wasn't posing an argument more than just illustrating what a bad essay it was. even famous philosophers can produce tripe. I understand he's taking a poke at the west's notions of free will and sin by having the western notion of god play the role of a sort of Zen master posing a Koan to a student but I can't help but feel he missed the mark. But since you make an appeal to authority (a classic technique in argument) can I assume we are now arguing? May I counter with an appeal to authority on the subject? My illustration of how bad an essay it was and how plainly the author seems to have missed basic Taoist concepts was mainly an act of regurgitating Alan Watts, a famous British philosopher and theologian who specialized in the subject of Taoism and played a huge role in popularizing it as well as Zen (applied Taoism) in the west. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts there. now we both have wiki links to some scruffy old dudes.