Primary creation (of God the Father) is opt-out; the second creation (of Jesus Christ) is opt-in

The primary creation was imposed-upon the pre-existing and eternal Beings by God. 

This imposition was by necessity. Before creation, Beings existed in isolation and without relationships - thus direction, purpose and meaning in a creation based-upon Love emerged only after primary creation. 

In this sense, also, freedom and the capacity for an agency based on distinguishing the self from the not-self was only possible post-creation. 

(i.e. We cannot know we are a self until after we know of other selves.)  

Therefore it was impossible for any Being to opt-out of creation, until after creation, because there could be no consent to creation, nor of 'opting', until after creation had-happened -- hence the necessity for its imposition. 

But Love is by mutual consent only; and this meant that Beings were 'incorporated' into primary creation without consent; and (it seems) some of them withdrew consent almost immediately. 

To be clear: all the Beings of creation (even Satan, the first rebel against God) have been, even if briefly, subordinated to God's creation. 

Probably some who withdrew consent - who rapidly opted-out of creation - were incapable of Love; probably others were capable of Love, but did Not wish to make Love the basis of 'organization'... 

Those who opted-out include what we regard as Satan and the demons - in other words these were never-incarnated spirit Beings. 

Because primary creation cannot be undone or reversed (because now Beings Know about each other) the 'rebels' ultimate or distal 'goal' (insofar as they are explicitly aware of it) is a power-based reality; in which Beings are in a situation of antagonism and attempted domination or exploitation - which themselves (and, maybe, some recruits?) as the dominant exploiters. 

In a nutshell; the demons, and all others who have rejected Love/ God/ creation at some later point - aspire to a reality based-on relationships of power and selfishness. 

Thus they have chosen to opt-out of primary creation.

In primary creation (which was all of creation before the advent of Jesus Christ) God operates as a power acting-upon us, i.e. upon Beings. 

In a sense; God does creation to us. 

Living in creation is therefore the default situation; from-which we would need to opt-out if we did not want it.  

This imposed-creation situation was recognized by all the old religions, and still is recognized (at least implicitly) by those religions that have a supreme God but do not recognize the truth and desirability of Jesus Christ. 

Therefore the Old Gods, and the understanding of the ancient monotheistic God of the Hebrews or the later God of Islam - regard God as primarily power. 

And such a God of non-optional imposed-creation demands of us obedient service above all else - which goes-with a relationship as essentially one of awe, fear, submission, propitiation etc. That is; a relationship analogous to that of an ignorant peasant towards the absolute Emperor of vast domains. 

As I said; this attitude is a natural consequence of the primary creation in which creation was done to us. Our understanding-of and relationship-to God is of one who is done-to - who is insignificant; not one who participates-in, or who himself contributes something of substantive value. 

The secondary creation was made-to-happen by Jesus Christ; and this fundamentally changed our relation with God. 

The second creation was (for the first time) an opt-in situation, and made God (potentially) the supreme beloved Father of a vast family -- rather than King of 'a people'. 

Since the second creation; God no longer requires or desires us to regard him as primarily a power, but a loving parent; God no longer requires our obedient submission to His imposed authority, but invites our loving participation in his continuing work of creation. 

The secondary creation involves Beings that are already free agents, and who know about other Beings; it involves making the choice of an eternal commitment to live harmoniously with other beings guided by, and in a condition of, mutual love. 

This secondary creation mode-of-Being is achieved by the willing transformation that is resurrection - and the second creation is called Heaven, a situation where we go by our own active desire.  

In the second creation; we are Not supposed-to regard God as remote, incomprehensible, as like a Monarch or a Judge before which we ought-to abase ourselves in submission and obedience... 

And we are Not supposed to regard our-selves as insignificant, superfluous, functionless... but as irreplaceable and able to add some-thing worthwhile to what-is - across eternity.  

We are instead supposed to have an attitude to God of love, gratitude, joy, positivity, energy, excitement; a desire to bring the best of ourselves to the work of God's divine family; to join-in with the plans of divine creating.  

Because the second creation is opt-in; some who reject God include those who opted-out after becoming incarnated into this mortal life. They lived in primary creation as pre-mortal spirits without opting-out; but after they were born as Men, they made the decision (whether before or after death) "not to opt-into" the second creation.

To clarify: Because the second creation is opt-in; there are those who positively reject the second or the first creation (presumably Satan and the demons, but probably others too), but also those who negatively do not want the second creation. These may still be prepared not to opt-out from the first creation - these would include many religious but-not-Christian people, including some self-identified Christians who actually don't want what Jesus offers!.   

The difference between dwelling in the first and second creation is therefore a vital difference for Christians to grasp; if they are not to fall-into an attitude to God that fits the opt-out primary, but not the opt-in secondary creation.

"Christians" who get their idea of God from the pre-Jesus era of the Jews of the Old Testament, tend to have the 'negative' attitudes of the first creation (e.g. the primacy of obedience to power), but fail to understand or embrace the essential qualitative difference that Jesus made. 

Such people are sometimes therefore de facto non-Christians, in terms of their attitudes and expectations, and their desires. 

But the reality is that Jesus Christ changed the fundamental possibilities of reality; things are possible since Jesus that were not possible before Jesus.

The Big Question is whether we personally want what Jesus made possible - or not? 

If we want it, we each must choose it. 

We must then opt-in...

H/T - Loic Simond for a comment that triggered the thinking that led to this post. 

This creation we inhabit depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation

Lazarus was apparently the first Man freely to choose the Second Creation

One big problem with this divine creation, the "primary" creation, the one we inhabit here-and-now; is that it depends upon an inevitable degree of compulsion and unconsciousness.

This is a problem that God acknowledged implicitly; by sending Jesus Christ to make a Second Creation, and ensure that all who wanted-it and chose-to, would be able to move onto that Second Creation after their biological deaths. 

 

God began with a universe of Beings, living without mutual awareness, without cohesion. Creation proceeded by God endowing these Beings with the beginnings of conscious awareness, and by coordinating them with His own divine love - binding them together and providing a direction, and principles of interaction.  

In this, it resembles a Man's young childhood with loving parents. 

The child is born-into this world mostly unconscious, and his life is given shape and direction by the parents' love. (In an idealized childhood...) While still hardly conscious the child lives and develops immersed in the atmosphere of parental love - and the child is required to do little more than return that parental love, and therefore be obedient to the greater wisdom of his parents. 

(This corresponds to the situation of early Man, and the earliest phases of true religions - obedience to God was core.)  

In a negative sense, the child is compelled to go along with parental guidance; but this compulsion is concealed by the child's unconsciousness of it. 

In other words, a young loving child in a loving family just accepts the situation in which he finds himself.  

However, it is a common destiny of babies to develop and mature, to become more conscious; and often to become aware of their situation. 

In other words, as a child becomes more conscious, he becomes aware that he is living in a world he did not choose, and which he is compelled to fit-into - if he wishes to survive and thrive. 

This is a microcosm of the situation in this divine creation that we currently inhabit. Insofar as Beings are unconscious and immersed in divine loving-guidance, they simply go-along-with divine creation. 

But as a Being becomes more conscious, he becomes aware of the essential element of compulsion in this world, this creation. 

This happens in the development of a human, and it has happened to Mankind (overall, on average) throughout history. Primordial Men were more like young children, with little self awareness or freedom of will; and knew God (and the spirit world); and when capable of love - they went along with it, hardly aware there was any alternative.

However, through recorded history, there has been an increase in Man's conscious awareness analogous to the development towards adolescence - Man became more conscious that this universe was based on a compulsion, that he need not obey. 

More conscious Man could, and sometimes and increasingly did, opt-out of creation.

Thus; Men ceased automatically to ally with God's creation - it became a choice whether to join-with God's creation - or else to oppose it, exploit it. 

Or sometimes the reaction was a desire to opt-out of Primary Creation altogether - and return to that primordial unconscious separateness which prevailed before creation began. 

This is, by my understanding, the ultimate but implicit teleological basis of Buddhism, and some kinds of Hinduism -- as well as of some who would call themselves Jews, Christians, or Muslims (I mean the traditions respectively of Qabalah, Via Negativa, and Sufism - for instance).     

I presume that this development was foreseen by God as an inevitable consequence of Man (and other Beings) increasing in consciousness. 

Sooner or later; the First Creation would be know for what it was, which is a top-down and imposed scheme - and as consciousness increased in created-Beings, sooner or later some Beings, some Men, would desire to opt-out of it. 

Therefore; the divine plan was for there to be a Second Creation, which would be individually chosen, an opt-in scheme.

This happened with the work of Jesus Christ; and the way-into Second Creation was to follow Jesus through death into resurrected eternal life. The Second Creation is, therefore, Heaven. 

The Second Creation both required, and was necessitated by, the increase of consciousness of Beings that was a consequence of ongoing divine creation. 

In sum: This "first" creation we inhabit here-and-now depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness; but Man (and other beings) are destined to increase in consciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation. 

We now can choose the Second Creation - but the Second Creation can only be chosen - it is not, and cannot be, imposed. 

And choice must be free, which entails conscious. 

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.  

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.) 

Heavenly Parents and the dyadic/ one-creator God - an update

As I have often written, but not recently, I believe that God is dyadic - consisting of a Heavenly Father and Mother, a man and woman who are (in some sense) incarnate and not spirits. 

This is the Mormon understanding, and reading about Mormon theology was where I first came across it. 

I am not trying to persuade other people that I am right; but I shall here consider why I personally believe this, and what it is that I believe. 

In the first place it is due to what might be termed intuition; in the sense that when I first encountered this idea, my heart seemed to jump and warm; as if I was discovering something true, good and with great possibilities of more-good. 

There was an immediate and positive sense... not so much that this was true, but that I wanted this to be true - this came before my conviction that it was true.  

Following this I read more about Mormon theology, and realized that the dyadic, man-woman nature of our Heavenly parents was just part of an entire metaphysical understanding of creation (including procreation - the creation of beings including people) as something dynamic, interactive, developing, evolutionary, open-ended, and expanding. 

In other words, that creation itself was creative (and therefore creation was not, as I had previously assumed, a done-thing, a closed accomplishment, a finished totality - once-and-for-always.) 

I then began to explore the implications of these ideas for myself; using concepts I got from William Arkle (and his reflections on God's motivations for creation); and Owen Barfield, including Barfield's accounts of the 'polar' philosophy of ST Coleridge. 

I was also building on a longer-term fascination with 'animism' - with the (apparently innate and spontaneous) tendency to regard the world (the universe) as consisting primarily of beings - all of whom were alive, purposive, conscious - albeit in different ways, at different scales and timescales etc.

The motivation for creation, and why God should have created this kind of creation, was something I had found difficult to grasp (none of the usual explanations made much sense to me). But when I conceptualized God as the loving dyad of a man and woman, then it seemed obvious why such a combination would have wanted to create - including others who might eventually become like themselves.   

Furthermore, it did not seem possible that creation had arisen from any state of oneness of self-sufficiency, since this would make creation arbitrary; nor could creation arise from a tendency towards differentiation, because that would lead to meaningless-purposeless chaos. 

There must (I felt) have been some kind of original 'polarity' - in abstract and physics-like terminology, there would need to be at-least two different kinds of 'force', the interaction of which would be creation. Coleridge (also Barfield and Arkle) saw this in terms of a 'masculine'-tendency for expansion and differentiation; and a 'feminine'-tendency for one-ness and integration.  

But in terms of my (non-abstract) preferred metaphysics of beings and animistic assumptions; 'masculine' and 'feminine' simplifies to just a primordial man and a primordial woman; this would mean two complementary, unlike-but-of-the-same-kind, beings; the love of whom would lead to a desire for creation.  

(In the same kind of way that - in this mortal life - love of man and woman usually leads to a desire for procreation.)

At some point I validated this understanding by means of meditative prayer; by refining and asking a simple question, feeling that this question had 'got-through', and receiving a clear inner response.  

In summary; the above account is something-like the sequence by which I desired, concluded, became-convinced-by, the metaphysical assumption of God as Heavenly parents; by some such mixture of feelings, reasoning, and 'feedback'. 

All this happened a good while ago (about a decade); since when I have been interpreting things on the basis of this framework, and it seems to 'work', so far.

What the real-life, this world, implications are; include a reinforcement of the idea that the family is (and ought to be) the primary social structure; on earth as it is in Heaven; and a clarification of the nature of creation - starting with the primary creation by Heavenly parents and also including the secondary creation of beings (such as men and women) within primary creation. 

This metaphysics has further helped me understand both why and how love is the primary value of Christianity; i.e. because love made possible creation in the first place, and is the proper basis of 'coordinating' the subcreative activities of all the beings of creation.  

And it helped me understand how creation can be open-ended and expansile, without degenerating into chaos; because it is love that makes the difference.

Also, it helped me to understand the nature of evil; and how evil is related either to the incapacity for love or its rejection. Without love, the innate creativity of individual beings is going to be selfish and hostile to that of other beings: non-loving attitudes, thinking, and actions by beings, will tend to destroy the harmony of creation.  

I don't talk much about this understanding, and I often use the generic term 'God'; because it is difficult to explain briefly and clearly that the dyadic God of our Heavenly parents serves as a single and 'coherently unified' source of creation

But God is two, not one, because only a dyad can create, and creation must-be dyadic. 

And the dyadic just-is the one-ness of God the primal creator.  

Note added: It may be said, correctly, that the above does not depend on the Bible; but then neither does the metaphysics of orthodox-classical theology depend on scripture. We can find resonances and consistencies within the Bible - but assumptions such as: strict monotheism - creation ex nihilo (from nothing) by a God outside of creation and Time, the Athanasian Creed descriptions of the Trinity, God's omnipotence and omniscience, original sin... These are ideas that would not be derived-from a reading of scripture - the most that can be said is that someone who already ideas can find Biblical references that can be interpreted as consistent-with these assumptions. They are (apparently) products of philosophically sophisticated theologians who brought these ideas to Christianity from earlier and mostly pagan (Greek and Roman) sources. Also, these kinds of metaphysical assumption are theistic - to do with a personal god - but not specifically Christian. The salvific work of Jesus Christ (principally: making possible resurrected life everlasting in Heaven) was done within already-existing creation, and Christianity is not therefore an explanation of creation-as-such.   

Two irreconcilable concepts of Heaven - Platonic and Pluralistic

The traditional, orthodox concept of Heaven derives from ancient Greek philosophy - I shall call it Platonic - this can be summarised:

God - Creation - Beings

The first thing is God, alone - who does Creation - and late in Creation God makes Beings, including Man.  

For Christians; God is a God of Love, whose creation is a kind of gratuitous overflow of love: so we get

God-Love - Creation - Beings


By contrast, what I will call the Pluralist concept of Heaven - which is the one I believe to be true - can be summarised:

Beings - Love - Creation

The primordial situation is of many Beings, of whom two are are Heavenly Parents - Father and Mother.

Thus God is Dyadic, irreducibly Two and not a unity (or, the unity is of two always-distinct aspects, permanently-made a unity by Love); and it is from the Love between our Heavenly Parents that Creation comes into existence (Love, being the coherence and purpose of Creation; Love harmonising the diverse elements of Creation). So we get:

Beings-God - Love - Creation


The Platonic Heaven seems to be associated with a wish for absolute, abstract, infinite perfection - and God is defined in such terms - including that God is undivided unity, of infinite power and presence (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent).

And this primal God creates everything else (everything other than God) from nothing (ex nihilo) instantaneously, in zero-Time (first Nothing, then Something... there can be no graduation or graduality) - including Beings, including Men.

In a Platonic Heaven, therefore, Creation remains entirely God's business, and nothing/ nobody else can contribute to primary Creation (only to secondary details within Creation). Also Heaven is perfect, so there is nothing for Men to contribute to it. Also primary Creation happens in zero-Time.

The Platonic Heaven is essentially contemplative: Man has nothing necessary or useful to Do. Man enjoys heaven, but does not add to it (because it is perfect). In Platonic Heaven; we may express gratitude, worship, may do many things - but none of them are necessary, none make any qualitative difference to Heaven.

In sum, the Platonic Heaven, is a state not a 'process'. It is a state of being, a state of communion with God, of bliss... but essentially it is static - there is no dynamic to Platonic Heaven - because movement comes from difference, from desire, from deficit... and this cannot be because the Platonic Heaven is perfection.   


In distinction, the Pluralistic Heaven in a world of Love, but not of perfection. Love is understood as itself dynamic ('in' Time: Time is a part of primary reality), between Beings; and therefore Heaven is a continuation of Creation - and for Christians it is a Heaven of active, personal participation in Creation.

This happens because Christians will be resurrected into Heaven, and resurrection is understood as becoming divine - immortal, indestructible, grown-up children of God. The actuality of God's primary Creation is opened-to the contributions of resurrected Men.

Part of pluralism is the uniqueness of each being, including of each man. Each resurrected Man brings to Heaven something unique, that did not previously exist in heaven. Every single individual Man who enters heaven therefore brings something irreplaceable to the ongoing Creation.

In sum everybody who is capable of Love and who chooses to follow Jesus, may be resurrected into heaven; and each such person has something unique and irreplaceable to contribute to God's ongoing work of Creation.

The Pluralistic Heaven is not only-contemplative (although contemplation is surely possible, and part of things) - but is active dynamic and open-endedly creative: a growing Heaven. And this Creation of Men is included in the primary and divine Creation.

Man's unique and individual contribution is woven-into Creation permanently, forever. And this is made possible by Love.

It is Love that harmonises God's creation with the contributions of many individual and unique Men - resurrected Men joining in increasing numbers with time.


The Pluralistic Heaven is not perfect, it is not closed, it is not complete, it is not outside Time... on the contrary Time (sequential, continuous, linear) is an assumed part of reality. The Pluralistic Heaven is, therefore, developing, open-ended, growing... Heaven is in-movement, is changing, has a past and a future; and changing, expanding personnel - each with an unique contribution to make to the whole. 


So, we can see that the Platonic Heaven and the Pluralistic Heaven are very different places. While one may be contained within the other - only one or the other (or neither) could ultimately be true - since they each have extremely different ultimate metaphysical assumptions. 

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).

How it it possible that we become what we think?

It is the special and unprecedented feature of these times that Men choose what to believe. It is evident that Modern Men believe whatever they want to believe - and having made that decision they simply rationalize it - effortlessly explaining-away whatever threatens that belief. This means that each person is wholly responsible for what he believes, and what he does not believe; in a way that was not the case in the past.

This is not relativism because there is God, and we live in God's creation: God's creation is truth. 

Relativism, by contrast, asserts no God-creator and discovers no truth. 

Neither is reality discovered (or dictated!) by "science"; because the nature and operations of "science" is itself a choice.

Therefore there is only a single 'truth' - which is God's creation - and the primary choice is whether to live in God's creation or someplace else. 

That is the main truth we create by our thinking. 

And apparently, as of 2021, most Man have thought themselves out of God's creation; by thinking themselves things that are not a part of God's creation - not coherent with God's purposes. 

In early childhood and in past eras; Man's thinking was largely passive and unchosen; but for modern Man from adolescence on there is choice: we choose what we think. 

Choice for modern Man is indeed unavoidable, hence the choice just-is moral, a value, a responsibility.

Each Man is now becoming his own creation - therefore, the big question is (or should be) whether this creation is harmonious with divine creation; and with the creation of those Men who have chosen to take the side of divine creation; or whether a Man's self-creation will be Something Else. Something that is Not divine creation. 

This might, in principle, be an unique, isolated, personal creation - each Man as God of his own universe, consisting only of him-self.  In practice; this almost never happens (and if/when it does ever happen, we would not know about it.)  

Or, Men might reject divine creation and instead join-with the sub-creations of Satan and the demons. 

These are sub-creations, because they are 'within' divine creation; and are using that which God has created - but turned against the purposes of God and disharmonious/ dissonant with divine creation. 

Hell-on-earth is therefore a concept to describe these anti-God sub-creations - which are now mainstream, official, and increasingly mandatory. 

An example of a hellish subcreation is the belief that a man might really become a woman (and in reverse, or back and forth as desired). Modern Man is such that the the thinking creates the reality - so that our culture is set-up to create, sustain and enforce the thinking that actual change of sex is real. Many people here-and-now live in this thought-reality - a reality in which sex change is a 'fact'. 

So, on the one hand, 'trans reality' (a world in which trans is a factual reality) is a 'real' reality; but on the other hand it is not divine reality - it is nether a part-of nor harmonious with God's aims or God's plans. 

This can be seen from the observation that insisting on 'the fact of trans' subverts and makes-incoherent many other 'factual' aspects of reality; it is subversive and indeed inversional of many values and beliefs that are part of Christian hopes and aims. 

Because facts are not isolatable - every-thing is connected, every 'fact' links with reality; so to think a fact inconsistent with divine creation is to reject creation, and to dwell in a sub-creation. And while God's creation is coherent, sub-creations are not. 

Sub-creations are incoherent for many reasons - but mainly because of their motivation; which is against God and the coherence of divine creation. The desire for a self-created reality - which, I repeat, is now not just a possibility but an inevitable fact of our modern existence - is therefore divisible into the choice of God's creation or the rejection or God's creation. 

Modern Man can therefore think, and make, a reality in which sex change is 'really-real'; but trans reality is not some isolated 'fact', but is indeed linked with an entire sub-created reality that is intrinsically hostile to God's creation. 

In other words, to make trans 'really'-real entails making our sub-created reality dissonant with God's creation and hostile to the aims of God. 

Man can make trans real by Man's thinking; but the reality in which trans is real is outwith God's created reality.

(This is ultimately why hellish realities are not creative, including not procreative. Since the only reality we all inhabit is God's creation; any Being that goes against God's creation cannot be truly creative because he cannot contribute to God's ongoing creation. Only one who shares the aims and methods of God's creation can coherently contribute to God's ongoing creation. This sharing of aims and methods is a consequence of what is termed Love. Thus only one who loves first God and creation, and then his fellow Men in context of that divine purpose, can be truly - that is primarily - creative.) 

On the other side, to take the side of God and to embrace the aims of divine creation, are also active personal choices. 

We must Now choose to think God's truth, just as we must choose to think Satan's untruth. Always there will be, will have-been, choice; and therefore responsibility.  

Traditional Christian ideas that put the initiative of belief on God's side, and see Man as naturally Christian and passively able to absorb God's truth; and which see obedience to externally-defined God's truth as the primary virtue - are not longer applicable. 

A passive and obedient attitude will nowadays absorb and follow the anti-Christian System that rules this world; and Men will then (as they mostly do, apparently) think one or another version of that anti-God sub-created reality which is currently mainstream and mandatory. 

And this choice of God's truth is active, it comes from each-of-us as an unique individual endowed with the divine capacity of agency, or free will.  We cannot escape the fact of this capacity! 

We can think, and believe, whatever we wish; even against the consensus of nearly the whole world. Indeed we will think and believe what we have-wished; and we will ourselves live the consequences of our thinking. 

The responsibility is unavoidable - potentially a great gift: the greatest imaginable, to participate actively in God's creation, for eternity; potentially a hellish curse. 

Most Men appear to have rejected the divine great gift and to have chosen Hell; by choosing to think/ to make-real/ to make a Reality in which the thought-thing is real - that which is incompatible with the motives of divine creation.    

Why are the two great commandments *exactly* what we must do to gain eternal life in Heaven?

Luke 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

(See also Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–34.)

 

I am struck by how exactly the 'two great commandments' - first to love God and then your neighbour - fit with my metaphysical understanding of reality; and how they are said to suffice to enable us to enter Heaven. 

(Because, in the above passage, when Jesus is quoted as saying "This do, and thou shalt live"; the 'live' refers to resurrected eternal life in Heaven.)

My understanding of God's overall intention is that he wishes to enable Men to develop spiritually, to rise-up to become fully Sons and Daughters of God. This means to become fully divine; which means to dwell together in Heaven as a family (or rather many families, interlinked). 

And what do Men do in Heaven forever? My answer is To Create. Specifically we shall be participating in God's divine work of creation - including the pro-creation of new Men to begin the process of development. 

 

(This derives from my understanding that God is essentially 'the creator' - and that to become 'more divine' is to become more fully a participant in the ongoing creative development of God's already-existing divine creation. And my experience and intuition tell me that creation is the only activity which never palls, is always motivating and gratifying. Creation is also open-ended. Anything other than a Heaven of creation would both be dull, and would run-out and cease - on a timescale of eternity.) 

 

And God's purpose is understood in the context of my belief (metaphysical assumption) that Men are and always have been unique and different individuals. 

So, God's purpose entails getting this diversity of Men and enabling a situation in which these many and different Men can work together with the same purpose and harmoniously - forever. 

Because the many and diverse do not spontaneously have the same purpose, nor do they spontaneously get-along. 

The necessary purpose and harmony come from Love - which is why Love is the primary requirement of a Christian (and that those who reject Love, or are genuinely incapable of Love, neither want the life of Heaven - nor would be allowed to enter it.) 

 

The first great commandment - to love God - is about purpose. For Heaven to be possible, its participants all need to share the same purpose, be pointing in the same direction, have the same ultimate goals. 

To 'love' God means to love God's purpose; to accept God's purpose as my purpose. This enables us to have 'faith' in God, to trust him.  

Therefore, the first qualification to enter heaven, and dwell in Heaven for eternity, is that we share God's purpose. That is why is commandment comes first. 

The second great commandment is what enables the inhabitants of Heaven to work together, to create harmoniously - to coordinate a multitude of individual creativity into a great symphony. To do this requires, as well as shared purpose - as well as everybody pointing in the same direction; attention and loving care towards other people engaged in the same work. 

Love of neighbour means that we harmonise our creative endeavour with the others in our Heavenly Family, primarily; and secondarily with all in heaven. I see this harmony as a developmental thing: individuals love the same ultimate purpose, and also a love of neighbour - therefore individuals will create, and monitor the consequences of their creativity, informed and shaped by these two loves. 

In the first place, an individual would not create any-thing he knew to be hostile to purpose, or neighbours. In the second place, when an individual dis, inadvertently, create something that turned-out to be working against purpose, or interfering with the harmony between individual creations, then he would work to compensate for this disharmony, to mend the problem, to restore purpose and loving harmony. 

God's creation is therefore a work-in-progress; and as God recruits more and more resurrected Men to join this work of creation, it is essential that this work-in-progress be maintained. 

 

I see the first commandment as being a vertical arrow, pointing up to all Heavenly residents sustaining a commonly-agreed future, keeping creation moving in the correct direction; and the second commandment as several or many sideways arrows that tend always to maintain harmony in this upward pursuit; by mutual observation and adjustments.  

And this is why someone who is prepared permanently and irreversibly to endorse the two great commandments has everything that is both necessary and sufficient to enter Heaven and receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus brought. 

 

(Note: Jesus's role in this, is that he made it possible. After we die, and if we endorse the two great commandments; then we 'merely' have to follow Jesus to Heaven.)

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. 

Creative Destruction versus Destructive Creation (Sorathic evil emergent)

Creative destruction was probably (in broad terms) the main mechanism of the industrial revolution; whereby a new and overall 'better' (more functional) industry displaced the previously existing form. 

Thus railways displaced canals, and roads displaced railways. Or TV displaced radio, then the internet and recording technologies displaced live TV. The later expands (grows) and (more-or-less) destroys the former. 

Creative Destruction might in principle, be a spontaneous phenomenon, but it can easily be shaped by lawmakers and the wealthy. 

For example, the canals and railways were built by private money -while the road network (for motor vehicles) was built by the state using tax money. Cars and lorries were thus subsidized in a way that railways were not. The internet likewise - although the manner of its creation and nature of its subsidy has been covert, and dishonestly presented.

The cancerous global bureaucratic takeover has been an example of Creative Destruction - by-far the largest ever. Bureaucracy grew and grew, and destroyed other forms of organization - such that only large institutions employing professional managers and administrators can thrive in the modern economy. Even small clubs, even families, are now subject to a growing-web of bureaucratic regulations.  

The thing is that Creative Destruction is not really 'creative' - the word creative is here merely a synonym for 'growth'. That which replaces is not necessarily better than that which is replaced, nor is it necessarily a product of creativity. 

The essence of the phenomenon is simply that the growth of one form displaces and thereby destroys another.

The sequence is that growth causes destruction. 

Growth comes first and destruction may follow. 

Because sometimes what went before does remain, but shrunken - most inland canals were commercially destroyed by railways in the UK; but railways were only shrunk by roads. Radio still remains in 2021, but with an importance greatly reduced now compared with 80 years ago. 

So the essence of Creative Destruction is in the sequence of growth 'causing' a tendency towards destruction. Growth +/- destruction.

But what we are seeing very clearly from early 2020 is a reversal of this causal sequence. 

Instead of growth ('creation') causing destruction, destruction comes first - and growth (creation') is asserted to come afterwards. 

This I term Destructive Creation because the idea is that destruction comes first, and creation of new forms may follow. 

However, what actually follows destruction is conjectural. There may be growth of some new form that replaces the old, or there may not be. 

An example of Destructive Creation is the self-styled sustainable energy economy. The generation of electricity by coal and gas is being destroyed by laws and taxes. Its replacement by windmills and other devices is conjectural, has not happened, and is indeed impossible. 

Personal cars powered by the internal combustion engine are being squeezed towards extinction by regulations and taxes; and urban road transport is being expensively crippled by 'bike lanes'. 

Vast resources in the current world are being devoted to destruction. But the replacements are conjectural, and may or may not happen. 

There will be (already has-been) a vast shrinkage of power generation - and therefore electric cars will not be possible for mass transport. Cars are being cleared to make way for bicycles etc; but the bicycles cannot functionally substitute for cars, so the net result will be reduced efficiency and effectiveness (then prohibition) of all activities that depend on mass usage of private cars. 

So, just as Creative Destruction actually amounts-to Growth first and for-sure... plus or minus destruction; so Destructive Creation really means Destruction first and for sure, then maybe (or maybe not) Growth to replace that which has already been destroyed... 

From 2020 we are seeing a decisive shift from Creative destruction to Destructive Creation, as announced by The Great Reset, Build-Back-better and Agenda 2030 of the UN. The new strategy is to to clear-the-ground of what is, allegedly to make-way for growth of what-is-to-become. 

But all that is certain is the destruction of what has-been and is. 

Thus the economy of the world has already been substantially destroyed on the excuse of the birdemic. Destruction is certain. 

But the assumption is that that which has been destroyed can and will be replaced by something, let alone something better, is wholly conjectural. 

Destruction is a fact; but the following Creation/ Growth is just a hope or a vague intention - or not even that... 

Another example is the cancel culture of antiracism. There has been (and continuing) a mass destruction of public arts, literature and media - a clearing of the ground of any-thing deemed to be 'racist' - which actually means anything of the past, of The West, by white men (or for any reason disapproved by Them - especially Christianity). 

The assertion/ assumption is that these creative works will be replaced by something as-good, or better. But this is conjectural - maybe it is not possible, maybe it never was genuinely intended; and meanwhile the only fact is destruction.  

The mentality of Destructive Creation is, indeed, a perfect mask for Sorathic evil: the 'purest' form of evil which is simply the spite-motivated destruction of all that is of God - divine creation, any-thing partaking of The Good.  

When, in 2020, the Global Establishment decisively shifted from the Creative Destruction of cancerous global bureaucracy; to using its new totalitarian powers to destroy; this was a symptom of Sorathic takeover. 

All talk of the Agenda 2030, Great Reset or Build-Back-Better - i.e. strategies that put destruction first, and assume future compensatory growth only conjecturally - is further evidence.

Here-and-now destruction is primary. 

That is the current nature of world leadership. Destruction of marriage, family, community, small business, village, and functional social institutions...

We also see destruction of the apparatus of world government; of the military, the police, and nations. Mass immigration and the mixing of heterogeneous populations is destructive by its nature - any advantages are purely theoretical, and almost certainly will not happen. 

Likewise the birdemic response, the peck, the antiracism agenda, the sexual revolution, the Climate Change agenda - all are massively destructive up-front and for certain. What comes after this wholesale and planetary destruction? Meh...  

The Global Establishment have-been and are investing colossal resources (many trillions of dollars) into destruction. That is their primary activity. 

Destruction is primary - and what happens afterwards... well 'They' do not know, neither do they care because whatever remains will merely, in its turn, become the subject of further destruction. 

Because to the Sorathic mind, destruction is self-justifying.  

My answer to relativism

Modern Men are, like it or not, confronted by what is commonly called relativism; and emerges in the idea that every proposition is 'just' somebody's opinion - and that none are more valid than any other.

This is the deep implicit assumption of modernity - and leads to the totalitarianism of arbitrary (because not valid) behaviours imposed by terror, coercion and propaganda.  

Relativism is not just wrong, but incoherent - yet it is a response to the unsatisfactory nature of traditional formulations of objective knowledge. Traditional objectivity required an unthinking and automatic understanding of what-we-perceive; and when that understanding became contested and the necessary role of human consciousness in knowledge became evident; then this led first to idealism - when everything was in the mind. 

At first, because most people agreed on the nature of reality, that seemed to work; but as disagreements about reality emerged, then idealism required to be bolstered by adding a requirement for cultural or national similarity, in order that there be cohesion and a shared world.

Western Man's self-consciousness continued to increase, until relativism emerged as an individualized form of idealism - each Man creating his own reality; and order and cooperation needing to be externally imposed. 

Relativism = idealism at the individual level. Everything is mind, and ultimately everything is My mind...

The contextual universe of relativism was (is) seen as fundamentally chaotic, with creation and 'order' as temporary and superficial phenomena imposed on a situation of increasing randomness (entropy). 

Nowadays, we can only overcome relativism by explicit means; by clarifying our primary (metaphysical) assumptions and (as it were) inviting others to consider them, and choose whether or not to share them. 

My assumptions include that:

1. There is - as a matter of fact, not principle - one creation, made by one God. 

2. This creation unfolds in sequential Time - which is not reversible, so that creation is cumulative.  

This means that creation is not arbitrary, because it is motivated by one God (given purpose); and made harmonious (given meaning) by the fact of being the product of one God; and because creation cannot be undone. 

Cannot be undone because of the sequential nature of Time; which is the case because Time is intrinsic to the Beingness of God: i.e. because God is a Being. 

And to be a Being entails Life; which entails Time, change, complexity, potential for growth and development, purposiveness etc (this list is not a definition of a Being - which is here assumed to be primary aspect of reality and cannot be further subdivided - but just pointing at attributes we recognize as characteristic of a living Being). 

Thus creation is continuous, and cumulative, and can be reshaped and added to - but none of this alters historical reality. 

The continuity of creation means that creation is harmonious both 'horizontally' (here-and-now) and 'vertically' (through Time) - and that these are inseparable.

It is this quality of creation which means that relativism is false. Some things are coherent with creation, others are opposed to creation - therefore creation is objective with reference to creation primarily, and secondarily with all aspects of creation, all that has-been created (and their creations).

That by which creation coheres is Love: and objectivity reduces ultimately to Love: Love of God primarily, and love of Fellow Man (including other Beings) secondarily. 

That is, the Two Great Commandments. 

Objectivity is therefore as real as Love, and of the same nature. One who rejects, or is incapable of, Love is necessarily a relativist; which is to say he rejects God and Fellow Men, and tries to live in his own personal world...

Which is another way of describing hell. 

  

Understanding the nature of "creation" by comparing human creative genius with divine creation

I think it would be fair to say that most people haven't thought very much about what "creation" is, or might be; beyond either assuming that there is really nothing special about it, or assuming that it is a wholly mysterious "black box". 

And I believe that there is truth in both of these perspectives - in the sense that (while some particular Beings are much more often and more intensely creative than others) potentially all Beings are creative in some degree and way because it is an attribute of being-ness; while there is an irreducible mystery in being-ness, including the creativity of any particular Being. 

My long term interest in human creativity and the phenomenon of genius was behind the process of thinking that is recorded in my blog Intelligence, Personality and Genius; and which culminated in The Genius Famine book (co-written with Edward Dutton). 

In these books I both assumed that creativity was, on the one hand, on a quantitative continuum among humans; but also that some humans had a lot more of it (i.e. the qualitative category of "geniuses"); and this was related to a characterological (or 'personality') trait of the Endogenous personality. 

This I envisaged as a type of person whose attention and motivations were highly-innerly-generated (rather than being in response to external stimuli) - endo-genous can mean "generated from-within". 

(The Endogenous personality also explains many of the characteristic unusual personality traits of geniuses. On the one hand; there is not one standard genius personality type, on the other hand, the various unusual traits, as well as the averages for geniuses as a group, can be understood as various expressions of an unusually strong domination by innerly-generated motivations.)

However, these writings of mine were within the field of science, and did not, therefore, address the ultimate questions that lie out-with science. In particular, the origins of creativity were not mentioned. 

Science cannot, of course, discuss where creativity comes-from, except to assume it comes from the other entities and phenomena that are a part of science. 

Therefore, the best theories of creativity in science can only assume that creativity is a process of selections and recombination, interpolation and extrapolation, of what is 'already known' to science - and that the genius is therefore someone with exceptional ability to generate 'random' hypotheses from pre-existing materials, and then rapidly to sort-through and evaluate them. 

The assumed process of creativity therefore (and not by accident) resembles natural selection: undirected generation of variants, followed by a selection among these variants, based upon some functional criterion.  

But it can be seen that such a notion of 'creativity' means that there is ultimately nothing really new about what is created. From the perspective of science; all creation is (by assumption, hence by definition) just selection, recombination etc. 

Such an idea of creation fits-with the understanding of classical Christian theology which draws a qualitative line between God-The-Creator (the one-and-only creator of everything from nothing, in a once-for all act); and Man the "creature" whose creating can only be a matter of selecting and re-shuffling what already exists in God's creation. 

Thus God is the only really-real creator, and Man can only mimic divine creation in a kind of 'paint-by-numbers' process; as a creature wholly made by God and using materials and instructions provided entirely by God. 

From this point-of-view; divine creation is a done deal: it already contains everything, and therefore cannot be added to. 

But if we consider the creative act itself, and assume that there must be the possibility of genuinely original creation - a creation which does indeed make something new; then we come down to the idea of creation as a property of any Being - much like life, consciousness and purpose are other attributes of a being. 

In other words, we can (it is possible, if we wish) assume that creativity is one of the attributes of all Beings - including God and including all other Beings.  

And that is, indeed, what I assume!

But what is creativity? 

In the first place, it can be defined double-negatively (using terms form medieval Christian theology), as an example of uncaused cause or a first mover. 

Another, more positive, way of thinking about it; is that genius is "generative" (as the etymology implies) -- that is, genius is a kind of "spontaneous generation", originating in a Being, whereby what emerges could be regarded as an expression of the Being from-which it emerges. 

It is also helpful to remember that Beings were unembodied spirits before there was incarnation. And, if we assume that spirits (as Beings) are potentially creative; then the primary kind of creativity is thinking rather than doing something to the material world. Genius relates primarily to thought, not artifact. 

(But, by the same account; this concept of thinking is real, thinking is a part of the world; such thinking has an effect on the world.) 

This clarifies that the essence of a human creative genius is not a book, painting or a piece of music; but the thinking from-which an artefact may, or may not, later be derived.   

At the end of this line of reasoning; I arrived at an understanding of creating which includes divine creation and also the potential creativity of Man and all other Beings - God, Man and Beings within a single reality to which all these Beings may (in principle) contribute their creativity. 

Such creativity is potentially originative, generative, genuinely novel - such that whenever God 'enlists' another unique Being into his creative project, that will expand the possibilities of creation-as-a-whole. 

And - because creation is originative in each Being; this understanding makes of creation something potentially open-ended and everlasting. There is no reason why creativity would ever 'run-out'; since it is (potentially) an attribute of any Being.

This also fits with my other understanding of the nature of divine creation as being a process of exactly such 'enlistment'; a process of God creating the universe by securing the harmonious cooperation of other Beings. 

I imagine the primordial situation ()before divine creation) as one in which each Being pursued its own unique and selfish creating; so that the whole did not add-up to anything - the individual purposes just 'cancelled-out' each other. 

God's first act of creation was (by various means, differing through history) to 'recruit' more and more Beings to his creative project; so that these Beings began to share purposes and to cooperate in these purposes. 

The principle of this cooperation was what we call Love. 

Loving Beings align their creativity towards the fulfilment of Love - and this is why Love is the very heart of the Christian understanding of God. 

So, an interest in human creativity and the phenomenon of genius - which preceded my conversion to Christianity; ended by feeding back into my core understanding of the metaphysics of Christianity and the human condition!

First Creation is groupish - Second Creation is individual

The Primary Creation is groupish, because it is universal: the creation of everything that is created, for everything that is created.  

We all inhabit the First Creation - and can only "opt-out" in the sense of annihilating awareness of our self as a distinct entity. 

Second Creation is personal, individual... 

Because the Second Creation is "opt-in" - Heaven is accessed by a decision/ action of a specific person. Heaven is not universal; it is inhabited by those who have chosen it. 

True personal creativity is only possible when originating from the True Self, in alignment with already-existing divine creation

When I think rigorously about what is required for 'true creativity' by a Man, then it seems that a pretty extensive set of pre-requisites must be in place; such that true creativity is only possible to some people, at some times and places in history. 

Human creativity is possible because of divine creativity: we dwell 'in' God's creation; so, for a Man's creativity to be real entails first that it comes from the Man himself - from his unique personal 'self'; and second that it harmonizes with divine creation. 

If creativity does not come from the Man himself, then what we have is just an instance of divine creation. 

Through most of history (in most places) Men did not claim to be creative, because their experience was that creativity came from God (or the gods). This was sometimes called inspiration; reflecting that it was breathed-in from some other source - from the divine, from the muses or whatever. 

So most of creativity in the past was not the product of an individual person - because the individual was merely a conduit for the divine; a tool or instrument of the divine. 

This kind of creativity is therefore real - and it harmonizes with divine creation - but it is not personal, its creative aspect is of-God, not of-Man. 

On the other hand; every-thing (every thought or action) which comes from a person innately, from his Real (hence divine) Self; is not of God, is indeed personal - but it is not creative unless it harmonizes-with and adds-to divine creation. 

Thus, most things we do from our-selves is merely personal, is not from God but instead a product of a Man; and it is Not creative. It is indeed anti-creation. 

In other words; of itself, that which originates from Man will Not, of itself, be creative - because it will be individual and out-of-harmony with divine creation. It will therefore be (to a greater of lesser degree) damaging or subversive to divine creation. 

In order, therefore, for a Man to be genuinely creative; he must be sufficiently an independent agent that he can generate thought/action from-himself (rather than simply being a conduit channeling divine creation); and top be genuinely creative, he must also make the choice to align himself with divine creation by a voluntary act. 

All independent acts of a Man that are aligned with divine creation are therefore instances of true personal creativity - but the magnitude of achievement varies between a world-historical genius; and someone 'minor' or altogether unknown, who has lesser ability and application but who nonetheless does 'make a difference' (and an eternal difference) - but a small difference, yet in a positive direction. 

Thus all acts of true personal creativity add-to divine creation, but the amount by which they add to divine creation varies hugely in accordance with the 'stature' of individuals. 

The business of aligning with divine creation is what happens when a scientist is devoted to 'the Truth' or when an artist is devoted to 'Beauty' - both of these are types of alignment with the Reality of divine creation. 

The long period of attunement, learning, practice and preparation which leads-up to a work of genius is exactly this process of alignment. Once the individual is aligned with divine creation; then his spontaneous creativity will contribute to overall creation. 

This model also explains why recent generations of supposedly creative people have the form of the 'evil genius' - in that these are people of great ability who are Not aligned with the Reality of divine creation; and who therefore inevitable do harm to creation. 

Join with demons or become mini-gods? Because we can choose, we must choose

The big, bad fact of these times is that people actually do choose their reality; and they are (en masse) choosing the reality devised by the powers of evil. 

If we consider meaning and purpose in life; then it can be seen that purpose dictates meaning; meaning derives-from purpose. 

Meaning derives from purpose - and purpose is external. 

We necessarily choose our purpose, because our purpose is outside us. Having chosen our purpose, we consciously derive meaning from that purpose.

Thus purpose is chosen. Therefore we actually-do choose the meaning in our lives; or more accurately we already have-chosen the meaning of our lives - but, that meaning can be changed if we change purpose. 

There are only two purposes, into which all others may be classified: with God, or Against. 

This has a precise meaning in that God is the Creator, and we live in divine creation insofar as our life has meaning (since the alternative is un-formed chaos, without knowledge or purpose). 

And God's creation is on-going, moment-by-moment - a living 'process'. (i.e. God is create-ing.) 

The purpose of a Christian is called 'salvation' - which means the choice of resurrected life eternal, in Heaven (with those others who have chosen salvation); to come after the transformation of biological-death. 

This is the choice to become immortal mini-gods (Children of God), whose life is participation in the work of divine creation. 

Therefore, salvation is bound-up-in affiliation to God the Creator - a wish to be part-of and harmonious-with ongoing divine creation. 

What we - each as an individual - decide is whether harmoniously to affiliate-with creation (this is called Love of God); or else try to use creation for our own purposes (this is called pride). 

If we pursue some other purpose than harmony with creation; then we are essentially subordinating divine creation to our-own-purposes. (Or trying-to...)

This is termed 'pride' and all other sins can be reduced to it - hence, for Christians, pride (in this meaning) is the master sin. 

In other words, if we want to live in Heaven, then we will put-first the harmony of God's creation and the people in it - and this virtue is called Love. 

(This is not something theoretical - but what all members of a happy and good family are doing; for so long as that family is happy and good - which, on this world, is always temporary and usually partial.) 

Love is the motivation for those who wish to live in Heaven as it actually is; therefore is is part-of salvation. 

(Someone who cannot love or does not love would not wish to be a part of Heaven; since Heaven 'entails' putting divine creation first.) 

It is the fate of modern Man that the choice to join the side of God and creation is unconscious. A choice that is unconscious, passive, will be a choice to subordinate to the group-mind; and that group-mind is (here-and-now) corrupted to the side against-God.

The group-mind of Man was not always and everywhere corrupted to oppose God and creation - but It Is Now. Therefore, in 2021, the default is anti-creation, prop-evil. In 2021, if we are ruled by that which is spontaneous and appears 'natural' - then we will be opposed to the divine. 

But the seduction to the side of evil is by pride. An implicit 'deal' is offered by evil, which is that: "We will support your personal purposes, If you you join our side." 

Such a person (and this appears to be the majority of people) has come to understand his own life as a matter of manipulating creation to maximize his own personal purposes or gratification.

This 'deal' ("join us and get what you want") is fundamentally dishonest - because 'joining' the side of evil is actually a voluntary submission; after which evil has no reason to honour the deal. 

Nonetheless there are many deal-takers - who are choosing the path to join with the demons*. 

In sum; the most important decision relates to our purpose in life - since this dictates meaning. If there is no conscious choice of purpose - then that purpose will 'naturally be dictated by the group-mind, which is on the side of evil. 

(In a world where God and creation are denied - this is the normal, default choice.) 

Yet we may consciously choose Heavenly Salvation as our personal purpose. This amounts to 'creating our own reality' - which (in a materialist world that denies life beyond biological-death) sounds like mere wishful thinking... 

In truth; it is explicitly taking responsibility for your purpose in living. 

*Few people apparently want Heaven, or do not put it as the priority - or else they do not, in mortal life, understand what is on-offer. But if mere ignorance of Heaven is the problem, we can expect that such people will choose Heaven after this mortal life. On the other hand, if a person is (by that point) too deeply corrupted by evil motivations, too deeply committed to his sins (sin meaning other, personal, priorities) then Heaven will be rejected. The main barrier to salvation is not ignorance but 'having other priorities'.  

Heart thinking or entropic thinking: How and why we are (literally) destroying reality

The great lesson I got from Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield, is that reality is co-created by consciousness - that is, by thinking. We make the world by our thinking - and the kind of world we make - or unmake, depends on the kind of thinking. 

The only thing out-there and independent of us is formless chaos - all that can be known has been created; and creation formed by consciousness, and all consciousness has this property of creative formation. 

The primary creation that we inhabit was formed by God's consciousness (God is the prime creator); but our own consciousness affects divine creation - either positively or negatively. 

As our consciousness has become detached from God - we must now choose whether again to affiliate with the living reality of primary creation through love and heart thinking; or to remain alienated, to regard reality as consisting of dead things affected by material processes - and thereby to affiliate with the entropic, parasitic, destructive cognitive processing of mainstream modern life. 

It has become very obvious that humanity is splitting into Christians and anti-Christians; into those who affiliate with God, The Good and Divine Creation - and those who oppose these. 

This split can also be seen as between heart thinking and entropic thinking. We are being compelled to choose between these. 

It is the choice between loving creation; or the subversion, deconstruction and destruction of creation. 

Entropic thinking is normal, abstract, mainstream, 'materialist' thinking - it is 'brain thinking', which is increasingly conformed to machine or computer thinking. 

Entropic describes how you are (almost certainly) thinking now; and how nearly everybody (or everybody) around you is thinking - it is how everybody in societal authority and institutional leadership are thinking. It is the processing embodied in public discourse, bureaucracy, computers, management, media, laws, regulations, procedures...  

This entropic thinking assumes the world is made of dead things, and these dead things are subject to life-less processes, energies and forces. Built-into this is the assumption that entropy rules the world - rules reality - entropy in one place can only be reversed or delayed by increasing entropy elsewhere - thus 'creation' is actually the predatory consumption of one source of order by another - and (because entropy is relentless) this predation (or parasitism) must continue until all order is consumed and formless chaos remains.

Thus, entropic thinking is the world view of the self-damned, the demonic; those who believe in Satan's conceptualization of reality: the sin-motivated war of each against all (only expediently delayed by transient mutually-exploitative demonic alliances directed against God and creation).

Heart thinking is in complete contrast and opposition to the entropic in its nature, origin and motivation. 

Heart thinking is based in love and life; it assumes a living universe of beings - and God's creation gets its origin, form, order and coherence from love. 

Thus, love and creation are polarities of the same essence - loving-creation and creative-love.  

This love - which made creation, and holds-together creation - and which is self-sustaining - is between beings. Beings are living and conscious entities - all beings are alive and conscious, but there are different degrees of aliveness and forms of consciousness.  

Heart thinking is of those beings who have first become modern and alienated; who have first assimilated into entropic thinking - where the reality of God is not entailed. Those who from that position of detached freedom have consciously chosen to recognize, embrace and align-with the reality of God and of a 'universe' consisting of beings living in a divine creation. 

Those who choose heart thinking will find that they need to recognize the greater authority, depth and truth of a thinking based in love, and operating with love - in order to reject the otherwise overwhelming powers and persuasion of entropic thinking. 

It is the terrible choice of modern Man to choose - and his choice lies between the divine work of co-creating the world, or else the demonic project of destroying creation. 

Those who think entropically will do entropy. 

By the way they conceptualize the world, they project deadness onto the living world, they project abstract forces and energies onto a creation that is actually sustained by love; and by these projections these remake their world in the image they have chosen. 

Despite the opposition (implicit and explicit) of The World; heart thinking will need to be accorded primacy again and again, as it conflicts in method and motivation with the dominant, prevalent this-worldly entropic thinking - which asserts its monopoly of objectivity and that heart thinking is childish, foolish or insane.

Entropic thinking labels heart thinking as wishful thinking; yet the truth is both heart and entropic are wishful - and the wishes become reality.  

The entropic thinker wishes entropy onto divine creation - converting that which is alive and conscious through love into a meaningless, purposeless dead universe. 

It is entropic thinking that is destroying our civilization, our humanity - and beyond that it destroys the possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven. Because the entropic thinker (and he is apparently most people in the world, including most self-identified Christians) is co-engaged in the progressive killing of beings, the elimination of love, the reduction of life and consciousness into 'people' who self-identify as Dead Things. 

The heart thinker instead works from the love in his heart, from actual interpersonal and inter-being love (not abstract love); he recognizes and affirms that love, and makes it the motivation for knowing reality. He regards reality as that which known by this loving thinking. 

The heart thinker regards the world from his heart - it is his love of particular beings which connects him with reality; it is his love that motivates the connection-with and knowledge-of reality. 

That which is outwith his love is not truly known - but merely hypothesized, modelled from simplified and incomplete variables, and therefore certainly false. 

Thus the primacy of the two great commandments: love of God and neighbour. In heart thinking; modern Man chooses to participate in co-creating his own reality (and potentially the reality of other heart thinkers) by rooting his knowledge in love of God. And the scope of this knowledge is defined by the scope of those other beings ('neighbours') whom he also loves. And if he wishes this active joining-with loving creation to be an eternal state - this is attained by loving and following Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven. 

Note: The above analysis is indebted to a section of a lecture on Crop Circles from Stanley Messenger to the Wessex Research Group, delivered in the middle 1990s. Stanley Messenger was an expert on Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, having been a Waldorf teacher. He was also involved in, and approving of (in what I regard as an uncritical and credulous way) pretty much all of the New Age crazes of his era; and was also a proponent of the sexual revolution. He was highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and a gifted improvisatory lecturer (having been a professional actor). My eveluation is that Stanley Messenger was (much like his Master, Steiner) someone who sporadically generated some superb and vitally-important insights, which are scattered among a great deal else that I must set aside as mistaken and wrongly-motivated. Anyway; my above post was inspired by re-listening to a genuinely-intuitive, superbly truth-full section of the linked lecture which runs from about 23 minutes to 42 minutes. This section strikes me as more vivid, comprehensible, exciting and motivating than anything Steiner ever expressed (that I have come across) - while being deeply and explicitly indebted to Steiner.