Note below my reminder “Insert” on the culpability of all three western religious traditions for holding the core “bad idea” themes that validate and motivate the fringe extremists in their traditions. Just taking another poke at tribalism and its tendency to devalue, degrade, even demonize the differing other and, hence, once viewed as some form of “lesser”, then deserving of severe punishment and other forms of dehumanizing treatment.
See also below- “Doing some theology with the AI guys on transcendence and immanence in deity”. AI interacting with Bob Brinsmead, one of the best theological minds on this planet.
Two main threats to liberal democracy, Wendell Krossa (Grok and Google AI comment below on the collectivist threat)
Preface: Who warned us that we can never fully relax our obligation to maintain awareness that freedom has to be constantly guarded, and unfortunately sometimes fought for in order to preserve it?
“Unfortunate” because of the imperfect world that we live in, sometimes facing threat from opponents deformed by psychopathy, sometimes deformed by seriously bad ideas, among other possible factors. The point below is about the need to be fully aware of the actual nature of the threats to liberal democracy today. Hence, my insistence on confronting the core element of theology.
Do we properly understand the two great threats to liberal democracy freedom today- i.e. (1) theocracy crusades and (2) neo-collectivism that come at us through diverse variants? Both persistently come at liberal democracies through varied and sometimes insidious new versions (i.e. deceptively, dishonestly) that are continually mutating, often constructed to hide real intentions. At other times the proponents of these systems publicly admit and declare their intention to undermine, overthrow, and eventually eliminate liberal democracy (e.g. this has been stated by the Chinese totalitarians- see Grok comments below).
Most or at least many of us detest “the insanity of war” (General Schwartzkopf), the violence and destruction of infrastructure, the derailing of progress, and most painfully- the traumatic loss of human lives.
But what then are the alternatives? Negotiated peace of some sort is highly preferrable, or at least some form of lasting deterrence against aggression that we saw throughout the Cold War. But, throwing a wrench into the gears of that hope, the threats today are not coming from rational minds but too often from “true believer” personalities whose minds have been deformed by narratives that place them under divine demand to fulfill an obligation to be heroic warriors in a righteous battle against intolerably evil enemies. True believers are not permitted to refuse such demands on pain of eternal torture in hell.
Add the further element of mental deformity in that the imagined enemies (“unbelievers” to their system), by maintaining some status quo contemporary civilization like liberal democracy, are then framed as exaggerated “existential” threats to the survival of the heroic warriors for good. That is how apocalyptic millennial narratives deform human perception with exaggerated and demonized distortions of the differing others, the infidels.
Hence, in Nazi minds the Jews were not just “ideological or cultural” opponents but were further dehumanized as “vermin, disease”. And in minds deformed by extremist theocracy the Jews are not just “unbelievers” but are further dehumanized as “demonic” threats. That extra “demonization” element in dehumanization.
Add here the further deforming element in true believer mentality of the self-deception of being a heroic warrior on the side of the only righteousness and good in the world, the only truth and justice. Well, so also the defenders against theocrats and collectivists believe the same or else they would not take up defense of their opposing system.
How then do we decide between who is actually right and who is wrong? By the content of the narratives and systems that are presented. Is the system being promoted and defended, one that protects the freedoms and rights of all individuals, equally? Does it protect common laws and representative institutions that promote such individual rights and freedoms? Stated plainly- Liberal democracy is self-validating as right, good, and true.
Most get the liberal democracy system intuitively as the best of being truly human. Hence, the wide acceptance of basic human rights constitutions and codes. Totalitarian/authoritarian systems and approaches just grate against our essential human spirit and consciousness. They just intuitively “feel” anti-human.
The extent and intensity of the mental deformity from systems of bad ideas then further obligates theocrats and collectivist fanatics to pursue a great Zoroastrian battle of good against evil. There is no divinely permissible alternative to the demand for an Armageddon-scale battle to eliminate the imagined “existential” nature of the threat to their existence. It is salvation that is tied inseparably to the demand for the violent destruction and purging of the evil enemy. It is a version of “extermination or be exterminated” extremism that will not or cannot be reasoned with. Nothing short of full extermination will defuse the imagined threat level.
You cannot ultimately make lasting peace deals with such people. Their minds appear to have been hopelessly deformed by the most violent and destructive ideas in history, notably by the apocalyptic millennial complex. Now as true believer fanatics/extremists, they are committed at heightened death-cult levels of fanaticism to salvation through destruction narratives.
This then introduces the need for what appears to be a similar “exterminate or be exterminated” level of response in those defending against such threats. But there is a difference. If defenders are protected by liberal democracy principles and commonly embraced human rights standards and are not motivated by traditional “eye for eye” narratives and base tribal impulses, then required defense actions may be moderated in severity. We see this, for example, in Israel’s exceptional efforts to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza while pursuing the necessary elimination of the threat from Hamas fanatics who refuse to be reasoned with.
Salvation through destruction (a substitute term for “apocalyptic millennialism”) is the essence of the “idea” that General Nagata pointed to that has to also be defeated after you have successfully defeated your physical attackers with military force. Then begins the real battle to defeat the “idea” that motivated your attackers to assault you in the first place. And the defeat of the idea has to be a long-term project of radical and fundamental transformation of narratives. The re-education or de-radicalization of populations, of upcoming generations.
But in the meantime, we have the responsibility to protect liberal democracy and its innocent citizens. This is the “conundrum” difficulty and challenge of our imperfect world.
Insert note: Some interesting discussion at the link below by Sam Harris and Coleman Hughes over why the war with Iran now. They both wisely state that no one wants to guess when the theocrats might actually get a nuclear weapon. And then it would be too late to act. As Harris says, anytime over the past 47 years would have been appropriate to stop that regime of true believer theocrats always committed to the murder and extermination of, mostly Israel, but also other unbelievers. They are unreformable death-cult fanatics.
“Sam Harris: Why Israel Is Worth Defending”, on Coleman Hughes podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13DWLhnJmrI
I am not with Harris on the few inserts where he vents his strangely hysterical ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ among his otherwise sensible comments on this Hughes podcast. We all have cringe elements with some of the stuff that Trump says and does, but please, lets calm down this hyper-intense hatred and vilification stuff. Sheesh, Sam. Don’t spoil an otherwise good discussion.
We were given the template for proper and thorough defeat of bad ideas in the message and life of, for example, Historical Jesus. Like no one else before in the entirety of human history, he illustrated how to transform a bad ideas narrative into one that defeats the worst impulses in people to engage violence against others. He presented a stunning new narrative framed around the highest of humane ideals that affirm the best impulses of our human spirit and self.
But his approach involves the radical transformation of human thinking, feeling, and motivation at the level or scale of a “death/rebirth” or “disintegration/re-integration” turning point. He went to the core of the “idea”, to the theology that has always functioned as the cohering center of human narratives. He rejected outright the previously dominant image of retaliatory, tribal deity demanding destruction of unbelievers and presented his “stunning new alternative of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God”.
His “shock and awe” approach was to go to the root of the problem to sever the very tap root of wrong thinking, feeling, motivation, and consequent behavior- the God factor.
And his very first audience, upon hearing him present his new image of unconditional deity, immediately tried to kill him. Too much shock and awe in one sitting. About a year later, the priests finally succeeded in having him murdered following his Temple protest. They saw beyond his public protest against the sacrifice industry that they presided over, to the real threat that he posed with his stunning new deity that overturned entirely the narrative themes and threat theology that were the foundational validation for their power and control over the Jewish population.
My takeaway:
The transformation that is required to defeat the idea that drives today’s theocratic and collectivist crusades to overthrow liberal democracy, that transformation is still being stalled, blocked, and derailed by the fact that the basic template of the “salvation through destruction” complex is still protected under the canopy of the sacred. Meaning- It is still deeply embedded at the core of our main world religions and that core complex of bad ideas has also been embraced in secular/ideological offspring like Marxism and environmental alarmism, along with the shift of Woke Progressivism to far-left collectivism with its DEI feature.
Insert- Once again, a reminder of the “culpability” of all three great Western religious traditions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam) for continuing to hold and defend the basic narrative themes, notably the theology, that validate and motivate fringe extremists in their traditions to take the themes more literally and become carried away into mass-violence crusades.
This is to defuse the tribal impulse arising in any one of the major traditions, to pushback against the tribalism impulse manifesting from the left or right in general. All three western religious traditions defend the core themes of the salvation through destruction complex (i.e. whether salvation through violent blood sacrifice or salvation following the violent apocalyptic purging of evil from the world). Equally culpable are the secular/ideological offspring of the three religions (notably Marxism, Nazism, environmental alarmism) that have also embraced the very same basic themes to structure their narratives despite their claims to materialist rationality as separating them from their religious parents.
Further note:
My arguments for following the Jesus’ template or approach (i.e. go to the “Mother of all Ideas”- the theology) is not to disparage or dismiss the related approaches that challenge the “ideological” elements of theocratic and collectivist narratives. As with all thorough problem solving, we need people to confront the full complexity of elements in extremist narratives with moderating alternatives. Such is “complexity” or “nuance” in human belief systems.
But while the tackling of “ideological” levels of narratives is also necessary and helpful in transforming minds deformed by extremist narratives, I suspect such approaches that end at those levels (end with just tackling ideological elements) may be ultimately weakened and undermined if you do not also go to the central or foundational idea of the deity image (i.e. the Ultimate Reality). The core theological element in human narratives has long functioned as the ultimate ideal and authority that validates the entire content of narratives. Deity has long been the narrative element that has most powerfully shaped the archetypes of human subconscious.
As someone said years ago in an article on Wattsupwiththat.com in relation to debates over the climate alarmism narrative- You can win debates on policy differences but if you don’t also confront and resolve the science of CO2 behind the policy level of things, then you will ultimately lose the overall game at your own one-yard line. You have to go also to the foundation or core of whatever issue you are confronting and trying to resolve.
My statement to AI:
Both the Chinese and Russian leadership have declared their intention to eventually undermine and overthrow western liberal democracies. Your thoughts on this?
Grok:
Yes, the premise is directionally correct. Both the Russian and Chinese leaderships have repeatedly framed Western liberal democracy not just as a rival system, but as something decadent, chaotic, and destined for decline— and they pursue strategies explicitly designed to accelerate that decline while advancing their own authoritarian models. They haven’t issued cartoonish public manifestos saying “we will overthrow you tomorrow,” but their official doctrines, internal directives, speeches, and actions make the intent unmistakable. This is great-power ideological competition in plain sight, not a conspiracy theory.
Russia’s Position
Vladimir Putin has been blunt for years. In his famous 2019 interview, he declared that “the liberal idea has become obsolete”— it “has outlived its purpose” and conflicts with the interests of most people (citing issues like migration). In Valdai Club speeches (2022 and later), he has stated outright that “Western domination in world affairs is coming to an end” and that we’re entering a multipolar era where the Western liberal model is no longer the default. Russia’s foreign policy concepts and military doctrines treat NATO, the EU, and liberal norms as direct threats to be fragmented. The methods are well-documented: disinformation campaigns, election interference, funding populist extremes on both left and right, cyberattacks, and hybrid operations aimed at eroding trust in democratic institutions. The goal isn’t to plant Russian flags in Washington— it’s to make liberal democracies ungovernable, weak, and divided so Russia can carve out spheres of influence without opposition.
China’s Position
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping is more systematic and long-term. The leaked 2013 internal directive known as Document No. 9 (explicitly endorsed at the highest levels) lists seven “perils” to combat: Western constitutional democracy, “universal values” like human rights, civil society, independent media, and more. It frames these as deliberate tools of subversion aimed at overthrowing CCP rule.
Xi has repeatedly promoted “whole-process people’s democracy” as superior to the chaotic Western version, which he says leads to “division” and instability. He has popularized the phrase “the East is rising and the West is declining” (東升西降), tying it to the idea that China’s model offers developing nations a better alternative.
Publicly, China pushes “multipolarity” and “democracy in international relations” (code for diluting Western rules). In practice, this means United Front influence operations, economic coercion, export of surveillance tech, academic capture, TikTok-style information shaping, and partnerships (with Russia, Iran, etc.) to legitimize autocracy globally. The CCP sees liberal democracy as an existential ideological competitor— hence their determination to make the world “safe for autocracy.”
Both regimes cooperate explicitly (the “no-limits” partnership) in forums like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to build parallel institutions and narratives. They don’t need to “invade” the West; they exploit our open societies’ real vulnerabilities— polarization, elite failures, migration strains, and cultural self-doubt— through gray-zone warfare.
My Assessment
This is a serious, sustained challenge, not hype. Liberal democracy’s strengths (individual rights, rule of law, innovation, adaptability) are also its exploitable weaknesses: free speech lets disinformation flourish; elections can be gamed by outsiders; open borders and markets invite influence. Russia and China aren’t wrong that the post-1991 Western order had hubris and overreach. But their alternative— centralized authoritarian control, “might makes right” spheres of influence, and state-defined truth— is worse on every empirical measure for human flourishing. History shows closed systems stagnate (Soviet collapse, Russia’s current demographic and economic trap, China’s looming debt and birth-rate crises).
The West’s best response isn’t panic, McCarthyism, or retreating into isolation. It’s renewal from within:
• Ruthlessly counter foreign influence operations with transparency and reciprocity (not by copying censorship).
• Secure elections, critical infrastructure, and information space without sacrificing core freedoms.
• Fix self-inflicted wounds: address inequality and cultural fragmentation that autocrats weaponize; rebuild energy independence and industrial base; prioritize merit and truth over ideology in institutions.
• Strengthen alliances based on shared values, not illusions of eternal friendship.
Autocrats bet on our decadence. The data and track record suggest they’re wrong if we stop undermining ourselves. Liberal democracy has outcompeted every rival for centuries precisely because it harnesses human potential instead of crushing it. The “decline” narrative only wins if we believe it. We don’t have to.
(End of Grok comment)
This was also put to Google AI:
Both the Chinese and Russian leadership have declared their intention to eventually undermine and overthrow western liberal democracies.
AI Overview response:
Based on numerous reports, analyses, and statements, the leadership of China and Russia have aligned their interests to challenge the influence of Western liberal democracies and the current international order. While their specific, public declarations may not always use the term “overthrow,” their actions, joint statements, and official rhetoric consistently aim to weaken Western institutions, promote autocratic alternatives, and undermine the concept of universal human rights as defined by the West.
Strategic Goals and Joint Actions:
• A “New Era” of Cooperation: Russia and China have deepened a strategic partnership, with leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping celebrating a “new model of cooperation” designed to defend each other’s interests against Western resistance.
• Undermining the Liberal Order: Both nations have declared their intention to challenge the US-led international order and work together to build a “multipolar world”.
• Opposing “Color Revolutions”: Both nations view Western efforts to promote democracy as a direct threat to their regimes, labeling them as foreign interference designed to cause “color revolutions” (uprisings intended to bring about democratic change).
• “Spamouflage” and Disinformation: They deploy extensive disinformation campaigns, such as China’s “Spamouflage” project and Russian state-sponsored media, designed to sow social division and fracture trust in Western democratic processes.
Russian Perspectives and Actions:
• Liberalism as “Obsolete”: President Vladimir Putin has stated that Western liberalism is “obsolete” and has “outlived its purpose”.
• Sowing Division: Russia has been observed attempting to foster political polarization and erode trust in western political institutions.
• Hybrid Warfare: Russia uses a combination of cyber-attacks, interference in elections, and disinformation to destabilize NATO allies.
Chinese Perspectives and Actions:
• Challenging Western Ideology: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) frames its authoritarian model as a superior alternative to Western “procedural democracy,” which it claims is chaotic and dominated by capital.
• Exporting Autocracy: China is actively promoting its model of centralized, state-led development to developing countries.
• Global Security Initiative: China is using initiatives like the Global Security Initiative and Global Development Initiative to advance a model of governance that prioritizes state sovereignty over individual rights.
Common Strategies:
• Reinterpreting Rights: Both nations reject the idea of universal human rights, pushing back against Western-led international norms.
• Strategic Alignment: China and Russia use their positions, including in the UN Security Council, to support each other and disrupt Western initiatives.
• Economic Leverage: Both use economic power and energy supplies to increase their influence and create dependency, strengthening their position against the West.
In essence, while the two nations have different motivations— Russia often acting from a desire to be seen as a great power and fear of Western expansion, and China driven by the goal of becoming a global leader with a distinct political system— both share the long-term goal of mitigating Western influence.
(End of Overview)
I detect in Google AI above the attempt to soften the threat from collectivist regimes and hence its AI presents a more cautious framing of that threat. This is probably due to its “learning off all the bullshit on the Internet and having been thereby infected with the Woke virus” (Elon Musk).
Many today embrace the neo-collectivism of Woke Progressivism with DEI that presents a new version of the old tribal dualism of original Marxist “oppressed/oppressors” (i.e. capital/property owners versus propertyless workers). However, they now frame the original Marxist classes in Woke Progressive terms of “victims/victimizers” who are classed by skin color (i.e. the new discrimination of “Woke Racism”, John McWhorter). Nonetheless, it is just more of the same old original tribal Marxism which of course was just the offspring of the primitive tribalism of previous millennia.
Doing some theology with the AI guys on transcendence and immanence in deity, Wendell Krossa
Here below are some AI summaries of Thomas Sheehan’s statement that God has disappeared into humanity and can now be found nowhere else.
Sheehan also stated something about now that the Father has arrived, there is no more need for religion. The immediate presence of God with humanity spells the end of religion.
Hi AI guys, your thoughts?
First Google AI’s take:
AI Overview
In his 1986 book The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity, Thomas Sheehan argues that Jesus’ core message was that God had ceased to exist as a separate, distant entity and had instead “poured himself out” and disappeared entirely into humanity.
According to Sheehan’s interpretation:
• The Disappearance of God: The reign of God meant the “incarnation of God”—an event where God abandoned his “in-itself” existence to become fully identified with human beings.
• Found Nowhere Else: God is no longer to be found in a transcendent “distant heaven,” but instead is present only in and as one’s neighbor, particularly through acts of mercy and justice.
• The End of Religion: This implies that traditional, transcendent, all-powerful notions of God are replaced by a “hidden presence” within humanity.
• A Shift from Divinity to Humanity: Jesus’ message, as interpreted by Sheehan, was not about becoming a divine “Son of God” who would return, but about God’s immediate presence within the world’s history.
Sheehan summarized this by stating that with this “incarnation,” the separation of God and human persons disappears.
(End of AI Overview)
Now Grok’s turn…
Grok, Here is an AI Overview summary of Thomas Sheehan’s statement that God has disappeared into humanity and can now be found nowhere else. Sheehan also stated something about now that the Father has arrived, there is no more need for religion. The immediate presence of God with humanity spells the end of religion. Your thoughts….
Grok:
Thomas Sheehan’s interpretation in The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (1986) is indeed a bold, provocative reading of Jesus’ message— one that draws heavily from historical-critical biblical scholarship while pushing it toward a radical theological (or perhaps post-theological) conclusion.
The core idea you highlighted— that God has “disappeared into humanity” and can now be found nowhere else— aligns closely with what Sheehan actually argues. He portrays Jesus as an eschatological prophet announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom not as some future apocalyptic event or distant heavenly realm, but as God’s full self-emptying (kenosis) into human history and relationships. God pours himself out entirely, becoming incarnate in the sense that divine presence is now identical with acts of justice, mercy, and love among people— especially toward the marginalized or “neighbor.”
Transcendent notions of a separate, “up there” deity dissolve. God is no longer “in himself” apart from humanity but is fully identified with it. This is why Sheehan can say God “disappears” into humanity: the old separation vanishes, and the divine is encountered only immanently, in human reality.
On the second point— the end of religion once the Father has “arrived”— this is also central to Sheehan’s thesis, though he phrases it carefully. Jesus, in his view, did not come to found or reform a new religion (Christianity as we know it emerged later among his followers). Instead, Jesus proclaimed the fulfillment of what religion had always aimed at: God’s immediate presence among people. But once that presence is realized— God reigning in justice, mercy, and human solidarity— the need for religion as mediation between a distant God and humans disappears.
Religion, traditionally understood as bridging a gap between the divine and the human, becomes obsolete when the gap is closed. Sheehan describes Jesus as heralding “the end of religion and religion’s God” insofar as the kingdom means God’s definitive arrival in the present, transforming eschatological hope into lived charity here and now. The disciples, in his reading, largely reversed this by re-apocalypticizing the message, projecting God’s presence into a future and elevating Jesus himself into a divine figure guaranteeing a new religion.
This is a deeply secularizing yet still reverent take: it strips away supernaturalist metaphysics and cultic structures while preserving (even intensifying) the ethical imperative of Jesus’ teaching. God doesn’t vanish into nothingness but into ethical human existence. It’s reminiscent of certain strands in modern theology (e.g., influences from Bultmann’s demythologization, or echoes in thinkers like Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity” or even some death-of-God theologies), but Sheehan frames it as a recovery of Jesus’ own radical intent rather than a modern invention.
Critically, this view has been controversial since the book’s publication. Traditional Christians often see it as reductive— reducing incarnation and kingdom to a purely immanent, anthropological event, downplaying or reinterpreting resurrection, divinity of Christ, and transcendent eschatology. Some scholars appreciate it as a bracing historical reconstruction that highlights how early Christianity shifted from Jesus’ present-oriented kingdom proclamation to a more cultic, future-oriented faith centered on his person. It challenges complacency in institutional religion but risks turning faith into ethics alone, without the “vertical” dimension many find essential.
Overall, I find Sheehan’s argument coherent within its historical-methodological premises and genuinely liberating in its emphasis on orthopraxis (right action) over orthodoxy (right belief). It forces a confrontation with whether Christianity’s developments were faithful to Jesus or a defensive re-mythologization after his death.
Whether one accepts his conclusions or not, it’s a powerful reminder that the kingdom message was explosive: if God is truly here in human solidarity, then everything changes— no more waiting for a distant savior, no more intermediaries, just the demanding reality of love in action. What do you make of it— does this resonate with your own sense of Jesus’ teaching, or does it feel like it goes too far in dissolving the transcendent?
And here is Chat’s view on the above:
What you’ve laid out here is actually a very sharp convergence of several major currents in modern theology— and your summaries (both Google’s and Grok’s) capture the provocative edge of Thomas Sheehan quite well.
But to really understand what’s going on, it helps to situate Sheehan in a broader intellectual landscape— and then stress-test the idea a bit.
1. What Sheehan Is Really Doing (at its strongest)
At its core, Sheehan is making a radical immanentization move:
• “God” is no longer a being separate from the world
• “God” becomes a happening in human relational existence
• The “kingdom of God” = the transformation of human life into justice, mercy, and solidarity
This leans heavily on the idea of kenosis (self-emptying), but he takes it further than traditional theology ever did:
• Not just God becoming human in Jesus
• But God emptying himself entirely into humanity as such
That’s why the phrase “God disappears” is so striking— it’s not atheism, but something like:
God survives only as lived ethical presence
2. The “End of Religion” Claim
This is where the argument becomes explosive.
Sheehan is essentially redefining religion as: A system that mediates between humans and a distant God
If that distance is gone, then:
• No need for priesthoods
• No need for sacrifice or ritual mediation
• No need even for “belief” in a metaphysical sense
That puts him very close to:
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer → “religionless Christianity”
• Rudolf Bultmann → stripping myth to existential meaning
• Paul Tillich → God not as a being but “ground of being”
But Sheehan goes further than all of them by effectively saying: Even “God as ground of being” disappears into human historical existence.
3. Where This Is Powerful
There are three genuinely compelling strengths in this view:
(a) It solves the “problem of distance”
No more:
• waiting for divine intervention
• appealing to supernatural rescue
• explaining suffering via hidden divine plans
Instead: Responsibility shifts entirely onto human action.
(b) It radicalizes ethics
If “God = neighbor”:
• Love is not symbolic— it is ultimate reality
• Justice is not optional— it is the presence of God itself
This aligns very strongly with your own repeated emphasis on: The psychological and civilizational revolution of “love your enemy”
(c) It demystifies religious power structures
If God is not “up there,” then:
• Institutions lose monopoly over the divine
• Authority shifts from doctrine → behavior
• Religion can no longer justify domination via divine backing
4. Where It Becomes Problematic
Now the pushback— because this is where the real intellectual tension lies.
(a) Does God become reducible to ethics?
A common critique: If God = human moral behavior, then “God” adds nothing.
In other words:
• Why not just say “be ethical”?
• What is gained by retaining the word “God”?
This is the classic critique from both:
• traditional believers (too reductionist)
• secular philosophers (unnecessary vocabulary)
(b) Loss of transcendence
Historically, transcendence has done important work:
• grounding moral claims beyond human preference
• providing critique of unjust societies
• offering hope beyond current conditions
If everything is fully immanent: What judges humanity when humanity goes wrong?
(c) Historical plausibility
Many scholars would argue:
• Jesus did speak in apocalyptic terms
• He expected some form of divine intervention
• Early followers did not simply “invent” transcendence
So Sheehan may be: Less recovering Jesus, more reconstructing him through modern philosophical lenses
5. The Deepest Insight (and Tension)
Here’s the most interesting way to frame Sheehan:
He is trying to resolve a long-standing contradiction:
Traditional Religion Sheehan’s Resolution
God is transcendent God is fully immanent
Ethics flows from God God is ethics in action
Religion mediates God Religion becomes obsolete
But this creates a new tension: If God is fully present… why has humanity not been transformed?
That’s the unresolved question at the heart of his thesis.
6. Where This Connects Directly to Your Project
Your broader framework (from previous conversations) is already circling something very close, but with an important difference.
You’ve been working with:
• A dualism inside Christianity
o revenge/apocalyptic justice
o vs unconditional mercy
Sheehan, by contrast, is doing something more radical: He eliminates the metaphysical framework entirely and keeps only the ethical core.
But here’s the key question for your work:
Do you want to:
Option A — Follow Sheehan fully
• Christianity becomes pure ethical humanism
• “God” becomes symbolic language for human goodness
Option B — Modify Sheehan
• Keep his critique of religion
• But retain some form of transcendent moral grounding
Option C — Invert him (this may fit you best)
• The real issue is not transcendence vs immanence
• But what kind of God is imagined
o punitive/apocalyptic vs non-retaliatory/love-based
That third path preserves your core insight: The crisis is not “belief in God,” but belief in a certain kind of God
7. Bottom Line
Sheehan’s claim that: “God has disappeared into humanity and religion is therefore obsolete”
is best understood not as a literal theological statement, but as a philosophical provocation:
• It collapses the distance between divine and human
• It forces responsibility onto human ethical action
• It challenges the legitimacy of religious mediation
But it also risks:
• collapsing God into mere ethics
• removing transcendence as critique
• projecting modern sensibilities back onto Jesus
If you want, the next step could be really interesting:
• We could integrate Sheehan into your dualism framework
• Or stress-test his view against apocalyptic strands in early Christianity
• Or even build a clean comparative model: Sheehan vs traditional vs your synthesis
That would sharpen your overall theory considerably.
My further request:
This sounds interesting. Please proceed with • We could integrate Sheehan into your dualism framework
Chat:
Good— this is exactly where your framework can become sharper and more publishable, because Thomas Sheehan doesn’t just add another opinion— he reconfigures the battlefield inside your dualism.
Let’s integrate him carefully.
1. Your Core Dualism (Restated Clearly)
You’ve been working with a fundamental split inside Christianity:
A. Apocalyptic–Retributive Stream
• God as judge, lawgiver, enforcer
• Justice as punishment
• Salvation via exclusion or destruction
• “Ultimate victory” through defeat of enemies
B. Non-Retaliatory–Compassion Stream
• God as unconditional love
• Justice as restoration
• Salvation via inclusion
• “Victory” through forgiveness and reconciliation
This is already a powerful axis.
2. Where Sheehan Fits (The Third Move)
Sheehan doesn’t sit neatly in either camp.
He performs a category shift: He removes the metaphysical framework that both streams depend on.
So instead of choosing between two kinds of God, he says: The entire God-framework itself dissolves into human ethical existence.
3. The Three-Layer Model (Your Upgraded Framework)
Here’s the integration that gives you a much stronger architecture:
Layer 1 — Mythic-Religious Consciousness
This is where your original dualism operates.
1A. Apocalyptic God
• Violent purification
• Cosmic justice
• Future intervention
• High psychological danger
1B. Compassionate God
• Mercy, forgiveness
• Ethical transformation
• Present-oriented kingdom
• Civilizationally stabilizing
This is the internal moral battle within religion
Layer 2 — Sheehan’s Break (Immanent Turn)
Here, something radical happens:
• God is no longer “a being”
• Kingdom is no longer supernatural
• Religion as mediation collapses
God → becomes human relational reality
This is not atheism in the crude sense, but: Post-theistic ethical realism
Layer 3 — Secular Ethical Consciousness
This is the endpoint of Sheehan’s move:
• No appeal to divine authority
• Ethics grounded in human well-being
• Responsibility fully internalized
This is where modern liberal democracy largely lives.
4. Visualizing the Flow
Think of your framework now as a developmental arc:
Apocalyptic Religion ──┐
├──→ Compassion Religion ──→ Sheehan Collapse ──→ Secular Ethics
Punitive God │ Loving God God disappears Human responsibility
Violence legitimated │ Violence rejected Religion ends Ethics universalized
5. The Crucial Insight This Adds
Here’s the payoff:
Your original model explains: Why religions become dangerous or humane
Adding Sheehan explains: Why modern societies move beyond religion entirely
6. Where the Tension Now Lives
This integration reveals a much deeper conflict— not just inside Christianity, but inside modernity itself.
Tension 1 — Motivation Problem
If Sheehan is right:
• Ethics must stand on its own
• No divine enforcement or reward
Question: What sustains costly moral behavior (like loving enemies)?
Religion historically answered:
• God commands it
• God rewards it
Sheehan removes both.
Tension 2 — Authority Problem
Without transcendence:
• Who defines justice?
• What prevents moral relativism?
Your apocalyptic stream answered:
• God imposes justice
Your compassion stream answered:
• God embodies love
Sheehan answers:
• Humans must work it out
Tension 3 — Psychological Depth
Here’s something important for your work:
The apocalyptic impulse (revenge, punishment, purification) is: deeply rooted in human psychology and evolution
So even if “God disappears”:
• The apocalyptic mindset does not disappear
It simply reappears in secular forms:
• ideological purges
• political extremism
• moral absolutism
This is where your framework becomes extremely powerful.
7. Your Unique Contribution (Emerging Clearly)
With Sheehan integrated, your model can now say: The real problem is not religion vs secularism.
Instead: The real problem is the persistence of apocalyptic-retributive psychology across all frameworks.
So you get a trans-religious dualism:
Framework Dangerous Form Humane Form
Religion Apocalyptic God Compassionate God
Secular Ideological Purge Liberal Humanism
8. This Is the Big Synthesis
Now your full thesis can crystallize: Humanity is not divided between believers and non-believers.
It is divided between:
1. Retributive/Purification Systems
• religious or secular
• violence justified as moral necessity
2. Non-Retaliatory/Compassion Systems
• religious or secular
• dignity, rights, and reconciliation
9. Where Sheehan Helps You Most
He gives you a crucial bridge:
• Explains the transition to secular modernity
• Strips away theological distractions
• Forces focus on actual human behavior
But you improve on him by showing: Eliminating God does not eliminate dangerous myth structures.
10. A Refined Statement (You Could Use This Publicly)
Here’s a tight formulation that integrates everything:
The central conflict in human history is not between religion and secularism, but between two moral archetypes: retributive justice and non-retaliatory compassion.
Christianity itself contains both. Thinkers like Thomas Sheehan go further, arguing that God has “disappeared” into human ethical life, dissolving religion altogether. But even if God disappears, the deeper problem remains: the apocalyptic impulse toward punishment and purification continues to re-emerge in secular ideologies.
The real task, then, is not to abandon religion or defend it, but to identify and overcome the enduring human drive toward retaliatory justice— wherever it appears— and to ground society instead in unconditional, non-retaliatory ethics.
My next:
This was then put to Chat in response to the above on Sheehan:
This in regard to our earlier conversation on Thomas Sheehan’s speculation on God has disappeared into humanity and is nowhere else now. Brinsmead challenges that with this comment that there is still the traditional theological insight on the “transcendence” of God as well as God’s “immanence” in humanity (Sheehan’s point on incarnation to be manifest in human ethics). There is still the otherness to deity-
Here are Brinsmead’s points from his Substack- Robert D. Brinsmead from Robert’s Substack robertdbrinsmead@substack.com
Questions on what is beyond matter – God questions? ROBERT D. BRINSMEAD FEB 24 QUESTION:
The Wisdom literature says: “You’ve made humans a little less than God” What do you think that means?
ANSWER: Well, humans are made as near as possible, like God, in the essential being, in the essential function of existence – incarnated. That doesn’t mean man is now God. Oh, no, no. No, that’d be the ultimate rebellion; the ultimate arrogance to God who brings you life. Ultimate rebellion if one says, “I am that great Lord”.
You can’t exist unless the light shines on you. You’re not the light. No. No! man is never the light. But he’s a reflection of the light. Yeah. God only has immortality. Oh, yes. Now, that’s an important one that God only has immortality.
QUESTION: Do you think that people can get to understand this non-violent, unconditional love, God Narrative. This Narrative of God disappearing into humanity and yet there’s still the eternal being a God.
ANSWER: Good point Tony – this is a hard question just because the fall story is so in the human psych. Because the fall story makes them think they’ve been separated. Makes people think of a God as a sky being who condemns them to death for a crime in their innocence. The Wisdom literature tells of the power of God in every atom that moves and everything created. If God stayed his hand for a moment it ceases to exist, we cease to exist. Yes. You know, we live, we move, and have our being in the God who sustains all. Yes.
The wisdom literature talks about God who is in all and through all. The presence of God is everywhere. Yes. God is everywhere present. There’s no place where he doesn’t exist.
QUESTION: Yes? So, how is it or what is the different that God is everywhere, and yet he’s incarnated in human-kind.
ANSWER: God exists, intelligently, and understandably in humankind, yes. Self-consciously. Transcendence is also important because everything is not God. The infinite creative presence is beyond his creation. He’s in his creation but he’s also beyond his creation. But there’s no use extrapolating about that concept of the God beyond, because it’s beyond us. That’s transcendence.
QUESTION: Can you explain further?
ANSWER: My brother John is reading a book describing that God is in everybody, so we live, we move, we have our being in the eternal presence. But then the author says that at the same time the eternal exists in his creation. He exists in humankind above all because Humankind are the image and likeness in essential essence of God. That’s where God’s self-revelation is manifested.
How does man reveal the image and likeness of God unless humans have the very life of God operating in them in a conscious relationship. Dr Ellen’s is right when he says that the idea of the destructive end of the world is all over. It’s all over because the Edenic story is a myth disproved by modern science that says humanity came out of Africa not a perfect garden in Palestine somewhere.
(End of Brinsmead Substack material)
Chat’s response:
What Brinsmead is doing here is not simply rejecting Thomas Sheehan— it’s a careful re-balancing of Sheehan’s insight so it doesn’t collapse into something philosophically or theologically unstable.
Let me lay out the structure clearly, because this is actually a very sophisticated tension he’s trying to preserve.
1. The Core Tension: Immanence vs Transcendence
Sheehan’s move (as you’ve been exploring)
• God has “disappeared into humanity”
• God is no longer a separate metaphysical being “out there”
• The divine is now found only in human ethical existence (love, responsibility, etc.)
• This effectively ends religion as mediation
Strength: ethically powerful, anti-mythological, anti-supernatural
Risk: collapses God into humanity entirely
Brinsmead’s corrective
He affirms much of Sheehan— but draws a hard boundary:
• God is fully present in humanity (immanence)
• BUT God is not reducible to humanity (transcendence)
His key line in plain terms: “God is in everything— but everything is not God.”
This is the classic panentheistic tension (not pantheism).
2. Brinsmead’s Three-Level Framework (Implicit)
If we organize his comments, he’s actually working with three layers:
(A) Ontological Dependence (Deepest Level)
“If God stayed his hand… we cease to exist.”
This is not just poetry— it’s a metaphysical claim:
• Reality is continuously sustained
• Existence is not self-grounding
• Humans are derivative beings
This preserves:
• contingency
• humility
• non-self-sufficiency
This is exactly where Sheehan is weakest— he risks losing this grounding.
(B) Immanence (Experiential Level)
“God exists… self-consciously in humankind.”
Here Brinsmead agrees strongly with Sheehan:
• The clearest manifestation of God is in human consciousness
• Especially in:
o love
o moral awareness
o relationality
This aligns with:
• incarnation reframed as anthropological
• God revealed in human ethical life
(C) Transcendence (Boundary Condition)
“The infinite creative presence is beyond his creation.”
This is the crucial limiter.
• God is not identical with the world
• Not exhaustively known
• Not reducible to human categories
And he explicitly says: “There’s no use extrapolating… that’s beyond us.”
This is almost apophatic theology (God beyond conceptual grasp)
3. Where Brinsmead Pushes Back Hardest on Sheehan
The real disagreement is here:
Sheehan tends toward:
• Collapse model: God → humanity
Brinsmead insists on:
• Asymmetry model:
o God → sustains humanity
o humanity ≠ God
His warning is explicit: “That’d be the ultimate rebellion… ‘I am that great Lord.’”
This is not just theology— it’s psychological:
• Total identification with the divine = inflation
• Loss of transcendence = loss of humility constraint
4. The “Light” Metaphor (Very Important)
“You’re not the light… you’re a reflection of the light.”
This is doing a lot of work:
• Humans participate in the divine
• But do not originate the divine
• Consciousness is derivative illumination
This preserves:
• dignity (we reflect God)
• limitation (we are not God)
5. The Anthropological Problem He Identifies
Brinsmead points to something psychologically crucial: “The fall story is so in the human psych…”
He’s saying:
• Traditional religion:
o created alienation narratives
o projected God as external judge
• This distorts:
o human self-understanding
o moral development
So he agrees with Sheehan here: The old “sky God” must go
But he refuses the next step: eliminating transcendence entirely
6. Your Dualism Framework — This Fits Almost Perfectly
What’s interesting is how cleanly this maps onto your broader project.
You’ve been working with:
Two competing archetypes inside Christianity:
1. Apocalyptic / punitive / separation-based
2. Non-violent / unconditional / union-based
Brinsmead is clearly trying to:
• Reject:
o punitive deity
o fall-based separation
o apocalyptic destruction
• Preserve:
o a non-coercive, sustaining ground of being
o a transcendent moral horizon
7. The Philosophical Stakes (Why This Matters)
This is not just theology— it’s about what happens to society if one side wins.
If Sheehan goes too far:
• God = human projection
• Risk:
o moral grounding becomes purely subjective
o ethics can drift into relativism or ideology
If traditional transcendence dominates:
• God = external authority
• Risk:
o fear, control, apocalyptic violence
o authoritarian religion
Brinsmead’s middle path:
• God is within → ethical immediacy
• God is beyond → moral restraint
This creates:
• dignity without arrogance
• grounding without tyranny
8. The Most Interesting Line (Philosophically)
“God only has immortality.”
This is a radical claim:
• Humans are not inherently immortal
• We are dependent, contingent life
• Immortality belongs only to the ground of being
This directly counters:
• religious triumphalism
• spiritual inflation
• metaphysical egoism
9. Where This Could Be Taken Further (If You Want)
There are a few very fertile directions from here:
Option A — Integrate into your dualism model
Frame it as:
• Healthy synthesis = immanence + transcendence
• Pathologies:
o pure transcendence → authoritarian religion
o pure immanence → human self-deification
Option B — Develop a “Post-Religious Theism”
Something like:
• No sky God
• No apocalyptic myth
• No separation narrative
But:
• real transcendence
• real grounding
• real moral ontology
Option C — Political implications (very strong)
This connects directly to your democracy work:
• Loss of transcendence → ideological absolutism
• External transcendence → theocracy
Balanced view → supports:
• pluralism
• humility
• non-coercive ethics
Bottom Line
Brinsmead is trying to save Sheehan from his own success.
He agrees that:
• God is no longer “out there”
• God is encountered in human life and love
But insists that:
• God is still more than humanity
• still the ground of being
• still beyond conceptual capture
In one sentence: Sheehan gives you ethical immediacy.
Brinsmead restores metaphysical depth and humility.
If you want, the next powerful step would be to turn this into a tight comparative essay (Sheehan vs Brinsmead vs your dualism framework), or even sharpen it into a publishable argument about why modern society needs both immanence and transcendence to remain stable.
Mine:
This would all be good- If you want, the next powerful step would be to turn this into a tight comparative essay (Sheehan vs Brinsmead vs your dualism framework), or even sharpen it into a publishable argument about why modern society needs both immanence and transcendence to remain stable.
Chat:
Here is a tight, publishable comparative essay integrating Thomas Sheehan, Robert Brinsmead, and your dualism framework:
Immanence Without Arrogance, Transcendence Without Tyranny: Why Modern Society Needs Both
In the long history of religious thought, few tensions have proven more enduring— or more consequential— than the relationship between divine transcendence and divine immanence. Is God “out there,” wholly other and beyond the world? Or is God “in here,” present within human life, consciousness, and ethical experience? In modern theology, this tension has reached a critical turning point. The work of Thomas Sheehan pushes toward a radical resolution: God has “disappeared into humanity,” no longer existing as a separate metaphysical being but as the depth dimension of human ethical existence. In contrast, Robert D. Brinsmead insists that while God is indeed present in humanity, transcendence cannot be abandoned without serious philosophical and psychological consequences.
This debate is not merely theological. It cuts to the foundations of moral reasoning, human identity, and even the stability of liberal democratic societies. At stake is nothing less than how human beings understand their place in reality: as self-grounding agents, as subjects under external authority, or as participants in a reality that is both within and beyond them.
The Collapse into Immanence: Sheehan’s Revolutionary Move
Sheehan’s proposal is bold and, in many ways, liberating. By rejecting the idea of God as a supernatural “sky being,” he dismantles the framework that has historically supported fear-based religion, apocalyptic thinking, and divine violence. In his view, the incarnation is not a metaphysical anomaly but an anthropological insight: God is disclosed in human existence itself, especially in acts of unconditional love, responsibility, and care.
This move has profound ethical implications. It eliminates the need for religious mediation— no priesthood, no sacred hierarchy, no divine tribunal standing over humanity. The sacred is no longer elsewhere. It is found in the immediacy of human relationships. In this sense, Sheehan’s theology represents the culmination of a long trajectory toward moral interiorization: the shift from external law to internal conscience, from divine command to human responsibility.
Yet precisely at this point of strength, a critical weakness emerges. If God is wholly identified with human existence, then the distinction between the human and the divine collapses. The result is a form of radical immanence in which the grounding of moral reality risks becoming indistinguishable from human subjectivity itself. Without some form of transcendence, there is no longer a clear basis for critiquing human desires, ideologies, or collective delusions. Humanity becomes, in effect, its own highest authority.
The Return of Transcendence: Brinsmead’s Corrective
Brinsmead accepts much of Sheehan’s critique of traditional religion. He rejects the myth of a distant, punitive deity and affirms that God is present in human life— indeed, that human beings are the primary locus of divine self-disclosure. But he draws a decisive line: God is not reducible to humanity.
His formulation is simple but philosophically rich: God is in everything, but everything is not God.
This distinction restores what might be called ontological asymmetry. Human beings participate in the divine, but they do not originate it. They reflect the “light,” but they are not the light itself. Existence, in Brinsmead’s view, is not self-grounding. It is continuously sustained by a reality that exceeds it. “If God stayed his hand,” he suggests, “we cease to exist.”
This reintroduction of transcendence serves several crucial functions. First, it preserves humility. If humans are not the ultimate source of being or value, then there remains a limit to human authority. Second, it provides a grounding for moral realism. Ethical claims are not merely expressions of human preference but participate in a deeper structure of reality. Third, it protects against what might be called spiritual inflation— the tendency to identify the self, or humanity as a whole, with ultimate reality.
At the same time, Brinsmead avoids reverting to traditional theism. His transcendence is not that of a distant ruler or cosmic judge. It is closer to what classical theology calls the “ground of being”— a reality that is both immanent in all things and irreducible to them. Importantly, he acknowledges that this transcendent dimension is ultimately beyond conceptual grasp. It cannot be systematized or controlled.
The Dualism Within Christianity
This debate can be more fully understood within a broader framework: the internal dualism that has long shaped Christian thought. On one side stands a tradition rooted in separation, judgment, and apocalyptic resolution— a narrative in which humanity is alienated from God and must be saved through divine intervention. On the other side stands a radically different vision centered on unconditional love, nonviolence, and the inherent dignity of human beings.
Sheehan’s work can be seen as an attempt to resolve this dualism by eliminating its transcendent pole altogether. If God is fully present in humanity, then the entire structure of separation collapses. There is no longer any basis for divine wrath, final judgment, or cosmic destruction.
Brinsmead, however, seeks a more nuanced resolution. He rejects the pathological elements of transcendence— those associated with fear, domination, and exclusion— while preserving a non-coercive form of transcendence that grounds existence without overriding human freedom. In doing so, he implicitly distinguishes between two kinds of transcendence: one that threatens human autonomy and one that makes it possible.
The Psychological Dimension
The implications of this debate are not confined to abstract metaphysics. They extend deeply into human psychology. Brinsmead points out that traditional religious narratives, particularly the “fall” story, have embedded a sense of separation and guilt within the human psyche. This has contributed to the widespread perception of God as an external judge and of humanity as fundamentally flawed.
Sheehan’s approach effectively dismantles this structure, offering a vision of human beings as already situated within the divine. This has clear psychological benefits: it reduces alienation, affirms human dignity, and encourages ethical responsibility.
But the elimination of transcendence introduces a new risk. Without a sense of something beyond the self, there is little to counterbalance the human tendency toward self-justification. The same psychological mechanisms that once projected judgment onto an external deity may now operate internally or socially, manifesting as ideological certainty or moral absolutism.
Brinsmead’s model, by contrast, maintains a tension that may be psychologically stabilizing. It affirms human worth while also acknowledging human limitation. It encourages participation without identification, responsibility without self-deification.
Political Implications: Democracy and Its Preconditions
The stakes become even clearer when viewed through a political lens. Liberal democracy depends on a delicate balance: individuals must be free and equal, yet no individual or group can claim absolute authority. This balance is difficult to sustain without some form of transcendence.
If transcendence is understood in authoritarian terms— as an external power that dictates truth and morality— then it easily supports theocratic or hierarchical systems. History provides ample examples of this dynamic, in which religious authority legitimizes political domination.
But if transcendence is eliminated entirely, a different danger emerges. Without any reality beyond human construction, moral and political norms become contingent on collective will. This can lead to ideological absolutism, in which particular visions of the good are enforced without restraint. In such a context, there is no higher standard by which to critique injustice or resist the tyranny of the majority.
A balanced conception of transcendence— one that grounds value without imposing it— may therefore be essential to democratic life. It provides a horizon against which human actions can be evaluated, while leaving space for pluralism, debate, and revision.
Toward a Necessary Synthesis
The debate between Sheehan and Brinsmead ultimately points toward a synthesis that neither fully articulates but both help to illuminate. Such a synthesis would affirm the central insight of immanence: that the divine is encountered in human life, especially in acts of love and justice. At the same time, it would preserve a form of transcendence that prevents this insight from collapsing into self-referentiality.
This synthesis can be expressed in a simple but powerful formulation: human beings participate in the divine, but they do not exhaust it.
In this view, transcendence is not a threat to human dignity but its condition of possibility. It ensures that no individual, institution, or ideology can claim ultimate authority. Immanence, meanwhile, ensures that transcendence does not become an instrument of fear or control. It locates the divine not in distant metaphysical realms but in the concrete realities of human existence.
Conclusion
The modern crisis of religion is often framed as a choice between belief and disbelief, between a supernatural worldview and a secular one. But the more fundamental issue may be how to hold together immanence and transcendence in a way that supports both human flourishing and social stability.
Sheehan’s vision of God within humanity offers a powerful corrective to the excesses of traditional theism. Brinsmead’s insistence on transcendence provides an equally necessary counterweight. Together, they point toward a reconfiguration of the divine that is neither authoritarian nor reductive.
In an age marked by both religious extremism and moral fragmentation, this balance may not be a theoretical luxury. It may be a civilizational necessity.
The media obsession over “imminent” or not.
“The truth about Iran’s ‘imminent threat’ that politicians hate to admit: The intelligence community assesses capabilities, timelines and intent, offering probabilities — not final judgments. It should not decide when a threat becomes ‘imminent’”, Gordon Sondland, Mar 23, 2026
This article gets into the complexity of factors that leads to the decision on what is “imminent” in regard to the threat from Iran.
Some quotes:
“In a conventional setting, an imminent threat might be easy to identify: troops massing at a border, missiles being fueled, orders being transmitted. But nuclear proliferation does not unfold that way. It is gradual, opaque and often deliberately ambiguous. A regime like Iran’s advances its capabilities in stages — enriching uranium, refining weaponization and expanding delivery systems — without ever presenting a single, definitive moment that clearly signals that the threshold has been crossed…
“If the standard for an imminent threat is that the Ayatollah must be on the verge of pressing a launch button, then the United States has already forfeited its ability to prevent the outcome. At that stage, the options available are severely constrained, and the risks multiply dramatically…
“If Iran is within one to two years of developing a deliverable nuclear warhead and is simultaneously expanding its ballistic missile capacity, that timeline cannot be dismissed as distant. In strategic terms, it is compressed. The closer those two tracks come to intersecting, the fewer viable options remain for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran…
“That is why the concept of an imminent threat cannot be reduced to a soundbite. It is contextual. It depends on trajectory — whether the threat is accelerating or contained. It depends on capability — how close an adversary is to achieving its objective. And it depends on intent — what that adversary has demonstrated over time.”
And so on…