The progression of Luciferic, Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil; related to our loving-creator-personal-God, and to Jesus Christ

Christianity is not just about Jesus Christ; it is built upon several other realities:

1. We inhabit a creation - the world is created.

2. The creator is a God, i.e. a personal God (not an abstraction)

3. The creator God is loving towards all the Beings of creation (God might be otherwise, but is not)

In sum: Jesus operates in the context of reality being the creation of a loving (hence necessarily personal) God. 

Jesus is necessary because of the nature of creation: Creation takes place in the midst of primordial chaos. 

Primordial chaos is primal Beings existing without love - without coordination, without harmony; each Being a world unto Himself. 

This is why our mortal reality (termed Primary Creation) is subject to Entropy. Entropy is the spontaneous tendency of creation to revert to primordial chaos. (We experience Entropy in terms of disease, degenerative change, and the inevitability of death for all Beings)

Jesus offers the possibility of permanent and complete escape from entropy and the threat of chaos. 

Evil is the rejection of creation. 

Evil therefore came after creation. 

Evil entails the rejection of love, since love between Beings is what makes creation - creation is the harmony of Beings. 

The first evil is called Luciferic.

Luciferic evil is the assertion of a Being's selfishness ("my" self is all that matters) and the rejection of Love between oneself and other Beings. 

Luciferic evil therefore aspires to use (therefore not destroy) creation; to use creation in order to serve its own selfish will and personal gratification. 

Luciferic evil does not aspire to the damnation of other Beings (i.e. to make them reject resurrection into Heaven); it tends to be indifferent to the spiritual fate of other Beings. 

A Luciferically-evil Being, exploits ruthlessly and without love: desires that any and all other Beings will serve his personal satisfaction. 

In a sense; a Luciferic Being desires that creation will serve his will. This is why he is not against-creation as such. 

It could be said that Luciferic evil hates God (is anti-God; because God is loving), and is indifferent to Jesus.  

The second evil is Ahrimanic. 

Luciferic evil tends to develop into Ahrimanic evil; because Luciferically evil Beings band-together in mutually beneficial alliances, in order more effectively to exploit other-Beings. 

Ahrimanic evil is an alliance of the selfish. 

Ahrimanic evil is anti-God, which it inherits from Luciferic evil; and Ahrimanic evil is in addition anti-Jesus. 

Thus Luciferic = anti-God; whereas Ahrimanic = anti-God plus anti-Jesus. 

Therefore the alliance of the selfish will organize, manipulate and coerce other Beings, aiming that these other Beings will reject salvation: will reject the offer of resurrection to eternal life in Heaven.

In sum; while Luciferic evil desires the exploitation of Beings; Ahrimanic evil desires the damnation of Beings. 

Ahrimanic evil desires damnation because it is more spitefully evil than Luciferic evil. It's desires are not just for selfish gratification; but also for the immiseration of others. 

It could reasonably be said, therefore, that Ahrimanic evil is a greater evil that Luciferic; wanting not just its own satisfaction, but the stripping of satisfaction from others. 

This is why Ahrimanic evil has tended towards depersonalization via bureaucracy. 

The Ahrimanic aim of omni-surveillance and micro-control is not just a positive aspiration for domination; it is also actively directed-against the freedom and agency of other Beings. 

Yet Ahrimanic evil of-itself does not aim at the destruction of other Beings: it aims at domination, not destruction. 

It wants a universe of miserable slaves.

(Indeed; including the "enslavement" of animals, plants, earth and heavenly bodies, and indeed the "mineral" world; permanent utter domination of every-thing, rather than to kill every-thing.) 

And the Ahrimanic desire for damnation of other-Beings is a consequence of being against Freedom and Agency. Salvation is, after all, an eternal choice for resurrected Men to participate in divine creation; which absolutely entails their agency and freedom.   

The third evil is Sorathic. 

Sorathic evil is anti-creation; it aspires ultimately to reduce creation to chaos.

Sorathic evil is directed against all kinds of creation; it is against not only positive Good, but also against Luciferic and Ahrimanic evils - insofar as these seek to exploit or enslave creation. 

Sorathic evil can be considered a completion of the motivational shift from Luciferic to Ahrimanic evil, which is a shift from seeking personal gratification by using other Beings, to a type of personal gratification that enjoys the utter domination of other Beings. 

A qualitative shift from hedonism, to spitefulness. 

Sorathic evil moves on from the desire to dominate the whole of creation, to the desire to destroy all of creation - including oneself, insofar as we all are products of divine creation. 

The Sorathic can be seen as a purely negative form of evil, found in Beings that have lost all capacity for positive personal satisfaction, and can only enjoy destruction.

To summarize: Luciferic evil is pro-creation and anti-God because anti-Love. 

Ahrimanic evil is pro-creation and anti God (anti-Love) and also Jesus (anti-salvation). 

While Sorathic evil is "anti-" all manifestations of creation - including anti- all Beings (including anti-God and anti-Jesus Christ); also anti-Love, and anti-salvation. 

Sorathic evil tends to chaos; but it is not pro-chaos. 

Ultimately, Sorathic chaos is the negation of creation; the end-result of being anti-every-thing...

***

Note on Sin = Entropy and Evil; Salvation being from both Entropy and Evil 

Entropy (termed "Death") and Evil are, together, what is called Sin in the Fourth Gospel. 

Jesus came to save us from Sin - that is, to offer us the chance to reject Sin eternally; live without-sin eternally. 

Thus resurrection into eternal Heavenly Life saves us both from entropy including death (as well as disease and degenerative change); and simultaneously saves us from evil of all kinds. 

Resurrected Eternal Life in Heaven in therefore the Second Creation; which is derived from Primary Creation but operating entirely and eternally on the basis of Love, and without entropy or evil - because Sin is left-behind at resurrection. 

Making sense of thanking God

WmJas Tychonievich recently published some interesting discussion of the business of thanking God. In particular the question of what exactly we are thanking God for. 

Here is my take on the question. 

I believe in a pluralist universe of Beings existing in an original state of disorder, or 'chaos'. This was the primordial beginning, until God began his work of creation; since which time, God's creation has been growing; and Men have become 'created-Beings' in relationship, a part of divine creation: 'Sons of God'.

So, in an ultimate sense, it is always right for those who regard divine creation as A Good Thing to thank God for creation - and therefore to thank God for everything meaningful which is possible because of creation. 

This is true regardless of the proximate cause of an event - of who are what caused it - so long as something of divine creation was involved in it.

However, God is not responsible for every-thing that happens everywhere, in the sense that primordial chaos continues to exist; and in this mortal and material world, chaos/ entropy dominates and has the last word. 

God's creation can be imagined as an expanding domain within chaos - with two stages. 

I envisage two coexisting kinds of divine creation: first this mortal world, which must continually be created in order to continually overcome the tendency to revert to chaos. And secondly Heaven, which is the domain of those Beings who have made an eternal commitment to live by love - and who thereby overcome chaos/ entropy wholly and everlastingly.  

It is the work of Jesus Christ to enable Men to make the choice of eternal love, hence eternal life in Heaven.     

(Mortal life and Heaven coexist, because mortal life is where Beings are enabled to make the positive choice for heaven; but Heaven was first created - initially as the domain of God only. The core purpose of creation is to 'people' Heaven with Beings who have chosen to live by love, eternally.) 

In God's creation are two types of Being: Good and evil. Good are defined as those who (sooner or later) endorse divine creation and choose to join-with it (in Heaven). Evil are those who do not endorse divine creation; who reject creation - and reject Heaven. 

Those who reject divine creation ally themselves with primordial chaos (because that is the only alternative to divine creation); and endorse the destruction of creation - of any-thing created. 

Therefore, this desired destruction includes (eventually) willing the destruction of their own status as Sons of God. This is entailed by desiring to delete creation and return to chaos - to the situation where each Being except God subsists in total isolation and minimal consciousness - which is the nearest to annihilation that can actually happen.

Those who oppose creation cannot affect Heaven - Heaven is eternally immune to chaos, has completely excluded it because all Beings in Heaven live by love. Those who oppose creation can only operate outwith Heaven; for instance in this mortal life on earth.

My first conclusion is that only those who endorse divine creation and who wish to dwell in Heaven are in a position from-which they would rationally thank God at all. 

By contrast; those who do not believe in creation, do not believe-in or support the will of God, those who intend to refuse the offer of Jesus Christ to enable us to enter Heaven... all such would Not want to thank God. 

But is it rational for those who endorse divine creation to thank God for everything? The apparent problem arises because in this earthly mortal life there is a class of causes deriving from entropy, hence tending to chaos, and working-against creation. Such causes are not of divine origin. 

It might be supposed that it therefore makes no sense to thank God for events that have not-creation, indeed anti-creation, causes? 

Yet even such events are a part of creation; because all knowledge entails creation. We could not 'thank' at all, were we not created-Beings - parts of divine creation; because uncreated Beings cannot give thanks. 

We could not identify any 'event' for which we might choose to give thanks, were we not already created Beings - because there is no knowledge in chaos, and chaos does not know 'events'. 

My overall conclusion is therefore that it is never wrong for a Christian to give thanks to God, because ultimately all depends on God's creation; but a Christian may err in ascribing some specific event to God's will - since there is evil in this mortal world, and many events come from the creation-destroying will of evil Beings.  

Therefore it must often happen (in this earthly mortal life) that Christians thank God for some-thing which was (in fact, were we able to discern) caused by chaos or by the Beings which reject God. In other words; a Christian may thank God for some evil. 

...Indeed, if public prayers in church are any guide; this happens all-the-time: self-identified Christians thank God for evil - by regarding that evil as Good. 

Whether this matters spiritually or not will depend on the situation and on the consequences. If a Christian ascribed some evil to God, and thanked God for this evil - this would presumably be a sin that needed to be repented. 

God would then ensure that the individual would later be given the experiences and chance to learn that their thanking God for this particular evil had actually been a sin. 

But whether or not that chance of repentance was taken would depend on the individual's discernment and choice - would depend upon his true underlying motivation. If his motivation is for God, creation and the Good - there would be no problem: he would repent his sin. 

But if he doubled-down on the sin of ascribing evil to God, if he refused to learn and repent; then he would have taken the side of the Enemy, against God; and being against God he would presumably, after death, reject salvation and choose damnation.  

Chaos, Creation, Entropy, Evil

Things began with chaos, among-which were Beings. Beings are self-sustaining - from Beings come the energies that shape chaos into creation. 

As soon as creation had begun, there was entropy - which is the tendency for the created to revert back to chaos. 

In this current stage of creation (which we also inhabit) creation must always be-overcoming entropy; by the self-sustaining energies of Beings. 

The reversion of creation to entropy releases 'energy'.

Therefore evil Beings, those who hate God and creation, encourage the reversion of creation to chaos. They do this partly in order to destroy creation, and partly to use the released 'energy' for their own purposes. 

Luciferic-evil Beings reduce creation intending to feed-upon the released energies. 

Luciferic evil is thus parasitic in nature - a Luciferically evil Being will feed-upon the energies of creation, as he destroys it.

 

Ahrimanic-evil Beings destroy creation by opposing chaos with 'order'. 

Creation becomes confined within The Global Bureaucracy, The System, The Matrix: the Black Iron Prison (BIP). 

Dynamic self-sustaining creation is held in stasis - thus the energies of creative life are squeezed out from the imprisoned Beings. 

After taking a tithe for vampiric (Luciferic) self-reward; these energies are used to maintain, extend and reinforce the prison: to extend the BIP globally, to include all Men; and to eliminate all perception and awareness of any-thing at all beyond the prison.

(Actually not all Men; because Ahrimanic evil entails a sharp distinction between prison inmates and warders; between the Beings who are-processed and the Beings who-do-the-processing - between Us and Them.) 

The death-factory is constructed and fueled by the energies released from its destruction of life. Ahrimanic evil is thus an entropy-factory, a processing plant; it takes living creation and reduces it to dead matter: creation to chaos. 

Ultimately, Ahrimanic evil turns creation against itself; uses life to crush life. 

Sorathic Beings are saboteurs - they were supposed to be warders sustaining the BIP, but they have begun smashing the buildings, wrecking the machines, and torturing the inmates. 

Sorathaic Beings are defectors from the Ahrimanic plan - because they have come to regard the Ahriminic factory as too slow, too dull, too unrewarding, too conjectural in effect. They want to destroy creation Now, directly, indiscriminately. 

Sorathic Beings perceive the contradiction of creating a Black Iron Prison as a means to destroy creation - when the base motivation of evil is to destroy all of creation (including BIPs). Pure evil cannot postpone universal destruction when it can be started already. 

Thus, Sorathic Beings will burn the death factory, along with its inmates and the warders; will return every-thing to chaos without attempting to harness or use the energies for any purpose. 

The motivation is not pleasure (like the Luciferics), nor mass effectiveness (like the Ahrimanic) - but a spite-driven, burning-zeal for pure destruction of all - here and now. 

Sorathic evil is born of a distrust of complex, long-term plans and schemes, a revulsion against the hypocrisy and pretense of the Ahrimanic strategy; which poses as 'good' and continues to create, albeit justified in order to destroy.

Sorathic evil emerges and waxes when the Ahrimanic scheme is nearing completion - when it comes to be believed that There is Only the BIP - there is only a whole world of evil, inescapable, with no alternative. 

Then evil has only evil as a target - so the greater evil turns-against and consumes the lesser.

 

The nature of Primal Chaos: God or Chaos versus God or Nothing (continuing a dialogue with Francis Berger)

The background goes back some way, but could be regarded as a post by Francis Berger discussing the nature of freedom, and comments from Kristor Lawson of the Orthosphere. The theme then became the nature of God, as God ought to be understood by Christians - in particular whether, on the one hand, God created absolutely everything from absolutely nothing ("ex nihilo"). Or on the other hand; whether  God created from something pre-existent - in particular "beings" (living, purposive, conscious to some degree, self-sustaining etc) that had always existed, coeternally with God. 

Bruce Charlton comment (edited by me): 

Kristor comments: "Because he is subultimate, the Mormon God is unnecessary, contingent, and dependent (like Zeus or Thor)". 

This is interestingly wrong, in part; because it reveals several of the assumptions into which philosophy came to embed mainstream Christian theology. Perhaps the key term is contingent - in that the desire of classical theology is to describe a state of affairs that could not be otherwise than it is. 

If that was true then (by my understanding) there can be no real freedom. Freedom has been excluded by assumption. 

"Unnecessary" is related to the desire to escape all contingency: to insist that things cannot be other than what they are, however this also also entails that nothing can really change. 

But when there is life/ consciousness/ being - there is change, and change is directional and sequential - and this is something that everybody is born already knowing. 

The Mormon concept of God (and IMO the real God!) is indeed "necessary" in the sense that God is the creator, and without God there would be no creation. So it is a case of God or Chaos. 

But the philosophy (expressed by Kristor) that (IMO) captured Christian theology, wants it to be that there must be God, now and always, and nothing would be without God. 

This is a case of God or Nothing. 

Well, that idea of necessity is a very particular view of God. Most gods/Gods throughout history and the world (including some descriptions of the God of the Old Testament, it seems clear enough) do not conform to this idea of necessity. 

Indeed extremely few people - now or ever - could even conceive of a God in that sense, and could not express it if they did. They would not want or see reason to posit such an entity. 

What is strange to me is that so many Christian theologians (from very early in the Christian church) seem to have decided to make the assumption that only such an abstract entity is a "real" God, or deserves to be considered a God.

It is strange because of Jesus Christ. If Christianity had been a pure monotheism, this dogmatic assumption would be comprehensible; but given the incarnate nature of Jesus the Man, Son of God, who was born, grew, lived "in time", who died etc etc... 

Well, it is just plain strange for Christians to make an insoluble problem from Jesus - just because of their pre-existing philosophical convictions. And having made the nature of Jesus such a Big Problem, but not so strange to pretend that all questions have been answered but at a level of abstraction so remote that all contradictions dissolve into each other! 

**

Francis Berger then wrote a post amplifying on some of the above concepts (edited): 

In his comment, Dr. Charlton refers to two disparate cases concerning the nature of God and Creation—the first being the conventional conceptualization of God or nothing and the unconventional view of God or chaos.

The first case posits God as the ultimate creator of everything and argues that there would be nothing without God. The second case envisions God as a primary creator who shaped and formed Creation from pre-existing “material” (for lack of a better way of putting it) that was chaotic and purposeless. God or nothing and God or chaos is another angle from which one can view the old creatio ex nihilo versus creatio ex materia debate.

The God or nothing approach insists upon the absolute necessity of God for the simple reason that without him, nothing could exist or be. God not only is—he absolutely must be, for without Him, there would be nothing but a void of nothingness.

In other words, I am must be because there is literally nothing on the other side of that thunderous I am. Every being needs God, but God needs no other beings. No being is utterly necessary but God.

This absolute necessity of God relegates everything in existence or being to the state of contingency. Every being in existence is utterly dependent on God in every way imaginable, even when they exercise their God-given freedom to reject God altogether.

However, the God-given free rejection of the Divine Creator does not negate God’s thunderous I am declaration. The creatures he created from nothing can never return to the nothing from whence they came. They either come to know and worship him or suffer the consequences of their free rejection, the capacity for which God created from nothing.

The God or chaos case envisages God as the primary creator. Without God, there is no Creation, only chaos. God can still say I am, but his necessity takes on an entirely different hue.

The creatures he shaped existed in some form before entering Creation, so he is not necessary for their core pre-existence as beings but crucial to their existence in Creation. They come to know him and attempt to understand why they are Creation, or they may reject him and, perhaps, choose to return to the chaos from which they emerged. ​ Since God did not create the freedom driving such a choice, it remains authentically free. 

**

Me, now: 

Deriving the nature of God from a "God or Chaos" distinction, seems to be a useful shorthand of the the paired alternatives that arise from the metaphysical assumptions that I share with Francis Berger. 

His comment stimulated a few further clarifications. God or Chaos could be re-framed as Love or Chaos - since creation derives from Love. 

Furthermore, it is vitally important that God creates from "beings" and not from "materia" - by my understanding, God did not start with inert, unalive, "stuff" but already alive and conscious, purposive beings. That pre-creation reality was of beings is essential to the reality and nature of freedom. 

If pre-creation reality was not already-alive and already-conscious - by their nature and from-eternity, then the problem of "where freedom comes from" remains unanswered. Because, ultimately, freedom just isn't something that can be made or gifted.

(And the same applies to life, or consciousness, or purpose - these are attributes of beings, and cannot be bestowed upon no-beings, "things" or "material".)  

Therefore, Chaos should not be pictured scientistically as some kind of Brownian motion of dead-molecules. Instead, Chaos should be understood as a situation in which beings are self-centred in their purposes and methods, autonomous in their world view... 

So, this debate is not a re-run of creatio ex nihilo versus creatio ex materia - because the starting point is an already-alive ("animated") universe, but one in which living beings are "uncoordinated" - each pulling in a different direction, all with with different motivations. 

Creation is therefore understood as the incremental and progressive harmonization and direction of a multitude of already-existing living beings by Love: that is, by Love of God (which provides ultimate coherence), and of each-other (without which creation would break-down). 

In other words; the "Two Great Commandments": first to love God, then to love our "neighbour", fellow Men (and by extension all other beings).  

Chaos is a collection of unharmoniuous beings, each "doing his own thing", wholly self-motivated, un-loving and indifferent to other beings (and perhaps unaware of them). It is this kind of situation, upon-which God initiates the process of creation.

But, this was only the beginning of creation - because it led to a mixed world of continuing chaos and ("within" this) an expanding divine creation. Creation exists insofar as love motivates; but love is (at best) incomplete in any being. 

So far this is monotheism, not Christianity. The completion and "perfection" of creation, into a wholly good world - i.e. Heaven - required the later intervention of Jesus Christ. This is therefore The Second Creation.  

 

A metaphysics of creation is not a middle way between Christian monism and chaos - it is the only way that makes sense of what most needs to be explained

The history of philosophy from the Ancient Greeks until now has mostly been an oscillation between - or attempt to find a middle-way, a compromise, between - two extremes; which have various labels but any choice of these two extremes always runs into the same problems. 

One is that this is (or was) a single and unified reality (monism); which has either apparently split into a multiplicity - or else people have the illusion that it has split. Unity is ultimate, variety is merely temporary, or an illusion. One God created everything from nothing, The principle of the universe is order - chaos is contained within order, order will prevail. We Men are pieces of God, seeds, droplets from a divine ocean - but everything we are is Of God. Everything In Total is Good - and evil is temporary, a transitory kind of imbalance. God is omniscient and omnipotent. This mortal life is - by comparison with divine unity - utterly insignificant, and cannot affect anything that is eternal. 

The other extreme is that which supposedly derives from Heraclitus: everything flows, everything changes, order and stasis are temporary and illusory; ultimately chaos rules. All 'understanding' is temporary, contingent, or merely delusional. There is no purpose or meaning to reality - it Just Is. There is no God. This apparent mortal life is everything - but it is nothing, really... a succession of subjective impressions merely. The are no real values: no truth, beauty or virtue - neither good nor evil.  

By my understanding, neither of the above traditional extremes offer any meaning or purpose for this mortal life; nor do they provide a solid basis for our individual freedom or creativity, nor for the reality of both good and evil.

I regard Christianity as having become trapped by the metaphysical assumptions of monism, in opposition to the chaos which it regards as the only alternative. As a result, Christianity - as taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ, and described especially in the Fourth Gospel - has been distorted into a pre-existing monist framework which really does not make sense. Although by complexification and mystification - and by the false dichotomy with chaos (regarded as the only alternative) - an illusion of sense can be made and sustained by diktat, threats and authority.  

Yet there is at least one metaphysical alternative to the above two, and that is the metaphysics to which I have adhered for about the last decade. This begins with the existence of beings in the midst of chaos, and has God as the creator, and creation as the making of a world of harmony between beings, aiming at greater freedom, hence greater consciousness; and always increasing creativity.  

This harmony of beings is love - analogous to the love within an ideal family; and it can be understood as shared creative purposes and the mutual accommodation and help which is the consequence of love. 

Therefore is the two classic and traditional views are monism and chaos; then this third view is rooted in creation. We began with chaos as a background, but with innumerable beings already existing. Creation began with God, and it was God who made possible the cooperation (harmony) between beings that began to change the universe. 

Reality is neither and ultimate order, nor is it disorganized randomness; but reality changes, evolves, develops through time - and towards increasing love, harmony, purpose, meaning. This changes happens by the development of beings, under the influence of God. Initially being can passively be raised towards greater consciousness, by adding to their equipment  

The advantages I find, up-front, are that it explains the origins of evil in chaos, the nature of evil in opposition to the Good; the nature of Good in God's creation - and the movement through time from evil towards Good: as God began with a chaotic universe and then made Heaven, and (since the work of Jesus Christ) began to people heaven with those beings who chose to subscribe to the project of Good. Thus it also explains the work of Jesus Christ, and accounts for his essential role in the divine project.

It accounts for the reality of freedom in our independent eternal origin as beings; the spiritual war whereby beings (such as ourselves) choose either the side of God and divine creation; or else to oppose that. It makes sense of the possibility of beings such as ourselves becoming genuine co-creators (ie, bringing something new, additional to God) in the creation that God began. 

It provides a model for the meaning and purpose of this mortal life - its meaning in love which is working with the divine harmony, and acts of co-creation (even in this mortal life, but more so in resurrected eternal life); and as a time for learning and preparation for immortality to come.  

So far, this metaphysics of creation has proved itself absolutely solid in response to the tests and critiques of my interrogations and life-experiences. 

But this third metaphysics seems not to be understood by the adherents of Christian monism, or chaos; and the reasons is that they do not follow the implications of their metaphysics to their conclusions; but instead introduce 'unprincipled exceptions' or 'auxiliary hypotheses' so as to provide a pseudo-rationalization for (in particular) the meaning of mortal life and the reality of freedom. 

These incoherent elements serve to take away the demand for something different; yet they fail to solve the incoherences that have been evidence for thousands of years, and are so obvious to adherents of the opposite views. I mean, the incoherence of traditional Christian metaphysics is obvious to evil-atheist-'materialists', and vice-versa. 

The metaphysics of creation is only seldom held explicitly and consciously; yet I regard it as essentially the simple, instinctive, innate metaphysics of childhood (and, probably, ancestral hunter gatherers) that has been raised to a higher level of conscious awareness.  

It is the metaphysics of the Fourth Gospel ('John') - and implicitly what Jesus lived and taught - and completed by his opening of Heaven to Men. 

Explaining the origin of irredeemable, never-incarnated, demonic spirits

Following from yesterday's discussion; I shall put forward here an explanation for those beings who are traditionally regarded as demons in orthodox Christian theology:

The definition of which is that they are spirit-beings, that have never incarnated, and which are eternally committed to evil such that they cannot be redeemed or saved. 

There are several other kinds of being that might be termed "demons"* - and these might include currently-incarnated beings, or beings that have previously been incarnated and died (analogous to evil ghosts)...

But here I am focusing on beings that have always been spirits - and I am trying to understand and explain how any being might be outwith the scope of the salvation of Jesus Christ.   

I will first outline my metaphysical assumptions: those who want to cut straight to the explanation of demons will find this after the break: indicated +++

My metaphysical understanding of reality is that it comprises beings in relationships; and that beings have attributes such that they are alive, conscious (to some degree), purposive, self-sustaining and so forth. 

Beings are eternal, always have existed - including before creation.

All beings are unique: that is important. Some Christians (perhaps influenced by oneness spiritualty) assume that all Men are originally equal, and diverge - and then spiritually develop and converge towards becoming very similar, or even identical. 

But in contrast I assume that all beings began as unique (and un-cooperative) and God's plan of salvation is a matter of progressively achieving harmony. At first a partly-imposed and temporary harmony, but a process that is completed by the Second Creation, of Heaven; where each resurrected being has chosen to be remade such as to live wholly from-love, and harmony between unalike beings is then innate and spontaneous**.

That is: living-beings are the primary unit of reality; and "beings" include humans, animals, plants, as well as what are usually considered to be "mineral" entities and materials. 

Everything primary in reality is thus either itself a being, or part of a being. 

A further assumption is that all beings were originally spirits. 

Only later, and only for some beings, there may be incarnation into some material form. 

Many spirits have never been incarnated.  

Originally (before creation) beings may have been aware of each other, to varying degrees, and with varying attitudes - but each being is assumed to have been autonomous, separate, pursuing its own goals. 

Before creation, reality was a "chaos" of beings. 

Divine creation happened when God's love became the means of "coordinating" or harmonizing these already-existing beings. 

However, to become a part of divine creation, a being must first be capable of love; then secondly a being-capable-of-love must choose to live by, or from, this love.

(Because it is love that harmonizes the disparate beings, and this harmonization is creation.)

Hence the formulation "God is love", and the great commandments to love God and fellow Men - which can be interpreted to make the choice to embrace the loving purpose of God as ideal, and to aspire to live wholly from love of other beings. 

+++

Now I will explain the origin of demons:

All beings are unique. To participate in creation, a being must be capable of love; but not all beings are capable of love. 

A love-incapable being happens to be constituted that way. Such a being will not be part of creation, and cannot ever become a part of creation. 

Demons are here regarded as spirits that are incapable of love. 

For a being to be saved or redeemed includes death and resurrection such as to live entirely from love. 

It follows that any being constitutionally incapable of love, cannot undergo salvation, indeed, such a being cannot even want salvation.

Some love-incapable beings might remain passive, detached from creation. But demons are assumed to be those love-incapable beings who have chosen to oppose creation - for various motives. 

For instance; demons may aim to exploit creation, or may seek to destroy it. They may be motivated by their own pleasure, by negative resentment, or sheer spiteful desire to inflict suffering. Or mixture of motivation; and demonic motivations may change over time. 

But although capable of changing their behaviours; a love-incapable demon can never become part of creation, and can never seek or attain salvation through following Jesus Christ. 

The above scheme may explain the occurrence of those demons - traditionally-defined: demons that are spirits, have never incarnated, and are eternally outwith even the possibility of salvation. 

*(And some of these are capable of choosing salvation.)

**(An analogy is that the first creation is like a State ruled by a loving creator God with a mixture of coercion and consent; while the Second Creation is a perfectly loving family.) 

Energy derives from purpose: The polarity of love and creation

Purpose and desire emerged with love. As God's love grew between our Heavenly Parents, so, at the same moment, creation began. Love and creation: the two were simultaneous, because aspects of the same awakening of purpose and desire.

Creation began because there was a living purpose. Love itself is intrinsically creative, because love is alive, hence dynamic; love works for development in the self and the other, in relationship. Such development is creation.

The lack of such relation and creation would mean acollapse of purose; and love is replaced by despair, there is loss of cohesion, collapse.

Love coheres by creation, by participating directly in God's creation. And Not by each individual seeking pleasure.

Because pleasure is static, not developmental, not creative. Thus pleasure kills itself. As such, pleasure tries to hold-onto itself - and this also kills pleasure.


Energy is actually a false conceptualisation of purpose and desire in action. If energy is taken to be the primary reality (as many do); then we will suppose that energy can be manipulated and directed. Yet because energy is purpose, and purpose derives from Beings, this fails.

We may suppose that Beings can be directed, but actually Beings can only be used when they are moving towards their purposes. Therefore Beings can only be manipulated by inducing them to accept our purposes, instead of their own. (Or pretending that their purposes are ours, as happens when human

Purpose is only creative when the many purposes of many Beings are harmonised by love; otherwise we get chaos. Love is only purposive when also creative, otherwise we get merely evanescent pleasure. Purposes at war and cancelling-out (see below)...


Love and creation are a polarity - which means that they are aspects of a single and indivisible dynamic process: which is the development of living Being. If the polarity is denied and rejected - what then?

If we take love unilaterally (leaving aside creativity) we get Nirvana, we get Eastern religion. Creation is illusion, the self is illusion - all is illusion except the static, unchanging, one of deity.The self aims to dissolve into deity - since deity is the only real reality.

In actuality what is attained in Nirvana is an almost-static, almost-unchanging, almost-loss of self... hardly (but somewhat) differentiated from deity, hardly conscious yet slightly conscious, not free except to embrace this state of unfreedom.

This is granted to those who want it by our loving God; with a near approximation of the impossible (because paradoxical) state that is desired - impossible because the self is indestructible in a world eternally composed of Beings.


If instead we take creatively, unilaterally, and reject love as a principle of reality... this is modernity, scientism, materialism. We get novelty without cohesion, mere variation and recombination; lability and change but incoherent and without purpose or direction.

Thus, when creativity excludes love, creativity goes - because creativity relies on cohesion, and the cohesion must be real, not arbitrary. Since the reality of cohesion is divine love, and this is denied; there can be no genuine creativity.

Human creativity only makes sense when it happens with a created-reality. If reality is explained as random or wholly-determined (or some combination), then human creation is just a free-spinning cog, a subjective delusion that dies with the self. Indeed, when reality is random/ determined not-created, this awareness will sooner-or-later invade and destroy any conception of individual creativity.

In sum individual creativity makes no sense except in the context of a creation; creation makes no sense except with love.


With modernity, then, from its denial of the objectivity of love (and of God the creator) we get an increase of chaos, warring purposes and purposeless despair; and a reduction in the purposive development of loving creation.

Because there is no purpose, there is no meaning; because there is no love-creation there is not purpose - the modern condition.


The modern denial of love as a metaphysical reality is, implicitly, an attempt to undo creation; to return to the primordial chaos that surrounded Beings. This modern project can only be partly successful, because the attempt is made from within God's coherent and loving creation; indeed having this as a purpose its itself a fragment of creation that has purpose and meaning; and derives its energy in-action from this desire for chaos.

But as chaos approaches, energy will dwindle; the desire necessary to attain the goal will dissipate into the desired chaos - before its goal could be attained.

This is one way of understanding why evil cannot win in the long-run. Creation has happened, and cannot be undone wholly, but only diminished quantitatively.  Creation depends on free agency, but creation can wait until love is freely chosen.

Evil is a subtype of Entropy, in this Pluralistic-Animistic divine creation

I have often written about the twin ultimate-problems (ineradicable insufficiencies) of this, our mortal life; under the headings of Entropy and Evil. 

My understanding of reality is that its fundamental divisions or units are eternal Beings, i.e living-Beings; such that (to modify the title of William James's book) this is an Pluralistic Animistic universe; i.e. there are many fundamental entities (not one); and these fundamental entities are alive, purposive, with agency and other attributes of Beings.  

Because things began with many Beings; God's divine creation (that we inhabit) is the primary source of cohesion: in a crude sense, by creation God imposed harmony on pre-existing and originally autonomous Beings. 

For creation to be sustained (insofar as it is sustained) there must me harmony/ cooperation/ cohesion etc between the Purposes and motives of the many Beings which constitute creation. 

Otherwise, divine creation will tend to fall apart - with different Beings pursuing different goals, or living by different values.  

It is this tendency for divine creation to fall-apart into a chaos of competing directions and behaviours that is the essential cause of the tendency named Entropy: i.e. the tendency of all life, order, organization, forms, functionality etc to decline towards chaos, with time. 

The primary source of Entropy is therefore the disharmony of Beings.

Therefore we need to stop thinking of Entropy abstractly, as if it was a branch of physics, as if it was some kind of force (or anti-force) that broke-up stuff... 

Instead, we should think of entropy as a consequence of the fact that the Beings of divine creation are imperfectly aligned in their nature and purposes. 

Our situation is that we may find ourselves loving God and experiencing profound desiring to live in harmony with divine creation; but we simply cannot do this in reality as we experience it, in this mortal life - because of our innate nature, because of the way we are (and have been) eternally.  

We may want to live in harmony with divine creation, but we cannot. 

But not all Beings want to live in harmony with divine creation, and some Beings hate God; and these are Beings that have chosen (or, at least, are currently choosing) Evil.

So, Evil can be defined as a kind of chosen Entropy; when the inevitable disharmony between our-selves and divine creation is made into the positive choice our-selves to oppose divine creation.  

From this perspective we can see that Evil is a type of Entropy - in a sense a worse type of Entropy: a positive decision to pursue negative outcomes. And worse than non-evil-Entropy; because Entropy is universal and unavoidable, whereas Evil makes the personal choice to oppose divine harmony....

Motives for Evil are various, but perhaps some kind of resentment or grudge against God and the imposed aspect of divine creation, might be the most basic motivation.  

Aims of Evil, too, are various. 

Perhaps the aim is to exploit divine harmony in pursuit of personal gratification or other selfish benefit; perhaps (more extremely) to oppose divine harmony simply from a desire to see it destroyed, taking spiteful pleasure in the destruction. 

This was the unavoidable human condition, blighted by ineradicable Entropy, and worsened by chosen Evil; and the situation for all Beings, until the advent of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was a mortal Being, incarnated into this world of imperfect harmony between Beings - but Jesus himself loved God wholly; and was himself (at least, at the time of his ministry, after his Baptism by John) wholly-aligned with divine creation. 

Jesus was himself mortal: which is to say he was subject to Entropy. And Jesus was subject also to Evil. However; because Jesus was perfectly aligned with God and creation he knew that after death he could (and would) be remade as himself but "perfectly" - in other words, resurrected into eternal life, freed from Entropy. 

Resurrection takes our aspiration to live wholly in harmony with divine creation, and rebuilds us from that basis.

Furthermore, Jesus knew that if or when others had followed him into this eternal (because wholly-aligned, Entropy-purged) state of resurrection - which remaking process would be guided by Jesus himself - then a world of such persons would be a world without Evil.

In eliminating Entropy, resurrection also eliminates Evil, as a subsidiary effect. 

And this wholly-harmonious and wholly-God-aligned post-mortal world would be Heaven: in which the deepest and ineradicable problems of this mortal life are eliminated; and free and creative Beings live spontaneously in harmony (loving God and each-other), and from common aims and motives. 

 

Un-resurrected Men are not perfectible and there can be no Heaven on this earth (Jesus Christ is the only Way to eternal love)

I have often come across variations on the theme that this world and the Men, animals and plants who dwell here are perfectible: that this mortal life can be transformed into Heaven. 

The transformation has been variously expressed; one idea is that the gross materiality of bodies will be transformed into light; or that matter becomes spirit; or (in New Age type thinking) that the vibrational-state or frequency of the planet and everything on it will be raised. 

The underlying idea seems to be that this world as-it-is is "entropically" subject to death, decay, disease, and sin; but that the corruptible "stuff" of mortality and imperfection can be transformed and replaced by in-corruptible stuff... Thus Earth is changed into Heaven.

I regard this metaphysical belief as an early manifestation of Mankind's alienation, of our diminishing participation, of the loss of primal "animism" by which we knew that this reality is constituted by Beings - loving, conscious, purposive beings - and these are the bottom-line explanation. 

Because reality is Beings - therefore restatements of ultimate reality in such terms as vibrations or frequencies, of matter-spirit distinctions, or of light or any other physical property - are all abstractions. (All "physicsy").

That is these ways of understanding reality are all distanced, symbolic, representative - but not reality itself; and only a secondary form of understanding.

If, instead, we embrace the original and spontaneous human understanding of reality in terms of Beings, then we can recognize that what prevents Heaven on Earth is not a matter of matter, not about the "substance" of this world (as if it could be separated from the spirit). But instead that death, sin, insufficiency, "entropy" are a consequence on the inharmoniousness of relationships between Beings. 

In a nutshell: it is the lack of complete and eternal love that prevents our eternal lives and Heaven. 

We must rectify relationships and enable eternal Love to have Heaven. 

Heaven can arise only by Loving God first - that is, recognizing and committing ourselves to God's creation and creative methods and purposes. 

And second: by loving our neighbours/ fellow-Men - in other words Loving All Other Beings - forever.

These are the two Great Commandments articulated by Jesus Christ; and can be seen as shorthand for the eternal and irrevocable commitment to live by Love; in harmony with God's creative will. 

When beings live by Love, this is eternal - because there is nothing in Heaven (thus conceived) to disrupt or destroy divine creation.  

Since Love is what is needed, and since Love is a choice - we need to recognize that Love is the free act of a Being with agency as an essential attribute. 

Therefore (because Love cannot be imposed, top-down, from-externally); everlasting life and Heaven cannot be imposed, but must instead be chosen: indeed there must be a commitment to live eternally by Love. 

To make our lives eternal and dwell in Heaven is therefore a matter of relationship, and that relationship is voluntary (again, Love cannot be imposed)... 

Thus Heaven cannot be imposed on Earth by any means - what must instead happen is that all the beings of Earth (including the being of Earth itself) must choose to live by Love.   

I cannot see any way that such a lot of choices would be simultaneous, and Heaven cannot be partial; which would seem to mean that either Heaven must be delayed until every Being has chosen it -- which delay seems contradicted by Jesus's teachings (esepcially in the Fourth Gospel - of "John"). Or Heaven is elsewhere. 

(And also there is the fact of at least some apparently eternally-self-damned demons; which would prevent Heaven ever from happening - if indeed all must repent before eternal life can ensue.) 

Heaven surely cannot be partial; because the dwelling in Heaven of selfish or cruel Beings would not be Heaven! It would lead to destruction of that Loving creation which enables both perfection and eternity - and is itself the state of Heaven.

So, it seems to me that Heaven, and our eternal resurrected life therein, must be elsewhere than this earth; and segregated from this world of sin/ death - such that those Beings who have not committed to Love, do-not and cannot affect Heaven. 

My understanding is therefore that this-world cannot be other than it is; which is a consequence of God's Loving creation in a context of primal chaos, creation in the context of Beings that all have some tendency to death, to selfishness, to sin (and some Beings apparently incapable of Love). 

This world is temporary, and creation here is like the rule of a wise and wholly-Good parent imposed on children (i.e. Beings) who vary in their innate degrees of Goodness, and obedience. 

But for eternal life and Heaven to exist, these Beings (us, you and me, included) must be released from obedience in order to choose freely whether or not we want Heaven. 

So, this world is mixed: and has in it both evil (primal chaos, entropy, selfishness...), and also Good - vast and renewing manifestations of God's creative Love. 

Therefore; every Being or entity in this world has direct and personal experience of evil and Good. 

Every Being in this world is in a position to make the eternal commitment to live wholly by Love in a wholly Good "other place" that is Heaven - a Heaven that already exists, and to which we each can go by following Jesus Christ through resurrection, after death.

In other words; we can, will, and must choose either Heaven; or else "more of the same, mixed, kind of thing".  

But this world is not staying the same. 

This world apparently accumulates evil through time, because evil just-is cumulative, and Beings that choose evil become more evil..

(Unless the Beings repent; which means precisely making a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

Also; Beings that commit to Good are incrementally being removed from this-world and segregated in Heaven. 

In other words; this mixed world already contains Hell in part and in places; but is becoming more Hell-ish with time. 

In conclusion; Beings such as our-selves can choose Heaven or Hell - both of which we all have experienced in this mixed world. This is the choice between eternally living only by Love; and not making this commitment. 

We can choose Heaven, or we can choose to reject Heaven. 

We can also choose to "delay" our choice -- but this is, in its actual effect, a here-and-now rejection of Heaven, and embrace of this mixed-world, which is tending towards Hell. 

We can go-back on this rejection of Heaven at any time: repentance is always open to every Being. 

But, in this mixed but evil-accumulating world, and given that un-repented evil will become more evil; delaying the choice of Heaven does make salvation more and more difficult. 

Repentance is never impossible, but always gets more difficult with delay. 

Infinity versus open-ended

The difference is that infinity is defined abstractly, i.e. without any reference to consciousness; it is posited as a 'thing'. The open-endedness, un-boundedness of reality is, by contrast, an experience.

The following paradoxes might help - they are paradoxes because the explanations assume divisions that are in reality unity. So they are fingers pointing at the moon, ladders to be kicked away after use...

Consciousness is necessary for the concept of infinity, or for any other knowledge, but that fact is ignored in 'definitions' of infinity - this is the root of the falseness and error of infinity.

We know infinity only by consciousness; but infinity dispenses with consciousness. But really, knowing is a part of creating - it is the active/ process, in-Time interaction of Being with reality that is creation.

(Whenever we find ourselves discoursing without recognition of the fact that Being is Be-ing - 'ing' meaning something that is in-Time, includes Time - then we are in error. Since Infinity does not take account of Time, it is an error.)

Chaos is made-into creation by the be-ing of Beings, by the existence of Beings; knowledge arises from a Being perceiving - it is the insertion of Beings into chaos that makes creation.

By the very process of Being, is creation.

We cannot contemplate chaos; because our contemplation is creation. Thus - simply by Being, all 'things' create. (That is, there are no things, only Beings.)

Consciousness is a part of this, and consciousness is quantitative. All Being entails knowledge - albeit mostly non-conscious knowledge. All Being has consciousness - although mostly this is minimal - minimally conscious Beings are what we mischaracterise as 'things', minerals etc.

As consciousness increases it first looks outward; so we first become aware of external creation but not our our own role in creating it: we tend to set creation against our-selves. creation is, at first, realer than our-self; and the separation seems like an aberration to be solved by the self re-entering into, losing itself in, creation. (

(Our subjective world is apparently illusion/ maya - the external world of creation is the only objectivity.)

As consciousness increases further, it turns inward, we become aware of our-selves; and the suspicion arises that all creation is of our-selves, and outside is only chaos - the suspicion that we are deluded about external creation.

(This is solipsism, or 'relativism' - or subjectivism... apparently we are real and everything else a 'projection'.)

Later still - modernity - it is recognised that the absolute separation of the self and the world mean that neither is real; both are illusion. The world has no meaning without the self - it is chaos. The self has no meaning without the world - it is a delusion encapsulated.

(This is nihilism - mainstream modern discourse.) 

If consciousness can be increased yet further, to a divine level, then we can become aware (albeit temporarily) that all creation is a participation of the self in the totality of everything: both are real, both are needed.

The world and self never were separated - creation happened and continues because Beings live, develop, and are conscious. Indeed it is the process of separation and recombination, necessarily caused-by the insertion of Being into chaos - that is itself Creation.

That is, we can experience the fact that we are divine, and necessarily engaged in the creation of this world (and this is all possible because we are children of the creator).

We do not think the work of God; but of Satan

Reality consists of Beings - in relationships. Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal. 

If something knowable is not a Being, then it is part of a Being or a consequence of relationships - but everything needs to be related to Beings.

(Outwith Beings and their relationships, nothing in knowable - there is by inference chaos.)

We know Beings by inferring their character, motivations etc - and causality is (something like) the kind of things that a Being wants and does...

The point of all this is that we modern people think we know stuff without reference to Beings - indeed that is the only stuff that is taken seriously as knowledge in the modern West. 

I mean so-called science, evidence, data, programmes and the like... What is studied is ripped clear of any reference to the Beings that generated this stuff - the stuff has a line drawn around it, and is treated as pure abstraction...

Except that it isn't really - everything knowable comes from beings -- but the input and sustaining activities of Beings (including the fact that it is Beings who are discussing these things) are just ignored and excluded. 

Real science is (or was) of course done by Beings (human beings) and interpreted by other Beings - but that is now forgotten or denied. Science is now supposedly (by implication) done by anybody or anything that is following some method, formula, algorithm - it is regarded and treated as a process ("science tells us"... "scientists say"... "follow the science"). 

And other attributes of Beings are supposedly processes - treated in abstraction, regardless of any Beings - like intelligence: so any-thing can be "intelligent" if it follows some process, yields some kinds of result. 

We can't stop doing this! We are thinking the work of Satan!

Love is (surely?) something to do with Beings, but it is talked about and dealt-with either as a temporary emotion, a kind of pulse of neurotransmitters and hormones. 

Or maybe Love is treated abstractly - as if it was a branch of occult physics, some kind of force-field, or vibrational state; which has impersonal properties such as being "unconditional" or "universal" - so that mere people, mere Beings don't affect Love. 

Such ways of conceptualizing Love mean that it can't be genuinely important, not really, to "society" - not when it comes to serious decision-making about serious matters... 

People yammer incessantly about Love in their gossip, in the news, and in songs, stories, and soaps; but what impact did this emotional-Love have upon the management of the birdemic in 2020 - the lockdowns, social-distancing, masking, pecking-campaigns? 

How did Love affect the closure of Christian churches in 2020; the fleeing of priests, the shut-down of Lourdes; the churches refusal to administer the Eucharist, wed people, conduct funerals? 

Despite everybody asserting its immense importance all-the-time; despite the constant whittering of pseudo-Christians and materialist-hedonists alike over "God is love", and that Love is "the most important thing of all": Love made not the slightest perceptible difference to anything at all when something that the Establishment regarded as serious was at stake. Neither did Love lead to rebellion or even dissent in thought or in deed; among the docile, obedient masses. 

We have created and we sustain a world in which (more and more) everything important is abstracted from actual people. 

Actual individuals are, indeed, regarded mainly as a threat, as potential errors and selfishness. 

Goodness comes from pure abstractions and rigorous processes. The most important decisions are made either by algorithm, or by pooling and averaging individual judgment - as with voting, committees, "democracy". 

What is needed is such a fundamental change in our current and recent attitudes and understanding as to be mind-exploding; a living world, a conscious world, a world primarily of Beings, a world primarily of spirit, a world that is God's creation and directed towards Christ's salvation... 

Yet anything less leaves us exactly where we are. 

For far too long, Christians have been pouring the new-wine of a life of Love following Jesus, into the old-bottle of abstract, materialist thinking that posits the irrelevance of Love and regards following Jesus as just-another-set-of-processes - firmly located within the usual kinds of social process. 

Christians do some different things; but they think in the same way as everybody else - so that when times are tough, their ingrained and habitual materialistic-abstract-externally-driven mode of thinking limits and controls everything they do. 

Christians shall persist in getting absolutely nowhere - except to remain a "lifestyle option" within a hell-bound totalitarianism; unless and until we begin and continue to think the work of God. 

What makes Good good?

All Christians believe that God is Good and loves us. 

But what does this actually mean? 

What does it mean to be Good? 

In particular; is Good a matter of preference merely, as modern materialistic ideology would have it. Are Good and evil "relative" and interchangeable? 

What this "relativism" of values seems to mean in current Western/ Globalist culture, in an underlying and implicit way, is that what matters are peoples' feelings (or more exactly, some peoples' feelings) - especially their "hedonic status", i.e. whether they are happy or suffering. 

What counts as Good is what is believed to lead to happiness, while evil is whatever causes suffering (or is asserted to cause suffering) - and Good and evil can therefore change places according to the cause of gratification/misery in the current situation. 

It should be noted that this modern Western hedonic morality as the basis of values, is rooted in the assumption that we can objectively know, and indeed measure, the hedonic outcome of choices... 

The assumptions that we know and can quantify other-people's state of happiness; and that we understand the relationship between present action and future emotions - including in large numbers of people; and that that we can predict the major psychological consequences of material actions.

These assumptions seem to me nothing but wishful-thinking at best; and most often sheerly-obvious nonsense...

Nonetheless; these are among the assumptions upon-which modern mainstream morality and values are based.  

  

Or is there instead some objective basis to Good and evil? By "objective" I mean here to ask: is there something about the nature of reality that distinguishes Good from evil? And if there is something objective about Good - what is it? 

Traditional orthodox mainstream Christian theology has it that God is Good because God created everything from nothing, because God is "omni" in nature. 

This is the argument of monotheism, something that this type of Christian shares with Jews and Moslems, and which is rooted in an assertion that God is Good because there is nothing else. 

In other words, by this argument, God is Good because God is everything, so that it is irrational, meaningless, to believe otherwise. Because there is nothing else but God - to be evil is meaningless, futile, insane... evil (by this account) has nowhere to go, and nothing to believe-in. 

The obvious objection to the monotheistic omni-God argument; is that if God made everything, is everything, controls and knows everything - then this abolishes the difference between Good and evil. 

The trad-orthodox definition of evil is more a matter of "Good is God" than "God is Good"; because (by this account) there is ultimately nothing except God and that which is wholly made by God - and God has been defined as Good. 

Apparent differences between Good and evil can therefore only be illusory, or temporary... But, even then, it is unclear why God should make or allow such illusions. 

(Indeed, it is unclear why the omni-God should do anything at all - since everything that has happened, is happening, or could happen - is all God Himself and his own 100% God-made creation. Creation seems to change nothing essential, to have no purpose or direction; because everything always was/is/shall-be.) 

Therefore, if we regard Good as relativistic, we just get a kind of this-worldly hedonic therapy, in which anything and everything is "justified" by assertions that it will make "people" happier, or less miserable. 

Or else, by trying to make Goodness identical with an omni-God, by asserting that all-is-God and God-is-Good; we end up actually abolishing the distinction between Good and evil. 

Anyone evil is then insane by his opposition to the only actual reality... Yet even this statement does not stand, because God must have made that person the way he is - i.e. insane.

The omni-mono-God philosophy explains nothing because it explains everything!

And such a conception of God seems especially antagonistic to Christianity; which must surely have an essential place for the divine Man Jesus Christ, and his doings at some point in history; and for the necessity of (in some meaning) "following" Jesus.

For a Christian; Jesus must make a difference, and that difference must be deep, cosmic, temporally-located, crucial. 

My own views on this subject have been expounded scores of times on this blog; but I will focus on the major objection to it. 

My understanding of Good: If God is a Being (or indeed two Beings - Loving Heavenly Parents) who found-themselves among a multitude of other Beings; and if this God began creating at some point in time; and if this creation is founded upon Love...

So that creation is something like "the purposive and mutually loving relationships between Beings that were previously and otherwise mutually unloving, lacking in shared-purpose"...

Reality is therefore a growing creation in an environment of chaos...

By this "model", Good is defined as God's project of creation; and evil is some kind of opposition to this project (anything other than joining with the project of creation - is may be any kind of opposition, from trying to exploit creation for selfish reasons, or trying to destroy creation). 

In theory, there is also the alternative of opting-out from creation. 

By my understanding of Good; Beings such as ourselves find-ourselves in an ongoing divine creation; and we need to decide whether we are on the side of creation or not.  

Good is the decision to join with God's creation. 

Opting-out is the decision Not to join with creation. 

Evil is the decision to oppose creation. 

Main objections to my understanding: Some things that some people find wrong with this scheme, are that I regard God as "just" a Being (actually two Beings) among a multitude of other Beings; that God's creation had a beginning and has therefore not been eternal; that God is finite in knowledge and power...

And that Good is only one among other rational possibilities. 

By my understanding; to be evil is to oppose the project of divine creation; but that opposition need not be irrational. Evil may be short-termist, evil will be un-loving, and may be manipulative, sadistic, spiteful... 

But evil need not be irrational (evil is only irrational when it denies the reality of divine creation). 

By my understanding: There really is no compulsion to be Good, because Good is one side in the spiritual war arranged around the actually-existing reality of divine creation. 

There is indeed One God, in the sense that there happens-to-be one divine creation, and this was an is the creation of God. 

There is one creation which is that we know, and which includes all other Beings that we can know. One creation within-which we and other Beings find-themselves when they become self-aware, when we/they become "conscious" of reality and their places in it among other Beings, and having relationships with these other Beings.  

Such matters could have been otherwise, but were not otherwise: this is reality - this is the situation within-which we exist.   

To loop back to the original incoherent ideas that Good is relativist because choice is rational and real; or else that Good is objective and necessary because there is mono-omni-God creating everything; I would say instead that Good is objective because God is The Creator; but the choice of Good versus evil is also real, has consequences that may be permanent, and it is a coherent choice to choose evil - even when the reality of one divine creation is acknowledged. 

By my understanding: To choose Good is to choose to affiliate with God's objectively real project of creation, and this project is built from love, because creation is the product of love.

Any Being capable of love is capable for choosing to affiliate with creation.

But evil may be a coherent choice, because creation takes place amidst continuing chaos - and continuing chaos is termed "death" (by the Fourth Gospel" and is spiritually-analogous to the scientific-material concept of "entropy". 

Evil is not entropy, but coherent evil entails an ultimate commitment to entropy and chaos in preference to divine creation, because entropy/ chaos is all that would remain when evil has done its work...

After evil has worked through to its conclusion; there would be a world without creation, which is a world without love; and that would be the return to a pre-creation world of mutually un-conscious and unloving Beings; i.e. the end state of evil would be Beings uncomprehendingly existing in a situation that has no coherence and no direction.

Thus evil is a possible and coherent thing to desire.   

In other words, by my understanding, divine creation is incomplete and (in principle) vulnerable to evil, and to entropy; or, this would be the case without the Second Creation of Jesus Christ. 

Primary creation of God is of-itself therefore incomplete and contingent; and Jesus Christ is therefore essential to the triumph of Good. 

But the triumph of Good is not the imposition of Good across all that exists - it is a Second Creation that consists of Beings that are only and wholly Good. That situation called "Heaven". 

This is why Christianity is the only coherent religion; and why Jesus Christ is and was essential. Jesus was Not essential to the primary divine creation; but Jesus is essential to the indomitable and eternal triumph of creation - in Heaven. 

   

Note added: What makes Good good is loving-creation - but only if you agree that love is, indeed good. Otherwise not. That which is good is therefore objectively real; but what makes the real objective, is personal. 

How does creation work? Hierarchies of agents

All things which aren't chaos are Beings or Parts Of Beings. 

We Men are each Beings, and each cell of our body is also a Being - but some categories of bodies are 'parts of Beings' such as 'bits-of-my-body-coloured-a-particular-shade-of-light-brown... That category is not A Being - but instead various parts of various Beings.  

So, with some Beings inside - and making components of, Beings; we seem to arrive at hierarchies of Beings as the way Creation (as a whole) is organized, and created. 

The level above - e.g. my whole organism - organizing ('creating') the level below - e.g. my cells. So, each cell is a Being, with its own life, consciousness - and agency (a degree of free will). 

But each cell is also (maybe unknown to itself?) a part of my body; which is continually monitoring and controlling it, by means of rewarding incentives and aversive punishments.  

And sometimes cells escape this organizing influence - and this can lead to cancer, uncontrolled growth; when the cell (in effect) acts independently of the needs of the body. 

Presumably - something like this is analogous to what God does in creating all of the other Beings, as well as with Men. 

The analogy would be that God is to Men, somewhat like each Man is to the cells of his organism - with one big difference of God being eternal while mortal Men are temporary. 

God's creation can be pictured as a continuously organizing and purpose-directing of a multitude of hierarchically-organized Beings - each with agency. 

God is the apex of the hierarchy of Beings; and origin of the purpose of creation-as-a-whole. 

In other words, it is God that organizes pre-existent Beings into coherence, and with direction. 

...Or; God provides a purpose for Beings, and is continually working to enable cooperation of Beings towards that purpose. 

Such a way of thinking about creation solves some of the traditional deep problems that beset Christian theology - such as how free will is possible, and the origins of evil. 

I think this way of conceptualizing also points towards a way of understanding genuine creativity of Beings, and how individual Beings (including, but not restricted to, Men) can potentially contribute to the work of creation. 

Note: Relevant to this are recent posts by WmJas Tychonievich and Francis Berger.

Magic, and the missing causes of the way the world works

Something that I become more aware of with the passing years, is that there are very significant causal factors which are left-out of the usual explanations for things such as the economy, civil society, even the survival of nations. Such that I am aware that "we", including myself, do not really understand things half so well as we suppose. There must be a lot more going-on than is realized. 

I really have no idea how the economy continues to provide so much stuff for so many people. I can see pretty exactly where my own income has come from and goes, but I cannot remotely do the same for others. The numbers don't add up. 

I can only assume that there are hidden subsidies all over the place - but how this is kept going I don't see. 

(The high level of escalating subsidy - which goes to the lowest classes, as well as to the richest - can't all be derived from resource extractions from people like myself - there aren't enough of us. And we don't generate many real and useful resources anyway.)

So, while I am sure that the British economy will collapse at some point, it has continued far longer than seemed possible during the birdemic stoppages. Hardly anybody seems to be doing anything true, or beautiful, or even useful - most people are actively engaged in destruction - and yet...

While the EU is destined to collapse, this has been the case for at least 15 years - and it is still there, and still causing mischief and mayhem on a massive scale (and still unconditionally supported by the UK ruling class).  

The situations, as I currently see it, is that human beings are very actively engaged in their strategic own annihilation by almost every means conceivable - including the most fundamental one of almost ceasing to reproduce; but also, recently, by trying to start pointless wars with stronger opponents.

Eventually this must and shall have the massively destructive effect that humans desire.

But meanwhile things continue; which I infer means that some-thing, or rather some-beings, some-where must be working against this - or else the destruction would have long since happened. 

(I do not believe that this is only a matter of buffering destructive change. That would not suffice. There must be actual opposition to the destruction - there must, in other words, be some positively creative activity. 

But it really does not seem that positive creative activity is coming from human beings. 

In other words, something "magical" - which means something unconsidered by our explanatory models, something outwith our materialist explanations, something working by spiritual not physical means, is at work... 

And that magical spiritual "something" is not coming from the human beings - more exactly only very few human beings seem to be involved - and these not-human powers for good are slipping under the radar.   

So things continue much longer that our knowledge and understanding suggest that they could or should. 

Yet, instead of noticing this, being grateful, and acknowledging and supporting these non-human beings for protecting us from our own malign motivations - the lesson most people draw is that we can and should continue our strategic destructiveness, on the basis that it is not really destructive. 

For so long as the society does not actually collapse into rampant/ endemic violence, disease, famine, chaos - for so long the mass of people (especially, but not only, the rulers) can and will continue to claim that this means their nihilism and spitefulness are "good for" the economy, peace, security, decency...

And even when chaos supervenes, it seems that the collapse will be blamed upon those scattered and weak human beings who still try to do good; who recognize and endorse truth, beauty and virtue. 

Meanwhile, it is worth remembering that we share our nations with a multitude of other - not human - beings; animals, plants; and spirits of many kinds including (but not only) the dead, angels, and the "elemental" beings that modern Man regards as non-living.

Some of these "magical" spirits are apparently doing their best to sustain that which human beings are doing their worst to destroy. 

The God-aligned and Good among these non-physical, magical, spirit beings are, I presume, the missing cause that explains (could we but understand their activities) why things are not already much worse than they actually are. 

Can "the planet earth" choose to be damned (or saved)?

I have developed the metaphysical assumption that reality consists of Beings in relationships; this is a version of the spontaneous ('animistic') assumptions of 'all' young children and (so far as is known) hunter-gatherers - including our ancestors. 

I assume that this is an essentially true way of understanding reality which is why it was and is innate, 'built-into' Men - by God. 

Beings are therefore regarded as the ultimate, fundamental, metaphysically primary units of reality; Beings that are alive, with attributes such as consciousness, and purpose.  

In other words: there are ultimately no 'things' (or, more exactly, no knowable things - because chaos is not knowable - it can only be a label for uncreated stuff, including the primordial background state). Ultimately; there is no 'it' - but only 'him' or 'her' (or some other linguistic term that refers to Beings). 

This seems to mean that the spiritual war of this world includes all Beings, not just us human Beings; but animals, plants, and features of what we refer to as the 'mineral' world - sea, sky, and aspects of the earth - and the earth herself. 

And as usual, as with humans, there are Beings within Beings - just as we contain innumerable cells that are beings - for instance the white blood cells which roam our blood and lymph, consuming germs and debris, that are very similar to amoebae. 

And we Men, as individual Beings, are also biologically (and spiritually) 'social animals', with a 'Beingness' of some kinds of human groups, that is difficult to conceptualize yet also traditionally regarded as true; and which seems to exist above the individual level.    

One among many aspects of this situation is that all Beings have an analogous choice to that of Men, of whether to accepts the salvation made possible by Jesus Christ. Whether, that is, to choose resurrection into Heaven.

(Or not - and thus by default [whether actively or passively] to choose... something else.) 

I assume all Beings are - in their very different ways, due to their different qualities and degrees of consciousness - able to choose resurrection - or not. 

And this would apply to that Being which is 'the planet earth'. 

That there is indeed some such Being as 'planet earth', I am assuming on the basis that it seems to be spontaneous knowledge, and a feature of many cultures of many kinds through history. 

This earth will therefore - like you and me - at some point need to make an eternal commitment to Heaven - if the earth is to become immortal, everlasting... resurrected. 

And resurrection entails death; death is the only portal to eternal life of individual Beings. 

So, in order to become part of heavenly Life Eternal; the earth (as a Being) would first need to die; and must then choose - by an eternal commitment - to be resurrected. 

The death of the earth seems 'inevitable', given entropy; which seems to apply to all material stuff in this reality. And then, after death; will the earth choose to be resurrected? 

It seems to me that the earth will not have made this eternally-binding choice to 'discard' all sin and corruption and become everlasting; until after she actually has made this final commitment; because in this mortal and entropic material world, nothing is or can be eternal - including not our choices.

Our choices are open to change, to revision, until they are final choices; which happens only after death: when the spirit has separated from the (dead) body.  

In conclusion; we cannot know in advance whether the planet earth as a Being will, or will not, be part of Heaven; because that final choice has not yet been made by the Being that is Earth. 

This means that the question is still open; and we can be sure that Satan will be trying to influence the choice of Earth; such that she will reject Heaven; and by using broadly the same kind of methods that Satan uses against Men, to induce Men to reject Heaven.

How might this be working? Well, since the modern era (developing from circa 1500 in The West), and even more since the industrial revolution; Men have been set against Earth. Men's assumptions include that the Earth is Not a Being, that 'it' is dead, and can therefore be manipulated and explained as desired. 

The Earth is not even despised; but is regarded as outside of the drama of creation, because unalive. 

Atheists do this, Christians do this, modern environmentalists do this... 

Environmentalists - in particular - have reduced the living earth to an abstract concept called 'the environment'; which is broken down into a multitude of dead sub-concepts derived from science. 

Indeed - at present - the environment is in practice being reduced to mathematical models concerned with Carbon Dioxide; and everything else is ignored or subjugated to these models and their implications. 

In sum; there are many, many reasons why the planet earth might have developed the same kind of sinful, negative, sins that beset modern Man: I mean such sins as fear, resentment and despair. 

We might suppose that such negative attitudes could lead the modern (here-and-now) earth towards the same kind of attitudes to God, divine creation and Heaven as beset modern Men; and might lead to the same salvation-rejecting attitudes as are characteristic of so many modern Men. 

Indeed, it may be that when Christians (or anybody else - but I am addressing Christians in particular) make assumptions about what Will Happen to the planet earth; by acting as-if the earth had no say in the matter, they may be making matters worse! 

When Christians assume that the planet earth Will Be resurrected into the New Jerusalem - that Heaven Will Be on some version of this earth - are they actually taking-for-grated that the living-conscious earth will do exactly what human beings want earth to do, and thereby treating the earth as unalive, just 'a thing' which exists for the convenience of Men?

Just as if we were to assume that we knew for sure whether some particular human being would necessarily ultimately choose or reject salvation and resurrection; because that outcome is part of our own plans. 

To speak 'anthropomorphically' (which may not be far from the literal truth); when we think, speak and behave concerning the earth as an 'it' consisting of 'things' - the earth knows about this! and presumably does not like it, and may develop negative attitudes in consequence - and yet we continue and increase this way of not-relating to the earth. 

(How many of the troubles of Men with 'natural disasters' that we put down to 'bad luck' are actually a direct consequence of the way we regard the earth as a dead it and an unalive thing - and the same for Beings composing, and dwelling on, the earth? Some of the troubles, for sure.)

If we really dwell in this reality as Beings among Beings; then such matters are of fundamental importance: I mean recognizing the agency of other Beings, and recognizing that each Just Is responsible for his or her own salvation. 

It is so easy for us modern Men to fall-into the evil practice of regarding 'the universe' as a 'machine' - and this is wrong even when what is being-assumed is 'a machine for salvation'. 

We are not components in a mechanism, or elements in a determined-plan - and neither is the planet earth! 

We are all Beings, engaged in a free quest, located in a world which is engaged in spiritual war; a vital aspect of which is relationships. 

And one primary principle of such relationships is that we recognize each other as Beings - not as things. 

Conversely; it is a plank of the devil's program of damnation, that Men cease to do this; and instead habitually (and by conviction) regard 'the environment', animals, plants and other Men - as things instead of Beings.

Making Men into things, and he/ she into 'it'; is the malign intent behind such core evil-strategies as bureaucracy, totalitarianism, transhumanism, 'Artificial Intelligence', the transagenda, and the incremental and coercive computerization and digitalization of Life. 

Beings are not necessarily-determined, nor are they random. Instead; Beings have natures (dispositions), and purposes, can learn, make choices - and until they have made eternal choices, their fate cannot be known in advance.

To think and talk otherwise, is choosing to become a component part of the agenda of evil. 

Note added: On re-reading the above, I find it rather unsatisfactorily expressed; and I think this is because I am preaching something I cannot practice - although I want to! For instance, I found several examples (which I needed to edit out) in which I had used 'it/ its' about the planet earth! Nonetheless; this merely emphasizes how deep and pervasive is this 'objectivizing' and dead-ly way of thinking. It has even permeated what most adults (and indeed older children) regard as 'common sense' - so that it strikes most people as dumb or insane to acknowledge the livingness and consciousness of the universe and its true-components. I myself had to be driven to this conclusion (metaphorically 'kicking and screaming') via theoretical biology, and the attempt to define 'life', discuss the 'origins' of 'life', understand the nature of creativity - and indeed to map the proper boundaries of biology... All of which attempts I found to be impossible without the artificial drawing of boundaries that seemed too-obviously arbitrary. When confronted by the dilemma that - therefore - everything must either be alive, or else unalive. (In reductionist scientific terms; all of reality is either 'biology' or physics.) I felt intuitively compelled to assume the truth of the former - given that the idea that all of reality is ultimately physics (or maybe abstract mathematics), has underpinned the assumptions that have led Western Civilization to where we are now. That life consists in irreducible and primary Beings, arose from noticing the abstract - and again artificial - nature of any other conceptualization of biology/ life/ creation.  

The impulse and motive for divine creation

Kristor at the Orthosphere has written a post in response to mine of yesterday and others by Francis Berger - that asks several questions. These seem to require and deserve a more extensive elucidation than can be done in comments, including an expansion of underlying metaphysical assumptions; so here it is. 

This procedure distorts my metaphysical views, because they are being expressed in response to Kristor's framework of ultimate assumptions - so that, even when I try to elucidate - means that my account is fragmentary and seen from an alien angle. But maybe this is the best that can be managed in the circumstances. 

(Obviously, I usually and by preference express my metaphysical ideas in their own terms, trying to make a model or paint a picture of how reality is structured and proceeds.)

 

From Kristor is in italics - edited by me; my responses follow BC: 

The situation prior to creation that Bruce describes is already a world: a disharmonious congeries of eternal conscious selves, purposive beings who suffer affects, who feel, want, act, and so on, 

BC: That is a correct description of my views

who relate to and influence each other (so that they can love, or not), all more or less ordered to a good, which apparently they can all more or less recognize, and to which they are more or less attracted. 

BC: No. Before creation there is no such interaction or harmonization. 

They are from eternity past together in a temporal – and so, presumably also spatial – milieu, in which they have and prosecute lives, but only messily. 

BC: Sort of... but before creation there is no comparison by which their autonomous lives can be called messy. 

Thus they can apprehend each other, and God, and his creative plan; they can find it attractive, can want to participate in it, and can then actually do so. 

BC: No. I regard the above description as happening after creation has been initiated. 

The question then arises, what is the reason of this world that was running along from eternity past, all on its own, before one of its constituents got started on his creative project – or after, for that matter? If we answer that there is no prior reason it is what it is, that its eternal existence is a brute fact, we have admitted that it is fundamentally unintelligible; for, what has no sufficient reason to be what it is cannot be reasonable, either in whole or in part: for, brute facts are utterly inscrutable, in principle, thus even to themselves. 

BC: Correct. Before creation there can be no reasons, except internally - "privately", within beings. Things Just Are.  

What is not reasonable cannot be a world, or for that matter any such thing as the items we find all around us, and in us. It can be rather only just stuff happening for no reason: the chaos of Democritean atomism, but with the atoms all sentient, solipsistically. 

BC: Yes, pretty much a correct summary- except that having sentient beings/ "atoms" makes all the difference. Divine creation is (pretty much) the transformation from solipsistic to ongoing-creation - insofar as creation has happened (which changes through time, because creation is linear and sequential).  

If we say that this world prior to creation has no cause because it is necessarily what it is, then every detail of it must be necessary; in which case there is in it no freedom, for it is a spatiotemporally extended block, in which nothing really moves or acts, or therefore is. 

BC: No, this is wrong. "Necessity" does not come into it when things Just Are. Things really "move" but only within beings, not between beings. 

What we end up with then is either the pure chaos of brute unintelligible fact, and no world, or else the wholly determined motionlessness of universal necessity. 

BC: No, neither of these alternatives; because they are regarding the primordial beings as if unalive. Starting with beings rather than "things" makes all the difference. 

There is of course a third option: the classical metaphysics of Nicene Christianity, in which God as uniquely eternal and necessary is the sufficient reason for all being, including his own: not a brute fact, but on the contrary the perfectly intelligent and thus intelligible fact, in whose light all other things are intelligible, at least in principle, so that knowledge is possible; and in which creatures are not eternal, but rather contingent upon God, so that as contingent they can change, act, suffer, move, love, learn, grow, understand and be understood, and so forth. 

BC from now onwards: 

This leads on to consider God's motivation for creation.

If God is a unity, there can be no motive for anything. Such a God Just Is. 

But my understanding is that God is a dyad of Heavenly Parents - Heavenly Father and Mother. My understanding is that it is the love between our Heavenly Parents that is the motivation for creation - in a way closely analogous to the spiritually-understood way that love between two (ideal) loving human beings may lead to the choice of initiating pro-creation - that is having children who are loved; and beginning what may be an extended family.

(Of course, mortal human parents are born as already part of an extended and (ideally) loving family. But I am here talking about how this all began.) 

Creation is therefore a concept that arises from love, and includes procreation as well as all the other many ways in which loving relationships between beings of all kinds may become.  

To put matters very simply: there is a Timeline for creation. The primordial situation of autonomous and not-relating beings becomes creation as a consequence of our Heavenly Parents meeting, becoming mutually aware, and committing themselves to eternal love. 

Our Heavenly Parents thus became God, and creation began by God's "interventions" on primordial reality; and to the extent that primordial beings opt-in to live by love. 

This was not the original situation of reality, there was a time when it happened, and it might not have happened. 

Furthermore, beings are usually only partly capable of love; and presumably some beings are incapable of love (and therefore do not participate in creation). 

Thus God's primary creation is a mixed state of love, and not-love. 

And it is this deficit in primary creation that led to the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation, "needed" because Jesus completes the work of creation by enabling Heaven which is the eternal situation of beings living by love; leaving-behind other and evil motivations at resurrection.

**

By Contrast: Orthodox-traditional "Nicene" Christianity perhaps needs to posit a motive for creation - a motive for God creating rather than not; and therefore (sometimes) posits an analogous impetus for creation in the love of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost - each for the other. 

It is the differences-between the Trinity that enable the love that leads to creation...

However this explanation is made confusing/ incoherent by also insisting that the Trinity are not only different from each other, but also simultaneously the same as each other (because there is only one God). 

(This is required by the insistence on a monotheistic Omni-God creating ex nihilo - such a God cannot be internally subdivided.) 

And furthermore; ortho-trad theology has it that that the "process" of creation (and of love among the Trinity) happens outside of time - so creation always-was-and-is; so there is no "Timeline" of creation. All that is now, ever was and shall be. 

And this is the point at which orthodox Christianity reaches its particular It Just Is assumption - explanations stop at this point.

All metaphysics must reach this point, sooner or later - the point at which we must make assumptions regarding the ultimate nature of reality. 

The goal (as I see it) is to become aware of where this point is reached, to acknowledge this; and to know that here we are indeed making assumptions... 

Which activity is (I suggest) properly called "metaphysics"