My "kingdom" is not of this world... On being led by the Fourth Gospel (called John)

A couple of days ago I wrote that we should think of Jesus primarily as The Good Shepherd (leading those who will follow to resurrected life everlasting beyond biological death); and not as a King. 

Such is a natural consequence of the decision I made to base my Christian belief on the Fourth Gospel (called John) - the background to which decision is covered in my 'mini-book' from a few years ago, Lazarus Writes. 

I am aware that history took a very different path of putting the Synoptic Gospels, and indeed the Epistles of Paul, above the Fourth Gospel; and also of interpreting the Fourth Gospel in light of the rest of the New Testament. However, I regard this as an error, simply because I believe what the Fourth Gospel says about itself, and therefore put it first and above all other scriptures. 

The Fourth Gospel tells us, repeatedly and in many ways, that Jesus is Not a King, that it is a mistake to regard him as such. How then do I interpret the phrase "My kingdom is not of this world"? [See this verse in context below the post.]

Quite simple - in the context of the whole Gospel and of the section in which this occurs; I understand Jesus to be saying to Pilate something like: My "kingdom" is not of this world. 

In other words, Jesus is telling Pilate something like: "I am Not saying that I am a king - that is Your assertion, and that of Jews who have misunderstood my mission and role. 

"Furthermore what You might think of as the kingdom to which I belong is Not even part of this mortal life on earth. 

"I am, in other words, not primarily concerned with this mortal world. What I have to teach and do is concerned with life beyond death, the world of eternity: Heaven not earth". 

In other words, it is a radical misunderstanding to suppose that the Fourth Gospel asserts Jesus is a King. 

 

Of course, most Christians through history regard Jesus as a King because this is clearly and repeatedly stated in other parts of the New Testament. Jesus (after death and ascension) is often regarded as true ruler of this world ("Pantocrator"). But if the Fourth Gospel is what is says it is; then this must be an error - no matter how common. 

I completely understand that Christians who take the orthodox and traditional, church-led, view of Christianity; will reject this idea outright as being ridiculous. They have made very different assumptions concerning the relative validity and authority of Scriptures, and of the authority of their church - or of historical churches. 

I understand this perspective, and why people do not want to go-against the weight of tradition and church authority - but I reject it for myself; because I believe the Fourth Gospel and therefore think it is a mistake. 

Here-and-now (however differently it may have been in the past) I believe that understanding Christ as King of this world, first and foremost, may well lead to contradiction and adverse consequences.

Instead of a King - we need to grasp that Jesus is essentially the Good Shepherd, one who enables all who will follow him to attain resurrection into Heaven.   

John: 18 [33] Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? [34] Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? [35] Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? [36] Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. [37] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. [38] Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

Tolkien's understanding of Men, compared with Elves and Dwarves

There is a brief yet marvelous conversation in The Lord of the Rings, when Legolas and Gimli walk together through Minas Tirith and talk of the race of Men. 

**

'We will come', said Imrahil; and they parted with courteous words. 'That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,' said Legolas. 'If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising'. 'And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,' said Gimli. 'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.' 'Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,' said Legolas. 'And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.' 'And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,' said the Dwarf. 'To that the Elves know not the answer,' said Legolas.

**

I have long regarded this as one of the most significant passages in the LotR; yet now I realize that while the exchange gives a correct understanding of Men as it seems from the perspectives of Elf and Dwarf - the Elf-Dwarf perspective is restricted to Men in this world. 

Elves and Dwarfs have an existence in both life and after death that is - so far as they know - wholly of this world, this 'planet'. Their lives are therefore bound-up with the life of 'the earth'. 

Tolkien links this to the great arts and crafts of these races. Elves and Dwarves can achieve higher standards of work than Men because they both care more about this world, are wholly invested-in this world; and the permanent link to this world means that their interest and commitment to their work does not fade. 

Men are relatively much more fickle, easily distracted, more readily bored than either Elf or Dwarf; and therefore Men's work, even when it starts-out very well, is less invested-in and tends to decline. And ultimately this is because Men's souls leave this-world after death.  

Knowing this innately, Men feel - and behave - like 'visitors' to the world. Visitors are not so much 'at home' as permanent residents. 

For Tolkien's Men, and for us - this world does not feel like home, and is not enough. 

Consequently, Men are less engaged with the world, and with their work - they do not take this-world as seriously as Elves and Dwarves - and for Men there is a tendency to become dissatisfied, to daydream and lose focus on the work at hand; and to aspire after something beyond the world... 

To understand the perspective of Men, therefore, we must take into account Aragorn's words on his deathbed: "Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory." 

For Men, but not for Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves, this mortal life is a phase and a preparation; and can be a temporary prelude to something greater and eternal. 

It is this that explains many of Men's most characteristic weaknesses. 

Therefore Legolas and Gimli's understanding is incomplete, and they cannot comprehend the fate of Men as including something that lies beyond this-world. 

Gimli seems to regard Men as 'merely' shorter lived, less serious and less skilful Dwarves! Legolas balances this with approval of Men's capacity to bounce-back after disaster defeat and to start over again - in a way that Elves - burdened by their long lives and accumulated memories - cannot.  

Tolkien did not wish to make the fate of Men any plainer than the 'negative' statement that their souls left this world after death. At the time of LotR, the salvation brought by Jesus Christ was imagined to be a long way in the future; not known by revelation, yet perhaps vaguely intuited...

But Men such as Aragorn who trusted  The One (Eru Illuvatar - the prime creator) already knew that there 'must be' some very good reason why Men died and their souls left this world; which was why mortality was called The One's Gift to Men.

Even the Valar could not take this form of death from Men; albeit afte the fall of Morgoth, the Valar extended the lives of Numenorean Men several-fold compared with their earlier ancestors.

Yet even this life extension - which was kindly intended, as a reward and to allow for greater (more Elvish, or Dwarf-like!) levels of skill and achievement in this world - backfired and led ultimately to Men of Numenor desiring the unending life-in-this-world of the Elves and Valar; and to their ultimate corruption and downfall. 

Tolkien's lesson, overall, seems to be that Men are what they are - not second-rate elves or Dwarves! - and Men have their own distinctive destiny.

And 'what Men are' includes a perspective larger than that of Elves and Dwarves: a perspective that ought-to extend beyond the death of the body, and beyond the circles of this world. 

Tolkien's ‘The Marring of Men’

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Heaven and the Human Condition in ‘The Marring of Men’ (‘The debate of Finrod and Andreth’)

Bruce G Charlton. The Chronicle of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society, 2008; Vol 5, Issue 3: 20-29


The Argument from Desire

One of C.S. Lewis’s most famous arguments in support of Christianity is that the instinctive but otherworldly yearning emotion of ‘joy’ (in German, Sehnsucht) implies that there exists some means of satisfying this urge; otherwise humans would not experience it.

This is sometimes termed the ‘argument from desire’. In brief, it states that because humans profoundly and spontaneously desire something not of this world, the experience suggests the reality of the supernatural. Lewis used the argument in many of his best known Christian writings. In Mere Christianity, he argues that ‘[i]f I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world’. In ‘The Weight of Glory’, he notes that ‘we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy’. And in the autobiographical Surprised by Joy, he comments that ‘[i]n a sense, the central story of [his] life is about nothing else’.

But Lewis is not the only among his friends to formulate an argument from desire. Perhaps the idea’s most powerful and compelling exposition can be found in a little-known and recently-published (1993) story by Lewis’ great friend J.R.R. Tolkien; a tale which was written in about 1959 and appears in the middle of Volume X of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien and published in twelve volumes between 1983 and 1996 [1]. Since The History of Middle-earth is read only by Tolkien scholars and enthusiasts, this wonderful dialogue is at present little known or discussed.

It is, of course, no coincidence that both Lewis and Tolkien should write of the argument from desire, since Lewis’s own conversion to Christianity was shaped by this argument: both Tolkien and Hugo Dyson used it in the famous late night conversation of September 1929 on Addison’s Walk in Magdalen College – an event which was recorded by both Lewis and Tolkien. Tolkien’s epistolary poem ‘Mythopoeia’ (addressed to Lewis) outflanks the counter-argument that this is mere wishful thinking or day-dreaming by asking the question: ‘Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream?’ And Tolkien used the argument again in a letter to his son Christopher dated 30 January 1945, in reference to the human yearning for the Garden of Eden:

…certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’ [2].

But in ‘The Marring of Men’, Tolkien makes the argument from desire the basis of a fiction – and, as so often, Tolkien’s most personal concerns are most powerfully expressed in the terms of the mythic ‘secondary world’ he created.


‘The Marring of Men’

Tolkien’s story was never formally named – but probably the most compelling of its alternative titles was ‘The Marring of Men’ which I have adopted here . In the History of Middle-earth, the story is given its Elven name, ‘Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth’, translated as ‘The Debate of Finrod and Andreth’. The text of J.R.R. Tolkien’s story is about twenty pages long, with a further forty pages of notes and supplementary material compiled from other writings by J.R.R. Tolkien and notes by Christopher Tolkien.

‘The Marring of Men’ is part of the Silmarillion body of texts, which were composed over many decades, from Tolkien’s young adulthood during World War I right up until his death in 1973. This body of texts is sometimes referred to in its totality as Tolkien’s ‘Legendarium’, to distinguish it from the single volume Silmarillion selected by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, and published in 1978.

The situation in ‘The Marring of Men’ is that of a conversation between Andreth, a mortal human woman, and Finrod Felagund, an immortal Noldo, a ‘High’ Elf. The explicit subject of their conversation is the nature and meaning of mortality, and its implications for the human condition – a subject which is probably the most fundamental of all religious topics, and which is certainly the single main interest and underlying theme of most of Tolkien’s fiction, including The Lord of the Rings. The implicit subject of the conversation is original sin and the fallen nature of Man – which is why the title ‘The Marring of Men’ seems appropriate.

But the conversation between Andreth and Finrod is not simply an abstract philosophical debate: It is fuelled both by world events and by personal experiences. The protagonists are aware of the imminent prospect of Middle-earth being irrevocably overrun and permanently destroyed by Morgoth. (The selfishness and assertive pride of Morgoth, the corrupt Vala or ‘fallen angel’ analogous to the Christian devil, are the primary origin of evil in Tolkien’s world.)

The personal element comes from the fact that the now middle-aged woman Andreth had fallen mutually in love with Finrod’s brother Aegnor in her youth, and had wished to marry the immortal Elf; but she was ultimately rejected by the Elf, who left to follow the call of duty and fight in the (believed hopeless) wars against Morgoth. It emerges during the conversation that Aegnor’s most compelling reason for rejecting Andreth was that he did not want love to turn to pity at her advancing age, infirmity and ultimate mortality – but (in Elven fashion) wished to preserve a memory of perfect love unstained by pity.

The ‘marring’ referred to in the title is mortality. The first question is whether Men were created mortal, or whether Men were originally immortal but lapsed into mortality due to some event analogous to original sin.


Immortal Elves and Mortal Men

While mortality is a universal feature of the human condition as we know it in the primary world, the Elven presence in Tolkien’s secondary world brings to this debate a contrast unavailable in human history. Tolkien asks in which ways the issue of mortality would be sharpened and made inescapable if mortal Men found themselves living alongside immortal Elves – creatures who, while they can be killed, do not die of age or sickness, and, if killed, can be reincarnated or remain as spirits within the world.

Tolkien’s Elves are fundamentally the same species as Men – both are human in the biological sense that Men and Elves can intermarry and reproduce to have viable offspring (who are then offered the choice whether to become immortal Elves or mortal Men). Elves are also religious kin to Men in that both are ‘children’ of the one God (Elves having been created first). But Elves seem, at the time of this story, to be superior to Men, in that Elves are immortal in the sense defined above. Elves do not suffer illness; they are more intelligent (‘wise’) than men, more beautiful, more knowledgeable and more artistic; Elves also have a much more vivid, lasting and accurate memory than Men.

The question arises in the secondary world: If Elves are immortal and generally superior in abilities, what is the function of Men? Why did Eru (the ‘One’ God) create mortal Men at all, when he had already created immortal Elves? Implicitly, Tolkien is also asking the primary world question why God created mortal and imperfect Men when he could have created more perfect humans – like the immortal Elves?

Tolkien’s answer is subtle and indirect, but seems to be related to the single key area in which the greatest mortal Men are superior to Elves: courage. Most of the ‘heroes’ in Tolkien’s world, those who have changed the direction of history, are mortal Men (or indeed Hobbits, who are close kin to mortal Men); and there seems to be a kind of courage possible for mortals which is either impossible for, or at least much rarer among, Elves. Elves have (especially as they grow older) a tendency to despondency, detachment and the avoidance of confrontation. On a related note, Tolkien hints that Men are free in a way in which Elves are not, and that this freedom is integral to the ultimate purpose of Men in Tolkien’s world – and by implication also in the real world.

C.S. Lewis once stated (albeit from the pen of a fictional devil!) that courage was the fundamental human virtue, because it underpinned all other virtues: Without courage other virtues would be abandoned as soon as this became expedient:

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky." [3]

At any rate, courage seems to be one virtue in which the best of Tolkien’s mortal Men seem to excel.


The Fall of Men

The first question is whether Tolkien’s One God ‘Eru’ originally created immortal Men, who had been ‘marred’ and made mortal by the time of Andreth (and, by implication, our time). This is Andreth’s first view – the mortal woman suspects that Men were meant to be immortal but have been punished with mortality:

‘[T]he Wise among men say: “We were not made for death, nor born ever to die. Death was imposed upon us.” And behold! the fear of it is with us always, and we flee from it ever as the hart from the hunter’ [4].

‘We may have been mortal when first we met the Elves far away, or maybe we were not.... But already we had our lore, and needed none from the Elves: we knew that in our beginning we had been born never to die. And by that, my lord, we meant: born to life everlasting, without any shadow of an end’ [5].

Naturally, this prompts the Christian reader to think of parallels with the Fall of Man and original sin; and this analogy is clearly intended by Tolkien.

Andreth talks of a rumour she has heard from the wise men and women among her ancestors, that perhaps in the past Men committed a terrible but undefined act which was the cause of this marring. The implication, never made fully clear, is that Men in their freedom may have deviated from their original role as conceived by ‘the One’, and been corrupted or intimidated into worshipping Morgoth, or at least into doing his will and in some way serving his purposes. This, it is suggested, may be the cause of Men’s mortality as such, along with a progressive shortening of their lifespan and a permanent dissatisfaction and alienation from the world they inhabit and even their own bodies. In the dialogue, Finrod asks:

‘[W]hat did ye do, ye men, long ago in the dark? How did ye anger Eru?... Will you not say what you know or have heard?’

‘I will not’, said Andreth. ‘We do not speak of this to those of other race. But indeed the Wise are uncertain and speak with contrary voices; for whatever happened long ago, we have fled from it; we have tried to forget, and so long we have tried that now we cannot remember any time when we were not as we are’ [6].


Men’s Lifespan

By contrast to their uncertainty about the origin of mortality, the decline in mortal lifespan caused by Morgoth’s corruption of the world seems certain to both Andreth and Finrod. Later in Tolkien’s history, those Men who help defeat Morgoth are rewarded with a lifespan of about three times Men’s usual maximum, i.e. about 300 years; greater strength, intelligence and height; and a safe island off the coast of Middle-earth on which to dwell (Numenor, Tolkien’s Atlantis).

It seems possible that the enhancements of ‘Numenorean’ Men are simply a restoration of the original condition of Men. Or it may be that these enhancements are compensations of Elvenness, rendering Men more Elven (though still mortal), perhaps with the ultimate aim of a unification of Elves and Men. At any rate, the majority of Numenoreans eventually succumb to corruption and evil, and are destroyed by Eru in a massive reshaping of the world, which drowns the island and the vast Numenorian navy that is landing on the shores of the undying lands.

For Tolkien, it is a characteristic sin of Men to cling to life, and it is this clinging which corrupts the mortal but long-lived Numenoreans who try to invade the undying lands – either in the mistaken belief that they will become immortal by dwelling there, or with the intention to compel the Valar to grant them immortal life.

While Men are characteristically tempted to elude mortality – to stop change in themselves – the almost-unchanging Elves are tempted to try to stop change in the world – to embalm beauty in perfection. This Elven sin is related to the first tragedy of the Silmarillion, when ultimate beauty – the light of the primordial trees – is captured in three jewels; and it later leads to the creation of the Rings of Power, which are able to slow time almost to a stop, and thereby to arrest the pollution and wearing-down of Middle-earth.

As well as having an increased lifespan, Numenoreans surrender their lives voluntarily at the appropriate time, and before suffering the extreme degenerative changes of age. This voluntary death (or transition) at the end of a long life is described in the most moving of the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, when Aragorn (the last true Numenorean) yields his life at will to move on to another world. His wife Arwen pleads with him to hold on to life for a while longer to keep her company in this world; however Aragorn kindly but firmly refuses her request:

‘Let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old renounced the Shadow and the Ring. In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!’ [7]

Arwen’s fate is tragic, because she is one of the ‘half-elven’ who may choose whether to become Man or Elf; she chooses to become mortal in order to marry Aragorn and share his fate. However, her resolve to accept mortality at the proper time is undermined by her ‘lack of faith’ in Man’s destiny of life after death. In the appendix, she is portrayed as regretting becoming a mortal instead of an Elf; and as having succumbed to the sin of clinging to mortal life rather than accepting mortality and trusting that there is life after death.

"…and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter than comes without a star." [8]

The half-elven Arwen has failed to embrace the mortal need for courage to underpin all other virtues; and one possible interpretation of this passage is that this has consequences for her fate in the next world.


At Home in the World, or Exiled?

For Tolkien (and Lewis), the sense of exile is a ‘desire’ which implies the possibility of its gratification; in other words, it reflects the fact that Men have indeed been ‘exiled’ from somewhere other than this world.

Finrod makes clear that Elves, by contrast, feel fully at home in the world to which they are tied:

‘Each of our kindreds perceives Arda differently, and appraises its beauties in different mode and degree. How shall I say it? To me the difference seems like that between one who visits a strange country, and abides there a while (but need not), and one who has lived in that land always (and must)’. [9]

‘Were you and I to go together to your ancient homes east away I should recognize the things there as part of my home, but I should see in your eyes the same wonder and comparison as I see in the eyes of Men in Beleriand who were born here’. [10]

Elves therefore care for the world more than Men, and do not exploit nature as Men do, but nurture and enhance the world. And indeed Elves are not truly immortal, since when the world eventually ends, they will die; and to Finrod it seems likely that this death will mean utter annihilation:

"You see us...still in the first ages of being, and the end is far off.... But the end will come. That we all know. And then we must die; we must perish utterly, it seems, because we belong to Arda (in [body] and in [spirit]). And beyond that what? The going out to no return, as you say; the uttermost end, the irremediable loss?" [11]

Partly because of this prospect, the almost-unchanging Elves become increasingly grieved by the ravages of time upon the world, and cumulatively overcome by weariness with their extended lives. Hence the characteristically Elven temptation to try to stop time, to arrest change.

By contrast, Men seem to Finrod like ‘guests’, always comparing the actual world of Middle-earth to some other situation. This opens up the question of Tolkien’s version of ‘the argument from desire’. Finrod thinks that Men have an inborn, instinctive knowledge of another and better world. Hence, he thinks that they never were immortal, but have always known death as a transition to another, more perfect world – not as the prospect of annihilation which Elves face. Thus, he considers the possibility that Men’s ‘mortality’ is ultimately preferable to Elven ‘immortality’.

But even in this world Finrod suspects that the destiny of Men may eventually be higher than that of Elves. He acknowledges that at the time of his debate with Andreth the Elves are the superior race in most respects; but he can envisage a time when mortal Men will attain leadership, and the Elves will be valued mainly for the scholarly and artistic abilities fostered by their more accurate and vivid memories. This projected role of Men will be related to the healing of the world from the evil that was permeated through it by Morgoth.

One possible interpretation of this is that Elves cannot heal the marred world because they are tied to, part of, that world; but that mortal Men may be able to heal it because, although they themselves share the marring of the world, they are ultimately free from that world through death.


Tolkien’s Vision of Heaven

Building on hints by Andreth, Finrod intuits that if things had gone according to Eru’s original plan, there would have been no need for Men. The first-born, immortal Elves would have been the best inhabitants and custodians of an unmarred world, because their very existence was tied to it.

But since the demiurgic Morgoth infused creation with evil at a very early stage, Eru made a second race of mortals – Men – who lived in the world for a while, then passed on to another condition. Because mortals were not tied to the world, they had the freedom to act upon the world in a way that Elves did not. This freedom of Men could be misused to exploit the world short-sightedly; but it could also be used to heal the world, to the benefit of both mortals and immortals alike.

[Finrod]: ‘This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the marring of Arda’.

Indeed, Finrod perceives that to clarify this insight may be the main reason for their discussion: so that Andreth may learn the meaning of mortality from Finrod, and pass this knowledge on to other Men, to save them from despair and encourage them in hope.

[Finrod]: ‘Maybe it was ordained that we [Elves], and you [Men], ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news to one another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you; ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds’. [12]

Andreth suggests that Eru himself may intervene for this hope.

[Andreth]: How or when shall healing come?…To such questions only those of the Old Hope (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.… [T]hey say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end’.[13]

Finrod cannot at first understand how this could be, and Andreth herself seems to regard it as highly implausible – a wishful dream. But on reflection, Finrod argues:

‘Eru will surely not suffer [Morgoth] to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than [Morgoth] save Eru only. Therefore, Eru, if he will not relinquish His work to [Morgoth], who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him’. [14]

The Christian parallels are obvious. Indeed, ‘The Marring of Men’ can be seen as part of Tolkien’s lifelong endeavour to make his legendarium (originally conceptualized as a ‘mythology for England’) broadly compatible with known human history, particularly Christian history [15].

Andreth’s hints inspire Finrod to a vision which offers ultimate hope to the immortal but finite Elves as well as to mortal Men:

‘Suddenly I beheld a vision of Arda Remade; and there the [High Elves] completed but not ended could abide in the present forever, and there could walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps’.

‘We should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils. We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones’. [16]

This, then, is Tolkien’s vision of Heaven, pictured in the context of Arda, his sub-created world.


Myth and reality

The conversation of Andreth and Finrod occurs during a lull before the storm of war breaks upon Middle-earth; and Finrod foresees that the next stage of war will claim the life of his brother Elf Aegnor, whom the mortal woman Andreth loved in her youth and loves still. The fragment ends with Finrod bidding Andreth farewell by reaffirming, ‘you are not for Arda. Whither you go you may find light. Await us there, my brother – and me’. Andreth’s destiny lies beyond the world, and Finrod dares to hope that this is true for the Elves also.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, loss or transmission of knowledge is always a matter of concern. The message we take away from ‘the Marring of Men’ is hopeful. We are called to infer that this conversation has ‘come down’ to us today: that it was remembered, recorded, and has survived the vicissitudes of history, possibly because we modern readers need or are meant to know this.

Just as Morgoth’s marring of the World and of Men is analogous to the Christian account of the Fall of Satan and of original sin, Finrod and Andreth’s intuitions and hopes, Tolkien implies, were vindicated in real history by the coming of Jesus Christ. And Tolkien’s sub-creative vision of heaven, as explicated by Finrod, is meant to be taken seriously as an image of true heaven, in which Tolkien believed as a Christian. It is entirely characteristic that Tolkien’s heaven should have a place for Elves as well as for Men.

Tolkien’s story ‘The Marring of Men’ – though so brief a tale – seems to me one of his most beautiful and profound: a product of deep thought and visionary inspiration. It encapsulates nothing less than Tolkien’s mature understanding of the human condition and the meaning of life. Scholars and admirers of C.S. Lewis, who are unfamiliar with Tolkien’s legendarium, may find a way into his magnificent fantasy by reading it as complementary to Lewis’s great idea of ‘joy’ and his characteristic ‘argument from desire’: Tolkien engaged in developing and completing themes which underpin much of his old friend’s best and most serious work.


1. J.R.R. Tolkien, Morgoth’s Ring: The History of Middle-Earth, Volume X, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2002[1993]), pp. 301-366.
2. Humphrey Carpenter (ed.), Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), p110.
3. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p148.
4. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 309.
5. Ibid., p. 314.
6. Ibid., p. 313.
7. The Return of the King (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 309.
8. Ibid., p. 309.
9. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 315.
10. Ibid., p. 316.
11. Ibid., p. 312.
12. Ibid., p. 323.
13. Ibid., p. 321.
14. Ibid., p. 322.
15. This is the subject of Verlyn Flieger’s book Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2005).
16. Morgoth’s Ring, p. 319.

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Water and the Spirit - this-world and the-next in the Fourth Gospel

In the early Chapters of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus repeatedly tries to explain the nature of his 'mission' - what he brings - using a contrast between water on the one hand, and that which water becomes through following Jesus after death: spirit or some other. 

More exactly; Jesus uses "water" to mean this life, this temporary life in this mortal world - and contrasts it with what he offers - which is "not of this world". 

Indeed, throughout the Fourth Gospel, involving everybody from the disciples through to Pilate, we can see Jesus struggling (over and again) to make people understand that what he offers is not of this world; that he is not a would-be "king" who claims to offers a better life in this realm of "water" in which everything is temporary... 

Instead of that; Jesus describes the Kingdom of life-everlasting coming after death, and only after death: to reach it we must first die, and then be 'reborn', born-again - that is resurrected.  

In Chapter 1, John says that he himself baptizes with water - but Jesus's is a baptism of the spirit - which refers to the distinction between this and the next world, the spirit being from Heaven:

And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.

In Chapter 2, the contrast is given in the nature of the water-to-wine miracle of Cana; where water is perhaps understandable as this-worldly life, and "wine" may be taken to stand for the transformed life after death. 

In Chapter 3; Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being "born again" - which means first to die and then to be resurrected - i.e. a kind of rebirth, but into an everlasting condition: 

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Here we see "water" of this life, again contrasted with the "Spirit" of the next. And again that the Spirit must be preceded by the water. Man must first be born into this mortal world (of "water") if he wishes ultimately to enter the eternal kingdom of God. 

Jesus also introduces a further "analogy" for this mortal life as "the flesh" - to explain that there is no possibility of achieving the Kingdom of God on earth and in this mortal life; but only by passing-through death and re-birth ("Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God). 

A man that is born into this mortal world of the flesh can only be mortal ("the flesh is flesh"); but he that is re-born (i.e. resurrected) into the world of Spirit, beyond death, will himself partake of the immortality of that life-after-life ("the Spirit is spirit"). 

In sum; for a man to become eternal he must be born (that is, re-born; which entails mortally-dying first) in the eternal world.  

Chapter 4 describes Jesus at Jacob's well, talking with a Samaritan woman who is drawing water. 

Again Jesus contrasts the water of this mortal and temporary life which the woman draws from the well, with what He Himself brings to the world: which is everlasting water ("living" water - i.e. by analogy life that is eternally-self-renewing) - for those who desire it, and ask for it. 

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

In Chapter 5, Jesus goes to the pool at Bethesda, where the "impotent" seek to enter the water and be healed. The "impotent" implies all men in this mortal life and world. 

In this world, therefore temporarily. Jesus heals the man ("Take up thy bed, and walk") but Jesus explains that what he has come to do is not about temporary healing in this temporary world; but is about "sin" (by which, in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus mostly means death without resurrection).

Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more...

I think that Jesus's admonitions - here, and sometimes elsewhere - to sin no more, or not to sin, make no sense if understood as ordering people to cease from moral transgression - which Jesus knew (as we know) to be an impossibility in this mortal life. 

"Sin no more" - in the Fourth Gospel - means (more or less) that people should die no more; that is, that they should instead understand, believe, and accept Jesus's gift of eternal resurrected life. 

The instruction to sin no more is therefore roughly equivalent to Jesus urging people to accept the gift of resurrected life eternal, through believing and following Him.

"Sin no more" actually means therefore - as we might say it - "convert to Christianity". 

In Chapter 6 Jesus varies the symbol, somewhat: 

[The people said:] Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.... 

[Jesus replied:] Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 

Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Again the contrast is between the only temporarily-satisfying "bread" of this world, and the eternally-satisfying bread from heaven after-which we will never hunger (and also the drink which permanently abolishes thirst, presumably "living water") - that shall be given - after death - to those who "come to" Jesus. 

Chapter 7: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Here there is again implicit the earlier idea (from Jacob's well) the idea of ordinary water versus "living" water - to mean resurrected life everlasting. The man who thirsts is one who desires eternal life in the Kingdom of God. 

And the path to that life leads through death via "believing-on" Jesus - implying "belief" entails trusting and following the person of Jesus, at, and after, our death. 

Other similar passages can be cited, where contrast is drawn between, on the one hand, this-worldly and temporary ameliorations (such as Moses's provision of manna); and, on the other hand, the eternal and transformative life-beyond-life that Jesus brings and offers. 

It seems to me that there is a pattern through the Fourth Gospel of Jesus repeatedly denying that His business is to offer what we might term secular improvements - e.g psychological and sociopolitical benefits; and instead many attempts to explain (with various 'analogies', or symbols) that his message is not about this, but about the next, world. 

Now, of course, belief-in and desire-to-accept, Jesus's offer of eternal resurrected life in the Kingdom of God is almost certain to have effects on this mortal life... But any such effects on this-life are secondary to expectation of the-life-to-come. 

This is worth emphasizing, because I think many or most Christian get it the wrong way around - and thereby fall into the error Jesus strove so often to correct. They assume that Christianity is about doing particular stuff in this world in order to get to the next world. 

Indeed, some Christians put so much emphasis on the particular stuff that must be done in this world; that they hardly ever even think-about the next world. 

Some even ignore the primary promise of Heaven; and instead focus almost-exclusively on the quadruple-negative life purpose; of not-doing stuff that must be eschewed, in order to avoid-Hell!  

But Christianity is primarily about resurrected life after and beyond this mortal life; therefore, the effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are secondary to, contingent upon, the anticipated fact of resurrection in a mortal life.

Effects of Christian belief on this mortal life are thus a secondary consequence of the expectation of eternal life.

Any changed behaviours ought-to derive from the different perspective on this-life that results from belief in the life-to-come.  

***

Note: Then there is a long-running disputation about whether we can, or should, be confident about the life-to-come - i.e. "salvation". 

Many Christians have believed that salvation is difficult, complex, rare, only possible via a church and its requirements...

But that is not what comes across in the Fourth Gospel. In the Fourth Gospel; it seems that salvation is something like a decision and a commitment; and that those who have chosen salvation (by means of following Jesus) ought to be confident of salvation (so long as they continue to remain committed to it); and then... live their lives on the basis of this confident expectation. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this world is not staying the same. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can this sorrowful world really be good for us, and better than the partially happy world of the recent past?

A typically thoughtful and honest post from "trad" Roman Catholic blogger "Bonald" at The Orthosphere has had me mulling over his arguments and implications. 

As purpose and meaning are being, decade by decade, leached from public discourse and major institutions and the world (especially The West) descends into ever more explicit and aggressively imposed value-inversions -- is it really conceivable that such a situation is what we need for our spiritual well-being? 

Maybe this is not so far-fetched, if I consider the specific instance of myself. 

I grew-up into early adulthood in a much better world - more honest for sure, with a better appreciation of beauty; and a definite sense that the various social systems (law, academia, science, education) ought to be trying to perform these functions for the long-term benefit of everyone. 

Yet the fact was that living in this better world, even when living by the highest standards of this better world; was grossly insufficient in terms of ultimate realities. To take my own field of science in the context of academia: in actual practice - in my own life - the fact that science and scientists in the UK sought truth and spoke truth; and that academia broadly supported this activity (or, at least, did not actively dis-courage it); had the effect of my life and work being a partial satisfaction of profound drives. 

Because these profound impulses were partially satisfied in actual life, the fact that my life and world were ineradicably insufficient was for long concealed from me. There seemed to be (but actually was not) a valid hope that the inadequacies would be cured by some future change, some reform or improvement in the conduct of science and universities. 

My life was Not satisfying, despite its many satisfactions; there was Not a genuine purpose to my life in context of humanity, nor adequate meaning to my work in context of reality - because I believed (in line with my culture, the Western Civilization I inhabited) no purpose or meaning to reality-itself. The universe was a mixture of blind-determinism and randomness, and was utterly indifferent to humanity in general, and me-personally in particular. 

To summarize; the better world of my youth was At Its Best an only-partially-effective mere-palliative for a fundamentally inadequate world-view and a fundamentally meaningless public world. Yet the palliative was, for many years, good enough to prevent me seeking for anything fundamentally better. 

Therefore, I did not acknowledge the reality of a God, a Creator, until my late 40s, and did not become a Christian until I was nearly 50. 

And why did this truth eventually dawn upon me, after so long in this world? Probably the main proximate stimulus was the corruption of science and academia, such that their inadequacy was At Last forced upon me. 

In other words, it was the world getting worse that made me realize the nature of the world, and led eventually to a grateful acceptance of Jesus Christ's offer of everlasting resurrected Heavenly Life. 

My point is that it is at least conceivable that in some broad and general sense, the same may apply to many other people; and it may be that many people are led away from mainstream materialistic atheism and to conversion only by the worsening of the world, and the removal of partial-palliatives.

It may be that - in some average sense - a worse and worsening world may be the best hope for many or most people. 

Not that God wants a worse world for us! Of course not. God desires the best world for us, and our highest happiness in this (inevitably flawed and corrupt) mortal life - followed by the choice of immortal resurrection into Heaven. God desires us to be born-into and develop and be nurtured, in a context of loving relationships and Godly ideals. 

But Western humanity won't do that, does not even want that, and (increasingly) chooses the opposite; and therefore God (as creator) is able-to and does make the best of the evil choices of sinful Men. 

For me, the decline of The West made me recognize that - even at its best - our secular civilization was not merely inadequate, but actively harmful. My own strong distress that the top-down imposition of corruption and lies on the once relatively 'pure' worlds of academia and science, actually functioned as a trigger to deeper reflection and a fundamental reorientation in what I desired for myself and others.

It seems that I actually, in practice, in real-life - actually Needed a worse this-world to be induced to desire a better next-world; and maybe there are (in very different ways, mostly) many other people in a similar situation? People who will not be cured of this-worldly materialism, except by the withdrawal of this-worldly gratifications? 

It is not, of itself, an improvement in the world that real science has been (all-but) eradicated from professional "science"; and that the activity is now reduced to careerist bureaucrats striving to impress their official superiors rather than seek the truth; seeking funding rather than answers to real problems; publishing deliberately misleading deniable-dishonesties rather than the truth as they see it... 

None of this is Good; and it comes from the short-termist expediency of modern Godless Men. yet from it; God can lead some Men (me, for instance) to recognize that even science at its best and noblest, is a radically-incomplete and dangerously-distorted human endeavor when made primary; an activity that cannot satisfy the needs of our soul; and a discourse which does not deserve to be the basis of a Man's mortal life.   

Therefore, perhaps this "sorrowful" world that Bonald well-describes, may be God's way of making the best of modern Man's innate and accumulated evil - and maybe, therefore, this actual world does what is most necessary in ways that are actually more effective than the actually-available alternatives?  

The cusp of a New Era? (but Not The Age of Aquarius)

It is very interesting to me that many people could foresee, before it had actually become evident, that the millennium would be the end of one age of the world, and the beginning of another. 

But it is not surprising that everybody who tried to describe what the new era would look like, got it very wrong. Indeed, it was usual to regard the post-millennium world with a diffuse (because dewy-eyed) optimism, as the dawning of an Age of Aquarius - peace and free-love, free drugs, constant rock music, and a great deal of singing and dancing. 

Well... Not exactly. Indeed, sixties style "freedom" is nowadays regarded as evil in the mainstream, and as for dancing... People dance less often (and less joyfully) now than at any time in history (including during the decade of Puritan Commonwealth!) - and far, far less than during the pre-millennial decades.   

Dancing aside; it is evident that we are now deeply, and it seems irrevocably, into the end of the present era of world civilization - and the end, too, of an age of the world. 

I say "irrevocably" because it is primarily an act of self-destruction - a willed destruction. 

Although most of those who will their own civilizational and (almost certainly) personal destruction would strenuously deny it; and will shrilly justify every single destructive policy and action of the vast and interlocking strategy of self-annihilation, by (what seems to them) reasons of values and necessity -- that this is mere shallow feel-good nonsense is almost instantly revealed when any honest attempt at understanding is embarked-upon.  

The leadership class live in a bureaucratic world of untruth, dual-dedicated to careerism while feeling good about themselves. Which combination is why they must be so pervasively dishonest... One can only feel good about deliberately planning and escalating gratuitous wars, by lying to oneself and everybody else - All The Time.

Meanwhile, the masses have chosen deliberately not to understand what is happening; which means not-even-trying to understand - and squashing one's own personal capacity to think and learn from experience; by self-drugging with mass media, addictive socializing, and assorted intoxications - these being perceived as the only alternative to becoming crushed by fear and despair.

The combination of an utterly corrupt leadership class with an utterly self-neutered mind-numbed population has led to the truly astonishing spectacle of a world that is today literally on the threshold of escalating mega-death from international war; with economic and trade collapse and famine - with far less public reaction or response than to a sporting event or celebrity scandal. 

There is, indeed, in England (who is currently closer to experiencing war than any other Western nation) no perceptible social awareness. 

We may hope for someone, somewhere in The West to have the basic common sense and capacity for consecutive thinking to step back and reverse the ongoing trends. But there are a complete absence of any such persons in public life - or indeed anywhere At All.  

Trends that have been advocated and celebrated for decades, driven by unified leadership and all major social institutions, would be very difficult to stop if there was a powerful and cohesive will to stop them - but there is not. 

By my judgment; nobody has any coherent or plausible idea of what is coming after this era; probably because the roots of the coming collapse are so deep and extensive, that it is almost unimaginable what might grow once these root have destroyed themselves. (Which destruction is currently ongoing, and soon will be all-too-obvious.)  

This is why we hear so many cyclical theories of civilizations - people simply can't imagine anything except a return to some previous situation. 

Of course, what this inability to imagine a plausible and coherent future may amount to, is that this could be the end of civilization. 

After all, in this entropic and increasingly-evil world, everything will have an end sooner or later, at some point - maybe this is what it is like to inhabit an end without prospect of a new beginning? 

And this is all covered by the words and actions of Jesus, whose kingdom is Not of this-world, and whose work specifically enables all those who follow him to transcend the end of this world - when (not if) it comes.  

So far as I can tell, this is the only antidote to becoming paralysed by fear and despair. 

We each (I think) need to be able to envisage the end of everything (and I mean every thing) in this mortal world; and yet realize that even this need not be the end for us (unless we choose to make it so) - but a transformation and beginning of something far, far better - and eternal. 

It is on this basis (from this basis) that we should live and "fight": not to save civilization, not even to save "the world" - because these cannot be saved (and our civilization as-it-is either wants nor deserves to be saved). 

But we should live and fight in this world in ways that contribute to everlasting life beyond this mortal life, Heavenly society we may enter after this corrupt civilization, and the for eternal divine creation rather than this world: which derives-from and sustains good, but mixes-in so much of evil and entropy. 

Why was Jesus born into this world of sin? Why is anyone?

A candidate for The Big Question is: why does this 'world of sin' exist at all? 

I am here using sin as in the Fourth Gospel to mean, mainly, death; and therefore to encompass the idea that this is a world of inevitable death; thus of ubiquitous change - decay, degeneration, sickness, pain... 

Why did God create such a manifestly-imperfect world as this one? A world dominated by death? 

The only satisfying answer is that this world is necessary. By necessary, I mean necessary to God's plans for creation. 

In other words, this world of sin is needed for the fulfilment of God's creative plans. 

Needed, yes - but obviously not as an end-point - because this changing world is intrinsically Not an end point. Here, the end of every-thing is death...

But as a necessary step towards God's goal. This world is a means towards an end. 

And God's goal with creation is to raise Men up to his level - to enable Men (who are already sons and daughters of God) to choose to become fully divine; which means fully capable of creation. 

God therefore needed both to make it possible for Men to become fully divine (i.e. to create Heaven); and also to enable Men to choose this possibility (i.e. to exercise agency, or free will). 

What is the necessary step that 'this world of sin' enables? 

Well, the one thing shared by all the diversity of Men of all human eras and situations is - A Body. 

In other words, the primary fact of Man's experience is incarnation: getting a body. 

And the body we get is a mortal body, a body that will die. 

Therefore, we may infer that this is the primary purpose of this world is to provide all men with a mortal body: thus the purpose is the totality of mortal incarnation - necessarily including death.*  

Jesus was born into this world of sin for the same reason as the rest of Men - he shared our fate: he was born to get a body - mortal body - and therefore to die. 

The difference was that when Jesus's mortal body had died; he was (him-self) then resurrected with an immortal body. 

Since Christians regard Jesus as the example we wish to follow; we implicitly accept that the best immortality is an incarnated immortality - that it is better to have an immortal body; than it would be to be immortal but without a body.

For Christians therefore; eternal incarnation is better (i.e. higher, more in accordance with God's plan) than eternal life as a spirit.  

So this world of sin is a necessary step in God's plan of creation because it provides us with a mortal body; and by Jesus's birth and death in this world - he made eternal incarnation possible (which is, for God, the best possible kind of eternal life.

Incarnation and death is the only experience shared by all Men - including those who die in the womb, and those who die as babies or children. But if getting a body that was the only purpose of this mortal world, then we would not live such varied lives - and some people would not live for so many decades...

So there must be a secondary purpose to this world, and it must be a purpose that explains why each Man's experience of mortal life is unique. 

In a nutshell; this secondary purpose to this mortal world is quantitative, rather than the qualitative fact of 'getting a body'. 

'Living' our own unique life is about what is best for us, rather than what is absolutely necessary for all Men. 

Our various experiences are in order that each of us, each specifically, has the best chance to learn those particular lessons we personally most need for the best possible eternal resurrected life. 

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus into this world of sin which all Men share with him. 

We celebrate Jesus getting a mortal body, and commencing a mortal life that would inevitably terminate in death. 

It was what happened next, after his death, that was the primary work of Jesus, by which he changed reality forever.  

*This clear understanding seems first to have been attained by the Mormon prophet: Joseph Smith.

The fatal problem of mapping abstract metaphysics onto this-world (the advantage of a metaphysics of Beings)

It may seem strange that I keep hammering-away at a metaphysics that regards Beings as the fundamental 'unit' of reality; but this comes at the end of some decades of trying to make the available, conventional metaphysical assertions 'work' in my life, in 'real life'. 

All the mainstream systems of metaphysics since the ancient Greeks invented the subject, have been abstract: that is, they posit some real-reality behind this world, of which there are no assume-able examples in this world we inhabit. 

And there is never a way by which we can confidently map the abstract metaphysical schema onto the minutiae of this-world - or interpret the specifics this world in terms of exact aspects of the metaphysics. 

For me this has, in the end, always proved to be a fatal problem. Sooner or later; I have had to discard all such theories. 

For example, Plato's theory of eternal, timeless ideas behind the mutable actualities of this world. We can discuss these ideals with parable-like worked examples (as Plato does), but cannot point to any actual ideal that for-sure explains any specific thing in this world - because the relationship between the ideal and worldly is not knowable within the metaphysical system. Indeed, a qualitative difference between this temporal world and the eternal-real-ideal, is the basis of the metaphysics. 

More clearly, the forms of Aristotle - that were adopted by Aquinas - are abstractions that explain what we observe in this world - but what is a "for sure" example of a form? How can I tell what is the form at work in any particular instance of this world? 

A more recent example derived from Aristotle is Rupert Sheldrake's adaptation of these Aristotelian forms as Morphogenetic Fields - which exist and act everywhere. These can be posited as explanations, but cannot be known directly. We cannot observe a morphogenetic field, nor say which exist or how many exist, nor describe and discuss the nature and scope of a specific morphogenetic field. 

A further abstract entity I engaged-with was Systems, as found in Luhmann's Systems Theory - Indeed, I  got very deep into this form of explanation, and published quite a lot of work under its influence.

Yet the Systems of Systems Theory are abstractions. It is not possible (not possible within the realm of Systems Theory) to know whether some phenomenon in this world is, or is not, A System. Indeed, it is part of Systems theory that knowledge is only possible within Systems - so one System can only infer another. And even within Systems, a knowing sub-System can only infer about the System as a whole, based upon finite sampling and finite complexity of processing. 

Nor can we identify what are the real abstract Systems - we cannot count them, nor classify them - their reality is wholly hypothetical. 

Thus when I attempted to explain any particular thing in terms of Systems Theory, I could only guess at what System or Systems - or no System at all! - were involved in this phenomenon.

In other words; as is usual with abstract metaphysics, we cannot map abstractions onto everyday reality, nor can we discover what specific everyday instances are instances of particular abstractions - whether ideal/ form or morphogenetic field. And these 'cannot's - these limitations - are fundamental to the metaphysics themselves. 

In other words; the metaphysical theory itself includes among assumptions that its relationship to this world cannot be known.  

The great advantage I find about a metaphysics based on beings, is that while I do not know all Beings nor all about Beings; I do know the identity several Beings for sure: starting with Myself!

I am sure that I am a Being - and (almost) equally sure that several members of my family are Beings. So there is a real world and direct mapping of metaphysics onto reality - that cannot be matched by any abstract metaphysical System. 

For me this ability to map the theory onto experienced-reality is a very powerful, indeed decisive, difference between positing systems like those of Plato/ Aristotle/ Aquinas/ Sheldrake/ Luhmann - and what I am doing with the metaphysics of Beings.

Motivations: negative or positive, this world or the next? What is the way out and forward?

It seems to be that most people are negatively-motivated - for example by fear, loneliness, pain, boredom, resentments - from-which they seek relief, seek to escape. 

Insofar as they have an aim; it is for a place of ease, release, comfort, security (in practice; freedom from worry) etc. A place without suffering - including that nobody-else suffers (so that we will not suffer empathically from their suffering). 

The problem is that there exists no permanent answer, no permanent escape, in this mortal life - because everything is temporary, nothing lasts, every-thing ends - there is disease, degeneration, decline, and death. 

Therefore negative motivations in this life ultimately point-towards 'death' (or some simulation of death) - when death is primarily desired to be loss of the self, loss of thinking, loss of consciousness, loss of caring... as the only permanent possibility of escape from suffering. 

When there are positive goals; it is sooner-or-later realized that nothing in the world, nothing in this mortal life on earth, will suffice; because (again) everything is ephemeral, nothing is permanent. 

This is a deep problem. 

What emerges is some variation on the pattern of seeking short-termist palliation in this life, maximizing immediate pleasure/ fun and minimizing current pain/ angst; but trying not to think about the inevitable future - which future is regarded as inevitable annihilation of our awareness/ destruction of all that is us... 

(So we won't be there to suffer the future, anyway.) 

The reasoning is that if life is ephemeral, if decline is inevitable, if death is annihilation; then it is rational to make the most of my life here-and-now, rational to regard the rest of the world as existing for 'my' personal benefit; and try to forget about the future, other people, anything that might interfere. 

In other words; the 'logic' of the situation - the way to be motivated - is oneself to 'be a psychopath' - while trying to persuade others to be altruistic. 

That is; inducing other-people to live for other-people and for the future - so that these others will be amenable to here-and-now psychopathic exploitation.  

In practice; psychopathy requires an incapacity for love - an innate human deficiency. 

Therefore, people who are capable of love are (spontaneously, 'viscerally', for reasons they can't necessarily understand) appalled at such 'worldly' reasoning - and they cannot or will not take this path to embrace psychopathy - or, if they do try to become psychopathic, they will find themselves unable to adopt the requisite 'heart-less' attitudes, and will be tormented by guilt for their actions. 

(A common combination in the world today - it seems to me.)

Instead of taking the worldly path; people may reject The World. 

They may conclude that this-world is useless at best (everything temporary) and evil at worst (because of the expediency and success of psychopathy; of exploitation, parasitism, predation).

Such people may instead embrace the ancient ideal of trying to ignore this-world and focus on the-next: live now for the life to come after death. 

But such an ideal makes this mortal life worthless - indeed worse than worthless - because this is a world of illusion, cruelty, suffering... many bad things. 

The bad things spoil this world, while any good things are temporary (and perhaps illusory anyway).  

Thus; to live for the next world points towards death as something which is desired as soon as possible. And someone who really believed this, would not be alive to tell anyone else about it. 

Consider: Someone who really believed this world was illusion and pain, would not be concerned with morality - indeed he would have no value-preferences for truth, beauty or virtue - since values are merely part of the illusion.  

One who really lived for the next-world would not be concerned about converting others to his belief, or persuading others of his rightness and their wrongness.

One who really lived for the next world would do nothing to sustain himself alive - would, in fact, die within days at most. 

What instead we get (and have had for some thousands of years, apparently) is people who argue for the primacy of the next-world, and who try to prove that it is "better" to live indifferently to this world and be focused on the life-to-come... And many other absurd and incoherent variations on this theme. 

What this tells me, is that just as there is something in most people that rebels-against and is revolted-by the ideal of living as a psychopath; so there is something in most people that values some-things about this mortal life - and cannot write it off as wholly illusion and suffering.  

This is intuition at work in us.

What intuition tells us is that this mortal life should- not either be wholly-accepted nor wholly-rejected; but this-life needs discernment. 

Some of it is good and some is evil, some genuinely ephemeral, other parts can and should become eternal; and we need to know which is which, in order to embrace good and reject evil. 

We need discernment in order to know what to keep, and what to leave-behind...

(In Christian terminology to know what is sin, and what can be carried-through to Heavenly life.) 

Such discernment would need to be comprehensive and accurate, because if this mortal life is valuable we need to preserve some of it for eternity, yet we also need to know what is wrong - or else we would be carrying-through into Heaven the evils of this mortal world, so it would then not be Heaven!  

And yet sufficient discernment is impossible: because there is way too much that needs to be discerned rightly in this world! 

At any given moment, every person is wrong in some ways (probably many ways) about what is good and evil; and there are more and more problems and issue presenting themselves every hour of everyday.  

Although we have both inner-and outer-guidance that leads us towards correct discernment; this operates by trial-and-error, and across time. At any particular moment - we will always be confused and in a state of error. 

Yet another double-bind!... We can neither accept nor reject this world. We must, it seems, discern within this world; yet we cannot sufficiently discern. 

We need Heaven, but cannot find our own way to Heaven. 

This was the situation until the advent of Jesus Christ.

Jesus can be considered a way out from this double-bind; because Jesus was uniquely able to discern his way to resurrected life eternal! 

This was possible, indeed perfectly natural and spontaneous, for Him - because he was in perfect harmony with the purposes and methods of God and of Heaven. 

Because Jesus 'did it' we can do it as well, by following Him. 

After our mortal death, Jesus will be there to will lead us through all necessary discernments about what to take and what to leave-behind. 

All that we need to do is follow Him, and agree to whatever is necessary. 

Which means we must want to follow Jesus. 

A way of saying this; is that we must 'love' Jesus. 

Only that! But that is necessary. 

Who gets resurrected? - according to the Fourth Gospel, 'only' those who believe and follow Jesus

A couple of days ago I read through the Fourth Gospel (again) - this time all-through in a couple of hours, to try and get an overview. Several things stood-out and were clarified; but probably the most important was an answer to the question of who gets resurrected.

And the clear answer is - those who believe on, who follow, Jesus.

Or, to put it another way, only those who believe on, who follow Jesus, will be resurrected to that Eternal/ Everlasting Life which Jesus brings us.

This is in contrast to mainstream Christian belief that all are resurrected (but not-all are saved); and it also contradicts a single but explicit sentence in the Fourth Gospel+; however, the overall structure of the Fourth Gospel and multiple, repeated, references support the answer that it is 'only' those who regard Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah, that will be resurrected.

(This opens a further question of what happens to those who are choose Not to follow Jesus and who are Not therefore resurrected - but I will deal with that below.)

Assuming this interpretation is correct, how could this simple teaching have been missed? The answer is quite simple: Biblical understanding has operated on the basis that the whole Bible is equally true - therefore a specific teaching in 'just' one Gospel (especially the Fourth Gospel) is ignored/ explained-away when it contradicts other parts of the Bible - and especially when it contradicts the three Synoptic Gospels and the Pauline Epistles.

Whereas I believe that if we believe the truth of the Bible (truth in at least a general sense, recognising that this must mean interpretation of specific verses), then we believe the Fourth Gospel is true - including its claims about itself; and these Fourth Gospel claims mean that it is the single most authoritative Book in the Bible, which ought to be given the highest authority, above any other Book in the Bible.

(By contrast the other Gospels are, and claim to be no more than, secondhand and post hoc compilations of accounts about Jesus; and Paul's knowledge is from intuitive revelation that is, for Christians, intrinsically unlikely to be detailed and specific.)

Therefore, to check this claim for yourself - I would simply urge you to read the Fourth Gospel as an autonomous text in light of this interpretation, and looking for evidence of this teaching. (Assuming that you do already have a personal revelation of the truth of this Gospel; and if not then you would need to seek one.)

If we take the original Fourth Gospel to run from Chapters 1-20, with Chapter 21 added later (but presumably by the real author) - then the Gospel begins and ends with two core teachings - which are repeated throughout:

1. That Jesus is who he claimed to be - the Son of God, the Messiah sent by God; and that he died, resurrected and ascended to Heaven to become fully divine.

2. That Jesus came to bring resurrection and Life Eternal/ Life Everlasting to those who 'believed on' him (including believing his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God), who followed him as a sheep follows a shepherd, who loved him and believed in his love for each of us, who trusted and had faith in him.

In fact, we see that these two teachings are linked, and are - in a sense - a single teaching.

Most of the Fourth Gospel is taken up with providing 'proof' that Jesus was who he claimed - and this proof is of the type that would be effective for those living just after the death of Jesus and in the same region - evidence suitable for that time and place.

So, the evidence is the witness of John the Baptist (who was very well known and would have been regarded as the best possible witness); the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies (which, again, would have been well known); and the evidence of the miracles including the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus, at a time when many witnesses of these events were still around.

None of this evidence is very convincing to people 2000 years later and in different places and cultures; but the further teaching of the Fourth Gospel is that after his ascension Jesus sent the Holy Ghost, the 'Comforter', to provide a direct witness and knowledge to the disciples - and implicitly (although probably not explicitly) to everyone else who sought it. 

The rest of the Fourth Gospel is, via stories (parables), miracles, reported conversations and direct teachings - to explain the enhanced, divine nature of Life after resurrection - this being termed Life Eternal or Life Everlasting; and to promise this to all who would follow Jesus.

That is, pretty much, everything that the Fourth Gospel says (aside from some specific remarks to the disciples - and a single hint that they ought to teach about Jesus following his ascension). There is little or nothing specific about how to live or about a 'church' of any kind - which is probably another reason that the Fourth Gospel has been historically down-graded from its proper supremacy over the rest of the Bible.

If it is true that only the followers of Jesus are resurrected, then this removes certain problems that arise from the alternative view. It means that resurrection is chosen, it is voluntary; and therefore resurrection is not compelled nor is it enforced. I was always troubled by the idea that Jesus brought resurrection to all, whether they wanted it or not - especially since the prospects for someone resurrected but not saved seemed so grim. It seemed that Jesus was giving with one hand, but taking with the other - which would not be very loving, and seemed sub-optimal (for a creator God) - surely something better could be managed for the children of God?

But apparently that was a misunderstanding. Those who do not believe Jesus, or who do not love him and do not wish to follow him, or who do not want Life Everlasting in a (Heavenly) world of love and creation - these are Not resurrected - but shall instead return to spirit life (as we began; before we were incarnated into earthly mortality).

This fits with the beliefs of many non-Christian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and some other paganisms) - who see post-mortal life in terms of a return to the spirit world.

It also opens the possibility of reincarnation, which has probably been the usual belief of most humans through most of human history. The Fourth Gospel teaches that reincarnation is a possibility, when it discusses whether John the Baptist was one of the Old Testament prophets reincarnated... the conclusion is that he was not one of a series of possible named prophets, but the possibility of reincarnation is assumed.

We could even speculate (and it would be a speculation unless confirmed by revelation) that the world contains some mixture of newly incarnated mortals, and a proportion of reincarnates who did not accept Jesus in previous lives but have returned (presumably by choice) to enable further chances.

But again, it seems intrinsic to Christianity that all higher theosis is by choice; and post-mortal spirits would not be compelled to resurrect, nor to reincarnate - but might remain in spirit form as long as they wished.

Mortal life is best seen as an opportunity. As Jesus explained in his conversation with Nicodemus, Heavenly Life Everlasting is available only via death and being resurrected or 'born again'; and this was the path that Jesus himself needed to take in order to attain to full Godhood at the ascension. Jesus brought us this possibility - but it must be chosen, and the reason for choice must be love.


+This is John 5:28-9: ...'all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and come forth; they that have done good, until the resurrection of life, and those that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.' I regard this, from its interruption of the structure and its contradiction of the rest of the gospel, as a later, non-canonical insertion. 

Note added:

I want any seriously interested reader to do what I suggest above; which is to check this claim for yourself - I would simply urge you to read the Fourth Gospel as an autonomous text in light of this interpretation, and looking for evidence of this teaching.

However, below I have made a selection of relevant passages from just the first six books of the Fourth Gospel (you will need to search the rest of the Gospel for yourself) - and the last verse of the (original final) Chaper 20. These are consistent with the understanding that resurrection is to life eternal/ life everlasting by means of 'receiving' Jesus; and that those who do not accept Jesus, shall not be resurrected to this new kind of Life as Sons of God: Life eternal/ everlasting is for the resurrected, both together - there is no sense of there being a distinction or sequence between resurrection and the New Life.


1: [11] He came unto his own, and his own received him not. [12] But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

2: [14] And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: [15] That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. [16] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. [17] For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. [18] He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [19] And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

[36] He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

5: [24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. [25] Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

[39] Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. [40] And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. [41] I receive not honour from men. [42] But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. [43] I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

6: [26] Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. [27] Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. [28] Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? [29] Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. [30] They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? [31] Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. [32] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. [33] For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. [34] Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. [35] And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. [36] But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. [37] All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. [38] For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. [39] And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. [40] And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. [41] The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. [42] And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? [43] Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. [44] No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. [45] It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. [46] Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. [47] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. [48] I am that bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. [51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. [52] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [53] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. [54] Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. [55] For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. [56] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. [58] This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. [64] But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. [65] And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
(…)
20: [31] But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.