Well, to be exact, it isn't always ineffective - indeed, conservative evangelical protestants are among very few denominations still winning converts among native European-descended people. But the numbers are small, and most Westerners are immune to their message.
Why? Because traditional Christian evangelism focuses on salvation - on saving-from Hell. (Note: All the following is true, and I endorse it...) Traditional evangelism focuses on sin, and the need for repentance from sin. It focuses on getting people to recognise their sins, acknowledging that sin really is sin; and on having faith in Jesus as Saviour - in understanding that faith in Jesus is both necessary and sufficient for salvation.
All of the above is true and necessary and absolutely-must be affirmed by all Christians - and yet it doesn't work.
It doesn't work because people don't believe God - consequently they don't believe in the reality and objectivity of sin, they don't believe in Heaven, so they don't believe in Hell... even worse, they prefer Hell to Heaven; because Heaven would entail giving-up some favourite (usually sexual, but maybe emotional) sin. It doesn't work because people don't feel the need to be-saved; and they are unimpressed/ uninterested by what they are being saved-for.
And it doesn't work because the primary suffering experience of modern people is alienation - of being cut-off from the world; of finding life (meaning this mortal life) meaningless and purposeless: of finding nothing really-real, and of being haunted by a conviction that life is merely a senseless and lonely spark in eternity.
To save someone from alienation is not like saving someone from the consequences of sin; saving from alienation requires, more than anything, a purpose for life. From that purpose can come meaning, and that purpose may also give meaning to relationships; and when that purpose extends beyond biological death then a great deal has been achieved.
Christianity as a faith has, so far, been bad at providing positive purpose. Instead, purpose has traditionally been provided not by the faith but by the church, by the human organisation. Yet most Christian churches are now corrupt, and indeed anti-Christian overall; and those which are not corrupt are small, scattered; and mostly incapable (through lack of persons and resources) of providing an 'alternative purposive life' for alienated moderns.
What is needed, then, is development of Christian doctrine that goes beyond salvation; moves directly from saving-from on to living-for; from the negative to the positive.
I think this means Christianity picking-up from the incomplete 'project' of Romanticism - as exemplified by Blake and Coleridge; of seeking to reconnect Man with a living nature, of recognising that God is within as well an an external person, of thinking much more about the nature of Heaven than the avoidance of Hell. And understanding Heaven as an active, dynamic, purposive world - a world of loving relationships united in divinely creative activity.
And recognising that this is something we can, and should, be doing here and now, on earth, during mortal life.
This is the Good News of Christianity for moderns; and ought to be the first point of contact and primary message. Salvation is absolutely-necessary; but it is a means and not the end. As it says in the Fourth Gospel (John 20:31):
...these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Which makes clear that the ultimate purpose is 'life', which (through this Gospel) means the divine, Heavenly consciousness.
Even knowing this; not everybody will even want life everlasting, life more abundantly, the life of Sons of God - most of Jesus's audience rejected it, after all. But modern people ought to be clear, at least, the magnitude of what it is they are rejecting.
If they can first understand the nature and scope of what is positively 'on offer' - only then, and if they want it, they can then decide whether or not this offer is real and possible.
Tuesday, 19 June 2018
The best neglected book? The Great Divorce, by CS Lewis (1946)
Although it is perhaps not CS Lewis's very best book (which would probably be, according to taste, The Screwtape Letters, That Hideous Strength, Abolition of Man, or the Narnia Chronicles), his fable The Great Divorce is perhaps the one that I find comes to mind more often than any other.
You can find a copy here.
The reason I think of it frequently, is that TGD is the wisest of books concerning the most significant, yet difficult, of Christian doctrines for modern people - the nature of, and necessity for, repentance of sins. In particular, that The Problem for salvation (the choice between Heaven and Hell) is not the size of a sin (how sinful it is), but whether a person is prepared to recognise and acknowledge a particular sin as a sin.
Thus, a repentant murderer is in Heaven; an insincere Bishop prefers to remain in Hell.
A further value of TGD is that it shows exactly and plausibly why a 'normal', everyday person might actively-choose Hell, and for reasons that would perhaps be regarded as utterly trivial by another.
The title of 'The Great Divorce' has always been the book's biggest problem - since it is both off-putting and misleading. In fact the book is an easy and enjoyable read, full of humour and satire - as well as poetry and visionary fantasy, along similar lines to The Screwtape Letters. It is also manageably brief (about 150 pages).
If you want to know a bit more before giving the book a try, I can recommend Adam Greenwood's article; which discusses the book from a Mormon Christian perspective.
But why not just read the thing!
You can find a copy here.
The reason I think of it frequently, is that TGD is the wisest of books concerning the most significant, yet difficult, of Christian doctrines for modern people - the nature of, and necessity for, repentance of sins. In particular, that The Problem for salvation (the choice between Heaven and Hell) is not the size of a sin (how sinful it is), but whether a person is prepared to recognise and acknowledge a particular sin as a sin.
Thus, a repentant murderer is in Heaven; an insincere Bishop prefers to remain in Hell.
A further value of TGD is that it shows exactly and plausibly why a 'normal', everyday person might actively-choose Hell, and for reasons that would perhaps be regarded as utterly trivial by another.
The title of 'The Great Divorce' has always been the book's biggest problem - since it is both off-putting and misleading. In fact the book is an easy and enjoyable read, full of humour and satire - as well as poetry and visionary fantasy, along similar lines to The Screwtape Letters. It is also manageably brief (about 150 pages).
If you want to know a bit more before giving the book a try, I can recommend Adam Greenwood's article; which discusses the book from a Mormon Christian perspective.
But why not just read the thing!
Monday, 18 June 2018
Modern sexuality - since not the sexual revolution, then what?
Earlier, I posted a negative critique of the destructiveness of the sexual revolution. This is, I would imagine, pretty well understood among reflective people. Yet the insight has no traction. The sexual revolution continues unabated, accelerates, continues to spread towards a knowable destination of destroying everything Good.
Why? Simply because there is nothing in mainstream modern discourse that says why destruction is bad, and why Good is good - why we should prefer the latter to the former; or indeed what Good actually is.
In sum, the unopposed expansion of the sexual revolution is one of many consequences of Western Christian apostasy, of the atheist (no God) assumption of modern societies.
So, until such a time as a person chooses to abandon materialism and acknowledge the reality of God, then nothing can be done about anything. And until Christianity is accepted, then there will not be a sufficiently precise understanding of The Good to oppose, overthrow, replace the sexual revolution.
But, but, but... Once that point has been reached, the question still stands: If not, then what? If not the sexual revolution, then what instead. And, most important to the modern consciousness - from whence cometh that alternative? What is its provenance?
On the one hand we absolutely-must abandon the sexual revolution; on the other hand what replaces it needs to be Christian. But this knowledge very rapidly comes-up-against the practical and unavoidable question of nature and origin: the nature of what replaces it, and what is the source for what replaces it?
Now, the mostly obvious answer is for a Christian to point at the specific sex and sexuality teachings of the specific church or denomination to which they adhere. What this amounts to is: first believe in the authority of this church, then you will know what to do about sex...
But my sense is that this is insufficient (as well as incoherent - even among real Christians). To speak personally; I certainly want to know about the true and Good sexuality, but I need to know this for myself, convinced by inner personal experience; by a direct and unmediated knowledge that such and such is Good, and the rest is not Good. I need to know how this fits-in with divine destiny - with God's overall plan for me, and for Man.
More exactly, I don't want, because I do not accept as valid, the idea that sexuality may be captured in laws or rules - mainly because nothing at all, nothing vital and applicable, is really captured in laws or rules. Laws and rules are distorted and partial summaries, no more. They are not the source of discernment. Laws and rules are secondary things - and I want to be able to know primarily, specifically, exactly what is Right and why - not merely to have some list of generalities which must (like any law or rule) crudely be applied to specific instances.
So, as well as wanting specifics, I want to have specifics on the ultimate authority of my own fundamental experience - my profoundest intuitions; not on the say-so of any external authority (which may be only partially right, which may be inadequately informed, which may be corrupt, and which I may have misunderstood). Thus the authority of any groups of people, of any scripture, or any tradition, of any logical argument... all such are inadequate, insufficient, secondary.
(External authorities may be extremely helpful in practice! A repository, a source of teaching, advice etc. But I do not want the ultimate authority to be located externally - so that I am in a passive relationship to ultimates. This is the nature of full revelation as contrasted with mere obedience; revelation enables an active alignment-with the divine, an embrace of divine destiny, to work-with God.)
Sex and sexuality are extremely important - so important that I need to know about them as strongly as I know about anything else. This means that I need to accept that there really are Goods and bads, rights and wrongs; that these are objective realities. But/And I also need to know that I personally can have direct and unmediated access to these Goods and bads.
In essence, my assumption is that there is a single, real, universal, objective reality and truth about Sex and Sexuality - and that I (like any person) can know this for myself; and that is the proper (and indeed unavoidable without harm) task of each and every modern person.
This just-is the modern condition. The situation is that 'traditionalism' (obedience to external authority as the bottom-line) just-isn't possible for us; it inevitably devolves to play-acting and dishonesty; because it entails is an attempted denial of personal judgement that is itself a personal judgement. We may choose to avoid this destiny of personal responsibility - but only at the cost of the kind of outcome represented by the sexual revolution specifically, or materialist Leftism more generally.
To take personal responsibility for understanding God's wishes with respect to sex and sexuality is an unavoidable (with harm) task for which Good motivation is vital; and Good motivation is only possible insofar as a person is Christian (i.e. accepts this as a basic framework, rejects materialism, and at least implicitly lives-by Christ), and then wants to know the real truth about it.
If the motivation is corrupt - if someone is really seeking an excuse to do something, or to oppose something, or to ignore something... well, then he will not have access to reality. Proper motivation is the prerequisite for direct knowledge. But if someone has the correct assumptions, and truth-seeking motivations, then everyone can know-for-himself exactly what it is that God wants from him, from us, when it comes to sex and sexuality; in each specific instance.
(And that knowledge will be the same for everybody - even though expressing and communicating such knowledge entails some incompleteness and distortion, and thus will probably lead to apparent disagreements.)
Why? Simply because there is nothing in mainstream modern discourse that says why destruction is bad, and why Good is good - why we should prefer the latter to the former; or indeed what Good actually is.
In sum, the unopposed expansion of the sexual revolution is one of many consequences of Western Christian apostasy, of the atheist (no God) assumption of modern societies.
So, until such a time as a person chooses to abandon materialism and acknowledge the reality of God, then nothing can be done about anything. And until Christianity is accepted, then there will not be a sufficiently precise understanding of The Good to oppose, overthrow, replace the sexual revolution.
But, but, but... Once that point has been reached, the question still stands: If not, then what? If not the sexual revolution, then what instead. And, most important to the modern consciousness - from whence cometh that alternative? What is its provenance?
On the one hand we absolutely-must abandon the sexual revolution; on the other hand what replaces it needs to be Christian. But this knowledge very rapidly comes-up-against the practical and unavoidable question of nature and origin: the nature of what replaces it, and what is the source for what replaces it?
Now, the mostly obvious answer is for a Christian to point at the specific sex and sexuality teachings of the specific church or denomination to which they adhere. What this amounts to is: first believe in the authority of this church, then you will know what to do about sex...
But my sense is that this is insufficient (as well as incoherent - even among real Christians). To speak personally; I certainly want to know about the true and Good sexuality, but I need to know this for myself, convinced by inner personal experience; by a direct and unmediated knowledge that such and such is Good, and the rest is not Good. I need to know how this fits-in with divine destiny - with God's overall plan for me, and for Man.
More exactly, I don't want, because I do not accept as valid, the idea that sexuality may be captured in laws or rules - mainly because nothing at all, nothing vital and applicable, is really captured in laws or rules. Laws and rules are distorted and partial summaries, no more. They are not the source of discernment. Laws and rules are secondary things - and I want to be able to know primarily, specifically, exactly what is Right and why - not merely to have some list of generalities which must (like any law or rule) crudely be applied to specific instances.
So, as well as wanting specifics, I want to have specifics on the ultimate authority of my own fundamental experience - my profoundest intuitions; not on the say-so of any external authority (which may be only partially right, which may be inadequately informed, which may be corrupt, and which I may have misunderstood). Thus the authority of any groups of people, of any scripture, or any tradition, of any logical argument... all such are inadequate, insufficient, secondary.
(External authorities may be extremely helpful in practice! A repository, a source of teaching, advice etc. But I do not want the ultimate authority to be located externally - so that I am in a passive relationship to ultimates. This is the nature of full revelation as contrasted with mere obedience; revelation enables an active alignment-with the divine, an embrace of divine destiny, to work-with God.)
Sex and sexuality are extremely important - so important that I need to know about them as strongly as I know about anything else. This means that I need to accept that there really are Goods and bads, rights and wrongs; that these are objective realities. But/And I also need to know that I personally can have direct and unmediated access to these Goods and bads.
In essence, my assumption is that there is a single, real, universal, objective reality and truth about Sex and Sexuality - and that I (like any person) can know this for myself; and that is the proper (and indeed unavoidable without harm) task of each and every modern person.
This just-is the modern condition. The situation is that 'traditionalism' (obedience to external authority as the bottom-line) just-isn't possible for us; it inevitably devolves to play-acting and dishonesty; because it entails is an attempted denial of personal judgement that is itself a personal judgement. We may choose to avoid this destiny of personal responsibility - but only at the cost of the kind of outcome represented by the sexual revolution specifically, or materialist Leftism more generally.
To take personal responsibility for understanding God's wishes with respect to sex and sexuality is an unavoidable (with harm) task for which Good motivation is vital; and Good motivation is only possible insofar as a person is Christian (i.e. accepts this as a basic framework, rejects materialism, and at least implicitly lives-by Christ), and then wants to know the real truth about it.
If the motivation is corrupt - if someone is really seeking an excuse to do something, or to oppose something, or to ignore something... well, then he will not have access to reality. Proper motivation is the prerequisite for direct knowledge. But if someone has the correct assumptions, and truth-seeking motivations, then everyone can know-for-himself exactly what it is that God wants from him, from us, when it comes to sex and sexuality; in each specific instance.
(And that knowledge will be the same for everybody - even though expressing and communicating such knowledge entails some incompleteness and distortion, and thus will probably lead to apparent disagreements.)
Modern sexuality is the essentially-destructive enforcement of 'whim of iron' - which leads to literal hell
Modern sexuality has it that nothing is more important, more fundamental, than that a person should be able to express whatever sex and sexuality they happen to wish - in their current mood, here and now, feeling as they happen to feel just at present.
In sum: the assumption is that, when it comes to sex and sexuality - like a stereotypical hysterical prima donna - whim is iron.
In other words, modern sexuality has it that current expediency is profound; such that to thwart sexual whim is hatred, aggression, oppression.
Which means - in practice, and given that people change, develop, are corrupted and repent - that everyone is supposed to pretend that whim is not whim.
Yet, as well as being the most important thing in the world, such that even to challenge or attempt to correct a currently-declared sexual desire or identity is utterly intolerable; modern sexuality also insists that sex and sexuality don't really matter.
Indeed, to emphasise that sexuality is a fundamental aspect of individual, social and political life - and therefore of legitimate general concern, with respect to large and more primary issues of religious conviction - is pure reactionary evil. Up-tight, Victorian, 'fundamentalist', 'fascist'...
For modernity, sex comes before any-and-all religion - sex trumps religion; religion (to be ethical) must fit-itself-around sexual priorities. By law, enforced by govt. regulations, enforced by employers, enforced by mainstream mass media...
But wait a minute! At the same time, sex and sexuality are at the very centre of modern socio-political strategies - all major institutions and organisation in the modern state now incorporate sexual priorities among their declared 'mission statements' - none are exempt. No evaluation is exempt. No adverse functional consequences negate this priority: not sickness, death, annihilation... Whether it is the police or military, government or law, health services or education... all modern institutions and corporations must structure themselves around dogmas of sexuality and sexual identity.
So where does that leave us? As always, and from its surface to its fundamental depths; Leftism is incoherent. And since the sexual revolution is the battering ram, the shock troops of post-sixties New Leftism - the sexual revolution is incoherent. It does not make sense.
How come? Simple - because the sexual revolution is destructive in its essence - and destruction does not need to make sense. Indeed, sense is exactly-that which the sexual revolution, Leftism and (in the background) atheism seeks to destroy.
So far, its doing a great job!
This is why-and-how the sexual revolution is evil; because it is destructive. And it is purely destructive, destructive in its essence; which means that it is destructive of all Good.
Granted that the sexual revolution has destroyed some evils, along with the very concept of Good; it is necessary for people to recognise that this is the very nature of evil; the reason for its appeal and the way that evil corrupts.
In reality, Leftism is nowadays, mainly, the sexual revolution; and the sexual revolution is the incoherent enforcement of a whim of iron - simultaneously and incoherently whim-sical and of iron-necessity; hence destructive, hence - eventually - destructive of every-thing: everything Good, and bad, and indifferent.
Until, eventually, there is such chaos of mutually-resentful short-termist selfishness, that nothing can be done about anything.
And that situation is what's called hell.
In sum: the assumption is that, when it comes to sex and sexuality - like a stereotypical hysterical prima donna - whim is iron.
In other words, modern sexuality has it that current expediency is profound; such that to thwart sexual whim is hatred, aggression, oppression.
Which means - in practice, and given that people change, develop, are corrupted and repent - that everyone is supposed to pretend that whim is not whim.
Yet, as well as being the most important thing in the world, such that even to challenge or attempt to correct a currently-declared sexual desire or identity is utterly intolerable; modern sexuality also insists that sex and sexuality don't really matter.
Indeed, to emphasise that sexuality is a fundamental aspect of individual, social and political life - and therefore of legitimate general concern, with respect to large and more primary issues of religious conviction - is pure reactionary evil. Up-tight, Victorian, 'fundamentalist', 'fascist'...
For modernity, sex comes before any-and-all religion - sex trumps religion; religion (to be ethical) must fit-itself-around sexual priorities. By law, enforced by govt. regulations, enforced by employers, enforced by mainstream mass media...
But wait a minute! At the same time, sex and sexuality are at the very centre of modern socio-political strategies - all major institutions and organisation in the modern state now incorporate sexual priorities among their declared 'mission statements' - none are exempt. No evaluation is exempt. No adverse functional consequences negate this priority: not sickness, death, annihilation... Whether it is the police or military, government or law, health services or education... all modern institutions and corporations must structure themselves around dogmas of sexuality and sexual identity.
So where does that leave us? As always, and from its surface to its fundamental depths; Leftism is incoherent. And since the sexual revolution is the battering ram, the shock troops of post-sixties New Leftism - the sexual revolution is incoherent. It does not make sense.
How come? Simple - because the sexual revolution is destructive in its essence - and destruction does not need to make sense. Indeed, sense is exactly-that which the sexual revolution, Leftism and (in the background) atheism seeks to destroy.
So far, its doing a great job!
This is why-and-how the sexual revolution is evil; because it is destructive. And it is purely destructive, destructive in its essence; which means that it is destructive of all Good.
Granted that the sexual revolution has destroyed some evils, along with the very concept of Good; it is necessary for people to recognise that this is the very nature of evil; the reason for its appeal and the way that evil corrupts.
In reality, Leftism is nowadays, mainly, the sexual revolution; and the sexual revolution is the incoherent enforcement of a whim of iron - simultaneously and incoherently whim-sical and of iron-necessity; hence destructive, hence - eventually - destructive of every-thing: everything Good, and bad, and indifferent.
Until, eventually, there is such chaos of mutually-resentful short-termist selfishness, that nothing can be done about anything.
And that situation is what's called hell.
Tolkien, Lewis and the hopes for Albion Awakening
To back-up and emphasize my previous post; here is an inspiring excerpt from William Wildblood's most recent posting at Albion Awakening.
By clarifying what the three co-bloggers - myself, William and John Fitzgerald - are hoping to do; William brings-out the nature and task of being a Christian in the modern West - the state of being an 'exile', and what can be done about it:
**
If there were patrons of Albion Awakening, in the sense of guiding lights, they might well be C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien with an honourable mention, particularly in Bruce Charlton's case, of Owen Barfield.
The stories of Lewis and Tolkien were an inspiration to us when growing up, as they have been to countless others in a world starved of spirituality and real imagination. In my case I know, and in the case of my co-conspirators here I suspect, they were a real lifeline to something beyond the mundane, and their power has not diminished with age or familiarity.
The more time goes by, the more respect I have for them and their extraordinary achievements, all the greater for being made against the flow of contemporary thought. Now, it is interesting to note that all three of these men were Christians but they were different sorts of Christians. Tolkien was Catholic, Lewis was Anglican and Barfield, while a follower of the anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner, was certainly orientated to the full reality of Christ.
Funnily enough, this is reflected in the three of us in that John Fitzgerald was born and raised Catholic, Bruce Charlton is a Christian who leans towards Mormon theology, and I was raised in the Church of England and now don't have any official affiliation but am definitely Christian in that I acknowledge Jesus Christ as supreme Lord and Saviour.
Some may regard a Christian universalism of this sort as a weakness but I see it as a potential strength insofar as it can actually enable one to go more deeply into the vastness of spiritual truth. I have argued about this many times and don't want to go into it here. Suffice it to say that it is neither the much and justly derided pick and mix version of religion nor is it an 'anything goes' attitude.
The fullest truth is in Christ but official Christianity does not contain everything of Christ. It is, of course, quite enough for salvation (if observed properly) but it does not exhaust the wholeness of truth.
Moreover, there are solid grounds for thinking that the Christianity of the past, based predominantly on faith, is no longer adequate and that we now need to seek a more direct insight into the nature of things. This does not deny the past but moves it forward, and I will go into it a little more further on in the post.
Anyway, the point is that the three of us involved in this blog are all Christian but differ in externals, and probably in some beliefs as well, just like the Inklings mentioned above. Obviously I am not comparing us to them but it might be fair to say that we are standing on their shoulders and trying to follow in their footsteps if you'll forgive the rather clumsy mixed metaphors there.
Quite frankly, the world is in such a sorry spiritual state at the moment that it is time for anyone who can to put his or her hands to the pumps. We write for those who see the disastrous spiritual condition of the modern world and often feel isolated or that there is nothing that can be done about it.
We write to support such people and, at the same time, ourselves since it is a truism that getting stuff down on paper helps the writer himself to understand it better. That's true in my case certainly. The world can be a very lonely place for anyone who sees through its falseness and knows that what it calls good is often anything but.
I think of people like that, among whom I number myself, as exiles, and exiles who are often not even sure if their dreams of home are real. One of the purposes of this blog is to affirm, categorically and without ambiguity, that these dreams are not fantasies or wishful thinking but solid and real intuitions of truth.
As I say, all three of us here value the Christianity of the past but at the same time believe that, as it stands, it is no longer enough for the future. Times change, consciousness evolves and we are not the same now as we were in the Middle Ages. The roots of our religion remain the same but there needs to be new growth from those roots.
We are now called upon to realise some of the inner truths of religion directly and for ourselves. This is not a matter of redesigning the basic picture but of making it more real by adding depth and perspective, maybe even some extra dimensions that will bring it to greater life.
The fundamental truths are the same but we should now be going more deeply into them...
Read the whole thing...
By clarifying what the three co-bloggers - myself, William and John Fitzgerald - are hoping to do; William brings-out the nature and task of being a Christian in the modern West - the state of being an 'exile', and what can be done about it:
**
If there were patrons of Albion Awakening, in the sense of guiding lights, they might well be C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien with an honourable mention, particularly in Bruce Charlton's case, of Owen Barfield.
The stories of Lewis and Tolkien were an inspiration to us when growing up, as they have been to countless others in a world starved of spirituality and real imagination. In my case I know, and in the case of my co-conspirators here I suspect, they were a real lifeline to something beyond the mundane, and their power has not diminished with age or familiarity.
The more time goes by, the more respect I have for them and their extraordinary achievements, all the greater for being made against the flow of contemporary thought. Now, it is interesting to note that all three of these men were Christians but they were different sorts of Christians. Tolkien was Catholic, Lewis was Anglican and Barfield, while a follower of the anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner, was certainly orientated to the full reality of Christ.
Funnily enough, this is reflected in the three of us in that John Fitzgerald was born and raised Catholic, Bruce Charlton is a Christian who leans towards Mormon theology, and I was raised in the Church of England and now don't have any official affiliation but am definitely Christian in that I acknowledge Jesus Christ as supreme Lord and Saviour.
Some may regard a Christian universalism of this sort as a weakness but I see it as a potential strength insofar as it can actually enable one to go more deeply into the vastness of spiritual truth. I have argued about this many times and don't want to go into it here. Suffice it to say that it is neither the much and justly derided pick and mix version of religion nor is it an 'anything goes' attitude.
The fullest truth is in Christ but official Christianity does not contain everything of Christ. It is, of course, quite enough for salvation (if observed properly) but it does not exhaust the wholeness of truth.
Moreover, there are solid grounds for thinking that the Christianity of the past, based predominantly on faith, is no longer adequate and that we now need to seek a more direct insight into the nature of things. This does not deny the past but moves it forward, and I will go into it a little more further on in the post.
Anyway, the point is that the three of us involved in this blog are all Christian but differ in externals, and probably in some beliefs as well, just like the Inklings mentioned above. Obviously I am not comparing us to them but it might be fair to say that we are standing on their shoulders and trying to follow in their footsteps if you'll forgive the rather clumsy mixed metaphors there.
Quite frankly, the world is in such a sorry spiritual state at the moment that it is time for anyone who can to put his or her hands to the pumps. We write for those who see the disastrous spiritual condition of the modern world and often feel isolated or that there is nothing that can be done about it.
We write to support such people and, at the same time, ourselves since it is a truism that getting stuff down on paper helps the writer himself to understand it better. That's true in my case certainly. The world can be a very lonely place for anyone who sees through its falseness and knows that what it calls good is often anything but.
I think of people like that, among whom I number myself, as exiles, and exiles who are often not even sure if their dreams of home are real. One of the purposes of this blog is to affirm, categorically and without ambiguity, that these dreams are not fantasies or wishful thinking but solid and real intuitions of truth.
As I say, all three of us here value the Christianity of the past but at the same time believe that, as it stands, it is no longer enough for the future. Times change, consciousness evolves and we are not the same now as we were in the Middle Ages. The roots of our religion remain the same but there needs to be new growth from those roots.
We are now called upon to realise some of the inner truths of religion directly and for ourselves. This is not a matter of redesigning the basic picture but of making it more real by adding depth and perspective, maybe even some extra dimensions that will bring it to greater life.
The fundamental truths are the same but we should now be going more deeply into them...
Read the whole thing...
Sunday, 17 June 2018
The once and future Christianity - by William Wildblood
Don't miss a new essay entitled 'Mere Christians' by William Wildblood at the Albion Awakening blog.
This has depth and breadth; it is inspiring and en-couraging... just superb!
Over the past few years I have come to regard William as a Christian writer unsurpassed, in my experience, by anyone today.
And he keeps getting better...
This has depth and breadth; it is inspiring and en-couraging... just superb!
Over the past few years I have come to regard William as a Christian writer unsurpassed, in my experience, by anyone today.
And he keeps getting better...
The Brown Swamp, those vast tracts of insignificant times - Life Not of the golden thread
I have written previously about the 'golden thread' that highlights certain times, places and events of my life - running back as far as I can remember. But the opposite side of that coin is the vast tracts of forgotten times in my life. The many things that happened that I remember about - but which feel-unreal and made very little lasting impact... this can amount to the bulk of many years of some situations, places, people...
I can remember that such things happened, but not feel what it was like; things that may have been psychologically overwhelming at the time, or of great duration, or unusual... but which did not link up with anything real.
This really is the obverse of the golden thread - where the moments may have seemed insignificant at the time, apparently ephemeral - maybe even things I thought very briefly, momentary insights or flashes of self-awareness... yet which have taken-on a mythic weight and permanence.
SO: the golden thread is myth, it is archetype, it is really-real - whereas most of life, including most of the most 'impressive' things in life (socially regarded as significant, quantitatively most dominant) are... the opposite of myth... just stuff, arbitrary, time-filling; unsuccessful attempts to live but in fact dishonest, contrived.
Such a lot of this stuff! Such a Brown Swamp! And such futile efforts expended! And such self-dishonesty of evaluation to cover the insignificance that was - in truth - the real experience... There was certainly, always, a part of me that realised I was thrashing around and failing - merely filling-time, occupying mind; that I was trying to manufacture-on-demand something that could only be discovered and known.
How badly I misinterpreted things. I thought my alienation was caused by dullness of circumstance, by being trapped in mundane and restricted situations - and that if-only I could change the circumstance and situations, then life would become real - which is to say mythic.
But in fact the problem was metaphysical - that I was constantly in-denial-of the reality of the real, of the insights of intuition, of the importance of that which I knew important - I was (mostly - except in golden thread moments) trying to live by external criteria, get my meaning from circumstances and my satisfaction from approval.
In sum, the Brown Swamp - its size, pervasiveness, the way it swallowed-up so much of Life; this was a consequence of an almost continuous denial of the reality of the real, of my own capacity to know the real, of the permanence and objectivity of significance; and this was at root a denial of God.
(All that was supposedly-real was felt to be unreal; and that which was experienced as real was categorised as merely personal and ephemeral.)
This is not about 'happiness'. At least on the surface, happiness can be dissociated from meaning - indeed it nearly-always is, for more people and most of the time. I was often happy.
But happiness without meaning or purpose or permanence or the reality of relationships... well that is alienation, and that is what I mean by the Brown Swamp; and that was me, and I think it is 'normal' - and that it is entailed by genuine unbelief in God.
Belief in Jesus is a separate thing. It is unbelief in God, in deity; in the sense of creator, that entails alienation; entails that apparent meanings and purposes in living are subjective and evanescent delusions merely; entails that life is necessarily a Brown Swamp.
And therefore my experience of the golden thread was a consequence of my failures in atheism; it was a negative attainment; those times and situations of unconscious belief and faith: intuited reality not-effectively-denied...
I can remember that such things happened, but not feel what it was like; things that may have been psychologically overwhelming at the time, or of great duration, or unusual... but which did not link up with anything real.
This really is the obverse of the golden thread - where the moments may have seemed insignificant at the time, apparently ephemeral - maybe even things I thought very briefly, momentary insights or flashes of self-awareness... yet which have taken-on a mythic weight and permanence.
SO: the golden thread is myth, it is archetype, it is really-real - whereas most of life, including most of the most 'impressive' things in life (socially regarded as significant, quantitatively most dominant) are... the opposite of myth... just stuff, arbitrary, time-filling; unsuccessful attempts to live but in fact dishonest, contrived.
Such a lot of this stuff! Such a Brown Swamp! And such futile efforts expended! And such self-dishonesty of evaluation to cover the insignificance that was - in truth - the real experience... There was certainly, always, a part of me that realised I was thrashing around and failing - merely filling-time, occupying mind; that I was trying to manufacture-on-demand something that could only be discovered and known.
How badly I misinterpreted things. I thought my alienation was caused by dullness of circumstance, by being trapped in mundane and restricted situations - and that if-only I could change the circumstance and situations, then life would become real - which is to say mythic.
But in fact the problem was metaphysical - that I was constantly in-denial-of the reality of the real, of the insights of intuition, of the importance of that which I knew important - I was (mostly - except in golden thread moments) trying to live by external criteria, get my meaning from circumstances and my satisfaction from approval.
In sum, the Brown Swamp - its size, pervasiveness, the way it swallowed-up so much of Life; this was a consequence of an almost continuous denial of the reality of the real, of my own capacity to know the real, of the permanence and objectivity of significance; and this was at root a denial of God.
(All that was supposedly-real was felt to be unreal; and that which was experienced as real was categorised as merely personal and ephemeral.)
This is not about 'happiness'. At least on the surface, happiness can be dissociated from meaning - indeed it nearly-always is, for more people and most of the time. I was often happy.
But happiness without meaning or purpose or permanence or the reality of relationships... well that is alienation, and that is what I mean by the Brown Swamp; and that was me, and I think it is 'normal' - and that it is entailed by genuine unbelief in God.
Belief in Jesus is a separate thing. It is unbelief in God, in deity; in the sense of creator, that entails alienation; entails that apparent meanings and purposes in living are subjective and evanescent delusions merely; entails that life is necessarily a Brown Swamp.
And therefore my experience of the golden thread was a consequence of my failures in atheism; it was a negative attainment; those times and situations of unconscious belief and faith: intuited reality not-effectively-denied...
Saturday, 16 June 2018
The most basic Christian assumption
- and it is an assumption - is that God is wholly Good, and loves us as children, and wants for us to grow to be like Jesus.
But how do you 'know' that God is Good, and loves us? Most people look for evidence about this - but there can be no evidence - for or against - because what counts as evidence depends on whether we believe God is Good or not.
(If God was evil, then any apparent-evidence might be there to deceive us.)
We cannot interpret this world, cannot detect or evaluate evidence, unless we have already decided whether this world is A Creation of God, and whether that God is Good/ loves-us etc. All of this makes a difference to everything...
How can we know? Well, how can we know anything? ... Here the weasel world is 'how' and the expectation that there is a Method - and the further expectation that the Method can be validated by evidence etc.
So, the situation seems, to the modern mind, hopeless.
But the matter of how we can know about God, about the reality, the nature, the plans and hopes of God is resolved simply by recognising that this is some-thing we must know directly.
There can be no Method. We must know in such a way that that knowing is foundational to all else, because that is the kind of thing we are discussing.
If the modern world teaches anything, it is that when God is subtracted it makes a difference.
(We tend to blame The New Left for hollowing-out, politicising, and subverting and inverting all social institutions - but that was already done by atheism. Government, the law, schools, colleges, hospitals, the police and military, the media are all hollow and instrumental and evil when God is excised from their hearts. But that is not something to be proven by evidence - it is something we know, directly.)
Modern Man behaves as if the only thing he knows directly is that nothing-can be known directly - we merely need to recognise that self-refuting contradiction; and to approach Reality with the spirit of wanting to know.
And we need to start with first things - instead of asking secondary or tertiary questions about reality. The question of God is the first question; and soon after comes the nature of God including our relationship to God.
This knowing-directly isn't some tortured and drawn-out complex philosophical process or scheme - quite the opposite. We moderns are already-embroiled in a complex philosophical scheme which has so confused and muddled us that the one thing we cannot see is the obvious; the one priority we cannot recognise is the vital.
There s a sense in which the human soul always does recognise God, and God's goodness and love for us - but there are many reasons why this knowledge is suppressed, forgotten and overwritten. Ultimate priorities yield to everyday expediencies, realities yield to wishes and fears... this is common observation. Then we accuse others (project) this; and the tangle becomes impossible to unravel.
The only act or choice that can go past the tangle, is to recognise direct knowledge (aka. intuition) as valid, as the basis of everything; and then all else can and will follow - for reasons that can only-then become apparent.
We all began, as children, with direct but unconscious knowledge of everything we needed to know; and the beginning of our task as adults is 'merely' to know consciously what we used to know unconsciously.
Quick, simple, attainable...
And what of Jesus? Where does Jesus come into this scheme? Surely Jesus needs specific revelations of scripture, tradition, church authority etc? Well, no. Jesus needs an understanding of the need for Jesus; and as adults this needs to be an explicit understanding. As children, and at the time of Jesus's life, the need for a Saviour was perfectly well-understood - although the identity and nature of the Saviour was a matter of massive disagreement... We have lost that understanding of need, and need to rediscover the truth of it; each for himself or herself, by direct knowing.
But how do you 'know' that God is Good, and loves us? Most people look for evidence about this - but there can be no evidence - for or against - because what counts as evidence depends on whether we believe God is Good or not.
(If God was evil, then any apparent-evidence might be there to deceive us.)
We cannot interpret this world, cannot detect or evaluate evidence, unless we have already decided whether this world is A Creation of God, and whether that God is Good/ loves-us etc. All of this makes a difference to everything...
How can we know? Well, how can we know anything? ... Here the weasel world is 'how' and the expectation that there is a Method - and the further expectation that the Method can be validated by evidence etc.
So, the situation seems, to the modern mind, hopeless.
But the matter of how we can know about God, about the reality, the nature, the plans and hopes of God is resolved simply by recognising that this is some-thing we must know directly.
There can be no Method. We must know in such a way that that knowing is foundational to all else, because that is the kind of thing we are discussing.
If the modern world teaches anything, it is that when God is subtracted it makes a difference.
(We tend to blame The New Left for hollowing-out, politicising, and subverting and inverting all social institutions - but that was already done by atheism. Government, the law, schools, colleges, hospitals, the police and military, the media are all hollow and instrumental and evil when God is excised from their hearts. But that is not something to be proven by evidence - it is something we know, directly.)
Modern Man behaves as if the only thing he knows directly is that nothing-can be known directly - we merely need to recognise that self-refuting contradiction; and to approach Reality with the spirit of wanting to know.
And we need to start with first things - instead of asking secondary or tertiary questions about reality. The question of God is the first question; and soon after comes the nature of God including our relationship to God.
This knowing-directly isn't some tortured and drawn-out complex philosophical process or scheme - quite the opposite. We moderns are already-embroiled in a complex philosophical scheme which has so confused and muddled us that the one thing we cannot see is the obvious; the one priority we cannot recognise is the vital.
There s a sense in which the human soul always does recognise God, and God's goodness and love for us - but there are many reasons why this knowledge is suppressed, forgotten and overwritten. Ultimate priorities yield to everyday expediencies, realities yield to wishes and fears... this is common observation. Then we accuse others (project) this; and the tangle becomes impossible to unravel.
The only act or choice that can go past the tangle, is to recognise direct knowledge (aka. intuition) as valid, as the basis of everything; and then all else can and will follow - for reasons that can only-then become apparent.
We all began, as children, with direct but unconscious knowledge of everything we needed to know; and the beginning of our task as adults is 'merely' to know consciously what we used to know unconsciously.
Quick, simple, attainable...
And what of Jesus? Where does Jesus come into this scheme? Surely Jesus needs specific revelations of scripture, tradition, church authority etc? Well, no. Jesus needs an understanding of the need for Jesus; and as adults this needs to be an explicit understanding. As children, and at the time of Jesus's life, the need for a Saviour was perfectly well-understood - although the identity and nature of the Saviour was a matter of massive disagreement... We have lost that understanding of need, and need to rediscover the truth of it; each for himself or herself, by direct knowing.
Friday, 15 June 2018
Albion and the 'Collective Conscious'
In a post over at Albion Awakening, I introduce the vital concept of the 'Collective Conscious', as a modification of the Jungian idea of Collective Un-Conscious; and as a way of explaining the place and nature of the really-real; as contrasted with the un-reality - the illusions, deceptions and delusions - of normal, everyday, modern life.
Thursday, 14 June 2018
New William Arkle website
William Arkle's son, Nick, has just launched a very well-produced website of his father's work.
Take a look!...
Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Are some people 'born evil' (more than others)?
All the evidence, for what its worth, would say yes - some people are born more-Good than others; some people are, as far back as you go, apparently... well, evil.
In other words, there is a difference between individuals.
But how far back does this difference go? The answer partly depends on how far back we go.
If we each go back eternally, in some primordial essence, then does this Good-evil differential go back to eternity? Do we begin morally different? Or do we all start out exactly the same and the difference arises over time?
This is not a matter of 'evidence'; it is a matter of metaphysics - it is a primary assumption; and it can be validated only by intuition (and the validity of intuition in turn depends on its being the thinking of our divine self - that-within-us which is divine).
If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start exactly the same; then, because God is Good, this leads to the problem/ paradox of why God would make evil in the world, and men corruptible by it?
If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start different in terms of degree of Good and Evil; then this leads to the problem/ paradix of why a Good God would make some people more-evil (or more corruptible) than others - and thus more prone to damnation.
But if (as I believe) we all start different, and we have always (in some primordial form) existed co-eternally with God (and therefore, in this independence-from God have the existential basis of genuine free will or agency) - then this difference in Good-evil was already-there before God made us his children.
...Then we can see that the problem of evil is built-in, and evil was not made by God, nor was evil deliberately made possible by God (almost equally problematic).
So, God's creative endevaor is therefore to deal-with the already-existing situation of the reality of evil, and of differential evil; in entities already-with the basis of free agency; while encouraging us to choose first salvation (and thereby join God's family); and then choose theosis (and thereby work towards participation in God's creation).
In other words, there is a difference between individuals.
But how far back does this difference go? The answer partly depends on how far back we go.
If we each go back eternally, in some primordial essence, then does this Good-evil differential go back to eternity? Do we begin morally different? Or do we all start out exactly the same and the difference arises over time?
This is not a matter of 'evidence'; it is a matter of metaphysics - it is a primary assumption; and it can be validated only by intuition (and the validity of intuition in turn depends on its being the thinking of our divine self - that-within-us which is divine).
If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start exactly the same; then, because God is Good, this leads to the problem/ paradox of why God would make evil in the world, and men corruptible by it?
If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start different in terms of degree of Good and Evil; then this leads to the problem/ paradix of why a Good God would make some people more-evil (or more corruptible) than others - and thus more prone to damnation.
But if (as I believe) we all start different, and we have always (in some primordial form) existed co-eternally with God (and therefore, in this independence-from God have the existential basis of genuine free will or agency) - then this difference in Good-evil was already-there before God made us his children.
...Then we can see that the problem of evil is built-in, and evil was not made by God, nor was evil deliberately made possible by God (almost equally problematic).
So, God's creative endevaor is therefore to deal-with the already-existing situation of the reality of evil, and of differential evil; in entities already-with the basis of free agency; while encouraging us to choose first salvation (and thereby join God's family); and then choose theosis (and thereby work towards participation in God's creation).
Tuesday, 12 June 2018
Explaining the 'mechanism' of salvation and the necessity of Jesus (from the Fourth Gospel)
The beginning of the Fourth Gospel tells us that it was Jesus, The Word, who made this world; and it is this work of creation which enabled Jesus (and only Jesus) to be our saviour.
*
Having made this world; Jesus was then incarnated-into the world he had created; that is, he was incarnated from his creation, using the stuff of his own creation. This world has that primal and fundamental unity - of being created by Jesus - everything is inter-related and mutually-affecting, by kinship of shared origin.
So we too are all incarnated from this world, from the creation of Jesus.
When Jesus died and was resurrected; this was the death and resurrection of the creator of this world, Jesus's mortal body and his resurrected body were both of this world (which Jesus himself had made).
We are incarnate from this world, Jesus became incarnate from this world (which he had made); we and Jesus are both Men; and therefore Jesus's death and resurrection had universal significance for Men.
This it was, that made it possible for other Men to follow Jesus into resurrected life everlasting; and why only Jesus is our saviour.
*
Why then do we need to have faith in Jesus? Why doesn't salvation just-happen?
Because there are two things Jesus gave us; the first is 'physical' resurrection to eternal life, the second is 'dwelling' in Heaven (life 'everlasting', and life qualitatively greater - not merely unending existence...).
Resurrection just-happens, and it happens to all men. Instead of remaining as a severed soul - as was the case for all Men before Jesus; since the resurrection of Jesus, all Men (including those from before the time of Jesus) are resurrected.
Resurrection is not a choice - it 'just happens' - it is something like a change in physical reality; a change in what happens to the soul after death.
*
But Heaven is a choice, a decision, an act, an opt-in - and salvation therefore happens only through faith - that is love, trust of Jesus.
To understand this requires recalling the fate of the soul after the death of the body, and before the resurrection of Jesus - the soul was a witless, demented thing of little intelligence, little memory, little judgement, no free will... incapable of helping itself...
(This, at least, is how both the ancient Hebrews (with Sheol) and ancient Greeks (with Hades) regarded life after death - and other variants may be understood similarly. The soul after death was a damaged, incomplete, incapable thing - eternal life was merely eternal existence.)
I regard the Good Shepherd parable as providing the key to understanding salvation - which is that while the soul is always resurrected, resurrected Man cannot find his own way to Heaven.
The resurrected soul must be led to Heaven; that is, Man must choose to follow the guidance of the Good Shepherd. This following is not imposed, it is chosen.
This was made newly possible by Jesus because the resurrected soul has greater capability than the discarnate souls destined for Sheol/ Hades; the resurrected soul has sufficient capability to recognise Jesus, to know him; it has the capacity and necessity to choose whether to follow the Good Shepherd, or not.
Why would the resurrected soul follow the Good Shepherd to Heaven, except that the soul loved and trusted the Good Shepherd?
That is the need for faith.
*
Thus Jesus was necessary to our salvation, only Jesus could give us salvation, only faith in Jesus can lead us to salvation.
*
Having made this world; Jesus was then incarnated-into the world he had created; that is, he was incarnated from his creation, using the stuff of his own creation. This world has that primal and fundamental unity - of being created by Jesus - everything is inter-related and mutually-affecting, by kinship of shared origin.
So we too are all incarnated from this world, from the creation of Jesus.
When Jesus died and was resurrected; this was the death and resurrection of the creator of this world, Jesus's mortal body and his resurrected body were both of this world (which Jesus himself had made).
We are incarnate from this world, Jesus became incarnate from this world (which he had made); we and Jesus are both Men; and therefore Jesus's death and resurrection had universal significance for Men.
This it was, that made it possible for other Men to follow Jesus into resurrected life everlasting; and why only Jesus is our saviour.
*
Why then do we need to have faith in Jesus? Why doesn't salvation just-happen?
Because there are two things Jesus gave us; the first is 'physical' resurrection to eternal life, the second is 'dwelling' in Heaven (life 'everlasting', and life qualitatively greater - not merely unending existence...).
Resurrection just-happens, and it happens to all men. Instead of remaining as a severed soul - as was the case for all Men before Jesus; since the resurrection of Jesus, all Men (including those from before the time of Jesus) are resurrected.
Resurrection is not a choice - it 'just happens' - it is something like a change in physical reality; a change in what happens to the soul after death.
*
But Heaven is a choice, a decision, an act, an opt-in - and salvation therefore happens only through faith - that is love, trust of Jesus.
To understand this requires recalling the fate of the soul after the death of the body, and before the resurrection of Jesus - the soul was a witless, demented thing of little intelligence, little memory, little judgement, no free will... incapable of helping itself...
(This, at least, is how both the ancient Hebrews (with Sheol) and ancient Greeks (with Hades) regarded life after death - and other variants may be understood similarly. The soul after death was a damaged, incomplete, incapable thing - eternal life was merely eternal existence.)
I regard the Good Shepherd parable as providing the key to understanding salvation - which is that while the soul is always resurrected, resurrected Man cannot find his own way to Heaven.
The resurrected soul must be led to Heaven; that is, Man must choose to follow the guidance of the Good Shepherd. This following is not imposed, it is chosen.
This was made newly possible by Jesus because the resurrected soul has greater capability than the discarnate souls destined for Sheol/ Hades; the resurrected soul has sufficient capability to recognise Jesus, to know him; it has the capacity and necessity to choose whether to follow the Good Shepherd, or not.
Why would the resurrected soul follow the Good Shepherd to Heaven, except that the soul loved and trusted the Good Shepherd?
That is the need for faith.
*
Thus Jesus was necessary to our salvation, only Jesus could give us salvation, only faith in Jesus can lead us to salvation.
What is Christian conversion like?
Conversion is like a teenager's decision to stay-within the family from-which he has just psychologically detached-himself.
Monday, 11 June 2018
The contradictions of modern life
By William Wildblood at Albion Awakening:
Edited excerpt:
Today we live a very contradictory existence.
On the one hand, our beliefs are formed by materialism and our lives are largely lived as though that were true. This effectively requires that our sense of self be an illusion and any morals we might have arbitrary since one set cannot be better than another in any ultimate sense according to this doctrine.
All morals are merely functional, for utilitarian purposes only, which means they rest on nothing substantial and the only requirement is to appear to obey them not to actually do so.
But, on the other hand, we still live as if our self were real as well as those of others. The very idea of love, which we can't quite bring ourselves to renounce, insists that this be so.
Surely we can't have it both ways? Either materialism is true in which case we, as real individual selves with some actual substance, aren't true, or our individuality is real in which case there must be a non-material basis to life. And, if that is so, there has to be a God since something cannot come from nothing nor can things give rise to themselves or the lesser to the greater.
Moreover, we live as though free will were real but the philosophical basis of our culture, materialism, if true, would mean it was not. We would just be passive objects formed and impelled to action by mechanical or chemical but certainly external forces. Even the erudite philosophers who deny free will don't actually live as though they had none. Contradictions all over the place. No wonder we live in confused and chaotic times...
Read the whole thing...
Edited excerpt:
Today we live a very contradictory existence.
On the one hand, our beliefs are formed by materialism and our lives are largely lived as though that were true. This effectively requires that our sense of self be an illusion and any morals we might have arbitrary since one set cannot be better than another in any ultimate sense according to this doctrine.
All morals are merely functional, for utilitarian purposes only, which means they rest on nothing substantial and the only requirement is to appear to obey them not to actually do so.
But, on the other hand, we still live as if our self were real as well as those of others. The very idea of love, which we can't quite bring ourselves to renounce, insists that this be so.
Surely we can't have it both ways? Either materialism is true in which case we, as real individual selves with some actual substance, aren't true, or our individuality is real in which case there must be a non-material basis to life. And, if that is so, there has to be a God since something cannot come from nothing nor can things give rise to themselves or the lesser to the greater.
Moreover, we live as though free will were real but the philosophical basis of our culture, materialism, if true, would mean it was not. We would just be passive objects formed and impelled to action by mechanical or chemical but certainly external forces. Even the erudite philosophers who deny free will don't actually live as though they had none. Contradictions all over the place. No wonder we live in confused and chaotic times...
Read the whole thing...
Spiritual individualism
At present the two main lines are mainstream, modern materialist individualism; or a traditionalist communal-ism.
The first regards man as merely biological, a member of a species created by natural selection - but atomised into hedonic individuals, pursuing gratification.
Traditional religion has been almost wholly about fitting each individual into a pre-determined and simple scheme; subordinating the individual to the group. (Identity is considered as a type, not an individual.)
I think the truth is probably neither of these - the reality of the situation is probably spiritual, nor materialist, individualism.
Much of the success of modernity is because it seems to chime with the innate individualism of modern Man - but this promised destination is then twisted and perverted, and turned against itself - by the incoherent nonsense that is materialism as a metaphysical assumption.
However, it is possible to regard Man as intrinsically individual, in the sense of each being different from the beginning, from his or her origin; and each having an unique spiritual and eternal destiny. Then, this situation of primal individualism is made cohesive and creative by love; by the fact of sexual difference, in the pre-mortal spiritual state; of complementary men and women eternally real) and by families.
So there are primordial individuals, and then there is the opt-in system of love, from God. (Those who don't opt-in are not a part of cohesion - they have chosen existential isolation.)
New Testament Christianity is saturated with the language of family, and this is not an accidental nor optional thing; but a fundamental and literal reality. But it has been the early and progressive abandonment of relational family-language and its replacement by abstract physics-language (under the influence of pagan Greek and Roman philosophy and scholarship) that has been responsible for so much confusion, so much error.
The destined future for the followers of Jesus is one of individual men and women within families, eternally - but current ways of thinking, current metaphysical assumptions, make it almost impossible even to think this.
Instead we lapse towards the destructiveness of materialism, or the anti-individualism of traditional Christianity; neither of which is the path God wants for us, neither of which is a path which (if totally honest) anybody wants for himself, or herself - because both entail destruction of the self, the distinctive soul.
The future is to embrace individualism - but spiritual individualism, within a set of Christian metaphysical assumptions.
The first regards man as merely biological, a member of a species created by natural selection - but atomised into hedonic individuals, pursuing gratification.
Traditional religion has been almost wholly about fitting each individual into a pre-determined and simple scheme; subordinating the individual to the group. (Identity is considered as a type, not an individual.)
I think the truth is probably neither of these - the reality of the situation is probably spiritual, nor materialist, individualism.
Much of the success of modernity is because it seems to chime with the innate individualism of modern Man - but this promised destination is then twisted and perverted, and turned against itself - by the incoherent nonsense that is materialism as a metaphysical assumption.
However, it is possible to regard Man as intrinsically individual, in the sense of each being different from the beginning, from his or her origin; and each having an unique spiritual and eternal destiny. Then, this situation of primal individualism is made cohesive and creative by love; by the fact of sexual difference, in the pre-mortal spiritual state; of complementary men and women eternally real) and by families.
So there are primordial individuals, and then there is the opt-in system of love, from God. (Those who don't opt-in are not a part of cohesion - they have chosen existential isolation.)
New Testament Christianity is saturated with the language of family, and this is not an accidental nor optional thing; but a fundamental and literal reality. But it has been the early and progressive abandonment of relational family-language and its replacement by abstract physics-language (under the influence of pagan Greek and Roman philosophy and scholarship) that has been responsible for so much confusion, so much error.
The destined future for the followers of Jesus is one of individual men and women within families, eternally - but current ways of thinking, current metaphysical assumptions, make it almost impossible even to think this.
Instead we lapse towards the destructiveness of materialism, or the anti-individualism of traditional Christianity; neither of which is the path God wants for us, neither of which is a path which (if totally honest) anybody wants for himself, or herself - because both entail destruction of the self, the distinctive soul.
The future is to embrace individualism - but spiritual individualism, within a set of Christian metaphysical assumptions.
Sunday, 10 June 2018
Metaphors of Heaven: nation or family?
In yesterday's post, I argued that the Fourth Gospel tells us that our salvation is straightforward (quick, simple - believe, love, follow Jesus); and the difficult thing for us to do in mortal life, is to struggle for higher consciousness; more specifically to struggle for a divine consciousness - that is, a consciousness aligned with God's motivations.
It may be asked why? It may be asked - what is the effect our our struggling for higher consciousness - how does it cash-out in an eternal timescale? What difference does it make whether I attain a higher consciousness or not?
Crudely: what's in it for me?
It is a fair question that needs answering. We need some idea of how this struggle in mortal life relates to what happens in life everlasting. On Earth and in Heaven.
What, then, is Heaven like - how can we begin to understand it?
Heaven is more like a family than a nation.
There is a tendency to regard post-mortal life as being structured on the lines of a traditional society; as a hierarchy, as a formal-structure with appointed duties... Something like the societies of Medieval Western Europe - with a King, Princes, Earls, and Nobles; gentry such as merchants and professionals, craftsmen and peasants... Or, the idea may be more like the medieval Roman church, with Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, priests and monks...
The idea implicit is that in Heaven there are certain, relatively few, jobs - roles; and we are each appointed to serve in one or another of them; and these jobs are linked hierarchically and as specialised functions.
But if Heaven is more like a family, an ideal-imagined extended family that occupies its own world - a family that coheres by love and is motivated by participation in God's work of creation - then each child born into the family has an unique, unpredictable destiny. Nobody knows how the child will 'turn-out', and the grown-up child will 'contribute' to the family in some unique way.
The child is not shaped-into a predetermined job; in a family ideally the child and the family interact to take account and benefit from what the child is and what he becomes. Each niche is unique (or, can be).
By this account of the nature of Heaven, mortal life is meant to make us each become more our-selves - not to fit-into pre-determined niches.
Salvation corresponds to the basic orientation, the desire to be in the family, to live for the family, to pursue the goals of the family... and beyond that, the striving for higher consciousness is like growing-up, becoming more adult; which is more aware, more conscious, more purposive more free - because one who is unconscious and passive is not free.
Note: Back beyond the above account is a further layer, or depth - which is that we each begin as an unique being. There is an assumption that all people begin as spiritually-identical; but I am suggesting that the opposite is true. In the beginning there were no two the same. This universe is one in which every person (probably, every entity) is unique, ultimately - and the Christian principle of cohesion, is love between non-identical, un-like things; which develop to become more themselves... Since we are to be gods (Sons and Daughters of God) the entire dynamic process being 'powered' by the fundamental and structuring complementarity of man and woman. We should set-aside ideas of sameness of origin, or sameness as a goal; we never were nor can be nor are meant-to-be the same as anybody or anything else - and glory entails the development of individuality within that power of love and directed by the eternal delight of participation in creation .
It may be asked why? It may be asked - what is the effect our our struggling for higher consciousness - how does it cash-out in an eternal timescale? What difference does it make whether I attain a higher consciousness or not?
Crudely: what's in it for me?
It is a fair question that needs answering. We need some idea of how this struggle in mortal life relates to what happens in life everlasting. On Earth and in Heaven.
What, then, is Heaven like - how can we begin to understand it?
Heaven is more like a family than a nation.
There is a tendency to regard post-mortal life as being structured on the lines of a traditional society; as a hierarchy, as a formal-structure with appointed duties... Something like the societies of Medieval Western Europe - with a King, Princes, Earls, and Nobles; gentry such as merchants and professionals, craftsmen and peasants... Or, the idea may be more like the medieval Roman church, with Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, priests and monks...
The idea implicit is that in Heaven there are certain, relatively few, jobs - roles; and we are each appointed to serve in one or another of them; and these jobs are linked hierarchically and as specialised functions.
But if Heaven is more like a family, an ideal-imagined extended family that occupies its own world - a family that coheres by love and is motivated by participation in God's work of creation - then each child born into the family has an unique, unpredictable destiny. Nobody knows how the child will 'turn-out', and the grown-up child will 'contribute' to the family in some unique way.
The child is not shaped-into a predetermined job; in a family ideally the child and the family interact to take account and benefit from what the child is and what he becomes. Each niche is unique (or, can be).
By this account of the nature of Heaven, mortal life is meant to make us each become more our-selves - not to fit-into pre-determined niches.
Salvation corresponds to the basic orientation, the desire to be in the family, to live for the family, to pursue the goals of the family... and beyond that, the striving for higher consciousness is like growing-up, becoming more adult; which is more aware, more conscious, more purposive more free - because one who is unconscious and passive is not free.
Note: Back beyond the above account is a further layer, or depth - which is that we each begin as an unique being. There is an assumption that all people begin as spiritually-identical; but I am suggesting that the opposite is true. In the beginning there were no two the same. This universe is one in which every person (probably, every entity) is unique, ultimately - and the Christian principle of cohesion, is love between non-identical, un-like things; which develop to become more themselves... Since we are to be gods (Sons and Daughters of God) the entire dynamic process being 'powered' by the fundamental and structuring complementarity of man and woman. We should set-aside ideas of sameness of origin, or sameness as a goal; we never were nor can be nor are meant-to-be the same as anybody or anything else - and glory entails the development of individuality within that power of love and directed by the eternal delight of participation in creation .
Saturday, 9 June 2018
Striving for 'higher consciousness' (theosis) is a teaching of the Fourth Gospel
Why is it so difficult for us to attain a higher form of consciousness? Why is success so rare and brief?
The reason is that the higher consciousness is a divine form of consciousness, and to participate in it we must be in-accord-with divine creation... and not many people are.
Especially given that we must consciously be in accord with divine creation - and also aware of it, and actively choosing it from our true selves (our souls). (This cannot be something unconscious or passive - because the divine is always conscious, always active and purposive.)
Many traditionalists find this line of thinking to be un-Christian, if not anti-Christian; so it is necessary to link it with Jesus. The best source on Jesus is the Fourth Gospel.
In the Fourth Gospel, aside from Jesus himself, the best example of a God-aligned Man is the author of the Gospel, the beloved disciple himself - if we agree that the author is the resurrected Lazarus. The Gospel itself is the product of exactly the kind of divine consciousness that we seek.
A serious question - though - is to do with mortal versus post-mortal life. Clearly we can look-forward to a divine consciousness if we are believers in Jesus as the Son of God and the Good Shepherd who (if we will follow) will lead us to life eternal, with divine qualities that are 'symbolically' depicted throughout the Fourth Gospel.
But why suppose that we ought to aim at divine consciousness in mortal life? And why suppose that our failure to do would be responsible for the most extreme sins of modern life, as Rudolf Steiner recognised in a great prophetic statement of a century ago.
Well, perhaps because that is a theme throughout the Fourth Gospel, a Second Message; if that is what is implied by (for example) the conversation with Nicodemus about being born-again, or the conversation with the Samaritan woman about living water, or the discussion after feeding the five thousand about labouring for that meat which endureth into everlasting life.
It seems that there is a core/ minimal requirement for salvation: believing that Jesus is the Son of God and loving, therefore having faith, in him; so we may follow him through death to Heavenly life everlasting.
This core message is about salvation, and refers to our state after death and resurrection - but it is not about what we should do in this mortal life. Salvation is attainable by anyone who has these core convictions (believes-in and believes-on Jesus), and only by them. However, this gives no guidance for our worldly-motivations during this earthly existence.
However, there is also this Second Message - focused not on salvation but on theosis, on divinisation or sanctification - and this second message is about what we should work-for and strive-for during mortal life. What should motivate us. The answer is that we should strive to attain a new way of thinking and being that is aligned with the divine.
In other words, we ought-to strive for a higher consciousness, by aligning our thinking with the divine and by participating in the work of creation, even before death and during earthly mortality.
And if or when we do not strive for higher consciousness - there will be bad consequences (as we see all around us).
The reason is that the higher consciousness is a divine form of consciousness, and to participate in it we must be in-accord-with divine creation... and not many people are.
Especially given that we must consciously be in accord with divine creation - and also aware of it, and actively choosing it from our true selves (our souls). (This cannot be something unconscious or passive - because the divine is always conscious, always active and purposive.)
Many traditionalists find this line of thinking to be un-Christian, if not anti-Christian; so it is necessary to link it with Jesus. The best source on Jesus is the Fourth Gospel.
In the Fourth Gospel, aside from Jesus himself, the best example of a God-aligned Man is the author of the Gospel, the beloved disciple himself - if we agree that the author is the resurrected Lazarus. The Gospel itself is the product of exactly the kind of divine consciousness that we seek.
A serious question - though - is to do with mortal versus post-mortal life. Clearly we can look-forward to a divine consciousness if we are believers in Jesus as the Son of God and the Good Shepherd who (if we will follow) will lead us to life eternal, with divine qualities that are 'symbolically' depicted throughout the Fourth Gospel.
But why suppose that we ought to aim at divine consciousness in mortal life? And why suppose that our failure to do would be responsible for the most extreme sins of modern life, as Rudolf Steiner recognised in a great prophetic statement of a century ago.
Well, perhaps because that is a theme throughout the Fourth Gospel, a Second Message; if that is what is implied by (for example) the conversation with Nicodemus about being born-again, or the conversation with the Samaritan woman about living water, or the discussion after feeding the five thousand about labouring for that meat which endureth into everlasting life.
It seems that there is a core/ minimal requirement for salvation: believing that Jesus is the Son of God and loving, therefore having faith, in him; so we may follow him through death to Heavenly life everlasting.
This core message is about salvation, and refers to our state after death and resurrection - but it is not about what we should do in this mortal life. Salvation is attainable by anyone who has these core convictions (believes-in and believes-on Jesus), and only by them. However, this gives no guidance for our worldly-motivations during this earthly existence.
However, there is also this Second Message - focused not on salvation but on theosis, on divinisation or sanctification - and this second message is about what we should work-for and strive-for during mortal life. What should motivate us. The answer is that we should strive to attain a new way of thinking and being that is aligned with the divine.
In other words, we ought-to strive for a higher consciousness, by aligning our thinking with the divine and by participating in the work of creation, even before death and during earthly mortality.
And if or when we do not strive for higher consciousness - there will be bad consequences (as we see all around us).
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