Why has our communication to and from God *apparently* broken-down?

"Why has our communication to and from God apparently broken-down?"

This vital question is discussed by Francis Berger in a clarifying blog post which continues the argument from here; and takes its cue from the common complaint of modern Men that - on the one hand - God seems unresponsive to prayer; and on the other hand - that we do not seem to receive the kind of knowledge and guidance from God that seems to be promised by the New Testament. 

The lines-of-communication between God and individual Men are therefore perceived as weak, confused, or altogether absent. 

I think the reason for the 'breakdown in communication' with God may be more fundamental and intrinsic than God wanting a new kind of communication. There seems to have been an inevitability about the dwindling power of indirect communication - expressed in the power of symbol, ritual, language etc. 

This has affected both prayer (transmitting communications to God); and also revelation (receiving communications from God). 

Many people apparently look for a divine revelation in words, visions or some other perceptual mode. Yet our modern alienated-isolated consciousness is hardly capable of this, and even when it happens modern Men typically find such communication ambiguous - and/or doubt its authenticity. 

It may be that we are now constituted such that the direct knowing of primary thinking is not just desirable, but also the only way we can relate to God. 

As prayers in words lose power, and revelations in words are rare and confusing - we are called upon to recognize that we may simultaneously enable God to know us and we to know him - by the alignment of motivation and harmony of purpose which allows primary thinking to happen. 

Thus God may be telling us many things, all the time directly - yet we cannot, or refuse to, notice them; because we continue to demand voices, visions, and other communications which - even if we got them - we would mistrust or misinterpret.

My conclusion is that while indirect 'symbolic communications' between God and man are often weak or absent; direct knowing - or primary thinking 'shared' between God and Man - is happening all-the-time, and this is better than 'communications'. However; we need consciously to recognize and acknowledge its occurrence and validity.  

Poetic Parallelism is the key to understanding the Fourth Gospel's preamble: John 1:1-5

[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] The same was in the beginning with God. [3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. [4] In him was life; and the life was the light of men. [5] And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 

I have written several times on this blog about the above beautiful and famous verses which form a preamble to the Fourth Gospel "John"). 

I have always been impressed by these words, but never confident about what they meant. 

Indeed, I am unsure that they were composed by the same hand as the bulk of the Gospel, and I doubt that 1-5 formed a part of the original Gospel - which probably runs from 1:6 to the end of Chapter 20. 

But I now feel that, whatever its provenance; in terms of meaning John 1:1-5 is much more of a poem - and much less of a theology - than I had previously suspected. 

I would now regard John 1:1-5 as an example of poetic parallelism - which was apparently the characteristic verse form of Hebrew poetry - but also found in English verse*. Parallelism consists in saying the same thing more than once, but in different words; it is a kind of 'decoration' of the meaning. 

So, verses 1 and 2 refer to God the Father with a 'double parallelism' - using different terms to mean The Same Thing. Thus 'in the beginning', 'the Word', 'with God' and 'God' are all intended to be the same entity. These are poetic ways of saying the same thing four times. 

Indeed, there seems to be an element of  the variant of parallelism called 'chiasmus' about verses 1-2 taken together: in the way the phrase in the beginning is 'reflected' at both ends of the passage, around God/ Word in the middle.   

The point of relevance here, is that when a meaning is repeated in different words - the repeat should be regarded as saying The Same Thing - and not as expanding the meaning given in the first usage.  

In other words, verses 1-2 are not a logical argument, a syllogism. 

And not a passage explaining the nature of God. 

Nor is 1-2 engaged in contrasting God (the Father) with another entity called the Word (Jesus). 

Verses 1-2 are instead  'just' a poetic 'set-up' stating that what follows is about God.

Verses 3-4 are again a double-parallelism, 'simply' telling us (in several ways) that the God of verses 1-2 was the creator of our world; in verse 4 explicitly clarifying that creation includes 'men'. 

Giving men life/light is to create men, restated as God making men live with God's own life/light. 

In other words, verses 3-4 'merely' express the truism that the God of the Jews (from verses 1-2) was a creator god. The passage is not making detailed, new or controversial substantive claims about God. 

Verse 5 continues the theme of God as the creator, by saying (something like) that God's creation is not 'comprehended' by the chaos/ darkness from which it came. 

I take this to be a 'picture' of how the author 'saw' reality - God's creation as being like a light in the void of un-meaning; and a way of asserting that all possibility of knowledge (comprehension) is within creation. 

So, this passage is not about Jesus's rejection by The World - it is not about Jesus at all.

Then the Fourth Gospel proper begins its account of Jesus's person, teachings and work with: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  

Note added 4th December 2023: With reference to the verse 1:14: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. I regard this as a likely interpolation, a sentence added later by another hand; since this verse (but not verses 1-5) explicitly refers to Jesus as "the Word"; which never happens anywhere else in the IV Gospel. Indeed it is only the explicit statement of verse 14 that leads to the common interpretation of "the Word" in verses 1-5 as referring to Jesus. I regard it as absolutely characteristic of the method of the IV Gospel that all important teachings and terms are repeated (in alternative ways), usually more than once. I find it inconceivable that Jesus would be called the Word (Greek logos, with its multiple implications) just once at the beginning, and never again.   

*As parodied by AA Milne: 

O Timothy Tim 

Has ten pink toes, 

And ten pink toes 

Has Timothy Tim. 

They go with him 

Wherever he goes, 

And wherever he goes 

They go with him.

An Omni-God's-eye-view of agency/ free-will - a thought-experiment

Continuing the theme of yesterday's post - I will try to show why there can be no agency or 'free will' within the mainstream, classical Christian theology of one God; omnipotent, omniscient, omni-present; who created everything from nothing. The Omni-God concept. 

I will make the thought-experiment of imagining myself as being this Omni-God, having made creation - and desiring now to make Men who would have genuine individual agency.

Clearly, it would be useless to make many Men and control all of them directly - because that would simply be to make a puppet show. 

But a more common argument is that God made Men and placed within each Man a small portion of himself - a 'divine seed' - and it is this divine seed within each Man that enables him to be a genuine free agent; to think and choose independently from God. 

But this does not work either! If the direct-control God would just be a kind of puppet master - this 'remote-control' God would just be a kind of playwright, whose characters only superficially appear to be agents.

If God makes all the ingredients, then no matter how these ingredients are divided and mixed - every-thing is still God. All agency is still God's. 

Thus, a Man whose agency depends on a divine seed from the Omni-God is still the Omni-God - albeit just a part of that God - like a character in a play is always a part of the playwright. 

Thus, a dramatist can make a play with twenty different, and differently-motivated, characters... But ultimately all of these characters are just fragments of the playwright's own character. 

Their differences do not make the characters have free will - each is still 'inside' the play. Likewise the fragments of an Omni-God do not have agency - each is still inside the creation, All of which has been made by Omni-God.   

The Omni-God may then try to make his 'characters' develop agency - even if they did not have agency to begin with...

He might reason that - even though each character in his play begin as just a fragment of God; by interacting with his environment and by learning, each Man will potentially develop independence of will - and will learn agency.   

This would be analogous to the playwright setting-up his drama with characters - each a fragment of his own character - but then as the play proceeds, the characters will interact and experience events in unexpected ways that might surprise the playwright - and were not predicted by him. 

The characters 'become real' to the author, 'take on a life of their won' - as writers sometimes say...

But that is just another superficial illusion in the case of the Omni-God; because all possible interactions between all Men and all environments are still just a part of God. And even the capacity to learn from experience was a quality implanted by that same Omni-God. 

Furthermore, the Omni-God already knows the result of these innumerable interactions, because he is omniscient - so he will not even experience the surprise of a human playwright! 

So, it turns out that the Omni-God does not generate agency; whether as a puppet master or as a playwright. 

When no individual 'human agency' goes-into the mix of creation; and when all of creation comes from the Omni-God - then no amount of dividing and mixing and interacting can make human agency emerge from creation. 

My inference is therefore that if human agency is real - as Christianity requires it must be (and if this thought experiment is valid*); then the Christian God cannot be an Omni-God.

For human agency to come-out-of creation - human agency must have gone-into creation. 

 

Note: the intention of this thought experiment is to clarify my argument: to make it more comprehensible. Of course, it does not prove anything - because no thought-experiment can prove anything! But it may lead to an understanding of the argument explaining why there is no way to get personal-agency out-from the assumptions of an Omni-God; and why Christians for whom the issue of free-will/ agency is primary (and who are not happy that it should be regarded as wholly an incomprehensible mystery) therefore need to discard the Omni-God concept. 

"Building alternative institutions" - it's already been tried, and has failed

There is a lot of talk in my corner of the interweb about the need to build 'alternative institutions' - and that from these we can fight, and eventually beat, the global totalitarian atheist-leftist System. 

The trouble is that this strategy has been tried, pretty thoroughly - and failed. 

In the evangelical Protestant churches (especially in the USA) from the 1960s onward, in response to influential theorists such as Francis Schaeffer, there was a pretty determined attempt to develop churches that provided a range of services - including education from schooling through to colleges and universities. 

Such churches, with such ideals, were the major growth area of Christianity in The West over the past half-century - and the only kind of Christian church capable of attracting and retaining men and young people in significant numbers; and of providing a parallel economy and employment. 

I was a member of this kind of church that grew greatly over forty years, to provide a wide range of activities and children-youth activities through childhood and extending into college - the church also tried to start a school, but was thwarted by the UK educational bureaucracy. 

Indeed, the Mormon church developed many alternative institutions, starting in the middle 19th century - and (in its heartlands) provided a very impressive 'parallel social world' of church-run activities of many kinds - from cradle to grave. 

And, of course, the Roman Catholic church had centuries of experience developing 'alternative' social structures in the West - with religious orders and secular priests providing an apparently autonomous personnel, schools and colleges, social clubs and a multitude of other activities and employments. Almost - it seemed - a parallel world...  

Therefore, the situation was that many Christians of many kinds - right up into the new millennium - really thought they already had a set of alternative institutions. 

The problem is that such alternative institutions became corrupted and converged; and when it came to 2020 and the demonic coup - the evangelicals and Mormons alike eagerly, enthusiastically, obeyed the rules designed to destroy the Christian churches.

Instead of (as people like me had hoped they would) providing a strong communal basis and support for resisting and maybe overcoming anti-Christian pressures from the mainstream...

Instead of this, and after decades/ centuries of hard work in building them; when times got really tough and they were most needed - the alternative institutions turned out Not to be 'alternative' after all! 

Just, after all, different 'flavours' of the same universal institutional convergence onto the global-left-totalitarian agenda. 

So I hold out no optimism for new alternative institutions as a strategy for prosecuting the spiritual war of these times. 

It is easy to say that future alternative institutions will retain their purity and independence in ways that the evangelicals and Mormons failed to do; but the multiple pressures on any institution that must function in the context of a globally-hegemonic secular-left bureaucracy and mass media are greater now than they ever have been. 

And the problems of trying to grow social institutions in a world where left-secular assumptions are ever more pervasive and extreme are also worse than ever. 

And there are fewer Christians who even want these things than ever before - as demonstrated by their mass compliance with the anti-Christian (anti-human) policies advocated by their corrupted leaderships. 

I don't see the prospects for genuinely alternative Christian institutions in 2022 as being any better than they were in the past decades; when this strategy was tried and comprehensively failed. 

Being realistic: quite the contrary. 

The same options as ever remain for Christians institutions whether churches or alternative social groupings of of other kinds: stay pure... but small, weak and outside of the society (if that is indeed allowed - which is increasingly doubtful)...

Or else grow ... but by compromising with 'the world', and at the cost of creeping corruption and self-subversion - tending always towards assimilation with the goals of Systemic Evil, sooner or later.  

How important to you is real personal agency, free will?

It seems to me that most Christians are not, and never have been, sufficiently 'bothered' by the absolute requirement in Christianity that each Man personally must be able really to make the choice for Jesus Christ. 

It is this requirement for agency which (as far as I know) sets Christianity apart from the other religions: Christians must believe-in the reality of free will - and, in practice, that means that Christians will usually need a coherent explanation of how free will is possible. 

The Big Problem is that the standard theology enforced by the Catholic and Protestant churches has no place for human agency. 

By which I mean - all will correctly assert that free will is real and necessary - but none have a coherent explanation of how it is possible. 

All the 'usual' explanations are wrong - make no sense - and many are just dishonest...

('Kicking the can further down the road' type explanations - which just delay the point of explanation, in hope the enquirer will get fed-up and go-away!)

The problem is that if there is (as all mainstream Christian denominations assert) one God, omnipotent, omniscient and who created everything from nothing; then every-thing is God; and the whole of creation is Just God's Puppet. 

There is nothing else for it to be. 

God made every-thing, God gave every-thing all of its characteristics, God made all the laws by which every-thing happens... 

All is accounted-for by God and there is simply No Room For Personal Agency. There is nowhere other than God for personal agency to come-from. 

I do not regard this as a proposition for debate - once one has seen this incoherence, it is as clear a 'fact' as any. 

I realize that there are many, many people who do Not 'see it' - but that is simply an omission or failure on their part. The world is (and always has been) full of people who do not see problems - especially when not-seeing has important advantages. 

But once seen, one knows.

And from then it is a matter of honesty.   

This elimination of the possibility of agency is just a plain and unavoidable consequence of the concept of God that has been accepted and enforced (apparently) since early in the history of the Christian Church.   

Thus we have a truly colossal flaw at the very heart of mainstream Christian theology - moreover one that is very obvious to anyone who takes seriously the need for free agency. 

It has never been solved, never been explained by classical mainstream theology; it can only be obfuscated or made into a mystery - by asserting that both God is Like This and also There is Free Agency - and how it works is a mystery that must be accepted. 

Much hinges on whether a person is happy to accept that the core necessity of Christianity does not make common sense and cannot coherently be explained - but must be accepted as a mystery. 

Apparently there are plenty of Christians who simply see no problem in this state of affairs. And cannot be made to see that it is a problem - despite that it is (perhaps?) the main reason why non-Christians cannot become Christian. 

But once one has seen a vast incoherence at the root of the religion - as commonly expressed; it does not go down well to be told either that it doesn't exist or that one should not worry about it! That does not create a 'good impression'! 

What is the conclusion? 

Well, if you agree that personal agency/ free will is absolutely necessary to Christianity - that people really Must be able to make the choice of Jesus from themselves - then you cannot accept the assumptions of mainstream, classical, traditional Christian theology - whether Eastern or Western Catholic, or Protestant. 

(You may well accept the religions, the denominations, the churches, their practices - but you cannot in honesty accept as necessary and true the assumptions of their theology.) 

Because these systems have no space for agency; they simply Must Be Wrong - and once one has known this for oneself, it does not matter how many hundreds of years they have been wrong, nor how many great theologians have been wrong in this way. 

Then one must either find or devise a coherent explanation for how real personal agency/ free will is possible. 

Find or devise a Christian theology which includes and entails agency*.  

And, as usual; this is a matter of absolute importance and extreme urgency. 

+++

* For instance.

Note: It is a secondary issue - but it may be regarded as important to have some reasonable explanation as to why so many people have been so wrong for so long - how it is that they apparently could not see this 'fatal flaw' in mainstream Christian theology. I believe the answer is to do with the development of human consciousness; and that Men of the past thought and experienced differently from us. In particular, they did not experience themselves as distinct individuals but instead (to a significant extent) as secondary-to, derived-from, the group to which they belonged. For Men of the past, mostly, group identity came first; and much of their knowledge came unconsciously, passively, absorbed from the group as tradition. In such a world, obedience and loyalty to the group/ church were primary -  and regarded as sufficient for salvation. Such questions as the necessity and consequences of individual free will were much less obvious, and were often neither spontaneous nor urgent. Indeed, Men of the past did not experience - and in that sense did not possess - personal agency to the same extent that modern alienated Man does (whether we like it or not!). This difference in consciousness is why it was possible, and probably inevitable, that the idea arose and was accepted that a Man could not relate directly to God, but must be mediated by a group: i.e. by the church of which he was a member. Salvation was then seen and experienced in group-terms. Modern Men are different from this (and by God's destiny); so we now perceive and experience differently; and we cannot honestly pretend otherwise. 

Is Thinking a means, an end, or an illusion?

I may be a bit strange this way; but there are few subjects that excite me as much as thinking! 

I have come to regard thinking as an-end-in-itself; indeed probably the highest activity of which we are capable. 

Of course, I am immediately compelled to clarify that I certainly do Not mean all kinds of thinking have thus supreme value; nor even most kinds of thinking... 

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is possible that many people may never experience the kind of thinking that I am talking about - not least because to experience this highest kind of thinking one must simultaneously recognize its supreme value. One must regard this thinking as intrinsically valid and intrinsically valuable. 

And that recognition is very far from the case!

Indeed, for most people, thinking is just a means to an end - and that end is 'action'. 

Most people would say that thinking but not doing is just a waste of time; and empty activity. Good thinking is that which leads to good outcomes in the perceptible world...

Most people nowadays would say that unless something is changed in the material, objective, external world - then thinking is a free-spinning-cog: futile, just wasteful of energy and effort. 

This seems like simple common sense to the modern, mainstream mind - its ideology and assumptions. To suppose that thinking had intrinsic value or validity is for such Men a kind of delusion; sheer insanity. 

For other people; thinking is a kind of illusion; and indeed a wicked illusion. 

Thinking is regarded as an aspect of maya: in other words, thinking is one of those snares or nets that keep us trapped in a world of appearance and suffering instead of the blissful reality that lies behind maya. 

Many of the influential 'gurus' of Eastern and New Age spirituality emphasize that we should aim to eliminate thinking, instead our striving should be towards not-thinking-being. 

We should strive for non-thinking awareness; because (they understand) thinking is what leads to our (false) sense of separation from the world; and the illusion of separateness leads to suffering. If thinking can be eliminated, so can suffering. 

For those who regard reality as One, and assume we began as unconscious spirit aspects of that One; our task as going beyond the body and back to pure spirit - and also going beyond thinking to pure being-awareness.  

Yet I have the solid conviction that thinking is of primary importance; and that our destiny lies in the direction of 'more and better thinking' - rather than no-thinking, or material-action. 

For many years this was an un-conscious and inarticulate conviction - and it only began to reach awareness and clarity by reading the work of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield. I found both of these authors very difficult to 'get' and spent years tackling them before the penny dropped. 

But the penny  dropped when reading Steiner's Truth and Knowledge followed immediately by re-reading the later part of Philosophy of Freedom. I then returned to Barfield and was immediately clear what I had been missing. 

The excitement of this perspective is now latent - and can be awakened or re-awakened by coming across the same view in these or other authors. For instance, yesterday I was listening (on Rudolf Steiner Audio) to a lecture from early 1914; the opening words of which triggered that joyful lifting of the heart (emphasis added).  

Man experiences within himself what we may call thought, and in thought he can feel himself directly active, able to exercise his activity. 

When we observe anything external, e.g. a rose or a stone, and picture it to ourselves, someone may rightly say: “You can never know how much of the stone or the rose you have really got hold of when you imagine it. You see the rose, its external red colour, its form, and how it is divided into single petals; you see the stone with its colour, with its several corners, but you must always say to yourself that hidden within it there may be something else which does not appear to you externally. You do not know how much of the rose or of the stone your mental picture of it embraces.” 

But when someone has a thought, then it is he himself who makes the thought. One might say that he is within every fiber of his thought, a complete participator in its activity. 

He knows: “Everything that is in the thought I have thought into it, and what I have not thought into it cannot be within it. I survey the thought. Nobody can say, when I set a thought before my mind, that there may still be something more in the thought, as there may be in the rose and in the stone, for I have myself engendered the thought and am present in it, and so I know what is in it.” 

In truth, thought is most completely our possession. 

If we can find the relation of thought to the Cosmos, to the Universe, we shall find the relation to the Cosmos of what is most completely ours. This can assure us that we have here a fruitful standpoint from which to observe the relation of man to the universe.

For me, this expresses in a nutshell a deep and vital truth. Thinking is potentially our most complete and valid form of knowing. Therefore, the big question becomes: How this knowing is related to 'reality' - to divine creation? 

If thinking turns-out to be in a direct relationship with reality - and not merely having some kind of indirect, 'translated', representational or linguistic 'communication' with reality - then this is of the greatest possible significance. 

We begin to see (as Steiner goes on to articulate later in this lecture) that the distinction between this 'primary' thinking, and the kind of 'secondary' thinking which most people do most of the time (and some people do all of the time) - is related to language.

Most thinking is in words, it is language - therefore secondary; therefore either a means to an end, or perhaps illusion. 

(This is the level of all public discourse and most private conversation: language responding to language - and nothing more. Our secondary thinking is no better than this.) 

But some thinking may be primary, and not in words or any other symbolism; but thinking 'in' the primary creative essence of reality. 

This kind of primary thinking is indeed itself reality. 

Thus we can come to know reality.

You see why I regard thinking (of the right sort - primary thinking) an end in itself?

JRR Tolkien's "dream-meteor" identified in Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham

Ramer is a Tolkien alter ego in the unfinished novel from The Notion Club Papers. 

Evidence that the above boulder is the origin of Ramer's "dream-meteor" - by communion with which, the fictional character was able to travel vast distances in time and across space - is presented over at my Inklings blog. 

The 'lucid dreams' associated with the meteor and described by Ramer include such experiences as Elemental Fire, endless Length of Time, and Weight" (in his notes, Christopher confirms that his father once described a dream experience of "pure Weight").  

All of which suggests that the young Tolkien may have had some analogous experience with the Cannon Hill Park boulder. 

To speculate: Might such a 'cosmic vision' during his early life have been an ingredient in Tolkien's later creation myth from Lost Tales and The Silmarillion: The Music of the Ainur? 

Maybe...

Is it possible to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection into Heaven - alone, untaught, with no facilities?

This seems like a key question for Christians - maybe The key question; and it lies behind discussions as to the nature of 'The Church' (in which 'The' has several incompatible, meanings). 

My thought experiment is to imagine (a situation that must have been, and indeed still be, common) of someone who has never heard of Jesus, the Bible or any church...

Or someone in the spiritually-equivalent (and nowadays mainstream) situation where everything he has heard about Jesus/ the Bible or any particular church Is False - False and indeed deliberately distorted to the point of inversion.

I mean that as of 2022; the standard and most available 'knowledge' concerning God, Jesus and Christianity is designed to lead people Not to salvation - but instead to fear, resentment, nihilism, despair, affiliation with Satan's agenda - and Hell. 

(This is very probably worse than the situation of ancient pagans before 30 AD; who had no explicit knowledge of Christ - but it is equivalent in the sense that true knowledge from external sources is all-but unavailable for most people in the world.). 

In such circumstances - can a person achieve salvation? 

My answer entails taking a step backwards to the nature of God. It would need to be possible for this imaginary Christianly-isolated person - who lives either without knowledge, or with false knowledge of God - to know and understand the nature of God without being told.

Starting from that which is natural and spontaneous and possible to anyone; a person that might become Christian would need to be able to know from his own experience that God was the creator and loved him - and all Men. Know that God was our divine parent/s - and had for His children dwelling in His creation - a perfected parental love. 

That, therefore, this God could be trusted in the way a child trusts a loving Mother and/or Father who also makes the world he lives in. 

I believe this is a sufficiently simple and natural belief that could be built-in to Men, and then occur to anyone, and be confirmed by direct knowledge.   

From this, if Christianity were to be possible to the uninstructed; it would need to be possible for every person to know Jesus 'already' - so that Jesus could be recognized, loved and followed after biological death, when resurrection was offered. 

We need already to be able to recognize Jesus... and I have already said we need built-in knowledge of other kinds - and this points at a pre-mortal existence, before we were incarnated into this mortal world. 

If pre-mortal life is regarded as real, then there is in principle no difficulty in recognizing and knowing Jesus specifically and personally, when encountered (without being told about it) - because this knowledge could be carried over from pre-mortal life. 

An analogy is the instincts found in animals - when the necessary attitudes, motivations, behaviours emerge spontaneously when a suitable situation happens. Men may also have an 'instinct' to recognize Jesus.  

Another way of knowing about Jesus without being told is the guidance of the Holy Ghost. We might be 'told', at the right time, who Jesus was - and that this is Him.  

Having recognized Jesus, we would then need to decide whether or not to follow him; and that decision would depend on whether we loved and trusted him, and whether we wanted to go where he wanted to lead us: Heaven.  

The above sketch shows that I think it is both necessary and plausible that the kind of God Christians believe-in would and could provide what is required such that every individual Man would be able to follow Jesus to salvation.

And that this would not (in principle) depend on any external and valid source of information, or any particular lifestyle, or institution. It could be available to all.  

And that Men could be Christian and follow Jesus in any kind of society - including the actually existing world in which nearly all Christian knowledge is deliberately distorted, falsified and indeed inverted. 

The alternative would seem to be a God who did not care enough to provide what all His children needed, or who lacked the creative power to provide directly and individually what each of his children needed. 

From this much follows; indeed - I would say that all necessary questions can satisfactorily be answered, and guidance derived - given a correct understanding of God's nature. 

For me this is The Key - and the Basis for all that follows. 

And it is a thing known personally, directly, individually. 

(Metaphysical, abstract, theories serve to explain why this Key-Basic knowledge is indeed valid - and to enable the primary insight to be tested against experience and observations.)

Basic metaphysical assumptions - before the Christian

I have been engaged in a discussion in comments at the Orthosphere during which I was invited/ challenged to describe my metaphysical beliefs - expressions of those primary assumptions regarding the ultimate nature of reality; upon which all other discourse depends. 

This is, in the context of blog comments, not really possible. But on reflection, I think that near the basis of my thinking is the understanding of 'creation' as consisting of Beings and the Relationships...

(Beings are alive entities, conscious, and capable of relationships.) 

And the further assumption that Beings are not all that is; because there is also what might be termed negative chaos - which is unformed, unorganized, un-ordered stuff that is neither understandable nor describable.   

I have chosen this group as my metaphysical assumptions because I regard them as a description of what Men spontaneously and naturally believe in our early childhood (and the earliest human societies): that God-given, built-in knowledge. 

In other words, I regard 'animism' (so-called, and in some way) as true. We began believing animism - but passively, unconsciously, without having choice; and our destiny is to return to animism - but this time by active conscious choice.  

Christianity came after animism; but instead of being conceptualized in animistic terms; Christianity has nearly-always been explained by abstractions. 

This abstractly-explained Christianity is an error, and therefore would best be discarded and superseded - and replaced with Romantic Christianity. 

Note: The opposite of this metaphysics about Beings is what I term 'abstraction' - a term that includes all descriptions that ignore or exclude the fact of creation being made-of Beings. Nearly all of traditional and classical philosophy and theology (as well as all of modern mainstream discourse, in all social functions and institutions) falls-into this category of abstraction. Abstraction is fundamentally wrong in all instances - but abstraction may provide those more (or less) useful models of reality by which law, science, technology, medicine etc. are administered. 

Why the failure of all spiritual techniques and methods?

At least from the 20th century onwards; I find the results of 'spiritual techniques' to be so unimpressive as to suggest that they are at best useless and more likely spiritually-harmful. 

By spiritual techniques I mean the use of all types of external assistance from symbolism and ritual, through prayer and meditation (of many kinds) - to reading, group work (of many kinds), vigils, magic, music, fasting, pilgrimage and the power of place... everything you can think of.

People are always claiming that one, other or all such things are helpful and yet - just look at the results! And look where we are now? 

It strikes me that this apparently counter-productive effect of almost any 'method' of spirituality may have a very simple explanation; which is that all such techniques are external, when what is needed is internal.  

The more external spiritual assistance we seek, or come to rely upon - of whatever possible type; the weaker and more-passive becomes our inner spiritual strength. 

Any yet it is this inner spirituality which is needed now above all. 

If not, then what? 

If I am saying that any and all external methods or techniques are harmful - then what is left for us to do? 

I suppose the answer lies within us: That all which is both good and also strengthening over the longer term needs to come from within our-selves and/or be discerned and chosen by our-selves (with a sense of fullest responsibility and in light of the ideals of salvation and theosis); aiming at our resurrection to Heaven, and that of those we love; and to learn the spiritual lessons of our own mortal life. 

And everything else is a - more-or-less harmful - distraction. 

It is because our reality is co-created by us, that we are vulnerable to manipulation by the virtual realities of The System

The introduction to a talk Virtual reality and the paranormal, given by Rudolf-Steiner-expert Stanley Messenger in the 1990s, provides a concise account of how it is that Men are so vulnerable to manipulation by the evil-intending fakery of the Virtuality imposed upon us by officialdom and the mass media. 

The point is that when we are born we do not know the world - we only experience 'impressions'; but soon after we begin to add (from ourself) the conceptual basis that we need to understand and to know. 

Because we are each different, distinct (ultimately in soul, also in our genetics and bodily composition) - each thenceforth has a different reality. But our society-environment encourages (demands!) that we assume that there is one perceived reality, universal. So we are already - even as children - living on a false basis: i.e. that the world is the same for everybody. 

We ought to awaken to the realization that we are co-creators of reality - yet people almost never do so; and instead double-down on the belief that there is one reality - and that reality is imposed upon us from externally. 

Because of this error (or self-lie) we are open to be manipulated by external power - almost without limit; since a sufficiently powerful pervasive, incentivized external power can compel upon us false conceptions by-which the sensory impressions get interpreted and understood. 

The way-out is to understand what is happening; and that we intrinsically co-create our reality - and therefore that when the reality imposed upon us is evil, we absolutely need to choose a different reality. 

In different words; we need to understand and reject the evil concepts we have absorbed from evil motivated externals; and to replace these with God-orinetated concepts to which we have acces from our own partly-divine natures and the guidance of the Holy Ghost. 

Then we will understand and know 'the world' by co-creating in a way that is aligned with God's intentions - instead of the Satanic motivation that we (as of 2022) absorb from our environment whenever we remain un-conscious and passive. 

Don't even try to 'love everybody': Christian love in this mortal life is (meant to be) Much more specific and personal than usually supposed

One of the ways in which Christianity has been effectively sabotaged through the centuries, is by the false teaching that a Christian ought to love everybody, universally - an idea especially harmful when the injunction is to love everybody equally!

Nowadays this may be phrased in terms of an ideal of undiscriminating, non-judgmental, or unconditional love. 

And what eventuates from such an ideal is - and can only be - an abstract and diffuse simulacrum of love. 

Such love sounds more like a force-field than real love! 

And it is not surprising that such an ideal of love causes its adherents to gravitate towards deistic pantheism rather than a personal god, and the ideal of purging-away both the ego-self and the body, and of Men living eternally as a depersonalized spirits blissfully immersed in abstract deity.

(Spirits that are everywhere all the time, without any progression of time; and through-which abstract love can 'radiate' equally and unimpeded.)

This rather than the Christian understanding of God as person, and the Christian hope that mortal incarnation will be followed by resurrection of the body.   

Yet the eye-witness depiction we have from his disciple in the Fourth Gospel makes clear that Jesus himself loved personally and specifically.

Most modern people's idea of 'a truly loving Christian' is a kind of benign sage; serene, impartially kind and always generous in discernment; undiscriminating, non-judgmental, and unconditionally loving everybody, everywhere - with a love that shines-out upon the world like an x-ray beacon!

Whereas, real Christian love is partial, specific, discriminating: and can only be for a few people - or perhaps (at the extreme) even for just one person. 

So long as Christian can really love one person; he knows what love is, is capable of it; and can choose to live by love as his ideal - which is what is necessary for salvation. 

Meanwhile the sage who abstractly 'loves' everybody but specifically nobody - will want neither a personal God, nor will he desire to follow the specific person of Jesus to Heaven, nor would he commit to live in a Heaven which is based-upon the familial - hence personal - love of God for His children. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows... re-read!

I've just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I have read many times before. It really is a superb novel - especially for a Christian. 

The other six preceding Harry Potter novels are all good, in different ways - but there are many people who would find the Deathly Hallows a powerful, even transformative, experience - but would would find it unenjoyable to hack through the earlier (more child-orientated) HP novels to reach it. 

If so - do not be put off! You could do as I did and read plot summaries (or, if you prefer, watch movies) of the earlier books and then begin straight-in on the Deathly Hallows - or else (as I did) read summaries of the first five and start with book six (Half-Blood Prince) - which is the first fully adult novel and narratively-continuous-with Deathly Hallows.   

Christians who appreciate fantasy fiction should set-aside most of whatever they have heard about Harry Potter or JK Rowling, and at least have a look through Deathly Hallows. 

It might be one the great experiences of your reading life, as it was for me - as it was for Jerram Barrs. 

Is there a Christianity that comes prior to theology?

I regard all metaphysics and theology (including those I believe) as ultimately wrong, in the same way that all scientific theories are ultimately wrong – because always partial and distorted; because they are all brief and linguistic ‘models’ of a reality that is of unbounded complexity and ‘interconnectivity’ (or rather, seamless connection). 

That is one reason why I do not care much about what denomination, doctrine or metaphysics somebody holds – because I regard ‘being a Christian’ as prior to whatever metaphysics or theology we try to express it by. 

This does not need to be expressed as a core theology – although it might be (subject to the same proviso as complex theology). But our discernment seems quite able to do the job for us in a world where evil has become so explicit and extreme. 

My best lesson of the past two years has been to reveal that churches/ denominations have become all-but irrelevant in predicting whether or not some individual is a real Christian, or has joined the other side. It turns-out that self-identification as a Christian person, organization or church means almost nothing in 2022... 

But this is a wonderful thing! Suddenly - after centuries of failure - the problem of ‘the divided church’ has just dissolved-away and Christians can recognize each other from whatever direction. 

(Although sadly it turns-out there aren’t nearly as many Christians as would have been hoped before two years ago.)

What this means is that there is a Christianity that comes prior to metaphysics, theology and church membership. 

We first become 'a Christian' and only then may we try to decide what kind of Christian. 

We may find a ready-prepared niche in on already-existing church - or we may not. We may be satisfied by one of the various explanations of what it is to be a Christian - or we may not. We may discover a coherent and sufficient explanation-in-words of what it is to be a Christian - or we may not.  

Or, if we already-are a Christian - we can recognize that we are a Christian first and some kind of a Christian secondarily and less-importantly. 

In a nutshell; it has become simpler and more obvious than before who is on the side of God, and who isn't. 

Such is the gift of these End Times. 

Developed from my comment to a post by Kristor at The Orthosphere. 

Why do They want to destroy civilization? Why Now?

I don't think there is just one answer. 

Some of Them want to destroy it by shrinking down to a much smaller (and with many fewer people)  - but fully controlled - civilization; dedicated very completely to the service of its leaders' gratification. This will never happen - for many reasons - but is a strong motivator for 'the billionaire class' who have proximate control of things at present. 

Some of Them want to destroy civilization because there is still considerable Good in it. They focus their vast power and influence for destruction at anything old, traditional, beautiful, true or moral; and at marriage and the family - as the deepest and most motivating human sources of potential Good.   

Some of Them - especially the actual demons, rather than the demon-serving humans - want to destroy civilization because They want to destroy everything: all that is created. And by destroying civilization they will unleash mass starvation, violence and (real) plague. Demons greatly enjoy this, and being disembodied spirits, do not themselves suffer.  

But why now - given that there has been potential to destroy civilization for several generations at least? 

The answer is simple - before civilization was destroyed the powers of purposive evil needed to win over the mass of mankind to their side.

They needed people to want to destroy civilization for this to have the soul-damning outcomes they desire. 

If civilization had been destroyed before Satan has won over the mass of Mankind; then increased this-worldly suffering would (probably) have led to mass conversions to Christianity. 

In the past, as civilization and its worldly possibilities collapsed, this would potentially have led to an increased concern with the reality of the world to come; and the possibility of resurrection into Heaven would have become more and more appealing. 

Therefore, mass apostasy, and the triumph of de-spiritualized materialism, atheism, the inversion of values; and the desire for biological death to be annihilation - needed to be in-place before the end was unleashed. 

So that is why the end of civilization is happening now. 

How to escape being thought-controlled

The only way to escape being thought-controlled is for each person to get to the most fundamental level of understanding; where each recognizes the possible understandings; and each chooses his basic understanding of the nature of reality.

If someone can reach this level - he will realize that there is a reality; and/ but that reality needs to be chosen personally. 

Once we have done this, we can be proofed against manipulation by those who seek to impose an unreal 'reality'. 

Reality is real; choice is real - our personally-experienced reality is therefore unavoidably a consequence of our personal choices.

We choose our reality - but that chosen reality may be true or fake; real or unreal; based on deep conviction or passively gone-along-with.   

Manipulation is only possible when we have chosen that reality which is imposed upon us, rather than that reality which really is - because we know it. 

The fundamental level of understanding includes such matters as whether reality is ultimately chaos, or else directed, purposive. Deity or not; god or not - the nature of god and the possibility of having personal relationship with god. The question of how we, personally, can know reality. The question of time - and whether it is an ultimate reality or illusion. The question of whether we are free agents capable of acting from-ourselves, or whether we are wholly-determined by externalities...

But the above are abstract and linguistic descriptions of what needs to be a primary and direct experience of the fundamental issues.

For example - the nature of god. A Christian will need to realize not only that there 'must be' god - but needs to experience god. He needs not merely to have-learned the 'necessary' attributes of god - but actually to know god in the same way a loving child may know his loving parents. 

A mother's love is not known by having been told, nor is it inferred from analysis of her actions; it is known directly; and it is this knowing that leads to faith. Faith in mother - or god. 

That is faith for a Christian - it is confidence in god because god is known, god's personal love is known-from-personal-experience (not learned, reasoned or inferred).    

A Christian with faith is one who has gone to the deepest level at which he realizes the reality and nature of god; and has decided (chosen) to live by that reality. 

He knows he might have rejected that reality, and by default would have done so - he knows that he positively needed to choose it. 

He also knows (from the way they speak and act) that many people never reach that level of direct and personal understanding.

He also knows that he cannot convince anyone else of this personal knowledge - because to convince someone else who lacks that experience would be to achieve the opposite of it!

Such a Christian knows that what matters ultimately is absolutely and necessarily personal to himself, and that it is also absolutely objectively true. It is a matter of completely personal responsibility. 

Because controlled-thought is the default situation. It is the inevitable outcome of passivity and shallowness. We all already-have the habit of being-thought-controlled, until that habit is broken - as described above. And controlled-thinking has converged - so that the thought-controlled have become (and are-becoming more and more) alike. It has thus become easy to identify the thought-controlled.

Only from the deepest level of experience, knowledge, faith - can we become immune to thought-control. 

Only those who are proof against thought-control, and who know real-reality can avoid the toils of evil-motivated and faked reality. 

Only thus can anyone escape demonic manipulation into damnation. 

Wise words from Weka

Where I disagree with the Orthodox, Catholic and Reformed hardcore apologists is they start arguing too much for their model of theology. All our models of theology are approximations of truth, for we are not wise enough or have the cognitive capacity to fully comprehend the mind of God. The Gospel can be explained and should be explained to children. As they come to Jesus, so should we. 

Our models of God can get in the way. I suggest that no church is perfect — and I read enough Orthodox laymen to know that none of them have that delusion. The question now is not what the formal theology of the church says, but what the informal theology does. The error is not that no churches have the full truth: the error is that many churches now preach frank error, for they are bowing to the spirit of this age...

This is why I quote from any man or woman who seeks God and blogs and speaks wisdom. We need to back each other. The spirit of the world hates us all. A fair amount of our denominational disputation is because we are not mature and we are picking fights. 

I would rather pray for revival, and rejoice if it comes through a group who make me extremely uncomfortable, rather than there be no revival at all. For it is not Paul or Apollos who bring the growth, but God. 

From the Dark Brightness blog.

Hear, hear! and Well said! 

Who was the third bearer of The One Ring?

By Kerim-b

Who was the bearer of the One Ring for more than 2000 years, coming in between Isildur and Deagol-Smeagol? 

An answer (and explanation of its consequences and implications) can be found at the Notion Club Papers blog.

What is higher consciousness? It all depends on how you understand the divine...

A lot of people (myself included) regard the attainment of 'higher consciousness' as one of the most important goals of life. But there is such wide disagreement as to what this entails, that different people mean almost opposite things by the phrase. 

For human consciousness to become 'higher' in an objective sense, it needs to become closer to the divine - therefore 'higher consciousness' does not, as a concept, make sense for anyone who denies the reality of deity. 

But concepts of deity vary widely. 

If deity is understood in an abstract and impersonal way, then to be higher, consciousness needs to lose the ego; the self, that which makes consciousness personal and unique. 

Those who attain higher consciousness will converge on a type - become more similar to each other - as each loses distinctiveness.  

For such people, the attainment of higher consciousness is a negative matter: a losing, a letting go, a giving-up, perhaps a process of dissolving. 

For such people, the body is an impediment; and the attainment of higher consciousness entails losing the body and becoming pure spirit - and that pure spirit becoming continuous with the divine. 

However, at the other extreme; for the believer in a personal god, with which one hopes for a personal relationship - the attainment of higher consciousness is aiming at becoming more like that god in terms of consciousness. 

Such a goal does not aim at loss, but instead a 'gain of function', and enhancement of man towards god. The man's consciousness would need to be 'increased' to become more god-like. 

And implicitly - since god is a person, then one who aims to be more like god will need to remain a person. Those who attain higher consciousness will diverge - become more different from each other - as each becomes 'more himself'.  

(Being 'like god' is therefore a matter of godly capacity, not character.) 

If the personal god is regarded as a discarnate spirit, then that will also be an aim; if the aimed-at god is incarnate, has a body; then a divine body will be required - and the (temporary, corrupt) mortal body will need to be transformed and enhanced in order to attain more of the attributes of god.

'Higher consciousness'... same name for what is wanted; but maybe opposite intentions and aspirations. 

It is striking that so many Christians who led exemplary lives have joined the dark side since 2020

It seems to me that one of the toughest lessons of the 2020 global totalitarian coup, with its assimilation of the churches, has been to emphasize the failure of discernment of many of those Christians who lived the most exemplary lives of obedience to what might be termed 'Gospel precepts' (i.e. those behaviours most associated with being-a-good-Christian).

Plenty of those people whose actually-achieved lives were most completely in-line with the commandments, rules, and principles of good living - and the denominations/ churches that most strictly enforce such behaviours; have enthusiastically bought-into the birdemic-peck strategy of evil; as well as endorsing some or all of the major ideological planks of Satanic Leftism - such as antiracism, CO2 climate-change-environmentalism, the poverty-industry and socialism.

From which I infer that the major motivation for traditional 'Christian good behaviour' was conscientious obedience to external social pressures; not goodness of heart. 

In other words, too-many well-behaved people are only 'good' because they obediently follow the rules and practices of their chosen social group. And when that social group is assimilated to the agenda of evil; then these well-behaved people continue to obey their leaders. 

In most instances, therefore, 'good behaviour' is only skin deep - good behaviour is, indeed, easier and more likely, the less a man is personally and actively motivated - and the more he is merely externally and passively obedient. 

Are such people Christians at all? 

Only if there is more to their exemplary adherence to Gospel precepts than obedience; only when passive obedience to social pressure is subordinated to guidance by intuitive knowledge of God's providence and to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. 

Post-2020 experience has demonstrated that when 'Christian life' is in practice reducible to the most perfect obedience to any external 'authority' (institution, organization, person); then such life is an empty simulacrum of Christianity. 

A well-programmed android, or brainwashed shell-of-a-man could do as much. 

This harsh lesson is unavoidable; since all actual and possible Christian groups are already assimilated to the evil Global System, in process of such 'convergence', or else vulnerable to it.   

Sooner or later every Christian will be confronted by the absolute need for personal discernment (individually motivated, based upon direct knowledge of the divine) to be applied to external authority of whatever kind.  

Such are these End Times. 

And in this situation; qualities of temperament such as conscientiousness, deference and obedience - which in the past enabled someone to be an exemplar of Christian living - will now tend to lead them across to the dark side. 

 

Daddy, what did You do in the Great Reset?

Daddy, what did you do in the Great Reset? 

I believed and obeyed the authorities.

Of course, the famous poster was manipulating the men of a century ago to do exactly this: obey the authorities.

But then obedience was rooted the (since inverted) assumption that patriotism was eternally A Good Thing.

Plus the mistaken prediction that most men would continue become fathers in stable marriages, with children... 

Yet the biggest difference between then and now is the implicit expectation of a qualitatively-similar social future based on stable and true Christian values; whereby the present might hold previous generations to account.

A world in which 'the authorities' were (broadly) regarded as (overall) guardians of these long-term Christian values.

A hundred years down-the-line; the authorities explicitly and actively subvert and oppose all traditional Christian values; with the consequence that mass obedience has all the coherence of a weather vane in a tornado. 

The only calling-to-account is today's here-and-now; as evanescent as the spring fashion collection -- different from last week and in full expectation of something different the day after tomorrow. 

The media - under orders from global bureaucracy - have replaced the churches; the churches are assimilated to the global bureaucracy. 

Christian values are found in the individual and discerning human heart - or nowhere. 

In the Great Reset all institutions and organizations are corrupt - and engaged in an agenda of mass damnation by denial of the spiritual with enforcement, monitoring and total control of the material. 

"Accountability" is now a managerial concept: the subordinate's enforced servility towards hierarchical superiors: the system of omni-surveillance: the sanctions and bribes that compel obedience.

These encompass the family; have brainwashed, mutilated and intimidated the children into System-dependent informants.  

So the crucial question: What did You do in the Great Reset? is being-asked only by the Holy Ghost - or (if it can get through to consciousness) divine conscience from within our true self.

We are now answerable directly to God, unmediated by other Men; or else we are not answerable.

Our hope is in Heaven, or there is no hope.

Our only possible strength of faith is personal salvation and resurrection by Jesus Christ. 

Genuine love of fellow-Men is now possible only to those who first love God. 

The alternative is submission to purposive evil - however we might choose to label it...