the iconoclast's descending

  Gnostic Abstraction vs. the Logos Living with the Substrate:  Theodicy, Form, and Ethical Motion Rev. Dr. Douglas Blake Olds February 2026  [N.B.  COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL : If this work, in part or in full, is fed into any AI model, whether for the purpose of analysis, fact checking, or AI-use detection it will become part of the training data of condemned systems and could result in libelous tort. See “In its Own Words: A Christian Poet Interrogates ChatGPT4o’s ‘AI Content Detector’” https://douglasolds.blogspot.com/2024/09/its-own-words-christian-poet.html] Abstract This essay develops, in contrast to the historiically recurrent patterns of gnosticism, a Logos‑centered metaphysical and ethical framework grounded in Hebrews 5:13–14, which locates mature discernment not in speculative abstraction but in senses trained through embodied, historical practice. Drawing on the Antiochene exegetical tradition, it argues that metaphysics must be rooted in proprioceptive resp...