There is a common and complacent attitude that if someone (such as the speaker...) is a basically Good Person (by world historical standards - i.e. not a murderer, rapist, thief... and at least somewhat altruistic), then they have no need to worry about ultimate things; such as the soul, salvation, eternal life, or God. Such stuff can be put-off until after death we can discover one way or the other...
But this is not true, not here and now, in the modern West; on the contrary there is a great deal to worry about.
Not for the usual reasons given by too-many Christians - e.g. that one must be a Christian because otherwise a vengeful God will send you to Hell; but for the much more serious reason that most modern people will actively, in full awareness, with open-eyes, choose to reject Heaven; because they have simply absorbed the mainstream, standard, positively-demonic view propagated by our entire leadership class and in the mass media.
In other words, modern people may well behave as Good People but their motivations for doing so are evil; and in these matters motivation is everything...
Motivation is everything because motivation is our true inner self, it reflects our evaluations, our aims, our hopes and wishes - and the normal attitude of normal people nowadays is one of inversion of the Good - virtue is inverted, beauty is inverted.
But to focus on one specific: truth. It is not merely that modern people are thoroughly and habitually dishonest (especially in their public lives, and at work) - it is that they/ we regard many types of truthfulness as actually wicked.
Some of the most hated people in the modern world are those who insist on speaking truth as they honestly understand it, rather than what is politically-expedient. And anyone who tries to be consistently honest in modern Western public life will very soon be in very serious trouble.
Even if you are truthful in private life, even in one sentence or just half a sentence; then you may be denounced, internationally vilified and punished with great severity.
It does not really matter whether you are a Good Person when, deep in your heart, you are devoted to the inversion of Good; and devoted to the point that you will not repent because you have come to regard the wickedness of your heart as virtue. After death, you will reject heaven with visceral loathing, absolutely insist on 'Hell', and join-in on the side of the demonic powers in the spiritual war.
By contrast, a Bad Person who knows the real nature of Good, and repents their sins, is assured of salvation - and of making the post-mortem choice for heaven rather than hell.
In the end it is mostly a matter of choosing sides; and almost everyone in the modern world has chosen to be on the wrong side. Unless this fact changes before they die, they are in severe danger of getting what they have explicitly asked for.
This reminds me of the teachings of the Orthodox Church, which I often find quite helpful.
ReplyDeleteIt says that Heaven and hell are in fact the same place; an afterlife in the absolute presence of the pure energies of God. The blessed people will perceive these energies as a divine Light, an everlasting bliss — whereas the condemned will perceive the very SAME energies as horrible, consuming fire.
In other words: God has not created a specific place where He is not present (a hell). It is all in the eye of the beholder, and certainly a consequence of the lives we have lived.
"Motivation is everything because motivation is our true inner self, it reflects our evaluations, our aims, our hopes and wishes - and the normal attitude of normal people nowadays is one of inversion of the Good - virtue is inverted, beauty is inverted."
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is necessarily so binary. I think that there are many people who profess the secular received wisdom, but who do not believe it in their hearts. They live in a world of lies, and present an acceptable face to it. The motivation here is survival. Their sin is to fail to stand up to the demonic and back Christ outwardly. They are full of fear, and they feel powerless to do anything about it. I think these sort of people look to Christ in their hearts, profess him within, and even if they never admit it to the world, at death, given the choice, they will accept Christ. Because Christ came to help the weak in faith ("poor in spirit"), I hope that his suffering on the cross covers these people, and he will welcome them, even if it is with a rueful smile.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
(Matthew 5:3)
If this reading of scripture isn't the case, then I fear heaven will be sparsely populated, and that doesn't strike me as God's plan at all. I tend towards the universalist in my thinking, which is not mainstream, and not your view Bruce. By analogy, I suppose I think of Christ as an 'A' level examiner. He likes to award one A grade, but he loves even more to award a million E grades. After all, it's still a pass.
Yes Snufkin, C.S. Lewis's fictional meditation on Heaven and Hell, The Great Divorce, is predicated on very similar lines.
ReplyDelete@JW - My point is about what people will choose for themselves - *very often* often it is impossible to persuade people to choose what is best for them.
ReplyDeleteSnufkin, I believe the idea originally comes from Malachi, with his metaphor of the sun.
ReplyDeleteSnufkin, I believe the idea originally comes from Malachi, with his metaphor of the sun.
ReplyDelete@JW - I think universalism denies the reality of human free agency and human evil; whereas I believe that people could and would choose to reject the gift of Christ's salvation.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I don't find this difficult to understand, having been an atheist most of my life and given that the standard mainstream Western public morality is one which would certainly reject Christ's salvation.
On the other hand, if at any point anybody did repent, then I am sure that God would welcome them. However, I do not think we can assume that everybody would repent - not given what we know about people.
The important thing is that nobody who wants to live as part of God's family in Heaven would ever be rejected from it.