The inevitable accumulation of evil through history leading to the End Times, seems to have been something that was apparent to various prophets of the past.
It does seem very evident here and now; in that we are alive in the most evil time in history, and things are getting more evil by the month. This, I think, is a fact - not an opinion.
There are far more people alive now than ever before - now more than seven billion when the world population was less than a billion through history up until the early 1800s. Since early 2020, the whole world is clearly run as a single polity - and this polity has a global leadership and all social institutions that incorporate increasingly inverted value-systems in the realms of truth, beauty and virtue.
So, our unprecedented state is that the entire world has a vast population who are mostly-and increasingly living by an increasingly inverted system where evil is regarded as good; and good as evil; and this demonic reversal is (by revealed preference) substantially supported by the masses.
Therefore I conclude that there is a really tremendous amount of evil in the world today, and that this evil has the upper hand - and evil has been able to overturn not only all traditional religious practices (including where differing religions overlap - such as core aspects of sexuality and sexual identity) - but even personal experience and common sense understanding and reasoning.
Thus we live in an insane world that lives by Evil Lies.
It is interesting to consider why this should be; and immediately there seems to be several important reasons - and many more that I do not mention; which suggests a convergence of multiple evil phenomena, that things are coming to a point.
In an overall sense, I think the End Times have been prophesied for so long because evil is accumulative. It gets added to, incrementally.
Why? I would suppose that much of this relates to the fate of demons and damned souls. That demons (fallen angelic spirits) are in some sense confined to earth - also that damned souls become likewise spirits who are - in some way - bound to the earth. This would explain that the spiritual presence of evil increases.
Then, what about the mortal Men who are incarnated in this age? Why are they (we) so prone to evil that we are unable to discern the starkest inversions and unable to discern even the grossest lies? Unable or unwilling to respond to knowledge of evil...
Such gross incapacity as has become normal and average is a consequence of Man's denial of (or total indifference to) divine, creation and the realms of soul and spirit...
In other words, as well as the vast apparatus of top-down evil; there seems to be a matching evil among great masses of people on earth - which suggests that there is 'something wrong' with many of the billions of individuals who have been incarnated in recent generations - and (apparently) continuing.
Why would God allow such a situation to occur - given that God is creator and also loves us each and individually as His children?
The overall answer must be some combination of this being the nature of this world, and that the situation is 'for our own good' - given that this mortal life is a temporary state whose function is primarily (but not entirely) to prepare us for eternal resurrected life.
I think we must presume that - although God works at the level of individual persons, and the world as a whole is merely a sum of these individual situations; this evil world is the kind of world that is best suited to the needs of kind of people who have actually been born into it (including you and me).
In a broad sense; it is comprehensible that a world full of evil spirits and damned souls is the kind of world in which mortal Men who have a nature that is grossly insensitive to evil might have the best possible chance of learning what evil is, and deciding to reject it.
Since this world is built for those who choose to accept Christ's gift of Heavenly resurrected life - the purpose of this very evil world is to bring naturally-evil people to a realization of the consequences of their choice to reject Jesus.
There are increasingly only the two choices of Jesus Christ, or evil. There is no neutrality and no other viable options - because all other options are collapsing into convergence with obvious and explicit evil.
Good and evil have become more distinct and ever-further separated. The situation is unprecedented in clarity and simplicity. Clear and simple enough for even the most tainted of souls to know what it is that they are choosing.
Men may (of course) still choose to reject Jesus Christ and join the side of evil - it is each person's individual choice and cannot be compelled; but they will know very exactly what they are doing.
So there is a how so much evil accumulated? And there is a why so much evil? And there are reasonable answers compatible with the loving nature of God and the needs of his children - especially the kind of children that make up a majority.
After which we need to step back and remember that this is ultimately a 'bespoke world', individually-tailored, so each person and situation is unique - and my job is mainly to learn from my situation.
Apparently the birdemic was prophecied by Saint Paisios of Athos. (He even appears to have predicted the laser-thermometers which I have seen used to measure people, on the head or wrist, at the entrance of shops and stores.) Do you believe the peck-passport is literally the mark of the beast from Revelation?
ReplyDelete@Otto - No, I don't believe Revelation literally - it was not intended literally; nor do I believe it is authoritative in all respects. But it has some deep insights into the kind of things that have happened, and will happen.
ReplyDelete@EP - Thanks, fixed.
ReplyDeleteDr Charlton, I think there is an alternative possibility regarding the question "why has God allowed the world to become so Evil".
ReplyDeleteI think it likely that it is not that we (those of us alive today) are particularly evil, intrinsically, that is the key difference (I'm not arguing that we are not more evil, though, just that that's not the main reason, or at least, not a reason which can be universally applied).
Perhaps it is because man is meant to become spiritually freer than ever before, and for this to happen, he must in a sense lose any "spontaneous" ability to see good and evil (i.e. as if by a force of nature)- an ability which was the norm in the past and acted as a natural buffer. Today, this "sense" must be developed through conscious choice, and this, because increased agency is a precondition for freedom.
This means that we will see a sharpening of the wedge between men - the most thoroughly enslaved men ever to walk the earth (possibly forming, in a few generations, a most perfect slave caste ever bred, pure "property", the opposite of agency) but also the most free - i.e. most capable of living the most highly conscious life on earth. Because nothing the free men have will be theirs except by complete choice. And this draws them closer to God in a way which was impossible in the past - the "spectrum" of alignment with the divine has thus grown.
Of course, this doesn't mean that we can choose anything we want and will get it exactly the way we desire it. Free doesn't mean untethered - it means that you choose what you submit to, what you value, what you agree to, what you consider worthy, and so on.
Mass-enslavement is a side effect of Mass-empowerment. Or, put differently, the door has been opened to all to become freer than ever, but when exposed to the preconditions necessary to make this happen, complete capitulation to the most abject enslavement has to become a geniune possibility as well.
@Gary - All good points. Things are indeed unprecedented - including what is required of us.
ReplyDelete