The continuous necessity for spiritual discernment - and its relationship with metaphysics and revelation

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The question of discernment - the ability to distinguish between Good and evil (virtue and vice; beauty and ugliness; truth and lies) - is an ever-more-crucial ability in the modern world.

Why so crucial? Because the modern world is more deceptive than any society has ever been in the history of the world - and ever-more-deceptive.

We swim in a sea of the denial not just of divine revelations, but of basic common sense - and not just denial but inversion, where pervasive propaganda simply assumes that all the polarities have been reversed.

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And this situation of moral-, aesthetic- and truth-inversion encompasses most of the major Christian churches - as can be confirmed by looking at the focus of ethical concerns in charitable work, the architecture of new church buildings, the bureaucratic prose of church discourse.

As a generalization, Christian churches are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

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So the problem of discernment starts, for the Christian, straight after conversion; because the fledgling Christian (feathers hardly dry!) needs to find a church or immediately evaluate the church into which he converted, and often needs to detach himself from it and seek a church which is not actively harmful.

Because the situation is that the individual cannot rely on the church for guidance with respect to the most crucial (litmus test) issues in modern society  without violating what would seem to be basic Christian principles, as well as common sense understanding of realities.

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All this throws a very heavy burden on individual discernment, and in a world where the level of spiritual development is usually very low -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/characteristics-of-discernment.html 

The question is whether the individual can - even in principle - exercise this degree of discernment - especially given that modern people are generally so much more thoroughly and complexly corrupted than people were in the past.

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The answer depends on metaphysics, theology and doctrine. 

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My initial understanding of the problem of discernment came from the Eastern Orthodox tradition via Fr Seraphim Rose, and my understanding is that from the perspective of this tradition - our modern situation is almost hopeless.

(Hopeless, at least, for the Western convert who must choose a church, and who has a choice of churches; but all vestigial, weak and scattered, and designed for other ethnicities.)

Orthodoxy has a very low estimate of individual discernment - since we are fallen Men and fatally prone to Pride, and regards spiritual guidance by a more spiritually advanced elder (himself having been guided by a chain of apprenticeship stretching back to the church Fathers, Saints and Apostles) as almost essential to spiritual progress (theosis) - or even to simply staying within the bounds of salvation.

Yet such spiritual Fathers are now extinctt, and the lineage has been broken (at least, in most of the world including the West). Furthermore the Orthodox Church is riven by controversies and schisms, and it is not at all clear to discernment where the truth lies, and which branch to join...

In sum, Orthodoxy regards discernment as vital, but emphasizes the high probability of error and self-deception and demonic deception - and yet the modern situation requires the individual to exercise one discernment after another before settling upon some person or group to whom obedience is to be accorded - and this seems to me a very un-Orthodox situation since it involves self-conscious individual choice piled-upon individual choice, at every level up to the final (hoped for) submission to the guidance of some chosen person or sub-institution.

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This problem is essentially that for the 'catholic' spirituality, salvation and Good are within the church. But the question 'where is the church?' (i.e. the real, significant mystical church) is a matter for individual discernment - and there is no theological basis for assuming that Men can exercise the necessary discernment to establish where the church actually IS.

As far as I can determine this is a fundamental and insoluble weakness of the catholic tradition when it is not monolithic - on the one hand it denies the human capability for discernment; yet on the other hand there are situations where there is no alternative, a forced-choice - and discernment is non-optionally required. People are put into a position where they must choose, yet they are told that they are incapable of choosing.

In sum the catholic traditions - in conditions of conversion, schism, heresy, church weakness or diversity and corruption - seem to place adherents in a double bind.

(Any catholics who do not feel this double bind are fortunate and should just get on with things without reflecting on this matter - but there is no doubt of the reality of the double bind for many people in many situations.)

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Why is discernment so difficult a process? Why would be humans made such that they are in an almost impossible predicament? - surrounded by error and lacking a reliable inner compass: indeed with an inner compass that is regarded as intrinsically corrupt and deceptive!

Ultimately the extreme difficulty of discernment is therefore a product of the theological perspective on the nature of Man.

If Man were regarded as wholly good then there would no problem of discernment - but no need for it either! This is perhaps a utopian version of the modern secular position. 

If Man were wholly depraved, then he could not be trusted to make any decision but must simply obey - this is seen in non-Christian monotheism, and in 'Christian' denominations where the emphasis is strongly on the utter depravity of Man - that Man is completely helpless in sin, and must be rescued from this state without any decision or action from himself (because he is incapable of any correct decision  or action). 

(I put scare quotes around Christian in the above sentence because this perspective is incompatible with Christianity if it were actually to be implemented - but in practice it almost never is implemented even by those who most stridently insist upon it, such as some Calvinists. In theory, extreme predestinarian Calvinistic or similar views are not Christian, but in actual practice some of the very best Christians have been Calvinists or similar.)

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The obvious answer is that Men must be, and indeed are, a mixture of Good and evil; neither capable of saving themselves unaided, nor utterly helpless - and in such a world discernment in necessary from the word go, at many levels, and without end. 

The Christian life just is one discernment after another, and if we cannot trust anyone else to do the discernment for us, or we don't understand their advice - we must do it ourselves  - or rather, more strongly, we will necessarily do the discernment ourselves, since choices are forced yet have consequences.
 
Discernment is not easy, but it is possible - any Christian must know that it is possible, because our loving God would not leave us without the necessary guidance - un-obvious as that guidance may seem to us in our world of illusions and deceptions. 

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Discernment is not like the decision flow chart of a bureaucrat, it is a series of suggestions for the Christian to try-out - titrating the results against the certainty of the heart. 

The Christian must believe in the integrity of the heart in everyone; that everyone has an incorruptible core - even if it is a feeble and distorted residue. This reality of the heart is what enables discernment, and makes it rational to praise good and blame evil. 

For many modern people theosis has very little to do with becoming a Saint - that is far, far beyond us; but mostly to do with developing clarity of discernment, the ability to monitor the evaluations of our inner and uncorrupted heart: bringing the ability to know Good from evil despite whatever confusions are placed in our path - to know this if not instantly and infallibly, then always sufficiently and following appropriate consideration.

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At root, everything depends on individual human discernment... Then what?

The modern condition derives from the realisation (whether explicit or covert) that at root everything, all possible knowledge, depends on human individual discernment: that is personal judgement.

No other source of knowledge (neither church not state) will suffice - since the authority of any and every possible source itself depends on discernment.

No external authority or consensus can replace discernment, because there must first be a judgement as to whether that authority or consensus is valid. Therefore individual responsibility is ultimate; and no Man can plead that he was merely following orders by deferring to another - because he at least chose whose orders to follow.

(In the past, it was possible to avoid the recognition that all depended on discernment, because most people were immersed-in and inculcated-with a single specific external perspective from birth; and no alternative was available. But once the non-conscious cycle of monolithic indoctrination is broken, once consciousness has been activited and the individual regards his-self as distinguishable from the group-mind- then that innocent state becomes impossible.)

No Man can now escape responsibility by pointing at an institution, person, book, law or process (like 'science', or democracy or any other kind of voting); because the authority of that book or law and its interpretation was itself likewise a product of judgement - and he knows it.

The reaction to this slowly dawning recognition of dependence on discernment has been extremely varied - from religion based upon exactly this discernment, to a nihilism which denies that validity of of all purpose, meaning and reality itself; and in the middle numerous incoherent pseudo doctrines reasserting the primary of external authority in ways that (fairly obviously) do not convince even those who argue for them.

My own view is that everything really is dependent on individual discernment, and this insight or reality should be embraced and carried-through to a stable and solid basis for life. The problem is that people have the initial insight - then stop thinking.

Most people when the insight dawns (during adolescence) that everything depends on discernment - metaphorically throw up their hands; and either lapse into a nihilism which implicitly regards discernment as a contingent and arbitrary process and denies any validity to discernment; or else they react-against the insight by subordinating themselves to some external authority while denying that they have used discernment in making this decision. (They consciously make an act of discernment to recognise primary authority; then try to forget and deny that primary act of discernment.)

The correct answer and a coherent attitude comes from accepting the reality and fundamental nature of discernment - and exploring its nature and implications; not ceasing exploration until the answer we have - in broad brush if not in every last detail - has itself been validated by discernment.

At that point we have escaped paradox, nihilism and the arbitrary; and found a secure basis for our own Life.

But each Man must do this for himself - and if reaching a stable basis takes a lifetime, then a lifetime is what must be allocated to the quest; because nothing is more important.

This just is an inescapable consequence of the primacy of discernment (or rather, the consequence can be escaped only negatively - i.e. by not thinking, by forgetting or distraction.

The difference between old-fashioned discernment, and Romantic Christianity

There is a sense in which all Christians have always practiced "discernment". 

That is, Christians could only seldom - and never continuously - live in complete and perfect obedience to The Church (whatever that church might be). Because the situations of life are specific, while rules are general; and because there was always a degree (sometimes a very large degree) of disunity (or at least ambiguity) among the statements and instructions of church authorities. 

So people might not know exactly what to do, and would need to make up their own minds; or people would have to decide who to obey when contradictory instructions were given - and so forth. 

But this kind of discernment acknowledged that ultimately - legitimate authority lay externally from each Man - in the church - mediated by the church, not the individual person; and that therefore discernment was being used to discover the true nature of that authority. 

The core purpose of ancient unity was a life of obedience. 

This ancient kind of discernment was essentially passive and partly unconscious - indeed, it had something of the quality of an 'unfortunate necessity'. Ideally, as little discernment as possible would be necessary in life - because church guidance was clear and unified, and people would be naturally obedient. 

And when life did not change much from one generation to another: such an ideal could be approached closely. 

Indeed, the ideal of ancient discernment was to forget itself, and to assume that the Christian life was a life of simple obedience to the church; unchanging and clear guidance for in navigating-through the recurrent, repeating, problems of human life. 

At all costs, awareness of the discernment of individual persons was not supposed to extend to a sense of active responsibility for one's salvation and conducting life. The desired discernment was externally-directed, towards discovering the true-source of guidance within the church - and was not striving to be self-aware.   

The consciousnesses of modern Men are differently constituted; and this affects both laymen and priests, those within and outside the churches: all churches.

Overwhelmingly; Modern Man experiences himself (whether he likes it or not) as starting from the situation of being cut-off from the institutions of his society. His condition is one of alienation.

He no longer takes institutions for granted, can no longer un-consciously follow their guidance, can no longer actually-be passive and obedient merely. 

This alienation, cut-offness, is now simply taken for granted as the basis of our society, in multiple forms of discourse. It does not need arguing - it is just assumed as a situation, as a problem. 

Life is experienced as choices; and these choices impinge on consciousness - we choose and are aware that we choose. 

Such awareness permeates modern discourse - it is the subject matter of the vast bulk of modern stories and narratives - such that we simply take it for granted. Yet to experience life as multiple choices is recent, modern; and was not an aspect of ancient human life (except maybe for a very few exceptional individuals). 

What this modern consciousness means is that the ancient discernment is not possible. 

I would also argue that ancient discernment is not desirable either; that ancient discernment is now "not a good thing" - but the fact of its impossibility is one reason why striving for it is not desirable.

But what we have nowadays instead of ancient discernment is self-blinding and dishonesty. In other words people who claim to be anciently-discerning are actually obscuring their own acts of conscious discernment (perhaps by not-thinking, by distraction, by projection...) - or else they know they are consciously discerning but lie about the fact - maybe for exploitative, maybe for manipulative reasons.   

At the very least; ancient discernment is nowadays something chosen, rather than something spontaneous; it is something we are aware or doing (or, more often, as aspiring to do) rather than something so natural that it Just Happens. 

What Romantic Christianity does is to recognize the change in consciousness; and to assume (from an understanding of world history, and the nature of the divine plan) that this change was of-God. 

In other words; modern man's consciousness is different because (and in so far as) God wants it that way - for our own good, for the good of our actual, specific souls; as these were incarnated into this mortal life. 

God wants for us to make conscious choices, and to know we are doing so: and to take responsibility for doing so! 

God does not want for us not-to-think, to distract or suppress awareness; to pretend that 'nothing has happened' and that the religious life Now is the same as for a Catholic peasant in the Christian-permeated (no-alternatives) societies of the Middle Ages. 

God does not want us to be dishonest with ourselves or with others - even (especially!) when this dishonesty is self-justified as a "necessary lie" for the public good... Does not want that we try and pretend that our Christian life can be, or is; one of 'simple obedience' to a church whose ultimate goodness and authority should simply be taken for granted. 

Surely? God wants for us to be honest: therefore wants us to be honest about our situation - and honest that it is what it is. 

Nowadays discernment is far more necessary, more frequent; and far more conscious - than ever in the past; and this Just Has overturned the earlier ideal of the Christian life as being one of passive, unconscious, self-forgetful obedience to an external institution - A Church.  

We now actually-have (like it or not) an active role in chiseling-out our own path through life. We are aware of being personally responsible for many discernments about which we could, in the past, have been unconscious. 

Our situation is what it is, our discernment ought to be active, we should take full responsibility for the necessary and frequent choices of Christian living, and we should strive-for, and explicitly acknowledge, the fullest-possible consciousness of all this! 

That is perhaps one fundamental assumption of "Romantic Christianity": deliberately taking conscious and personal responsibility for that which - in the past - were often matters of obedience to an external (ideal) institution.  

Characteristics of discernment

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What is the characteristic of a person of discernment: someone who perceives the truth among errors and lies, and is able to reject even the most cunning deceptions on the one hand, and spiritual pride on the other hand?

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Discernment is quantitative, a matter of degree.

Even among Saints and Holy Elders there are degrees of discernment - only the highest and Holiest are infallible in discernment.

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Persons of great and reliable discernment are not always to be found.

Indeed, such an ability is so rare as to be almost absent in the modern world; we are all prone to appalling lapses of judgement - yet of course we must judge.

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(No natural means of judgement suffice - for example, although we cannot trust reason because it partial and fallible, neither can we trust gut feelings. Neither is revelation sufficiently plain and specific to be a clear guide to the corrupted soul in times of devious temptation.)

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Discernment is not an optional extra - it is of the essence; and yet because truth is a middle way and a narrow path there is no default, no safe option.

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Clearly discernment is not attained by philosophy, nor by science, nor by sensitivity to the feelings of others, nor by arrogance nor hatred.

These negatives are easy and straightforward.

But what is the positive?


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Discernment is straightforward, but of extraordinary difficulty.

Discernment is attained through Holiness, which is precisely what we lack.

Is that a paradox? No, because it tells us what we must do (non-optionally) and enough about how to proceed.

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We need to be aware of the need for discernment, of our own lack of discernment, and what is necessary to solve problems of discernment.

We know what not to do (not to do what comes naturally, not to depend on logic, not to take an opinion poll), and we know what we should do (strive for greater Holiness).

Whether we achieve sufficient Holiness to attain necessary discernment is itself a choice; not entirely a choice, but necessarily a choice.

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Traditional/ Orthodox Church-led Christianity is now impossible - and people are (literally) fooling-themselves to think otherwise

When I became a Christian; I following CS Lewis's advice and went to the nearest branch of the tradition into-which I had been baptised. This rapidly unravelled as I realised that the Church of England was split and at-war, and my local branch was firmly on the wrong side.

After a while of trying to find a (not dying and spiritually-helpful) place in the Anglican communion and Roman Catholic Church - and failing to escape endemic debate and fighting; I tried to avoid this whole arena of dispute by trying to become Eastern Orthodox, which I understood to be based on Tradition. I just wanted to believe and do what the church said - and leave myself out of it...

However, I found exactly the same bitter division and dispute going right through Orthodoxy, wherever I looked. I was driven to use personal discernment again and again...

And gradually I realised that we moderns cannot be orthodox or traditional - for us to live in mere obedience to The Church is impossible - because there is no The Church (without first discerning what that is...), there are only layers upon layers of dispute and disagreement. In All churches and without exception.

We simply cannot escape the requirement to use our own personal discernment again and again...

Then I thought - if this is indeed the situation everywhere and for everybody, there must be a reason. God must have made things this way (he would not leave us bereft). And the reason seems to be that this is our task and duty - we are bred as individuals, and we must be Christians as individuals whether we like it or not.

Orthodoxy and Tradition and self-effacing obedience are only possible when they are taken for granted. Here and Now they are Not taken for granted - and therefore we need to live as Christians by our own discernment, taking responsibility for our own salvation and theosis.

We have-to do this, and we are doing it - all of us. 

And we therefore need to be honest and clear about the fact - and do it well and openly, rather than covertly and in a state of self-denial.

Orthodoxy/ Tradition/ Obedience are not just impossible - they are not even optimal. They have not been possible or optimal since about 1800 - but man has failed to grasp the necessity to remain Christian, and really-real Christian; while becoming a new kind of Christian.

This is Not liberalisation, because it is not an excuse to ditch Christianity and replace it with Radical/ Leftist politics and the Sexual Revolution as life priorities.

We must be Christianly-motivated - honestly so; and we must take personal responsibility for the individual discernment that (anyway) we cannot avoid making: so we should make it a focus, make it explicit, make discernment clear to ourselves: that discernment is the basis of any and all possible Christain lives, here-and-now.

There is no other honest alternative.
 

Note added: To clarify, I am Not saying that the churches are obsolete or should be discarded or that real Christians should leave their churches... I Am saying that real church-Christians actually-are using their personal discernment to evaluate their churches, and to decide what to do, what not to do, which side to take, who is to be trusted, who is a demonic infiltrator and so forth. In other words, real Christians cannot (here-and-now) simply obey The Church, cannot 'passively' be ruled-by The Church, cannot opt-out of using personal discernment again-and-again - in sum, they cannot accord The Church ultimate authority over their personal salvation and theosis. And the same applies (from a Protestant perspective) to The Bible -- personal discernment must and will be used in choosing a translation (or in learning the original language - in discerning the meaing and context of words and phrases), in understanding and interpreting The Bible in terms of history (whose history?); in deciding which scholarship is necessary, which to believe and which to ignore. So I am first making a negative point - and the positive point which follows is that we can and should have faith that our powers of discernment are adequate to this task (because our God of love and power would not leave any single one of his children bereft of true-guidance, and if guidance is not to be trusted in the social or institutional environmment (as is the case), then we can be sure that true-guidance *will* be found by each man who seeks it).

My conversion and the necessity for discernment

When I became a Christian aged 49; under the influence of CS Lewis and following his advice, I simply joined the nearest Church of England congregation, and immediately arranged to be confirmed (I had been baptised as a child).

To help confirmation I joined a discussion group at another CoE church down the road.


At this point I simply accepted that being a Christian meant joining, and pledging obedience to, some church or another; so that whatever I was asked to promise in the confirmation ceremony must be right. Anywhere I disagreed, I must change, and it was my job to work towards church doctrine.

So I found no problem in making the confirmation oaths.

Nowadays, I could not do this; partly because I was very quickly forced into discernment among the profoundly disagreeing, mutually hostile, factions of the Church of England, with the two churches I was attending being on opposite and hostile sides.


(This was very fortunate; because in most places in England all Church of England congregations are on the anti-Christian side; I was lucky enough to have a real Christian Anglican church within a mile of my home.)


This situation of 'my' two churches being on opposite sides of the battle, meant that I personally needed to discern (as a matter of urgency) which side was right and which was wrong. I could not be guided by passive obedience to any external standard without prejudging the issue of whose guidance to follow. Even the theological authorities I selected for guidance disagreed on the litmus test issues. It had to be my decision.


Eventually, this worked-through into my realisation that all conscious Christian faith in modern circumstances just-is based-on individual discernment; which means that the nature of Christian life is not what I used to assume.

When Christian life is based-upon (rooted-in) at least one, major and defining, act of individual discernment; then this means that individual discernment has greater authority than any specific and actual church.

This is an unavoidable fact (under modern conditions), and not an assertion.


And as such, it seems to me that we are all required to use individual discernment in our personal Christian life as much as possible; rather than (as is usual) trying to deny it, and trying to pretend that we are merely living in obedience to external authority.

To put it another way, and despite the many pitfalls and dangers of this path; modern Christians ought-to-be explicit that their primary beliefs derive from a direct relationship with God; and not, therefore, from obedience to any particular institution, denomination, Church.


Of course, developing individual discernment in relation to any specific issue takes time and effort; therefore it is an ongoing process, never completed. And in the meantime we will probably want to make a discernment that 'X' (e.g. a church, a pastor, an author...) is a reasonable source of guidance which we will obey (passively, as it were) for the time-being.

But eventually, Modern Man seems to be called to a Christian faith in which the goal is to test and discern each element for our-selves. And a specific, actual, church or Christian group may help this process - may help it a lot. On the other hand, as with the church I first joined, an actual church may confuse, mislead and corrupt the Christian.

Much depends on local conditions. 

Most people need a group of some sort in order to function in society; but better no congregation than a false church - better a few, perhaps scattered, companions in Christ, than attempted-obedience to a large and powerful bureaucracy whose leadership are strategically net-evil.


Note: This post is, in part, a response to an ongoing discussion at the blog Dark Brightness (which I read regularly, and would recommend). 

I added a further clarification of my position:

My concern is that, in these end times, our psychological need for membership of a group may overwhelm our spiritual need for a *Christian* church; it may be the major temptation, and may be the reason why the devout are perhaps especially vulnerable to Antichrist (as implied by some Biblical prophecies).

It seems that our only defence is to discern well, to learn and practise discernment, and to trust our best and most solid discernment over external authority (*despite* the obvious hazards and dangers of this...)

What enables people to learn from experience? Or, Christianity brings discernment

May people, including Christians, tend to assume that becoming a Christian makes you a better person. This is not true - or at least not necessarily true. The situation is more of a double-negative; that unless you become a Christian you cannot become a better person.

What Christian faith brings is not betterment but discernment. Christianity faith brings you a basis for discerning good from evil - which is necessary for you to learn from experience.

Or, to put matters more starkly; if you are not a Christian then (as Frank Berger has explained recently) you cannot learn from experience.

Knowing real-good from real-evil is necessary for real-learning, and without real learning you cannot get better.

Whether or not the Christian actually does get observably, objectively morally better in their behaviour; will depend on several factors - including their personality, upbringing and the society they inhabit.

But that is not the essence of Christianity. As often said: Christ came to save sinners - sinners are saved even if they do not become good. What is needed is 'repentance' - and repentance requires discernment: that is, knowing the difference between good and evil and identifying which is which. Then joining allegiance to good, and rejecting evil.

Modern Man, by contrast, often does not acknowledge evil - either rejecting the concept; regarding evil as relativistic, arbitrary, and socially-dictated; or equivalent to anything that causes suffering - especially of himself or people he likes; or else, in extreme and especially in the sexual realm, he inverts them - and regards his evil as what-used-to-be called good by Christians, and his new-'good' is whatever was disapproved or prohibited by Christians or traditional society.

In sum: Modern Man cannot, does-not learn, because he lacks discernment; and discernment can only come (for Modern Man) from truth, therefore from Christianity. And under modern conditions discernment must come from within each individual (obedience to institutional discernment will not suffice, and modern institutions are nearly-always corrupt and getting worse).

Discernment does not necessarily come from Christianity; but unless it comes from Christianity, it will not be real, powerful, or motivating-enough to enable that discernment which saves.

We *must* discern angels from demons (despite our fallibility) - we cannot opt-out of this

Ultimately, everything depends on discernment - by which I mean the capacity to evaluate and distinguish-between Good and evil.

Yet discernment cannot be done on objective grounds, but must be done by inference.

And our ability to discern is fallible - we can be fooled, we can fool ourselves, we can mistake expediency for Goodness (or, indeed, suffering for Goodness)... there is no reliable and valid method of discernment.

As an example of the situation we find ourselves in, I will use the discernment between angels and demons (who can simulate or impersonate angels).

1. We cannot do without angels - by which I mean that they influence us and the world, and if we choose to ignore this influence then this is a self-blinding against a vital aspect of reality.

Since we are not meant to ignore (=deny the reality or significance of) angels - we must discern them from demons.

Ignoring the whole issue is therefore not a 'safe option' - we need to discern.

2. It is difficult to discern angels from demons. There are no objective, measurable, publicly-agreed criteria (e.g. demons may appear and beautiful and feign to be Good; angels may be tough or even harsh in their actions or advice, because they understand more and see further).

3. Although we cannot discern objectively or reliably; because we need to discern, we can assume that we can discern - since God is both our loving Father and the creator.

4. How then are we 'supposed to' discern angels from demons if both our intellect (mind) and instincts (gut-feelings) are so prone to error as to be all-but useless?

The answer is by The Discernment of the Heart.

This is something that in some ways we do naturally - but we tend to over-ride it with intellect and/ or instincts; and we also need to learn to distinguish and comprehend it.

The discernment of the Heart is possible because it was built-into us by God, as our ultimate and bottom-line guidance. As such it is immune to distortions of logic' or 'evidence' and to emotional manipulations - it is reliable and true; but the 'flip side' is that the signal is so simple and pure that it is hard to justify, indeed sometimes it is hard even to notice the evaluation of the Heart among the noise and distraction of the world and our minds and bodies (and the deceptions of demons!)...

(Because it has no method or measure, the discernment of the Heart is also easy to deny in a materialist society such as this one.)

5. The situation is: we must discern, we can discern, but we will err in this - not by error of discernment, but by ignoring, over-riding, or being unable or unwilling to detect this discernment of the Heart.

6. Therefore we must discern, we will err; and therefore we must be ready and willing to repent.

7. This, then, is the Human Condition. This is our destiny and path and how we are meant to live.

The 'set-up' is that:

1. we must discern
2. we will err
3. we need to repent

This is - broadly - how we need to approach matters such as angels, demons, religious experiences, signs of the Holy Ghost, the evaluations of truth and holiness, the validity of theories (including theologies), books (including scriptures), institutions (including churches) and persons (including leaders and teachers).

Doing daily discernment

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Discernment is the word Christians sometimes use to describe the process of spiritually evaluating and judging truth and goodness.

Discernment may be what leads someone to reject the secular hedonic worldview, to become a Christian (a Mere Christian - or not-denominationally-affiliated Christian), to choose which Christian church/ denomination to join, and perhaps even after that to discern when and where that church or denomination is going astray from the true and the good.

The big problem is that just at the point in history where discernment is more needed than ever before (due to the collapse of most Christan traditions and the proliferation of choices/ heresies/ temptations/ Faustian bargains); so discernment is also at its lowest ever average level...

My feeling is that discernment is "always" sufficient to get someone to Mere Christianity but that the problem of choosing a denomination, or where truth lies between denominations (or which is the most truth-full) is very difficult indeed; and may prove too difficult for most people to unravel with any strong sense of confidence or firmness of faith that they have reached the best possible conclusion.

It is at this point that so many modern Christians are stuck.

Rather than trying to force a swift choice in the face of such difficulties - a choice which is anyway very unlikely to be sufficiently solid as to be binding; I think we can, should, perhaps must, be engaged in a permanent activity of discernment - that is testing and validating by reference to one's innermost conviction.

We need to train-ourselves to be alert for signs of uneasiness, revulsion, disgust, despair etc. which may indicate that we are being led astray - and for the opposite feelings of deep joy, hope, love etc. which - over time - are the surest confirmation and guide to the fact that we are in harmony with reality.

I believe (it is my experience) that spiritual progress is possible, and palpable, in terms of the development of one's own discernment - and that such spiritual progress (or depth) is possible even when objectively-observable Christian life may appear to be 'stuck'. 

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The Birdemic, spiritual discernment and the Christian Churches

Francis Berger has followed-up last-week's powerful post about the Roman Catholic Church (which I discussed here), with another concerning the vital importance of spiritual discernment in a time when things have come to a point. 

Here are some excepts:

My overarching point was that the bishop and the [Roman Catholic] Church remain officially aligned with the birdemic narrative. As such, they continue to believe their decision to close churches and deny Mass to hundreds of millions was totally justified. 

Put another way, the Catholic Church - and practically all other Christian denominations - remain firmly convinced that they did the right thing for the right reasons. They feel no need to reflect upon or perhaps reassess their decision, and they certainly do not think they have anything to repent. 

I happen to think the opposite. I hold the opposite view because I am convinced that the birdemic is an Evil Lie. Moreover, I believe in the primacy of the spiritual - in putting God and spiritual considerations first. 

By denying Mass and other sacraments such as last rites at the behest of the secular global diktat of none are safe until all are safe, the Catholic Church (and other Christian denominations) essentially demonstrated that they believe in the primacy of the material - in putting the world and material considerations first. 

 ...At its core, the birdemic is not about science or medicine or church doctrine. At its core, the birdemic marks the epicenter of things coming to a point. More specifically, the birdemic is about being able to spiritually discern good and evil and making the right choices in light of this discernment. 

 ...As far as I'm concerned, churches the world over failed miserably when they closed their doors due to the birdemic. I will go even as far as to say most churches actively and willingly made the wrong choice. And churchgoers who passively and obediently follow their churches in this regard are also making the wrong choice. 

People can reject this as my "opinion", but I do not regard my standpoint on this issue to be mere opinion. For me, it's discernment - discernment based on my understanding of God and Creation - that is, on my understanding of the fundamental nature of reality and of our current spiritual war. 

 ...The line separating good from evil has rarely, if ever, been clearer. That doesn't mean that discernment is always easy or that our judgments are always correct, but it does mean that spiritual discernment can no longer be considered a passive, optional activity. 

Like it or not, we have all been put in the position where we must choose - and those choices are based on our ability to effectively discern. In this regard, we are all our own spiritual authorities. 

The possibility of outsourcing discernment to an external church authority is closing before us. When it comes to matters of religion and spirit, we no longer have the luxury to simply believe what we are told to believe and do what we are told to do. 

We must make our own judgments about these matters, and these judgments must emanate from our innermost selves and our active and willing alignment with God and Creation. In this sense, spiritual discernment is the most important special competence we can possess in this time and place.

Read the whole thing

Comments: Frank goes far towards clarifying matters, for those too caught-up in the daily virtual-reality to stand back and do it for themselves. 

There are at least three separable issues. 

1. Birdemic Big Lie

The birdemic is evidently a Big Lie - top to bottom, many-fold, from its beginning to now. 

Almost everything substantive we have been told about the birdemic has later been shown (by the same official/ media sources from which the first Lies came) to be not just mistaken, but calculated untruth. 

To know this, one only needs to be capable of common sense and memory. However, an aspect of the very general and extreme spiritual corruption of these times is that people are capable of neither. Even when (as in the UK) the Prime Minister (speaking on behalf of 'science' and 'the evidence') contradicts himself completely in the space of four days about whether Christmas 2020 'needs to be cancelled'; the obvious implications are missed, and the event is soon forgotten. 

Big Lies are intrinsically evil - because lying is a sin. 

 

2. Birdemic Evil Lie

The birdemic is an Evil Lie because of its provenance (evil refers to its motivation; the source tells us the motivation). 

The birdemic lie comes-from the Global Establishment - whose major strategies are evil; and who is explicitly anti-Christian, anti (any) God, anti-spiritual, denying of divine creation; and favouring the Big Lies of open-borders, climate emergency, antiracism and the sexual revolution including the trans agenda. They have explicitly stated their plans for transitioning the birdemic into the Great Reset - which is a atheist totalitarian dystopia. 

The purposive evil of the Big Lie is evident. 

3. Even if the birdemic was not a Big Evil Lie...

Let us assume, as a thought experiment, that the birdemic was not a Big Evil Lie - let us assume that the world Establishment was (overall) honest and Christian, therefore working for God, The Good, and divine creation (instead of against)...

Let us also assume that the birdemic really was a very lethal pandemic (the current, recent, definition of 'pandemic' only means a new and wide-spreading disease - it does Not mean a dangerous disease). Let's say its mortality rate was fifty times what it really has been, and that it significantly affected the young and healthy. 

Let's also pretend (because it is false) that lockdowns, masks and social distancing really were known to be effective in reducing the mortality rates of this disease (rather than, as IRL, at first doing nothing then making things much worse). 

Would this imaginary scenario be a reason for the Roman Catholic Church to close and deny the sacraments of baptism, Mass and last rites to its flock for months or a year? 

Well, certainly not - if these sacraments really had the significance that Catholics assert for them. 

Would it be a reason to deny spiritual healing (by laying on of hands), or exorcism, or to close shrines and pilgrimage sites such as Lourdes? 

Certainly not, if these had the efficacy that the Roman Catholic faith asserted for them. 

The list could be continued. 

This is a stark discernment here, things have already come to a point. The Roman Catholic Church has behaved in a way that - with extreme comprehensiveness and clarity - denies its own most sacred and fundamental assumptions regarding its own authority and spiritual power. 

Note: I think this situation is clearest with the RCC, not least because the RCC has for centuries striven to be clear and explicit about its own beliefs and assertion. But the same basic situation prevails with all other large Christian denominations and churches. Churches have beliefs and assertions that both explain and justify their own existence - and these have been starkly contradicted by their response to the birdemic - by their willing alignment wit the Big Evil Lie. This crisis includes all of Christendom - and indeed (I would guess) all other religions - but I shall leave that to them.

Residual Unresolved Leftism: Is The Enemy in the spiritual war difficult, or easy, to discern?

It is a feature of the spiritual war nowadays that The Enemy (i.e. those on the side of Satan, against God) are dispersed in many places, deny any self-definition; and indeed are just part of normal, mainstream 'public opinion' as revealed in officialdom, institutions and the media, 

It is sometimes said that this makes evil difficult to discern - on the assumption that the evil is hidden among the good, in many and changing forms, under many and changing names and deceptive rhetoric...

But the truth is that evil is very easy to discern nowadays; indeed evil has never been easier to discern IF the line dividing good from evil is drawn in the right place. 

The problem that many people have in discerning evil is that they are retaining too much evil in their own assumptions, in their own world view. 

They are (in effect) trying to use a line between good and evil, when that line has been positioned such as to include evil; therefore they find the discernment to be difficult and unsure. 

This is seen, for example, in what Owen Barfield termed RUP - Residual Unresolved Positivism - something to which everyone brought up in The West is prone. 

RUP is a matter of retaining 'materialist', 'scientistic', 'reductionistic' assumptions that were unconsciously absorbed in childhood and adolescence, are invisible to normal introspection, and which have become habitual framers of thinking. 

This happens when we consciously oppose positivism, wish for a fully-spiritual life, yet keep un-consciously falling back into positivistic ways of regarding the world; therefore we sometimes fail to detect (and may end-up supporting) positivism when it is being deployed by the powers of evil. 

Another - just as common and related - problem is RUL - Residual Unresolved Leftism. 

The assumptions of Leftism (e.g. Leftist concepts of equality, social justice, diversity, environmentalism, antiracism, feminism, sexual revolution, the mainstream hedonic utilitarian morality etc) is pervasive in public discourse as background assumptions. 

Very few people in The West are altogether free of these false, tendentious, evil-tending ideas - and Christians, as much as most, often cherish such ideals - or try to do so. 

RUL therefore confuses our discernment of evil; since Leftism has been a major (probably The major) strategy of evil in the modern world. 

Thus there is evil at work in the world and impinging upon our personal lives, yet because some evil in our-selves matches that external evil, we fail to recognize its true nature. 

With RUL, the line has been drawn wrongly; too close to evil - not including all of evil; with some evils left-over on the side of good; so discernment begins to seem difficult, complex... 

We become confused, disorientated, unsure of what to do and what to reject. 

But the difficulties and complexities are an artefact of the line being drawn in the wrong place - due to Residual Unresolved Leftism. If we can identify and repent all of our Leftist assumptions, the task of discernment is revealed as simple - indeed it has probably never been simpler than Now! 

But another difficulty is that when the line between good and evil has been drawn correctly, and discernment is swift and decisive - it will be found that most of the world, and pretty much all of officialdom, major institutions, and the mass media - are on the side of evil. 

It will also be found, more disturbingly, that most people are on the side of evil; which means that most individual persons we encounter will support the side of evil - will be cooperating-with and probably defending/ advocating/ working-for the powers of evil. 

And this applies even in Christian churches and among the leadership of Christian churches; because being on the side of evil is not about one's majority or average beliefs. 

Even one Leftist belief or assumption suffices to corrupt; because (as of 2020) the tendency of institutions and their choice between good and evil sides may be dictated by a single Leftist belief (such as the Litmus Tests). 

This may be disturbing, unfamiliar, and often demoralizing. 

Yet we should remember that with normal Christianity; any single unrepented sin - no matter how 'small' - is sufficient to cause damnation; because we only truly desire Heaven when we are prepared to give-up all sin for it. Heaven is a place without sin; and nobody can enter it who has not repudiated sin. 

Here on earth, something analogous applies to the sins of Leftism. To be on the side of God, persons and institutions must reject the devil and all his works. 

This does not mean any kind of impossibly perfect standard of behaviour - but repentance - which is the correct detection and identification of sin as sin -and the 'in principle' willingness to discard it. 

Perfection of thoughts and values is impossible in this mortal earthly life; but repentance is always and everywhere open to any person or institution. 

Residual Unresolved Leftism is a serious problem because sin is unrecognized, is indeed defended and advocated; and the consequence is that perception of discernment as difficult and uncertain - in a world where in fact evil is more naked and extreme than ever before. 

So, if you are confused, and find evil difficult to discern; look within for those unrepented sins which are probably the source of the problem. 

One great and immediate advantage of eliminating Residual Unresolved Leftism is that we attain clarity about the spiritual war of this world; and can set-to on the task of fighting that war instead of being enmeshed in confusion. 

Such clarity of discernment is liberating, exciting, and motivating! Which is just what most-people most-need in a world such as this. 

The 2020 Litmus Tests are a measure of discernment - and of the centrality of discernment in these times

The Litmus Tests of serious Christianity* I described in 2020 certainly seem to work in practice; yet it is a striking and obvious fact that none of the tests have anything to do with Christianity as such, but are instead 'about' the dominant socio-political issues of recent years and especially the past year. 

How is it that secular tests - directed at such ephemeral matters of 'policy' - can have such a role in identifying a real Christian?

Identifying, that is, a self-identified Christian who is on the side of God in the ongoing global spiritual war, one has not (yet!) been seduced to working on the side of Satan? 

Firstly (something obvious that - yet - several people failed to notice) is that the tests apply only to self-identified Christians. 

Someone who passed all the Litmus Tests yet is Not self-identified as a Christian remains... Not a Christian. 

The Litmus Tests are Not directed at Not-Christians.  

So, to return to the main point; why do the Litmus Tests work so well?

The simple answer is that these are tests of spiritual discernment, applied at points where spiritual discernment is currently vital.  

We live in a world where there is a de facto world government that dominate all bureaucratic political and social institutions (including church leadership) and the mass/ social media. These are the agents of a supernatural demonic agenda directed against God, The Good and divine creation. 

Therefore - since The System is evil, and well all depend-upon and interact-with The System - unless Christians have sufficient discernment to identify and spiritually reject the official and pervasive agenda of evil - Christians will-have-been recruited to the side of the devil... As a simple matter of fact, and whether they know it or not.

Although repentance has infinite power; a Christian must first repent - and when a Christian has failed to identify sin as such, he will not repent. And not to repent is to embrace damnation.  

Therefore discernment is mandatory for salvation. 

Nowadays; anyone who is unconscious or passive about what he believes, is believing what The System tells him, will thus believe that evil is Good - and will not repent: will choose damnation.

And That is why the 2020 Litmus Tests are indeed valid - for 2020 and still; despite their secular-materialist content.  

*To remind you; the 2020 Litmus Tests are about attitudes to the birdemic, antiracism (e.g. MLB), and 'climate change'; with a running-through theme of the sexual revolution especially the currently dominant themes such as the trans agenda. 

Christianity and self-gratification - is it a guide to goodness, or an evil-manipulation

I was always struck by CS Lewis's hardline attitude to happiness or self-gratification in relation to Christianity - the way he emphasized the problem of mixing-up the 'therapeutic' aspect of belief with the business of what is actually true. 

In the Screwtape Letters and Great Divorce (as well as his more abstractly theological works) Lewis negatively depicted people who fluently excused whatever they wanted to do - what they currently enjoyed doing, or what made them feel better - by making arguments that linked these to Christianity. 

In the Narnia chronicles; this was encapsulated in the phrase stating that Aslan (i.e. Jesus) is Not a Tame Lion. That is to say; Christianity cannot be comfortably domesticated and stay Christian. 

Certainly it is a real problem; but - especially in The Last Battle - Lewis also depicted the opposite problem, which happens when the cruelty and destructiveness of the evil demon Tash is explained as being the actions of Aslan; or later, the oxymoronic false-invention Tashlan, syncretized from both good and evil deities. 

These actual evils - in reality motivated by greed, selfishness and sadism - were effectively propagandized as consistent with the fact that Aslan is Not a Tame Lion 

And therefore the fact that God is not aiming at our immediate self-gratification is twisted into a mask for 'the devil'. 

In other words; on the one hand it is true that, at a superficial level of here-and-now, the goodness of God may be experienced as harsh life-lessons that are, nonetheless, necessary for our ultimate and eternal benefit. 

Yet, on the other hand, to know when this is actually the case, and when evil outcomes are instead a product of evil intent; requires honest discernment as to the motivations. 

So, the experienced and observed miseries and sufferings of this world are not evidence in either direction - they might be necessary and temporary means to a good end; or they might be the end in itself: cruelty, destruction, misery, suffering might be the actual purpose of evil beings. 

The correct answer must come from discernment, and the discernment - while taking-account-of-evidence, cannot derive-from evidence. 

As always, we are driven down to an acknowledgment that all knowledge depends on intuition; an individual act of an individual being. 

And, further, that Christian discernment entails acknowledgement that there is a side of Good (i.e. God) and a side of evil (i.e. the demons). We first need to know this in order to choose one or the other side; and only by choosing a side can be - even in principle - make a discernment as to whether a particular event was motivated by good or evil intent.

For a Christian; to deny that good and evil are separate and opposite sides, amounts to the false-deity of Tashlan - in other words, to base discernment on an assumption of unity, oneness, 'non-dualism' is itself (merely) a type of evil. 

From this analysis we can see that Christianity is related to self-gratification (i.e. the pleasurable, comfortable, desirable) in that God wants us to be deeply and eternally happy; but such a goal entails that we must sometimes be temporarily and superficially miserable. 

To know what is going-on in the here and now we need to depend on divine guidance - which (because God is The Creator, is Good, and is our loving parent/s) we have all been equipped-with. 

We all have potentially available both direct access (i.e. in our stream of thinking) to true inner guidance (because we have within-us something of the divine, being children of God)...

And this inner guidance also enables us to have access indirectly to external guidance - both directly from the Holy Ghost, and indirectly from all other sources of information such as legitimate and wise authority (e.g. of Men and books), true-tradition, and any other cultural product. 

In sum; deep self-gratification is a sure guide to the operations of God and His agents; while superficial self-gratification may be a consequence of the manipulations - or sadism - of evil Men and/or the beings of supernatural evil.

 

Since we must discern the truth and goodness of complex and informationally-overwhelming issues (such as climate, health, race and war) how can this validly be done by ordinary people?

If we wrongly assume that correct judgment is reached from 'the evidence' then there would be no possible way that ordinary people can ever judge complex issues such as climate change, health (with respect to the birdemic and its peck), race justice, and the Fire Nation war (to mention just some of the Litmus Tests of 2023). 

But equally there is no way that 'experts' can evaluate these issues; since experts are all specialists, knowledgeable and competent (by current standards) only in ever-narrower fields; and there is no-such-thing (in the modern world, by current criteria) as a generalist-expert. 

What this means is that - IF correct judgment really-was reached from expert knowledge and skill applied to evidence; there can be no valid judgment on any complex issue; and the situation is inevitably one of the blind leading the blind. 

Of course, the actual situation is indeed overwhelmingly one of the blind (and purposively-evil) leading the blind (and passively-evil). But this situation is not inevitable. 

It would only be inevitable if correct judgment derived from expertise and evidence. But that is false. 

Correct judgment is derived from correct assumptions; and Good judgment is derived from motivation towards the Good (which is harmonious alignment with God's creation and its purposes). 

This means that valid discernment is possible to anyone who has the right attitudes. 

Roughly, 'right attitudes' means: 1. He takes the side of God/ Good/ Divine Creation and 2. He is able to discern whether or not 'information'/ theories/ attitudes/ opinions/ strategies/ policies/ laws etc come from those on the side of Good. 

Only if someone has Right Attitudes, can he evaluate 'the evidence' and learn from experience so that the inevitable mistakes get corrected. 

By contrast; those with wrong attitudes will interpret 'evidence' wrongly; and will neither acknowledge nor learn-from their wrongness.    

In other words; with 'right attitudes'; discernment is a matter of the provenance of assertions. 

"Provenance" means "where they come-from". 

All that need be known is whether the assertions come from the side of Good, or the side of evil. 

And it is very easy for those with Right Attitudes to know when assertions come from the side of evil: in fact - for those part of 'Western' civilization in particular - discernment of provenance has never been easier in the history of the world! 

In conclusion, not only is it easy for ordinary people validly to discern the truth and goodness of complex issues - in practice ordinary people who are spiritually outside of The System are just about the only ones who can make valid discernments. 

Insofar as expertise and 'evidence' have anything to do with it, they are a disadvantage to discernment; and there is an (obvious!) overall-inverse relationship between expertise and being-informed about a complex issue - and the chance of reaching true and Good conclusion on that issue. 

Note: This is an extension into the spiritual realm of the psychological phenomenon of clever sillies that I floated some years ago; and which has gained considerable traction in some quarters. That is, I sought explanations for the observation that (up to a point) the more intelligent a person, the less likely they are to be correct about matters of common sense and personal experience. Here, intelligence is only a part of wrong discernment insofar as it is a proxy for being an informed and trained 'expert' - but for several decades there are deliberate but indirect strategic policies that reduce average intelligence among the class of experts. Furthermore, the clever sillies idea fails to take into account that motivation is of prime importance to discernment and therefore Good outcomes. Good is more than a choice of lesser evils, and requires a transcendental, next-worldly, orientation.

All Christians, nowadays - in practice - distinguish between Christianity and The Church (but mostly unconsciously, and half-heartedly)

In a world where corruption is endemic among the major "Christian" churches - who, overall and where it matters - now serve the Satanic agenda of globalist-leftist-leftism; in such a world, all serious Christians exercise discernment in terms of the church of which they are members.

(And, even more so, when they are Not affiliated to any particular church.) 

Nowadays: the only Christians are discerning Christians. 

(As of 2023 and in The West; un-discerning obedience to church - to any church - is a fast-track to subversion, corruption, inversion - and damnation.) 

This discernment implicitly depends on a distinction between "Christianity" and "The Church" - and this is true whichever church is being followed. 

Sometimes, this distinction is explained in terms of the Mystical church versus Institutional church; yet, this concept also implies that Christianity is something different from the here-and-now actuality of any particular church. 

Such discernment is evident whenever church instructions/ teaching/ interpretations etc. are disobeyed/ ignored/ explained-away for principled Christian reasons. 

But not many Christians realize that in doing this very necessary discernment, they are - mostly implicitly - asserting that real Christianity is significantly distinct from the church. And, because implicit, this process is largely unconscious; and because unconscious, the implications tend to be missed - and discernment is only half-hearted. This often leads into a kind of sleep-walking toward damnation. That is; to changing sides in the spiritual war of this world, and supporting the side that rules much of the world (and all of The West), and is against God and divine Creation.  

Therefore; it seems of vital importance that Christians distinguish consciously and explicitly between Christianity and "The Church" - and this necessity applies whatever "The Church" is for that person. 

Once such a distinction has been acknowledged, then a process can begin in which a clearer and more accurate understanding of Christianity can develop. 

Because, typically, a great deal of what Christians initially regard as Christianity is not so; but is instead contradictory, or superfluous, or historically contingent. 

Developing this vital understanding of Christianity begins with whatever sources a person has already encountered: for instance; Scripture, tradition, church teachings, theology, philosophy, devotional sermons and books etc etc... 

There is no prior-evident limit to what might turn-out to be of value in clarifying the true nature of Christianity. So there will probably begin some kind of quest for understanding, and this may lead to novel sources. 

I would guess that convenient availability of sources is one factor, and that (over time, given willingness and intent) this will be shaped by divine providence. 

What is being sought is the true reality of Christianity distinct from any particular source of external knowledge  - and the tools of the quest may be summarized as our intuitive evaluations plus the Holy Ghost-guided ability directly to know truth (given correct motivations); supported by our innate ability to recognize and value coherence, and to discard incoherence.  

As I said above; I think all real Christians are at least part-way along this path - but have not accepted the full implications of what they are already-doing by living in accordance with their (very necessary) discernments.

They simply need to be honest, clear and explicit about what they are already-doing; and follow it through to the necessary and desirable conclusions... 

Whatever these conclusions may turn-out to be. 

Just supposing you are a traditionalist Christian who wants to submit to the objective authority of The One True Church...

Just supposing you are a traditionalist Christian who wants to submit to the objective authority of The Church; because you believe that The Church has been ordained by God and Jesus Christ as the timeless repository of objective truth...

What then? 

First you will join that church. 

Immediately you are confronted by a problem: Which particular branch of that church do you join? Where do you go? Who do you ask? What do you believe?

There is dissent, there are conflicts, the validity of various churches within the church is contested - often vehemently. One branch says that another branch is apostate, or heretical - these judgments may indeed be reciprocal. 

Where do you even begin to start to join the true church, when it is not clear what "The Church" actually is?

At the very first hurdle the traditionalist has no alternative but to use his own personal discernment. 

He cannot obey or submit until after he has personally decided who is worthy of his obedience and submission. 

And this absolute and unavoidable requirement for personal discernment never stops! 

Even once he has converted, and is within his chosen branch of the True Church; he will find conflicting beliefs and instructions. He will not discover coherent uniformity, but instead dissent and conflict. 

The traditionalist may be absolutely genuine in his motivation to obey and submit to absolute eternal Truth as defined by the Essential Church - but at every turn he will be compelled to discern who and where this Truth is located - because there are always multiple and exclusive claimants of authority. 

The traditionalist does not want to choose - indeed his faith is built upon the conviction that personal discernment of Truth is inadequate and spiritually perilous - yet he cannot escape the necessity!

What then is his reaction to the brute fact of endemic and inescapable discernment? 

Sadly, too often, his reaction is to deny that it is happening. 

His reaction is to claim (or pretend) that - as a traditionalist - he is simply obedient; humbly submitting to the external and objective authority of The Church. 

His essential and frequent acts of personal discernment are swept under the carpet, hand-waved into oblivion, suppressed and then forgotten...

And instead the traditionalist maintains his attention externally, outside of himself; by embracing a zealous stance of near-continuous attack on anyone who dissents from what he has personally discerned to be the ideal of submissive obedience to the One True Objective Church's Authority. 

Well, people can apparently convince themselves of almost anything; but they cannot prevent others from seeing just exactly what they are doing. 

"This can't end well... Traditional Roman Catholics will need - sooner rather than later - explicitly to acknowledge that they have-used personal discernment, in deciding what (among many rival contesting claims) actually is 'the church' whom they obey

Note: I regard Roman Catholicism as a valid and valuable Christian denomination, and one that seems to contain many of the rare real-Christians who currently exist (so far as I can judge). 

It is precisely because I regard the Roman church as so important to the survival and thriving of Christianity, that I comment upon it - including critically. 

At present, some of the rare real-Christians among Roman Catholics, fall into the category of 'traditionalists' or trads. This is essentially fine and good; but the position has a 'fatal flaw' that renders it fragile in the context of these End Times, where The World is against God, Jesus and Christianity; and all institutions of significant size, power and status to be important in the world, are subject to great and increasing corruption towards the evil strategies of the secular (thus demonic) powers. 

This comment is about the fatal flaw... 

**

I find it strange to read trad Roman Catholic bloggers who are very obviously making personal discernments - for instance that Francis is an anti-Catholic Pope and agent of (secular, left, totalitarian, globalist) evil. 

And then they suddenly 'panic' and realize that they are failing to be obedient to 'the church' - and 'walk back' everything they have just said, with some kind of 'it's just my opinion and means nothing', and 'the church must and will decide - and correctly', and 'my job is not to pick-and-choose, but just to obey the church'. 

This seems to be a deeply confused and self-contradictory attitude, setting 'the discernment of the heart' against 'obedience' to authority - setting the deepest Christian motivation against traditional definitions of what it is to be Christian, derived from a time where the RCC 'spoke with one voice'...

And therefore a point of fracture that will surely be unable to withstand the pressures being brought to bear on Christian faith, as its institutions (the churches) become absorbed into the unified global bureaucracy. 

Such trads want to be meekly obedient to 'the church' because they believe that is what Roman Catholics ought to be; but they cannot decide what exactly 'the church' is, without first using their personal discernment - which they do not want to do. 

Yet they Must choose; because there are so many different (and mutually opposed) Roman Catholic voices each claiming to be, or to define, 'the church'. 

And therefore a choice must be made between these rival claimants, and indeed a choice is made. 

But the fact that there has already been a choice must then be denied! 

And is denied. 

And the trads then claim to be living in simple obedience to the single voice of the church (no personal discernment necessary!) - just as a medieval peasant might have done. 

This can't end well...

What is needed is simple... but difficult. 

It is the explicit acknowledgement that even the most traditionalist and orthodox Roman Catholic bases his faith - his obedience - upon personal discernments and choices among the many competing voices of authority. 

After this discernment has been made, and responsibility for it taken by the individual - then it is perfectly rational and consistent to live a traditional Christian life: in obedience to that which has been recognized as legitimate authority. 

But at some point, in some respect; each individual - here-and-now - is compelled to make a choice that has no ultimate basis but his own personal judgment. 

Unless he is clear about this necessary fact; his faith is built on sand, because it is built on a lie. 

Discernment, or the inner guidance-system - knowing the right thing to do, and when we are off-course. Predictive and corrective guidance

*
Discernment is the ability to know the right thing to do - in fact to know the right thing and distinguish it from wrong things: especially wrong things in disguise. Discernment can be imagined as our guidance-system.

Many traditional Christian denominations and churches are set-up on the basis that we will be taught the right things, and given good advice, by those in authority - so the guidance system comes from priest and pastors - and sometimes from Kings and judges too.

But the modern world is characterized by the fact that it is precisely those in authority who are most deeply wicked; who are teaching the wrong things, giving bad advice (advice to be bad), and punishing good behaviour - they are not just muddling-up the right and wrong things, but deliberately reversing the labels...

And the modern world is huge, noisy, distracting, and the good and the right are mixed with, and almost lost in, much larger quantities of their opposites.

*

So the modern condition is characterized by a greater-than-ever need for a guidance system; while at the same time traditional guidance systems have been subverted and sabotaged.

One single source of guidance is inadequate, because all guidance is general and imprecise, and there will always be ambiguities and uncertainties when specific situation are tested against general rules.

The inadequacy, insufficiency, distortedness of trying to be guided wholly by list of laws and rules should be obvious; and furthermore it is anti-Christian to suppose that our job in Life is merely to obey - it is not.

We are each of us persons - hence unique; and our main job in Life (having accepted the reality and Goodness of God) it is to chisel-out our our own 'salvation', that is to follow the path of theosis, sanctification, spiritual progression or deification - towards the goal of becoming Sons of God and able and worthy of living with and communicating with God - person with person.

So in pursuing this complex path through a complex world; we need a multi-level, multi-step guidance system - and, luckily, we have one:

*

Knowing God's nature

If we have a reasonably clear understanding of the kind of person God is; what he is like and what he wants from us, and the attributes he most values in us (love above all, intelligence, strength, creativity etc)  - then this provides the general background and basis for our guidance.

In particular, God being our loving Father and we his children whom he wants to raise to be Sons of God and 'divine friends' - this understanding rules out a lot of false, deceptive and just-plain-mistaken teachings.

Then we communicate with God by prayer.

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Knowing God is in us

If God was out there, and could only reach us by the normal methods of communication - then our situation would be hopeless.

But God is within us - he has planted a glowing coal of His divine nature in each person.

Once we know this glowing coal of divinity is in each of us, we can learn to feel and abide by its guidance - with attention to its promptings, through quiet contemplation and listening, by sensitivity to intuition sent from it, by meditation.

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Our free will, agency, autonomy operating on personal revelation

Personal revelation can be grounded in firstly the faith that God is a real person and also within us, and knowing the general direction of God's wishes and hopes for us; and secondly recognizing our own radical autonomy to decide what to do about this.

We know something of God's nature, and we feel something of God in us - and then we are able, and indeed we must and do choose either to recognize God's will, and ally ourselves with Him in His hope for us and for the world - or we oppose it.

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Synchronicity

Synchronicity is one important but neglected mode of personal revelation.

(Is you, here, now, reading this an example of synchronicity?)

Meaningful, enlightening, and Good coincidences occur and show us the proper or best path life lays before us through the world.

Representing fate, destiny - all these in a wholesome sense because always entailing and requiring our personal choice, decision, whether or not to follow this path.

Good choices are rewarded: when synchronicity is recognized, and when the decision is good, then Life becomes enhanced, infused with a kind of 'magic'.

The channels of communication between ourselves and God open-up, and our path becomes clearer both before and behind us - as if lit by an inner glow.  

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Personal Revelation

Personal revelation (God's multi-modal communications to us, personally, for our personal guidance and benefits) takes us from the general to the specific. Takes us from the general knowledge of the kind of thing we must do, and must not do; to specific personal guidance about what exactly we must do, or not do.

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We have a superb, flexible, infallible, guidance system!

But, typically, Life is trial and error, and discernment works by zig-zags.

We are engaged with Life, and we make mistakes and we sin due to ignorance, weakness, short-termism - and deliberately too, as an act of defiance.

But as we err and sin - we also discern our sins and errors, and can repent them, and repudiate them. Almost certainly, we will not be able altogether to stop making mistakes and stop yielding to temptations - but that is not what is asked of us nor what we are equipped to do.

We are equipped to try our best but make mistakes, to try our best but yield to sins - and then for discernment to make clear to us what we have done, so that we can (and do) know what was good and what we must repent.

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So, our guidance system will lead us to good choices, but it is not perfect and neither is our will; and then the guidance systems will discern what has happened, and reveal our situation so we can do the right thing.

In sum our guidance system - like all sophisticated and really-useful guidance systems - has a predictive element which tells us what to aim at and do; but also a retrospective and corrective element: which alerts us when we are aiming off-course or have travelled down a wrong path and points the direction to get back on course or states the need to stop, turn around and retrace our steps.

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(When I say corrected, I do not mean reversible - because once done mistake and sins, like everything else, are permanent. But by the atonement of Jesus Christ, repentance negates any and all sin. Thus - the major function of discernment is not avoidance but repentance.)

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Our guidance system is therefore superb and infallible when taken as a whole and understanding its proper function - including both the predictive but also the corrective elements as back-up. 

We will make mistakes because the predictive element is imperfect, and we will make mistakes because of our imperfect and sinful nature and the difficulties of our situation - but these mistakes will always be detectable and correctable because the back-up element is an intrinsic part of the guidance system.

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