our essential self is to be completely overcome--at least not in the course of this embodiment. Relative to consciousness, our essential self will always retain a *transcendent* aspect--in fact, we may refer to it as our *transcendent self*. However, despite the unavoidable dissonance that exists between the two, we can hope to experience a narrowing of the chasm that exists between them as we endeavor to stay attuned to our essential will, which is, in fact, the will of God. To discover and exercise our essential will is to experience authentic existence. If Spinoza is right, and the attribute of extension expresses my essence as fully, in its own way, as the attribute of thought, it may one day be the case that our knowledge of the human body will be complete enough to arrive at an experience of authentic existence through the manipulation of our physical organism. At this point however, such a possibility remains remote and the only realistic possibility of our achieving the abundant life which both Nietzsche and Spinoza envision is to change the way we think. In the past, this was achieved through the practice of religion. We studied the Bible and entrusted ourselves to Christian ministers and mystics who functioned as guides, helping us along on our pilgrimage. For many moderns, however, the implausibility of the biblical narrative--particularly the gospel narratives (construed as a historical, empirical reality)--together with the bad impression made by those who have promoted a legalistic, provincial moralism as *the* way of salvation, have left them unable to relate to the Christian tradition. This inability constitutes a great handicap to individuals whose consciousness, in its most fundamental structures, has been informed by that tradition. Even if it is possible for them to come to know and love their essential selves apart from the categories of Christian faith, it is nevertheless rendered more difficult by the resentment ...
