Escapism is a good, and perhaps spiritually-necessary, basis for Life.
The desire to escape, the evaluation that escape from this actual-Life is needed, is an aspect of any person of depth and wisdom...
Which implies that not to be an escapist is to be a shallow, dishonest fool (and there are plenty of these!).
To be an escapist is to recognize and to feel that Life - as it actually is - is tragic; such that if there were nothing better to hope for, then we need to escape Life.
The mass majority of mainstream modern materialists - the people who affect to despise escapism, and who pose as hard-nosed realists that revel in sordid cynicism - are all In Fact and ultimately escapists; but escapists of the worst kind.
Such people, most people, deny the reality of the spiritual; and want death of their own body to be followed by total annihilation of themselves.
In other words; such people, and I mean most people, so much fear and loath actual Life, that they desire complete and irrevocable and inevitable escape... Not only complete escape from Life, but total escape from them-selves.
Thus; even though escapism is "a good thing" (and in a sense an inevitable thing for any honest Being capable of Love); escapism is not necessarily a good thing - consequently; there are bad, because dishonest, because half-baked, forms of escapism.
Having discerned that escape from Life is desirable; the dishonest escapist then tries to ignore the fact - not to think about it; and instead tries lose-himself in Life by attempts at distraction.
Yet no matter how strongly distraction is sought (e.g. by wishful-thinking, media immersion, immersion on social interaction or sex, extreme busyness, or obliteration of consciousness through intoxication) - all such are half-baked - because partial or temporary.
Although common, this strategy is incoherent and self-defeating - because it tries to escape the innate tragedy of life, by attempting total immersion in the business of Living.
Unsurprisingly; all such dishonest or half-baked escapism gravitates towards the desire of permanent annihilation: that mainstream modern death-wish that underpins the suicidal self-hatred of contemporary Western Civilization: a yearning for death-as-the-end.
Honest and rigorous escapism - on the other hand - leads the escapist towards God and Jesus Christ...
Towards acknowledging that we inhabit a created reality, made by a personal and good God; therefore escape from the tragedy of this-Life is both meaningful and possible.
And towards to the possibility of an eternal and complete "escape" from the innate tragedy of our present mortal Life within creation - an escape by following Jesus Christ to resurrection in Heaven.
Note added: I am not saying that everybody will eventually choose the salvation of Jesus Christ. For a start, Heaven has no interest for those incapable of Love. And Heaven does not appeal much to those who have some other and higher-priority than the divine principle of "loving-creation" that is the necessary eternal commitment for those Beings who choose Heaven.
However; I do think that many people who acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual and the need for escape; will choose Heaven, when it comes to the point.
For example, some of those who in their earlier lives declare a preference for reincarnation into a future series of mortal lives will change their minds. When a post-mortal spirit looks back at the totality of his mortal life, including the immediate pre-death experiences, and considers the prospect of more-of-the-same - for many people the prospect of reincarnation will be much less appealing than it seemed in their busy and pleasure-dominated early- or middle-lives. The here-and-now prospect of instead choosing resurrected Heavenly life may be much more attractive!
Those who expressed a desire to discard the incarnate body, and become "pure spirit" - perhaps to live in contemplative bliss, or become assimilated into the divine; may feel differently when the alternative is a resurrected body; and when Heavenly life is known to be the escape from both evil and "entropy" (loss/ sickness/ degeneration/ death).
Similarly for the long-term atheist-materialist. When faced by a choice between on the one hand (apparently) eternal extinction of his self, his consciousness, all potential for experience... And on the other hand the real possibility of a living world of love and creativity; and in a world perhaps inhabited by some of those he most loved and who loved him?
I am not saying - and I do not believe - that all will eventually choose salvation. Not least because I assume every human (and every other being) is unique. But I do believe that when the prospect of salvation is known to be real, understood, and constitutes a genuine possibility - even lifelong expressions of intention may change.
8 comments:
This is a brilliant piece
@CH - Thank you. It arose as an extension of some of Tolkien's points he made in On Fairy Stories.
I don't know that we are given much choice after death. There is the judgement. And, if found wanting, either Heaven, Purgatory, or damnation. A common feature of Saints' visions is the fewness of the saved, "Many are called, few are chosen." (Many are culled?)
I don't really like it, but I don't make the rules. If there were more latitude, I would breathe easier as it would improve my prospects.
ap - You don't make the rules - but you do choose (you have chosen) who you regard as the ultimate authority on what the rules really are. Indeed, you have chosen to believe that reality exists ultimately in the form of "rules".
You have chosen how to understand the Bible, and in what way to accord authority to it - for instance, you have (apparently) chosen to accord more authority to the Gospel Matthew than to the Gospel John...
Because your expressed idea of salvation as dependent primarily on God's Judgment, and that few are saved because most are rejected by God, comes from Matthew (and to some extent from Luke and Paul).
Whereas it is contradicted by John; where it is the rejection of salvation that leads to (probably) most people not accepting the gift of resurrection.
If you tell me that you are just following "church teaching" then you have chosen a particular church, and a particular group of authorities within that church - and you have interpreted these yourself.
In other words, your prospects are substantially constrained by your choices of how to understand reality.
Reality is what it is, but if you choose to live by a reality that depends on your choices, but you also deny that you have made/ are making those choices - you are being dishonest with yourself, living by a lie.
The argument is that we all without exception make assumptions.
*Therefore* we ought to be aware of the assumptions that we are making, and that we are indeed making assumptions. And Not therefore, following obvious/ irrefutable "evidence".
And we ought not to pretend that to assume than we do is illogical.
It is dishonest (or perhaps ignorant) to deny this - to pretend that one not making assumptions, or merely obeying objective authority.
For example, when people read and understand the Bible, they have already (in advance of reading it) made multiple - and formative - assumptions about how the Bible ought to be read. All of these assumptions are contentious, and none are obviously correct.
I make these points in a bit more detail at the start of my booklet about IV Gospel:
https://lazaruswrites.blogspot.com/
I contend that the persistence refusal to acknowledge the nature of our assumptions amounts to an attempt to avoid personal responsibility; along the lines of "I was just obeying orders"
(The flaw in which excuse, is that one who obeys orders from a particular source just-is responsible for choosing to obey orders from that particular source.)
Either way it works, I will certainly endeavor to accept salvation!
@ap - Yes, I agree that it works, either way.
The main reason given for why we should approve of and go along with whatever the current agenda is, is that this is all there is. In fact, it is not just the main reason, it is pretty much *the* reason. Maybe that is one reason for the popularity that the universe is a simulation. Even if you went outside the universe, you can't really escape because the simulators are basically the same as the techno-oligarchs now, but more so. (Or so they say).
Just the fact that there are other modes of existence that do not participate in sociopathic realipolitik, that do not do things the way that current or past tyrannical governments did, is immensely significant. And it means that people who have not gone along with such things in the past are in alignment with a greater reality, not simply being pigheaded.
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