The Vision of William Arkle - the question of Mother in Heaven

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I came to the point of love at my inmost heart, and I was glad and at rest, like unto the end of things. But the point was not a point, it was a doorway opening both inwards and outwards. Though I had thought to rest there for ever, I could not do so for long, since my deepest feelings pulled me. So pushing gently inwards I passed through the doorway and went in.

Then it was if I had walked onto the palm of the hand of my God, who had now become my great friend. The palm of His hand was as the most sensitive place in his heart might be. It was tenderly aware and responsive, so that I stopped still in case I should hurt it.

In some strange way the hand was the heart and it extended beyond my understanding in all directions unto the fingers. While the palm of this great hand was content to be at rest, as I was, the fingers had a longing in them to express the nature that was the heart of the hand. The place that had been a doorway had now become like a whole country opened from within...

Then go up to this house. He will ask you in and She will greet you there. Father and Mother of us all, dwelling in a valley of the hills that are not, but are the hand that is the heart always. From this place their spirit never moves and in this place is the measure of all things kept safely. But you may go in and touch direct the uttermost. Then you will have the foundation about you you did not know to need. It remains in the smile there and all things are borne up by it. This is what is served to every friend who comes...

With a voice that needed no sound, my friend spoke through the whole of the vast country. His hand and His fingers were full of the expression of each word. The fingers not only held fast the treasure of the hand, but they were also the means of discovery. The spirit of this discovery was in need of companions, and I could be such a companion. For that which remained to be discovered lay out beyond the finger-tips of God's person in a larger reality of being...

Long would be the telling of this aching hand whose heart shall hold friends and teach the art to many in that country that cannot be said, between whose spirits the potency of difference so gladly spreads to uncover and display a growth to all things new.

From The Hand of God by William Arkle

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The Hand of God Prose-Poem - excerpted above - strikes me as an account of William Arkle's prime and (as it seems to me ) genuinely revelatory vision; which contains the compressed essence of his message, which he elaborated over a period of decades in various different forms - through prose narratives - factual and fictional, poetry, paintings, music, and (especially in the 1974 book A Geography of Consciousness) formal geometric/ engineering/ scientific/ philosophical analogies.

So the above excerpt contains:

The belief that we are in the hand of God (the theme of multiple paintings)

 Then the idea of a Mother in Heaven, as well as a Father

Then the key to all the elaborations - that the creator Father (and Heavenly Mother) wanted more than anything to have children who might grow towards divinity and eventually choose to become friends (in an extremely elevated sense of that word) with their Heavenly Father (and Mother).

The whole of creation is then set up with that purpose in mind. 

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This matter of a Heavenly Mother is perhaps the most striking to Mainstream Christians, and is one of those undecided aspects of Mormonism.

Many Mormons believe there is a Heavenly Mother - who is our Mother in Heaven (some used to and a few probably still do believe there were several Heavenly Mothers), and this including Presidents of the Church and Apostles.

The divine parenthood is included in the language of that major (and wonderful) policy statement The Family: a Proclamation to the World - "Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents...".

Yet, this is not an official doctrine, nor from a specific church-wide revelation, nor a required belief; and it is specifically prohibited to pray to or worship Heavenly Mother (She is not regarded as equivalent to Heavenly Father).

Mormons are therefore free to believe in our Mother in Heaven, or not.

So what do I think, personally? 

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I am not certain. Initially I believed in Mother in Heaven, then I found I did not (regarding God the Father as solitary and eternal before having children - God the Father as unique exception to the need for divine marriage.

Now I am inclined to believe again that we do have divine parents, although I am uncertain (and incurious) about the origin of Heavenly Mother.

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(My tentative theory is that all pre-existent spirits are either male or female; and the first thing God the Father and primary creator did (as a male) was to take a pre-existent female spirit and endowed her with divinity. She always had and continued to have autonomous agency (free will) and they both chose eternal celestial marriage and became the primal parents - all other personages being their children.)

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Also, I have found that Arkle's revelatory vision have enhanced my confidence that there is a Heavenly Mother - because:

1. I regard his primary and basic vision as a valid revelation (although I do not find all his elaborations and extrapolations and systematization to be compelling).

2. I see not the slightest sign that Arkle had any knowledge of Mormonism; yet his basic vision seems strikingly convergent with Mormonism - so his witness of a Heavenly Mother looks to me like independent corroboration.  

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Having made that decision to believe, I find that it makes my heart leap with joy!

(Yet also a kind of fear and caution that I may be believing from self-gratification, and a fear of the contradictions with Mainstream Christianity.)

Yet the joy wins - and the simple symmetry between Mortal and Divine parents is a lovely thing.

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Metaphysical implications of the Mormon belief in Heavenly Mother/ Mother in Heaven

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I have previously written about the Mormon belief in a Heavenly Mother or Mother in Heaven who is God's wife, and mother to all his spirit children (including you and I).

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-mormon-folk-belief-in-gods-wife.html

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-vision-of-william-arkle-question-of.html

I have continued to read and meditate on this matter - and have been convinced that a belief in Heavenly Mother is more than just a 'folk belief' as I had supposed, but is pretty-much canonical in the CJCLDS.

This study of authoritative sources by was what finally convinced me:

https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFViewer.aspx?title=8669&linkURL=50.1PaulsenPulidoMother-482bf17d-bbc5-4530-a7cc-c1a1b7e5b079.pdf

David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido,""A Mother There": A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven", BYU Studies, 50/1 (2011)

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The reality of a Heavenly Mother has, naturally, many profound metaphysical - as well as theological and practical - consequences.

It should be noted that the reality of a Heavenly Mother seems to be asserted mostly on the grounds of authoritative revelation; but also on 'logical' grounds that since gender - being either a man or a woman - is a fundamental, pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal reality for humans; and since humans are made in the image of God and are of the same 'kind'; it would make sense if this principle extended to God.

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The matter of 'where did God come from?' is often answered by Mormons in terms of an infinite regress: our God was once a mortal man who was spirit child of another God - and so on. 

(This is monotheist in the sense that there is but one God for us - relevant to us, in our part of total reality; and these other Gods have absolutely nothing to do with us at all - except as a source of our God).

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But another way to answer the question of the origin of God is that He always was.

This is what I believe (or what I choose to believe - since metaphysics are essentially a matter of choice, and stand behind Christian doctrine and not necessarily affecting or affected by it).

So, if God always was; was God the creator, the originator of Mother in Heaven? This would mean that God was the (one and only?) exception to the rule that gender is primary and fundamental - because on this model, God had either no gender or contained both genders.

Or was our Heavenly Mother also eternal - was She always? So that God the Father and Heavenly Mother are coeval and were always divine?  

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In other words, since the Mormon understanding of divinity is within an also-existing universe with laws and realities within-which God operates; the question is whether eternity contained 'the universe' and one God (without gender) - from whom Mother in Heaven later arose in some way?

Or did eternity contain 'the universe' and two Gods - one male and one female?

I choose to believe the second: that there is no exception to the rule that gender is primary and fundamental to Man - so Heavenly Mother was coeval with God the Father: they existed as divinities from eternity.

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Note: What about the rest of us? Did we not too exist from eternity? Yes we did - that seems necessary to explain the reality of free will/ autonomy and also evil. However we were individual essences or potentialities with no 'powers'. But only God the Father and Heavenly Mother were divine. They took these essences and we became their children - divine children. The plan of Happiness/ Plan of Salvation is the very long term hope and intention that at least some of us children will choose-to learn-to become 'adult divinities' (if I may put it that way) like to God the Father and Heavenly Mother. Just as earthly children may mature, grow and learn to become like their earthly parents; always children of their parents but now children who are also - in addition - friends. It is a yearning for loving friends to share their universe which motivated God the Father and Heavenly Mother to embark on the extraordinarily complex, contingent, risky and painful plan of salvation and happiness. Within the constraints of our universe it is, apparently, the only way for us to achieve divinity - although we are free to reject the plan, and to reject progress towards divinity and to stop at any point in the path to full God-hood. Speaking personally, I am at this point too selfishly daunted by the idea of suffering the empathic pain intrinsic to full divine parenthood to want to aspire to the highest possible theosis - and would hope to stop somewhere short of that state. But in the course of eternity no doubt this may change.

What is God like? What does God want from creation?

I have had the privilege of reading in manuscript a collection from letters from William Arkle to a young friend and spiritual-disciple/ -colleague; spanning from the middle 1980s to near the end of Arkle's life (in 2000).  

These have provoked all kinds of thoughts on that vital matter which Arkle 'made his own': questions on the nature of God, and God's hopes and aims in creation. 

 

For all Christians; God is (or should be) a person, not an abstraction. 

We are God's children (that is related-to, descended-from God); and God loves us. 

Beyond this, there are differences of understanding; and there is indeed a difference in my understanding and that of Arkle. More precisely, in his early work, Arkle described what I believe is true: God is a dyad, Father and Mother in Heaven: God is our Heavenly Parents. 

This is also the understanding of Mormon thelogy; and it natually goes-with an understanding of each Human Being as - in his or her eternal primordial essence, and eternally in future - either a man, or a woman (never neither, nor both). 

This metaphysical reality does not necessarily map-onto what may happen to an individual man or woman in terms of biological sex and/or sexuality during this mortal, earthly incarnation - which has the nature of a temporary experience for us to learn-from. My understanding is that - whatever happens 'superficially' in mortal life - each of us eternally has been, and eternally will be, essentially (by the nature of our true and divine self) a man or a woman eternally. 

 

But by the 1980s, Arkle had apparently moved to a view of God as primarily both man and woman simultaneously (a He/ She); and this goes-with an idea of sex as relatively superficial to the essence of Human Being - and with reincarnation as potentially alternating (as 'required') between the sexes; neither being the essence of a Human Being. Or with sex (and marriage, and procreation) being 'discarded' when a Human Being has reached Heaven

(Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield also share this understanding of sex. And it also goes-with an understanding of spirit-form as both the past and future of Man: Man was a spirit, will become a spirit; and physical incarnation is an intermediate stage, for experience and learning only.)

Whereas by contrast; my view (and the Mormon view) is that physical incarnation is higher than spirit life: bodies are better. Including that God is embodied - i.e. God is physically-bounded and in the same as human form (or rather, causally vice versa); God is not an omnipresent spirit. 

So, for me, God is embodied, and indeed two bodies: God is a dyad: Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

This matter of "what God is like", whether God is One or Two, is a vital to our metaphysics; because it decides our understanding of why God embarked on creation. Our inferred motivation of a unitary, solo God is very different from that of two Heavenly Parents, distinct but united by their mutual love. 

 

(Traditional Christian theology has it that God was utterly self-sufficient, and without needs (or desires). Trinitarian theology makes the love of this unitary God also be (somehow) sub-divided into the mutual love of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But either way, the creation of Men and everything-else by God is an ultimately gratuitous act - and Not a matter of God seeking greater satisfaction, Not a matter of God needing, wanting, desiring or yearning. I personally reject this line of reasoning on the basis that God is a person, like our-selves in an ultimate sense; and that God does have passions, wishes. In particular I regard Love as the primary passion of God, and I regard Love as having in its nature many aspects such as needing, wanting, desiring and yearning.) 

Arkle's inference, based on his understanding of God as unity and a real person - is that God before creation must have been lonely and bored. God's greatest need was for things to do, and people to do-things-with. 

From this, Arkle derives an understanding that creation is essentially a matter of overcoming loneliness and boredom; of creating Beings who can develop to become like himself, and of creating many other things 'for fun'. 

Arkle encapsulates this in the ideas that in making Men who can evolve towards full-deity God is literally Making Friends; creating Beings who - it is hoped - will become 'friends' at the same divine level as God. And secondly that all the other Beings of Creation are made as a kind of ultimate 'play'. So that for Arkle life is - at its highest, most divine - created life is about play with and among friends.  

It should be noted - and this comes through repeatedly in these late Arkle letters, that loneliness and boredom are negative motivations - therefore creation is a kind of cosmic therapy for the unitary God.  

My own view, based on God as the loving-dyad of celestial husband and wife, of Heavenly Parents; is that creation is a natural consequence of the existential nature of Love. Creation is the positively-motivated overflow and expansion of spousal love. 

This is nothing esoteric, but a motivation that has been experienced (albeit perhaps partially and temporarily, as is the nature of mortal life) by countless husbands and wives through Man's history. Parental love seeks its own increase through children; and through a creative attitude to life and living.

In different words, the spontaneous expression (consequence) of parental love; is to co-create (in harmony with God's already in-progress creating) an open-ended, expanding-and-harmonious world; in which the family lives creatively. 

In a nutshell, God is like the perfection of married love, and what God wants from creation is analogous to what a loving husband and wife want, given a husband and wife who are themselves members of loving families. 

Thus (in an eternal persepctive) God wants children, and loving-developing family relations; wants new family and friends (i.e. permanent friends, maintained in harmony by analogously-familial love); wants a whole created-world of other (increasingly creative) Beings of many kinds, natures, motivations - but (ideally, and in actuality in Heaven) all maintained in Harmony by their mutual love. 

 

William Arkle - The divine Father and Mother (the human family as an analogue for our relationship with God)

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The Father and Mother

Explanation by William Arkle :

Describing, in the most simple way, the profoundly attentive love that is constantly expressed towards each of God's children.

In this case we see the little human on earth, standing alone and unafraid before his inner realisation of this beautiful attitude of God. He feels the nature of love to be both as a mother and a father towards him, and that such love is not concerned with any difference in size between his nature and the much more mature nature of God.

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The Parents

Explanation by William Arkle


Depicting our Divine Father and Mother in an ethereal form and yet close to the earth, where they are looking upon a human father and mother on the banks of the river.

The children of the human parents are seen playing among the rocks beyond them. The purpose of the painting is to express the attitude of parental love that comes to us from our God, and also to describe the fact that our own children bear to us the same relationship which we bear to our Divine Parents.

This is of particular interest when we realise that all the relationships of love and responsibility we experience in bringing up our children on earth are a small scale replica of the problems and difficulties and joys that our God has in bringing us to life.

Such an important part of this life we are being given is the reality and strength of our own individual duality, which can only be given us if God leaves us with real freedom in which we can make real mistakes. And so we discover the same understanding in our earthly family situation. We know we have got to let go of the guidance and discipline we exercise over our children as they grow to an age when they must take their reality upon themselves.

The experience of being both a child and a parent on earth is thus one of the most profound forms of teaching which the Creator has arranged for us to experience, and we will find within those experiences the answer to most of the great enigmas of life.

From: http://www.billarkle.co.uk/greatgift/pictureseq/fset003.html 

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Note: To add a further layer to the analogy between the mortal family and the divine family, my understanding is that the models used for the Father and Mother, and The Parents were William Arkle's own son and daughter.
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In what way does God value Love? What kind of Love does he want from us? From William Arkle

It is essential to stop teaching morality in terms which can be mistaken for the philosophy of external and obvious valuation; of valuation which concedes that behaviour must be good if it is not ‘found-out’ to be bad. Rather must it be said that unless the inner aspect of one's attitude is healthy, the result of any behaviour will be psychological unrest and discontent.

One may succeed in the world and gain the adoration of many people, but if this is to fail to remain true to innermost nature it will mean failure in our own judgement of ourself and in the relating of our many parts to our whole nature. Since this is the root cause of unhappiness it is also where real success and failure lies and where one reaps and enjoys the real treasures of existence.

The essence of real religious and moral aspiration is not between ourselves and God but between ourselves and our Self. At the same time the monitoring activity of God and his many divine assistants is necessary, but not as a substitute for Self-confrontation, but rather to ensure that this condition comes about.

Aspirations towards God are therefore of the utmost value, not as a means of becoming a slave or servant of God, but in order that they can be directed towards the true goal which is the valuation of our True Self.

As we direct the love our children have for us in such a way that it enlarges their own nature and not in order to make them more devoted and servile, so our divine parents divert our love in such a way that it reflects back into our own essential nature again.

Love is therefore valued by God, not as something he wishes to possess, but as a positive expression of our highest attitude which he can receive in the spirit in which it is offered and then use for his creative work. This is the bringing of our individual nature to a condition of divine Self-consciousness.
Extracted from the close of the Chapter 'Education' in William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness (1974)

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This is a passage which is easy to misunderstand but which I have found to be important. Arkle is clarifying the kind of God wants for us by examining the kind of love we want (or ought to want) from our growing-up children.

In other words, God wants us to give our love from our deep and true self, by an act of agency - and not from the kind of servile devotion that is implicitly based more upon terror than adoration. Arkle is saying that we ought not to fear God (any more than an adult Man ought to fear his father) - but to trust in God's love. 

Of course, a lot of our lives are spent growing-up - but it is important to know what is being aimed-at in full adulthood - not least so that we don't get into bad habits or have false structuring beliefs and expectations. 

Arkle here, as elsewhere, is suspicious of the traditional Christian emphasis on 'worship' as the defining quality of Man's relationship to God. While it is right and proper for a young boy to worship his father - this is not a suitable basis for a grown-up child's relationship with his father.

Arkle is suggesting that the same applies to religion - and he bases this on his intuitive understanding of the fundamental reason why God (who is in fact a dyad of Heavenly Parents) created Men (their sons and daughters) and everything else.

Arkle believes that the rationale for creation was ultimately in order that some (as many as possible) Men might 'evolve' and grow from our current partial and embryonic divinity to a full divinity on the same level as our Heavenly Parents. Therefore, our mother and father in heaven do not want us to get stuck in a stance that regards them as infinitely remote - but rather as finitely (albeit vastly) remote, and incrementally approachable over time. 

We probably tend to feel a superstitious anxiety about thinking or doing this; as if God was some kind of hyper-irritable and easily-offended tyrant; but Arkle is trying to reassure us that friendly affection and trusting confidence is exactly the attitude that God most wants us to have; as illustrated here:

http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-final-words-of-geography-of.html.   

See also a fuller excerpt of the above at:
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-deep-nature-of-morality.html
        

There are no shortcuts! ... to higher consciousness in life. From William Arkle

If you wish to attain a higher 'consciousness' in life - by which I mean to experience, perceive and understand more than the five senses 'reality' of mainstream modern materialism; then you will already know that while higher consciousness is attainable in moments (aka 'peak experiences'), these moments tend spontaneously to be infrequent and last only seconds; and trying to make such moments longer and more frequent, and ideally continuous, is very difficult indeed.

(This goal of enhanced being was the major focus of Colin Wilson's thought; throughout dozens of books from The Outsider of 1956 to Super Consciousness in 2009, at the beginning and end of his publishing career.)

Another thing you might realise is that what works for one person seems seldom to work for another person. The history of those who have (apparently) attained higher consciousness is a history of different individuals with different experiences.

The lesson is that There Are No Shortcuts - the path is usually long, and each person seems to need a different path (presumably because each is, in fact, starting somewhere different).

To illustrate this, you may wish to give an hour and a half of intense attention to this recording of one of the most 'enlightened' men of whom I am aware - William Arkle.

http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/digital_08.html

Near the end, he responds to some questions from the audience (from the well known investigator Nigel Blair, who was the host of these proceedings) concerning whether meditation was necessary for everyone and beneficial for everyone. Arkle is very definite, even somewhat harsh, in refusing to make universal recommendations or even 'hints' or 'tips'; or to imply that there are quicker and easier ways to get where you need to go.

Each of us has to struggle, because these things are difficult to learn, because they are meant to be difficult to learn.

Because without the struggle we will not really learn them.


Note: To clarify, for new readers: Arkle is a spiritual Christian - not a New Age writer. His understanding is based upon God as Creator and Loving Father, we being his children; creation being for the purpose of raising us - like Jesus Christ - to ultimate full divinity of the same kind as God. Unorthodox Christian elements in Arkle include that - as with Mormonism - Arkle envisages a Heavenly Mother consort with the Father, and human divinity as potentially rising to the same nature and level as that of the divine parents, But unlike Mormonism; Arkle also includes a scheme of incremental reincarnation (whereas Mormonism achieves much the same explanatory function by positing a significant and evolutionary pre-mortal spirit existence for all men and women).
http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk

A God's eye view of imperfect mortal life as the perfection of theosis

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Imagine a Mother sitting and watching her one year old baby at play.

From the perspective of any observer other than the Mother, the actions of that child are highly imperfect - pooping, weeing, vomiting, being selfish, banging and breaking and tearing stuff...

But from the Mother's perspective that child's behaviour is perfect; because he is doing just what a child ought to do, needs to do - it is a child who is growing, developing, learning - precisely as the Mother wished and hoped and planned.

So, from the perspective of his Mother, that baby is not meant to be perfect in terms of his specific current behaviours, he is not designed to be - he cannot possibly be - perfect in that sense.

But the baby is - and is meant to be - perfect in terms of being on a trajectory of learning.


"Mother" = God
"Baby" = Mortal Men on earth
"Growing, developing and learning" = Theosis.

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The metaphor derives from William Arkle - 56.00 minutes
http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/digital_08.html

Ultimate metaphysics and Mother in Heaven

In understanding metaphysics using the deepest and most spontaneous kind of explanation; I need to dispense with mathematics, physics and 'science' in general.

My aim is something much more like those Ancient Egyptian myths of primal beings - gods and titans emerging from chaos; or the folk stories about 'totem animals'... Instead of particles and forces we have beings with motivations.

As I have previously posted I have a personal intuition/ revelation that confirms the Mormon teaching (independently endorsed by William Arkle) that God is both Father and Mother (a 'dyad' - complementary - the whole God consisting of an eternal union of man and woman).

The implications are tremendous, and only incrementally becoming clear to me.

One is that this is the truth behind the principle of 'polarity' as articulated by Coleridge and clarified by Barfield. 'Polarity' is a concept derived from the physical sciences - hence is only a model: the reality is our Heavenly Parents.

Thus, the two interdependent forces - centrifugal and centripetal - about which Coleridge talks; and from the interaction of which, all may be derived in a dynamic and self-renewing way; are actually the primal man and woman.

If we ask what is the difference between the Father and Mother, we have actually taken a step away-from the primary reality, because our answer can only be in terms of abstract qualities - whereas our  divine parents are the irreducible units from-which all else (including all abstractions) are derived.

Our Heavenly parents are what they are. While we can know and understand them empathically, by direct intuition - because we are their children and of the same kind - we must (in the attempt to communicate) resist the false temptation to describe them in terms of lesser qualities, or to analyse them as quantities - and then to regard these partial, distorted, abstracted descriptions as the reality.

Heavenly Father and Mother differ; qualitatively and complementarily (to make a living unity in-time); but this difference can't be captured by a static, structural 'personality description'. 

Creation is the consequence of their love; and that is why love is (as the Fourth Gospel tells us) the prime relationship in the universe of creation. Nothing is more important than love; because love (between our Heavenly parents) is the causal basis and reason for all of creation (including, of course, the creation of ourselves, as children of God).

Having reached this point; it seems very important to pay more attention to both Father and Mother in the nature of God; this duality is neglected yet must be of prime importance. If this was physics, we would not neglect one of a polarity - how much more important when it comes to God.

Indeed, this seems a matter of urgent importance.

Is God's motivation for creation 'play' or 'love'?

If the primal reality of God is imagined before the beginning of creation, and if God is single and personal; then creation can be understood as God's 'play'.

This is made simple and explicit in God, the Player Friend; a rare 42 page booklet self-published by William Arkle in 1993, which I only discovered-about a couple of weeks ago, and which I am currently reading.


Typically (and valuably) Arkle boils it down to God alone becoming bored with a world in which everything was caused by himself; and from this dissatisfaction manifesting creation so that divine 'Friends' - that is, fully-developed men and women - could gradually evolve, and become genuinely independent sources of surprise and innovation.

As so often, much hinges upon the primary assumptions; and here Arkle makes the primary assumption that the beginning of everything - God - is a unity. When this is the assumption, then I think it is 'inevitable' that there is an 'arbitrary' quality of 'play' about everything in creation.

Reality is because creation is more 'fun' than no reality; as Arkle sometimes put it.


When creation is driven by something negative like boredom, and negativity is cured by the independent play of other agents or actors; then we get this kind of double-negative theology which I always regard as secondary.

Yet, if creation is dynamic, expansile (as I believe) then it must indeed be motivated by some kind of (negatively) discontent, or (positively) yearning.


My own understanding is different from Arkles, and is pretty-much the Mormon Christian theology; which is that 'in the beginning' God was two, a dyad, man and woman, Heavenly Father and Mother.

By this understanding there never was 'unity' - unless the unity is regarded as being divided in twain. The 'unity' comes from Love: love between our Heavenly Parents, which eternally 'binds' them (in a 'celestial marriage'). That is my primal reality.

The primal reality is therefore one that is dynamic, as love is dynamic; and it is one of yearning, as love contains yearning. By my understanding, then, creation is the result of an overflow of this yearning love; so that there be more autonomous, agent, independently-creative persons to love.

This is a familiar motivation arising between a loving husband and wife: the positive desire for children to expand the scope and possibility of love. The married couple's aspiration for pro-creation (and also to create a home, a family, ideally one that is ever-growing and inter-linking - with all that entails in terms of the context for such growth) is thus seen of a microcosm of the divine impulse to creation. 


The classical 'Trinitarian' formulation of Christian theology 'has it both ways' in asserting that God is both undivided-unity (with no sex) and hence of its nature static and self-sufficient; and also a triad of Father, Son and Holy Ghost (with no sex) - who are different enough to be bound together by love, hence dynamic and motivated to grow.

By this classical account; sexuality is secondary, temporary, inessential; whereas for Mormon theology sexuality is primary and causal; deriving from the nature of God - our Heavenly Parents. 

I can make no rational sense of classical Trinitarianism; but as a form of words, it covers all the bases!

However, for me, God must be either one or more-than-one; and my understanding is that God is (or rather was, primally) two. And these two were a man and a woman. And their love was the fount of creation.

Re-conceptualizing the nature and consequences of 'Eastern' impersonal religions in relation to the personal God of Christianity

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What follows is an excerpt from the writing of a little known mystical author called William Arkle (he died in 2000). I know about him because he lived nearby when I was at school.

http://www.billarkle.co.uk

http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/digital_08.html

I never met him (except once, in passing) but my impression is that he was a genuine mystic who had some real insights of potential value to Christians - although the context he worked in was very New Age. He uses Christian language, but also other concepts which are not mainstream and may well be contradictory to scripture (e.g. reincarnation).

It is almost as if Arkle was trying to rediscover afresh and for himself Christianity (which he already knew), entirely non-scripturally from the certainties of personal mystical insight.

This is often a pride-full and power-seeking thing for someone to do - but not always; and in this instance I think Arkle was essentially sincere and non-egotistical; I think he was essentially humble and not proud.  And this is why he was able to have some genuine insights.

*

However, what results from his subjective, meditative process is - almost necessarily - idiosyncratic, eccentric, and partial - and therefore sometimes wrong and (more than usually) potentially misleading; and his whole metaphorical and symbolic structure is not presented as being literally true but as a personal expression of personal insights - as a report of how things look to him: thus it was presented by paintings, poetry and music as well as prose and teaching/ lectures.

*

Anyway, I came across a very interesting perspective in the context of Arkle's main short 'summary' work - Letter from a Father - which has the character of God trying to explain his purposes to us.

I will add bold emphasis to highlight the striking points. Excisions are marked ...

*

http://www.billarkle.co.uk/prose/letterfromafather.html

In the beginning before time was, your mother and I had a longing in our heart to share our values and the substance of our being with others who could rejoice and be glad about them as we are glad about them. So we considered how we could do this.

We realised that to make living beings directly and ready formed was one way, and to make the seeds of this, and plant them in a situation which would cause them to grow in their own way, as a gradual process, was another.

There were two things we had to bear in mind. We had to decide how important to us it was that these children were real and not remotely controlled puppets. And we had to decide how we could guide and teach them what we knew they would have to learn without them losing the position of judgement for themselves over the values which we already knew to be good. 

We ... would have to be careful not to dominate them too much or we would destroy their individual differences and the integrity of their reality. But we also understood that they would have to grow into a certain type of person if they were going to be able to understand what we had to show them and give to them.

And of course we realised that they would begin their growth as our children, but that what we really longed for was not that they should be our children, but that they should slowly mature and become our companions and friends.

For our longing was to share this undemanding gladness in other centres of being who were in harmony with us but who were truly independent individuals to us. We understood this relationship to be the most delightful, and one which was open to endless variations, and these variations seemed to us of the greatest value since they had an absolute creative context between them.

In order that your being should mature slowly and fully, we had to think of a way to bring experience to you which would awaken you without overwhelming you, and in the process of awakening you enable you all to become different in your individual ways. As you already know, the quality of wholehearted affection and the quality of integrity or stability were two of the qualities most important to understand. Knowledge, both factual and of qualities, was also a part of this. 

... the individuality of your own being was of the essence of the matter from the very beginning. You were the one who was eventually to become aware of your own uniqueness and individual value, and you were to learn to carry the responsibility that goes with this gift.

We, most of all, felt as our deepest and dearest wish, when the time came that you understood what it was that we had undertaken on your behalf, that you would be glad, and choose to take up this option we have offered to you as our most loving gift, and live together with us as your friends and helpers.

But, as you know, in the case of friendship, the relationship between the two sides must be one of perfect balance and understanding and has to be freely and spontaneously taken up and maintained.

Therefore our purpose was to bring you to a stage in your experience when you could understand what we were offering as friends, but we had to arrange for you to have an alternative open to you, for friendship and love cannot be thrust upon people or they cease to be real.

Now, if you will follow me carefully I will try to explain what the alternative was. If you have understood that our personal love and friendship was one way for you to take, then our impersonal eternal being was another way for you to take if you so chose. 

In both cases you would come to eternal life, as this was the basis of our gift, but if you did not notice or did not respond to our personal nature, then you must be in a position where you could respond to all the qualities that we hold to be valuable but which do not involve our own personal love or friendship, thus uniting with our impersonal aura or being, which is itself bathed in love. 

**

The striking idea I get from this is that the 'impersonal' religions we think of as 'Eastern' - Hinduism, Buddhism and the like - religions which lack a personal God - can be conceptualized from our Christian perspective as not so much wrong as incomplete. 

Or, they are religions deriving from the choice of accepting God as an eternal impersonal being; instead of accepting the offer of a relationship with God - in which God is a personage.

*

Thus God actually is a personage, who wants more than anything to have a loving (familial, friendly) relationship with us persons; but since a loving relationship must be chosen, there is an alternative (there must be an alternative); and the alternative (for benignly disposed people) is as good a God can contrive.

The alternative is one of us of choosing not to regard God as a person but instead choosing to regard God as an impersonal entity: an eternal force or tendency or influence. 

This is, in effect, to choose to regard God in terms of what he does, rather than what he is. 

Arkle's notion here is that this is, in fact, a path to 'salvation' - that is, a path to eternal life; but to an eternal life of a qualitatively different, and non-personal, kind. 

*

Perhaps I like this so much because it chimes with my idea that all religions are essentially honest about what they offer: all religions deliver on their promises. 

'Eastern' religions claim to deliver an impersonal kind of immortality, aspire to destruction or dissolving of the self and of attachments, regard reality as essentially im-personal and therefore regard personality as delusion, a drag, a trap. Life is suffering, consciousness is suffering - both to be escaped-from, as an ideal. 

Adherents of 'Eastern' religions want to dissolve or destroy their own personality, and do not want a personal God - and perhaps God gives them what they want; and does not give them what they do not want. 

*

Something similar was said about 'paganism' (and all other religions) by CS Lewis, that they were glimpses or partial forms of Christianity - but Arkle's idea is that the 'Eastern' impersonal path was actually provided by God, as an alternative and valid - albeit lower - form of salvation. 

The Eastern path is less than what God wants for us; but is nonetheless a gift from God to those who believe in God and in Goodness; but who choose not to accept the highest gift. These are not punished, but generously allowed to have what they most wish for. 

**

NOTE ADDED: Perhaps the reason that this idea resonated immediately with me, is that God the Father must (surely?) be at least as loving towards his children as I am to mine. On this basis, if the children of a loving God chose to decline or reject His offer of a continuing and developing personal relationship after death (and denied His fatherhood and/or personhood) I assume He would nonetheless certainly try to fix things so that His children might live after death in a relatively benign - albeit impersonal - kind of existence - in fact the best existence that they could be induced to choose. It is a sad fact that we children so often refuse to choose our Father's best offer.

The purpose of creation is everlasting creating (William Arkle)

Edited from The Resolution of Grief, an essay published in The Great Gift (1977) by William Arkle:

From what I understand, the motivation for the whole of creation is that out of it should come a number of individuals who have chosen their own unique path to individuality and therefore become true unique individuals.

The Creator longed for many of these true individuals to choose to realise 'Himself' and 'Herself' as a father and mother and as a friend; should choose to relate to this Creator as a friend, not so much as a God, but more as a friend.

The more we grow in our understanding of our own reality and 'the gift', and the attitude behind the gift, from the Creator's position, the more we shall become able to take up this position of divine friendship with our Creator as well as with one another.

We shall be able to take up this position of divine friendship because, in our desire to read the heart of the Creator, we shall become more and more certain that it is the deepest thing that the Creator longs for. 

And with any friend this is the only motive we have - it is to read the deepest level of their Being and help to fulfil for them the deepest longings in their Being. This is what friends long to do for one another. It is a very creative activity, and out of it comes an endless series of creative attitudes and creative activities.


Notes from BGC:

This is apparently a very different understanding of God's motivation than most religious people have held throughout history. This is the insight that God wants that there be more gods with whom he can can live in loving and creative 'friendship'.

(Although friendship as commonly used is too weak a word - a model for this friendship is an ideal and eternal version of the love between grown-up children and their parents; this extended family working together - and with other families - on all the tasks and joys of living.)

This is a personal motivation of God; and God is therefore envisaged as a person - indeed as two  persons: the primal Father and Mother.

This entails that at the very bottom of reality, at the most fundamental level; reality consists of Beings; and the most important thing about the Beings is their relationships - specifically their love. And the most important thing that these loving Beings do is creating.

So 'the creation' is actually an 'ing' not an 'ion' - creation wasn't done, it is doing; and the hope of God is that we will choose to become - like our Heavenly parents - engaged in that doing.

This raises the point of 'true individuals', and that they cannot be 'made' but at most 'encouraged' and 'educated'. This world is made as a place where people can each have the experiences they most need to learn from (if they so choose), to learn and grow towards fuller godhood.

The need of creation is for individuals who are capable of love and have chosen love; and who are also capable of true creation - which is (to be valuable) something to which each individual brings something unique...

We create from our uniqueness. Being an individual is an essential part of the plan; in other words, God has as many plans as individuals - and each plan is a collaboration.

Therefore, the nature of this world is such as to encourage each of us to develop that creative uniqueness - within a context of love.
 

Christians attributing false motivations to God (William Arkle)

The superstitious attitude assumes that there is some cunning and perverted consciousness presiding over all our acts and, if we fail to keep to the special and secret rules, this presiding entity causes unpleasant things to happen to us and to our loved ones.

This sort of thing concerns touching wood, sitting thirteen people at a table, spilling salt, breaking mirrors, putting up umbrellas in the house, wearing certain colours at a wedding and many, many other peculiar activities.

These are at first harmless and childish thoughts, but they do become more serious when they enter the filed of a religion. The examples one can give in this context are many. They start with offerings and supplications and they finish up with the ideas that dispensation can be bough from God with hard cash.

There is no doubt that the teaching of the fear of the Lord has much to do with this, but there is still a great deal of pagan and demoniac thinking behind a lot of outwardly religious observances and ceremonies. This type of attitude leads into the one which considers that God is not only capable of knowing and judging our smallest act and thought, but that He considers each one important enough to merit separate and distinct response in the form of applause or rebuke.

Then there is the attitude which considers that our acts are secret enough that they will not come within the realm of any sort of judgement either from man or God.

There is also the attitude of science which sees everything as 'mechanical' cause and effect.

Lastly, there is that vague frame of mind, which many of us are in, which accepts that we have runs of good and bad luck.


Most of us oscillate between the idea of luck and the idea that somewhere along the line we get what we deserve, but have no picture in our minds of how these processes can work.

We must, if we are going to attempt to understand seriously our position in the scheme of nature, try to construct some system of reciprocal effect which is neither purely mechanical nor dependent upon the constant personal attention of God.

From A Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle (1974) - Justice - Section 2

Notes:

This passage by William Arkle has had a big impact on me, because it made me realise that I myself was prone to attribute adverse events to 'bad luck', and to get worried about saying things that are 'tempting fate', without thinking what this implied.

Because much of this kind of superstitious belief implies a malicious God, a God quite contrary to what Jesus revealed of God's nature - and in stark contrast to what any of us can know about God by reflection and direct personal intuition.

Indeed, superstition is a demonic lure, a habit that poisons and degrades our relationship with God. Any God that would inflict suffering in response to someone expressing gratitude at his current good fortune ('tempting ftae') is not the Christian God. But in fact attributing false motivations to is common among Christians - for various reasons.

One reason is there is a great deal of this kind of thing in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament - describing God's motivations, or indirectly implying motivations of God, that would be unworthy of any loving mortal human Father. But because of the idea that canonical scripture is inerrant, many Christians feel obliged to incorporate this into their faith.

At worst this degrades and inverts the understanding of God's nature; often it leads to an attitude that only expert theologians can understand what God wants from us - meaning that Christian faith is reliant upon the (nowadays corrupted) traditions of academic scholarship; and even at best, it leads to the imputation of a false 'mystery' concerning God's motivations.

Yet if there is One Thing about which all Christians should be crystal clear, it is the Goodness, Lovingness of God's motivations - and (the incarnation, example and teaching of Jesus tells us) this Loving Goodness of God's nature is an amplification to the extreme of ordinary mortal human virtue - therefore understandable by anyone capable of understanding (even children and the simple-minded).

Many Christians are (understandably) extremely wary of critiquing the validity of any part of scripture, on the basis that even a little of this will lead to the kind of picking and choosing that have led Liberal Christians to apostasy; and to the unravelling of the whole tapestry of doctrine. (This is why I regard it as important that scripture be regarded hierarchically, with the Fourth Gospel at the pinnacle of authority.) But in this as nearly all things, motivation is the key. What is wrong with mainstream Liberal Christianity is its covertly-evil motivation.

By contrast, challenging scripture is necessary for all serious Christians in the modern age (where all institutions including churches are significantly, sometimes mostly, corrupted). Selecting and prioritising in scripture is therefore A Good Thing; insofar as the motivation is genuinely Christian.

Which is why Christians need to evaluate scripture in light of their own direct, inner knowledge of God's nature and by direct and personal revelations. It is the fact that we are God's children, with divinity in each of us; and that everyone potentially has access to revelations of the Holy Ghost, that enables each individual validly to evaluate any claim about Christianity.

The difficulty is that each evaluation needs to be from our divine self, and not from our superficial or expedient personality aspects; and that we need really to listen to the direct conviction derived from the Holy Ghost, and not to equate revelation with mainstream media/ political ideology. But revelation is self-validating for any person that is honest with himself - and whether or not such conviction can be argued or justified to others is a secondary matter. 

Arkle explained to me that 'God the creator is our loving Father' ought to be the primary conviction and guiding principle of a Christian - and any 'evidence' (whether from scripture, church authority, tradition or theology) which contradicts with this principle needs to be rejected.

Christians need not tie ourselves in knots over this - simply check any significant statement against our understanding of the attitude of an ideal loving Father or Mother towards his or her children - taking into account that that these divine children are immortal beings destined to be (if they choose) gods; and not merely the earth-bound mortal animals, that mainstream modern materialism tells us we are.  

Try and see it from God's point of view...

That we should try and understand creation from God's point of view was a recurrent theme in the work of William Arkle - and one of the valuable things I got from reading him. 

In particular, I found it useful to consider why God created in the first place - what was God trying to achieve by it? 

But the imaginative exercise also highlights several vital metaphysical assumptions that must be made prior to the procedure. 

For instance; Christians know (or ought to know) that we are like God and God like us in some very fundamental ways - for instance, because Jesus (a Man) was fully divine, and because Men are described as Sons of God. 

It is this sameness of kind that makes it a valid exercise. 

If, on the other hand, we regard God as qualitatively different from us - than the exercise must be misleading. But then, it seems not to be Christian to insist on absolute difference. 

 

When we identify with God before creation, in broad terms God's motivator seems to be something-like loneliness; and God's overarching purpose seems to be to make companions... 

And the best possible companions are similar but not identical, free and agent 'divine friends' who are bound-together by love and a common (overall) purpose - for which we have the earthly-mortal analogy of the best kind of human family.

That is, 'creation' is about making individuals and situations, the-result-of-which is intended to be: more Beings of the same kind, and at 'the same level', as God. 

Also, we need to decide whether or not God was single and utterly alone before creation. 

And if not alone, then with whom? Another god or gods, presumably - by which I mean, others who are different/distinct Beings of the same kind and level.  

This is especially relevant because if God was a solitary god before creation; then He could not actually love until after he had created. 

This makes a big difference - because if God was initially alone, then embarking on creation seems likely to be necessarily of a self-gratifying, gratuitous, 'playful' and indeed experimental act - indeed this was how Arkle eventually seemed to regard it.  

(Arkle regarded god as initially one - then dividing into Heavenly Parents, and then further to procreate Jesus Christ, who contained both the male and female aspects.)

I have not thought-through the implications of multiple god; but my own conviction is that God's original situation was dyadic: a Heavenly Father and Mother. And it was from their mutual love that creation originated.  

In other words, before creation there was both the loneliness of Heavenly Parents as the only divine Beings; and also the experience hence knowledge of love, which pointed the way ahead to a creation of more-and-more divine Beings living (and creating) in a harmony rooted in love. 

A creation rooted in the experience of love is not gratuitous, nor a game; and is 'experimental' only in terms of creation being a trying-out of various means towards a known end.  

And such a creation is understood to be open-ended (endlessly expansible); because the more loving divine companions that eventuate: the better. Each - being different - adds to the totality ad potential of creation. 

Yet because all such divine companion Beings are harmonized by love; then there is no limit to how many can be integrated in the 'project' of creation. The more the better!

What is Love? (For Christians)

Love is the most important thing for Christians, the primary reality (as it relates to all that is Good) - yet Christians have mostly been terribly confused about the metaphysics, that is the deepest level of understanding about, Love.

This is because of the Greek and Roman classical philosophy into which Christianity was squeezed and twisted in the early years of the church - which make something that ought to be, needs to be, clear - into something abstract, paradoxical and sometimes just incoherent.

(For example, the first commandment is to love God - yet the God of classical theology is all-but un-loveable - being mostly a collection of incomprehensible abstractions such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, one-ness and indivisibility; unchanging, wanting nothing, without passions or desires, living outside of time etc. One might rationally submit to such a God, but how to love him?)

What follows are notes on how I currently make (ultimate) sense of Love - for what it's worth.

Conjugal love has primacy: that is, love between husband and wife; and from this all other love derives.

So, the first love was between God, our Heavenly Parents - and from this came the love between God the Father and the Mother and their children, of their children towards the divine parents , between their children (i.e. love of 'neighbour'); and the love of creation... all of which eventuated from this first loving union.

Or, the first creative act was the voluntary mutual love of our Heavenly Father and Mother.

That was the model of all other loves - and the source of all cohesion and cooperation and creativity.

Love is therefore active, dynamic, purposive - hence creative. Therefore Life and Reality is an unfolding, a development, a growth and an increase...

So love has a past, present and future; it is a living quality that gives rise to all positive qualities, it is the source of harmony - potentially in everything (and that which is outside the love by choice, is outside the harmony - alone); and the nature of everything comes from the nature of love.

**

From this can be seen that the Classical Christian errors relate to love being conceptualised as static or unchanging, being unitary and unsexed. These errors are partly addressed by the mystical doctrine of the Trinity (making deity multiple and dynamic, while somehow still unitary and unchanging), and also by the Catholic theology of Mary the Mother of God (to reintroduce the feminine, and the reality of two sexes) - but not fully addressed; and only at the cost of complexity, confusion and difficulty/ impossibility of understanding. This has sufficed to satisfy many in the past - but the problems are nonetheless intractable. 

I believe that love - for Christians - ought to be (if properly understood) simple, lucid, universally comprehensible - love at the divine level ought to be known as of the same nature and quality (if not scope and power) as human love. 

The main post is dependent upon the validity of the revelations of the Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith; as validated by the following general Authorities of the Mormon Church - although not necessarily what many or most Mormons currently believe. William Arkle has also been a big influence.  http://williamarkle.blogspot.co.uk
 

Ultimate justifications for eternal living

One of the great contributions made by William Arkle to my own philosophy of living is to bring to the centre of concern, the question of what we would want to do forever, for eternity - The question of what could possibly satisfy us everlastingly? 

In his writing (and art) Arkle conjures a friendly and accessible God who is a real Father (and Mother) to us, and creates with our best long-term - indeed eternal - interests in his heart. 

Arkle therefore invites us to make the thought experiment of such a divine parent who wants his children to be motivated and fulfilled in an eternal life; and to consider what kind of life that might be - what kind of life is divine creation aiming-at? 

When I make this thought experiment, my conclusion is that there are significant differences in what people want in their mortal life; and that there are also differences in what people seem to want for eternity.  

Some people have what seems like a very deep sense of fatigue about living; and seem to want an eternity of 'rest' - much like being dreamlessly-asleep - an eternity when nothing happens. 

Others seem to want an eternity of joyous contemplation; a continuous state of gratitude, worship; a perpetuation of that aesthetic arrest when we fall in love, experience great good fortune, or encounter something of overwhelming beauty... We just want to stay in exactly this state, forever. 

So both of these want an eternal state to be unchanging - although the first wants to be unconscious, unaware (or barely aware) of his own existence; while the second want to be consciously aware of his own existence - but continuously and without-fading immersed in happiness, appreciation, gratitude. 

But among those who want an active eternity; the answer probably depends on their time horizon, and their capacity for anticipating what things would actually be like. Some desire a 'paradise'-life in which they repeatedly-and-forever do the kind of thing they most enjoy on earth - e.g. eating, sex, or something sinful - but without ever getting used to it, without experiencing the 'habituation' or 'tolerance' that makes repetition so unsatisfactory in mortal life. 

This, then, paradise is an eternal present - and eternity without memory; where each 'day' (or cycle) is started afresh and unfading. 

In paradise there could be no sense of 'self', and no developmental progression; because that depends on linear continuity hence memory; so what is desired is an 'arrested development' - to be fixed as a certain type of person at a certain stage in life (child, adolescent, young adult etc), doing a certain type of pleasurable activity, again and again - forever.. but not to know that this is what is happening. It is rather like being reborn every day - but reborn as the kind of person one wants to be. 

Paradise is a life of continual play; in which the situation is one in which we and the situation are set-up such that we never get fed-up of playing - but it remains maximally satisfying.  

 

But none of the above constitute the idea of Heaven as I understand it. In Heaven, eternity is for creating; and creating is distinguished from 'playing' because creation comes from love. So the set-up of Heaven is one in which there are many people, and they are bound together by love; and this love overflows into creating. 

This vision of eternity comes from people (such as myself) who feel that the most profound experiences of life, which would never ever fail to satisfy, are those experiences of creating - in which that which is created is appreciated by those we love and those who love what we love.

'Creation' (in this sense) ranges very widely indeed, from more obvious things like creating new appreciations, understandings and insights; to making things and performing arts; to the creating involved in a continuing marriage, or in playing games with one's children... 

There is no limit to the kinds of things this involves - but in mortal life such creating is contaminated with mad motives (seeking status, power, to manipulate etc), and by the fatigue and entropy of our condition. For creating to become eternal we would need purity of loving motivation and endlessly-renewed energies from love (not from other, lower, sources) - so, it is these which must distinguish a creative-Heaven from this mortal life. 

Such thought experiments may be of great value, if one can persist with them to keep asking 'and what then?' after each answer you give yourself. 

Eventually you may work down through superficial half-answers to reach the solid ground of what would be eternally satisfying to you, personally. 

And then explore the consequences of that.     

Why is there something rather than nothing; or, what is creation For?

The above are examples of metaphysical questions concerning the fundamental nature of reality. 

And you can see that the question asked already presupposes something - there is no single ultimate first question. 

One who asks why there is something rather than nothing has already made an assumption that nothing was the original condition, and that therefore there needs to be a reason for something. This invites a response along the lines of explaining why a deity - that existed before creation - made the stuff of reality. 

I, by contrast, assume that there always has been something. Therefore, for me, a fundamental question is about the purpose of creation. What is creation for?

I am already assuming that something always has-been, and that we live in 'a creation' with purpose - and that therefore there is a personal God. 

I am asking, therefore, what God aimed at with creation: what did God want?

How did I come to ask this question, to regard it as fundamental;  - since I certainly did not do so form most of my life?

With such fundamental questions it is often difficult to recognize what you personally regard as most fundamental. 

Much of philosophy through the ages consists of "other people's problems", but not mine; it consists of trying to persuade other people (i.e. me) that there is a problem; and that such-and-such is the most important question. 

This is why so much of philosophy is irrelevant, and leaves most people stone-cold and indifferent - you must have experienced this? 

I remember first reading standard philosophy texts, and being repelled by the assumptions of what was fundamental - when my own concerns were very different. 

Philosophy came to life only when it addressed what I personally regarded as important questions. 

Thus Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was the first to excite me; because it addressed what my seventeen-year-old self regarded as most urgently important - and was seeking what I would regard as the kind of answer I needed.  

The value of philosophy comes from the excitement of reading a problem stated and recognizing a shared concern - a shared sense of what is important. 

"Here is a fellow spirit!" is the feeling - here is someone who who sees life in the same kind of way that I do, who experiences the same kind of problems.  

When I read the opening passage of William Arkle's Letter from a Father, I had just this kind of feeling:

My Dear Child, 

In the beginning before time was, your mother and I had a longing in our heart to share our values and the substance of our being with others who could rejoice and be glad about them as we are glad about them. So we considered how we could do this. 

We realised that to make living beings directly and ready formed was one way, and to make the seeds of this, and plant them in a situation which would cause them to grow in their own way, as a gradual process, was another. 

There were two things we had to bear in mind. We had to decide how important to us it was that these children were real and not remotely controlled puppets. And we had to decide how we could guide and teach them what we knew they would have to learn without them losing the position of judgement for themselves over the values which we already knew to be good. 

We had to think of a system in which we could sow these potentialities of our own being as individual units so that they would grow and realise their potentialities as actual abilities. In the process we would have to be careful not to dominate them too much or we would destroy their individual differences and the integrity of their reality. 

But we also understood that they would have to grow into a certain type of person if they were going to be able to understand what we had to show them and give to them. 

And of course we realised that they would begin their growth as our children, but that what we really longed for was not that they should be our children, but that they should slowly mature and become our companions and friends. For our longing was to share this undemanding gladness in other centres of being who were in harmony with us but who were truly independent individuals to us. 

We understood this relationship to be the most delightful, and one which was open to endless variations, and these variations seemed to us of the greatest value since they had an absolute creative context between them. 

I mean that when we had companions who had matured to this position, and had decided to accept your mother and myself as their friends, and one another as friends, then there would be an endless variety of possibilities for future projects of creation in which we could all share and which would give us tremendous enjoyment in the doing of them together. 

For we are not limited in any way that matters and there is nothing that we could not try out as an experiment so long as it seemed to us to have in it that integrity and affection which is the very basis of our nature.

*

I found the language strange - making, sowing and planting 'seeds', 'potentialities of being', 'centres of being' etc. - but these usages seemed to be eccentric and naïve yet sincere (rather than pretentious, designed to impress - as philosophy so often tends to be). 

The phrase For we are not limited in any way that matters was very striking and memorable to me - it's hard to explain why. 

But mostly, I was captivated by the idea of God - as a 'dyad' of Heavenly Parents - brooding on what was wanted from creation. 

Arkle's was offering a God-centred understanding of creation - which I found at first astonishing, then clarifying; finally absolutely necessary and obvious!

This is what metaphysical-level philosophy can do when it chimes with inner motivations and needs. It can lead the way to un-asking a fundamental question that is experienced as irrelevant; and pointing to another and much more fruitful foundational question. 

Instead of a picture of God creating everything from nothing; I now have a picture of Heavenly parents brooding on what should be the purpose of creation. 

And for me that was A Key.