semblance of relative unity) and hence its automatic, resident mundane sense of the theological! (1004)

	Now, one could argue for an intermediate sense of theological difference by subtracting a mundane theological understanding from the development of a trans-mundane theological project. However, in the light of the inevitable deconstruction of this difference between a mundane sense of the theological and its development in and through a trans-mundane format I have proposed the above re-definition which might be better labeled as a redefined theological difference or as a deconstructed theological difference. (1005)

	Why should we regard this deconstruction of the difference between a mundane theology and a trans-mundane theology as inevitable? (1006)

	Initially, a mundane theology was developed on the relative foundations of a transcendentally necessary sense of unity in our experience of the world qua world. Although this semblance of unity was addressed in the context of a process theology it was granted that in and off itself this form of a natural theology could not necessarily guarantee a sense of the theological with the required intensity of religious observation (as might characterize a traditional or non-traditional theology). However, in the formulation of a such a project and its development of a trans-mundane theology it also stood to reason that there could be no absolute dichotomy between a mundane theology and its trans-theological development. Now it merely behooves the deconstructing theologian to show that there is a difference between these two forms of theology and that this difference is of an intensity to satisfy the requirement of a traditional or non-traditional theologian in their observation and observance of a sense of the religious, or numinous, and, that the latter has a developed sense of the theological! In hypothetical terms of reference can this be done? Yes, as a transcendental possibility! But, not necessarily as a fully developed transcendental actuality? However, deconstructing this sense of an intermediate theological difference does release some degree of a deconstructed theological difference, and, a simple extension of arguments for the establishment of our mundane theology can be utilized to extend an overall resultant theology realized through such deconstruction! That, thence, the mere re-iteration of those same arguments (that establish our transcendentally necessary mundane theology) could then re-establish that theological project of the overall resultant theology as that which must be something more than a merely possible theological actuality. Hence the establishment of a deconstructed theological difference and the utilization of this relative foundation for the establishment of a theological project as something greater than a mere deconstructed theological difference. However, the establishment of the intensity of that difference is a project for that particular theologian, and, a project that needs to address an evidential basis in the life of that religious person above and beyond the merely theoretical. The factual basis for the same being beyond the province of a merely hypothetical theological-philosopher in this regard! However, in the light of the possibility of the same, and, as a project that must exhibit a deconstructed theological difference we have already established the basis, or relative foundations, for the exemplification and simulated/re-simulated experience of particularized forms and formats of theological value (in the overall context of an overall sense of theological value). To address this issue of the intentionally constituted experience/re-experience of the value of a particular theological system let me now attend to examining this third moment of our hermeneutic circle of theological comprehension. (1007)