Metaphysics refers to a person's ultimate beliefs - or more accurately his assumptions - about how reality is structured and works.
These primary assumptions are usually implicit rather explicit; and that they are assumptions is usually denied (claiming instead that they are logically-entailed or based on overwhelming evidence).
What I am seeing in these End Times, is that every person's superficial 'beliefs' and self-identifications are being stripped-away and his metaphysical assumptions are being revealed.
This seems to be striking among self-identified Christians. A large number are being revealed as simply Not Christian - in the sense that they are merely using Christian language to live by mainstream atheistic, materialist, Leftist and anti-Christian assumptions.
But among serious Christians of all denominations there is a gap opening between those whose primary loyalty is to their church - and whose core ethic is obedience to that church; and those who have taken ultimate responsibility for their own Christian faith.
This is interesting because there are very large differences among and between the belief systems of Eastern and Western Catholics; and Protestants such as Anglicans, Methodists or Calvinists; and churches such as Mormons.
Yet brought to a point by the events of 2020-21, in and among all of these there is this division that has opened-up between those serious Christians who are primarily obedient to the church authorities, and those who evaluate and judge their own church according to personal discernment.
At a metaphysical level; this relates to a primary assumption concerning the nature of Man. Among those who put obedience to their church as primary; there is the assumption that the relation between each Man and God must be mediated by a church if it is to lead to salvation and theosis.
That 'I' needs 'the' church, but the church does not need me. The church has a mystical reality and primacy that does not depend upon its 'members'. This precisely because God has made the church essential to each Man - so therefore God will sustain the integrity of the church, no matter what.
Among those whose faith is based on personal discernment is the assumption that salvation and discernment are a matter that is primarily based on a direct and unmediated relationship between each Christian on the one hand - and God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost on the other hand.
That 'I' do not need the church. The church may be helpful - even very helpful - but may be harmful. The church has no mystical reality distinct from its members; so that any church has the potential to become as corrupt as any other human institution.
By this account, God's promise of the availability of salvation and the possibility of theosis is made to each individual, and not to the mystical-church. So that although churches might all fail and fall; God will ensure that every Man capable of love will always have a path open to salvation, and the potential to grow in divinity.
What I find striking, as one of the second category who regards churches as optional extras at best and potential enemies in the spiritual war; is that those who have taken the path of the primacy of the churches are spread across all types of Christian churches of which I am aware.
It seems to make surprisingly little difference whether a person professes to be Catholic, Protestant or Mormon. It is a person's actual metaphysical assumptions about how reality works, how salvation works, and the purpose of this mortal life - which seem to be crucial.... No matter what their churches may say.
This is, I think, because Christianity has been primarily church orientated, and therefore focused upon whatever happen to be the requirements of church membership - which are very varied, usually very restrictive and specific; but very detached from metaphysical assumptions.
Churches will exclude people on the basis of their failure to endorse and/ or live by behaviours that are integral to that particular church's sustained existence - but they will take no serious notice of a person's ultimate metaphysical assumptions. As long as someone verbally agrees-with and sticks-by the rules - they are included - but fundamental matters of assumption are unknown or ignored.
It is this neglect of metaphysical assumptions that is at the heart of the current malaise, and the deep reason for the mass apostasy of Christian churches and their loyal members - because the self-identified Christians, it turns-out! - have near identical primary assumptions as the mass of atheists, non-Christians and - in particular - the Global Leadership class whose agendas are now structuring the lives of everybody, everywhere.
People (including church-loyal Christians) go-along-with the secular, Lefts (and anti-Christian) agendas of the birdemic, antiracism and the CO2-environmentalism, social justice, equity etc. because - in an ultimate sense - they regard-themselves as primarily obedient creatures - obedient to the institutions of their-church...
"I need the church, but the church does not need me" means that their core metaphysical assumption is that such Christians regard themselves as members (or 'a people') - entities whose individual personal discernment has no objective validity in relation to salvation and theosis.
At root, they assume: If I am not a member, then I am nothing.
Such is the metaphysical assumption that has been exposed in these End Times. And like all such assumptions it needs to be recognized, acknowledged as an assumption - and then evaluated.
