Supposing you are God, setting-up the world for Men's salvation, then how would you devise things?
You must take into full account that each man has "free will", agency; and also that modern Western adults are cut-off from the spontaneous knowledge of the spiritual and supernatural, and belief in the divine, of earlier times.
This means that Men must actively decide to seek and engage with God.
Given such constraints; what would be the best way to engage with modern, Western adults?
Would it be via the mediation of one true church, or even via several valid churches (as churches actually are) - I think not. That would be an exceedingly bad way of providing for Mans salvation. Church is intrinsically indirect, and subject to corruption.
What, then, about relying upon a sacred scripture, such as the Bible? Again - this would be a highly suboptimal plan; given that there are multiple translated and distorted texts, the sheer difficulties of the texts; and the variability of textual interpretation. Scripture, like church, is both indirect and corruptible.
Or perhaps by relying upon a True tradition, that Men would absorb unconsciously? I think not - traditions are too easily, and too often, subverted - even inverted.
What about logic and reason? Setting-up a world so Men can work-out their place and role by philosophy, by dialectic? Well, obviously, that would only be possible for a small minority of specially-gifted Men in particularly advantageous situations - and these sages would then need to transmit their conclusions by Church, Scripture or Tradition - and we have already seen how these are inadequate.
It seems clear that the best and most reliable way to set-up this world for the salvation of all Men, of all kinds and circumstances, to cover all contingencies - would be to provide Men with direct knowledge of God; by a communication that was un-mediated - as some kind of wordless/conceptual telepathy or thought-sharing; and provide all Men with sufficient ability to access this knowledge.
2 comments:
This helps explain why I find the appeal to authority snowplowing trad types often engage in so pointless, annoying, and utterly off-the-mark.
@Frank - The reliance on church, scripture, tradition etc worked alright in the past when there was spontaneous and unconscious group-participation of consciousness; at least in terms of some level of uniformity and coherence (although nearly always distorted and/or incomplete) - but they were all indirect and suboptimal; and anyway they have all been collapsing relentlessly for many decades.
Post a Comment