Overcoming the double-negative conceptualizations of Jesus Christ

Over the past few years, since I spent a year or so multiply re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("of John") in isolation; I have often emphasized the covertly-deceptive way in which double-negative formulations have colonized and distorted our minds and motivations - both in Christianity and in mainstream modern secular 'leftism'.  

A double-negative is not the same as a positive; yet it seems obvious that most people fail to recognize the essentially negative conceptualizations of their own beliefs and ideals: they suppose themselves to be idealists, with some kind of positive agenda; yet they nearly-always are in thrall to some merely double-negation.

For instance, they believe that the double-negations of being against CO2 climate change, or protecting the environment, is the same thing as loving and cherishing our relation to this natural world. And the consequence is massive destruction of nature and the severing of Men from the natural. 

The supposedly 'ecological' doubled double-negative of "stopping climate change" and "protecting the environment" leads to an explicit (albeit deceptive) vision of humankind crammed into pods of '15 minute' mega-cities, eating processed bugs delivered by drones - and experiencing nature only virtually, via media. 

(The double-negative attitude towards nature leads inexorably to the negation of Man - i.e. his extinction.)

Unfortunately, this kind of double-negation applies to many Christian understandings of Jesus Christ.

This is evident from using the synonym the Saviour to describe what is regarded as the essence of what He did for us. And that essence of what Jesus did is summarized as the Atonement - which is another double-negation. The same could be said about calling Jesus the redeemer, and describing the crucifixion as a redemption; all terms betray the primacy of double-negative theology. Conceptualizing Jesus's goodness as primarily sin-less-ness is another such.  

I am sure that this is mistaken, and also stands as an obstacle to modern understanding of Jesus Christ. Partly because because it is obvious that modern Man feels no spontaneous need for saving, atonement or redemption. 

If modern man must first be convinced of his default damnation from sin; he cannot begin to understand what Jesus is supposed to have done for him - thus evangelism is crippled. 

Yet the Fourth Gospel seems to tell a different story - at least if read straightforwardly, as our primary source of knowledge of Jesus's life and teachings (by which I mean; trying to understand the IV Gospel without subordinating it to the other Gospels, other parts of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole). 

Of course; the IV Gospel can be interpreted in a double-negative fashion - as about Jesus as Saviour - since all positives can be reframed in a double-negative form. 

But reformulating a positive as double-negation always and necessarily leaves-out that which is truly positive; because in real-life (unlike mathematics!) a positive cannot emerge from negations. 

Being "against sin", does not tell us what to do instead-of sinning; just as being against "Anthropogenic Global Warming by CO2" does not tell mankind anything about how to build a good relationship with the natural world. 

(The double-negation of Jesus's teaching and work, leads to a negation of this mortal life - such that 'goodness' becomes the negation of sin, life the avoidance of damnation - life itself a thing to be got-through without falling and failing.)   

Jesus in the IV Gospel is presented, perfectly straightforwardly, as the giver of life everlasting*. Which is presented as a positive addition to human possibility. 

Yes, this also means negatively that Jesus "overcomes death" (a double-negation) - but this is only half the story, and the least helpful part. What Jesus offers positively is resurrection to eternal life in Heaven. 

And what this means is set-out in many points of the Gospel, albeit in ways that we tend to regard as poetical or allegorical - but, at the time of Jesus this was very probably the ordinary way that language was used. 

(Ancient languages had, what seems to us 'moderns', multiple and simultaneous meanings; they did not have the narrowly and precise, 'technical' and specialized - but utterly un-poetic! - language systems that we know from sciences, law, and bureaucracy generally.)   

Double-negatively expressed Jesus "overcomes death" - and death meant something different in Jesus's time and place than it does for us; yet 'death', then and now, shared the core meaning of the ending of self, a situation caused by the death of our body. 

When we die, our self will cease to be. For the Jews of Jesus's time this probably meant that soul was severed from body such that we would become witless, demented ghosts in Sheol. 

For modern Man death means utter annihilation - body and mind - forever. But in both instances we, as unique selves, are finished. 

 

But positively understood Jesus adds-to the human situation as it is understood to exist. 

Instead of things happening as they do without Jesus; Jesus makes possible something new and extra. 

Essentially; Jesus is the Giver of Life Everlasting, not the Saviour; because a positive trumps the partiality of a double-negative; because a giver is greater than a saver. 

*I argue elsewhere that in the IV Gospel "sin" means something closely equivalent to "death" - so that references to Jesus taking-away or overcoming "sin" are intended to refer essentially to death. But it is also true that sin in the sense of disharmony with God's motivations and methods, dis-alignment from the ways of divine creation, must be overcome before life everlasting, resurrection to Heavenly life eternal, can happen.

Three errors of traditional Christian theologies

Error 1. An exclusive focus on salvation - when theosis should be the main activity of mortal living

Traditional theology has tended to make salvation a problem, a difficulty, the proper main focus of our mortal lives. When actually salvation is as easy as wanting it and committing to follow Jesus through death into Heavenly life eternal. 

This is clear from the Fourth Gospel (of 'John') - but traditionally Christianity chose to subordinate the Fourth Gospel into a framework provided by Matthew, Luke and Paul.

Salvation is in truth therefore a choice - and that choice is finally made after death; our nature and what we do in mortal life contributes to the outcome of that choice. 

But salvation is not 'a problem', and attaining salvation is certainly not supposed to be the focus of Christian life. Each Christian is meant to have the happiness that comes from hope - and the hope which comes from faith - and to derive happiness and security from his decision to follow Jesus. 

Christians are Not supposed to be fretting and worrying (or despairing) in doubts concerning the certainty of our salvation.  

The proper focus of Christian life should therefore be 'theosis' or becoming more divine (more God-like) - more divine not temporarily in this mortal life; but eternally after resurrection. 

In sum, this continued mortal life exists in order that we may become more God-like after resurrection: that is the reason of mortal life (and why we do not all die as soon as incarnated, while innocent - and before we have a chance to fall into damnation).   

Error 2. Double-negative theology of mortal life - when it is actually an education

Traditional theology has sometimes included theosis, but only in a 'double-negative' context. 

Original Sin is an example of double-negative theology. This posits that damnation (and Hell) is the default for all humans of whatever age, time or place - unless they are saved (by faith, the church, good works - or whatever). The negative is assumed, and Christianity posited to remove that negative. 

For another example of negative theology; Medieval Roman Catholic theology and practice developed the idea that the post-mortal state of purgatory could be shortened and ameliorated by the activities of the living (prayer and other offerings). By the actions of mortal life, post-mortal life would be less-bad - which is what I mean by a double-negative conceptualization. 

This is a negative theosis - we are not becoming better Men with a positive pay-off after death; not becoming more like God - but are alleviating various sufferings imposed by God. 

The nature of mortal life was often conceptualized especially by Protestants in terms of salvation almost-purely (leaving out theosis) - so that by wrong choices in this mortal life would could fail to commit to following Jesus and be damned, or could sin and fail to repent and be damned... 

At the extreme, our eternal state was dictated by our spiritual state at the moment of death - and the rest of life had no effect. Mortal Life was therefore a test; something that could be failed - but not something by which we could be spiritually and eternally improved. 

Such a view of mortal life devalues it into a problem 

But - especially after we have realized that salvation is not a problem - once we want it, and are prepared to do whatever is necessary to follow Jesus after death; then Mortal Life should be seen positively. 

Our mortal life should be seen as potentially incremental and building towards a positive post-mortal outcome. We have experiences (provided for us by God, the creator) - and we may learn (what God intends) from these experiences - and thereby undergo theosis; and become better equipped for a more God-like life after death and resurrection. 

   

Error 3. Regarding only Men as alive and conscious - when universal consciousness of beings is the reality

This error was already present at its foundation but has become much more severe over the history of Christianity. Until by now, Christianity is assumed to be only about men and women (Men) - human beings; and the rest of creation is assumed to be unconscious, lacking purpose - and most of the world is regarded as 'dead' - i.e. the 'material' world of physics which operates only by deterministic causes or 'randomness'. 

This has led to the present usual idea of Christianity as being almost exclusively about 'morality'; as a moral play acted-out against a backdrop of dead and/or unconscious stuff. 

But the truth is that this is a universe of Beings, who are all - in different ways - alive, conscious and with purpose. The drama of salvation and theosis plays-out for all Beings - in different ways. 

As ancient Men knew, and as human children are born knowing; Man lives among Beings - and all that we know, we know about Beings. 

When God created reality - God created Beings - and Beings are what God created - God did not create merely dead/ unconscious/ inert stuff

A corrected Christian theology

When these traditional errors are corrected we can realize firstly that - for those who have become Christian, and chosen to follow Jesus through death to resurrection as their primary commitment - this mortal life is mainly about theosis. Secondly that this theosis is positive - which means that the lessons we learn in this mortal life have a positive benefit for our post-mortal, Heavenly life. And thirdly that the drama of our mortal lives is enacted in a living and conscious world of purposive Beings - most of whom are not human.  

If this world is ruled by evil Men, affiliated with Satan - what does this tell us about God? (Concerning negative versus positive Christians)

It is important for people to realize, to acknowledge, that the global leadership class of 2023 - especially those of The West - are affiliated to evil; i.e. are allied with Satan and against God and divine creation. 

But making this acknowledgement is not sufficient to be Christian, because the Christian God is Good - and Good by (the best and highest) human standards  of Good - as exemplified and taught by Jesus Christ. 

In other words; to be Christian, we must also correctly understand how it is that God, the creator, who is wholly-Good - makes things, such that this world is ruled by evil Men who serve the agenda of Satan. 

In other words; we need to understand enough about the nature and motivations of God to make sense of the current fact of things-now being substantially under evil leadership. 

And there are (from a Christian perspective) right and wrong ways of understanding this.

As so often nowadays; this line of reflection almost immediately gets-down to fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality - especially the nature of God (in other words - to metaphysics). 

And as so often nowadays; such reflections operate as a stress test on some of the historical incoherences of Christianity - in this instance, the dogma that the Christian God is an Omni-God (omnipotent, omniscient, and creating everything from nothing).

When the Omni-God concept is made primary - then there is no real Good or evil; because everything is of-God. 

Our human ideas of Good and evil are then merely the delusions of Beings who have been made depraved and weak, and forced (for incomprehensible reasons) to dwell in the realm of an evil dictator - with the only goal the negative one of acknowledging our own depravity and that evil of our situation. 

Somehow; this acknowledgement of evil is supposed to be the only path to our personal salvation. And yet this (we must believe) was the only and best way that we (who are supposed to be completely made by God, in complete accordance with God's designs, and having experiences completely dictated by God or God's servants) can escape eternal torment.    

I have noticed that some of the Christians who pass the Litmus Tests of our time - and who therefore appear to be 'good Christians' - are doing so negatively rather than positively. In other words - such Christians recognize the evil of the Litmus Test issues - but only because they regard this whole world as essentially evil. 

Such negative Christians regard Men as essentially depraved creatures who inhabit a world that God has given to the rulership of Satan; and which Satan - who is a sadistic, lying tyrant - operates as a prison of torment.   

In other words; such negative Christians regard God as Good (in some ultimate and abstract sense) but one whose Goodness is morally-incomprehensible - because God (as an Omni-God, qualitatively utterly distinct from men) operates by values that are beyond human comprehension and empathy. 

Because if a Man were to treat his children in this way, he would be regarded as a moral monster! 

An analogy might be parents who deliberately choose to send their son to a boarding school whose headmaster is a sadistic tyrant, and who employs sadistic tyrants as teachers; and these teachers ensure that the most sadistic and tyrannical of the boys are praised and rewarded, and encouraged to torment the children at the school and expunge anything in them that is Good or joyful. 

Even more extremely; since these parents are 'omnipotent and omniscient' - we must assume that they might not have sent their son to boarding school at all, but chose to. And they might instead have picked a better Headmaster who had some Good motivations and employed a better staff and encouraged Goodness in the boys... 

But no! These parents chose to force their kid to inhabit torture-school...

And further - these parents must be regarded as having made their son such that he was by nature depraved, that he was corruptible by evil; he is set-up (by his creation-from-nothing) such that he cannot resist corruption.  

Such choices are de facto imputed to the Omni-God - and belief in Omni-God is then made mandatory for Christians... 

Negative Christians are driven to such extremes by their dogmatic adherence to the Omni-God. 

In the past, it was possible, indeed not unusual, for Christians who believed in an Omni-God to operate in a way that was inconsistent with their belief - and which instead focused on the nature, example and teachings of Jesus. 

But nowadays, because of the stresses of these times - the contradictions of mainstream, orthodox Christian theology have been brought to the surface, and confronted by a more evil world than ever before - a world in which the organized institutional 'Christian' churches have (almost-) all chosen to obey the totalitarian agenda of evil, and who actively-support many or most of the globalist-leftist Litmus Test issues. 

Yet to regard this world and Men as essentially evil is to reject that which is specifically Christian, and to adopt a Judaic/ Old Testament/ Islamic - or even quasi-Gnostic - view of God; as incomprehensible or even apparently evil by even the best human standards. 

(The Gnostics believed, in essence, that this world - and all 'matter' - was created and operated by 'the devil'; and was therefore wholly negative, operating only as a test to elicit a spiritual and other worldly desire. For the Gnostics, we Men could not learn anything positive from our experience in this world - we could only learn the negative lesson of its evil, and experience the desire to escape from matter into pure spirit. Meanwhile - for Gnostics - knowledge of God could only be negative ('negative theology') - we could say what God was not; but could state nothing positive and substantive about God. In other words; this is a double-negative theology - in which 'Good' is only the negation of evil. While there are no modern day Gnostics - it can be seen that this negative metaphysical attitude has been, and still is, a feature of many religions and spiritualities. This is also revealed by the commonly-expressed double-negative conception of salvation; which is so often described as as an escape from default-torment - e.g. "Jesus came to save Men from Hell".) 

It seems obvious to me that Christians - i.e. those who follow Jesus Christ - cannot (and should not) follow this path of regarding this world as created by God as a prison ruled by a tormenter; and of God's nature as utterly unlike even the best aspects of the best of of Men.

The test of these times involves both accepting that this world is indeed ruled by evil men who serve Satan; and also understanding that God is Good - and Good by the best standards of the best of Men in this actual world. 

This means that (in 2023) Christians are being compelled explicitly to reject the old error of the Omni-God in Christianity - failure to do so is pushing Christians towards a kind of double-negative pseudo-Christianity, in which God and the ultimates have more in common with the world-view of Judaism, Islam, or even the Gnostic...

In other words; we are called-upon explicitly to reject a type of 'Christianity' that demands (above all else) complete obedience to the incomprehensible and (to us ultimately depraved humans) apparently-immoral demands of all-powerful and abstractly inhuman deity.

Such a Christianity has no essential role for Jesus Christ as such - its theology and demands are wholly-derivable from God as-was before the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Jesus has been wholly-absorbed-into the Omni-God (as must all of creation be absorbed into an Omni-God). 

Such a pseudo-Christianity is an Old Testament religion (plus/ minus various Greek and Roman philosophical assumptions) - and such remains the case no matter what lip-service is paid to the importance of Jesus.  

In one version; Jesus has been absorbed into an already-existing Old Testament project, without any qualitative break or inflexion; in another version Jesus is just treated as-if he was simply God the Creator.  

To be a positive Christian in 2023 therefore entails more than just rejecting the temptations of the Litmus Tests on the basis that the world world is evil and God made it this way. 

We cannot negative our way out of trouble! 

Good comes from Good, not from a vast piling of evil upon evil. When Christians find themselves talking as if Good could come from evils, they ought to regard this as a reductio ad absurdum - and examine their assumptions that led to this non-sense! 

Christians need to be led by Jesus Christ, not by a pre-Christian conception of an Omni-God. 

A Christian in 2023 needs to detect and reject evil - yes!

But only as a means to the end of pursuing positive Good. 

**

Note added: The reader may notice that I emphasized 2023 throughout. Negative Christianity often worked well in practice in earlier eras - and this is also useful to understand. Firstly, Men had a different and more group-ish (immersive, passive, un-conscious) form of consciousness in the pre-modern era; and this resulted in society-wide forms of religion. The positive aspects of even the most negative theologies were therefore sometimes ameliorated by positive social practices - particularly those handed-down by tradition. One example would be that of Eastern Orthodox Christianity as found in the Byzantine Empire, or Holy Russia. As well as an ascetic and meditative monasticism rooted in negative theology; there were all kinds of ritual and symbolic practices that were part of everyday life and provided a counterbalancing of warmth, aesthetic satisfaction, colour, energy - often the veneration of Mary, the Mother of God was a particular route for this. Something analogous can be seen in some Medieval Roman Catholic societies of Western Europe. But things have changed - modern Men's consciousness is more autonomous and individualistic and consciously aware of things once taken-for-granted so that we must choose much that was previously spontaneous; automatically absorbed from society. Now (2023) there are no Christian societies that provide that kind of communal and primarily-motivating religious life. Each Christian is, in an existential sense, "on his own". Therefore the long-standing flaws of mainstream Christian theology have been unmasked. Thus life in 2023 is always and everywhere a testing-time for Christians; in ways that 1223, 1523, or even 1823 - were not (or not always).  

Problems with double-negative theology and the idea of being 'purged' from sin

I have often commented on the deep problems with the double-negative theology in mainstream Christianity. 

It is double-negative because it regards the problem of this life as sin, and the work of Jesus Christ as purging us of this sin - of removing this sin from us. 

This mortal life is therefore conceptualized negatively, as dominated by sin; and Jesus's work is the negation of this negative - i.e. removing sin, so that we can be resurrected into Heaven: a double-negative. 

This concept regards Heaven as a perfection, and mortal Men as imperfect due to sin; so we cannot enter Heaven until we are ridded of sin - and that is what Jesus made possible. 

So, by one means or another (and this means differs between Christian denominations), before we get to Heaven we go through a process whereby sin is removed (purged) from us, and what is left-over is wholly-good, and therefore we are allowed to enter Heaven.

To enter Heaven is understood as a willingness to undergo this purgation, this 'amputation' of our sinful elements.   

I find many problems with this set of ideas - which boil down to this concept being an implicit an assertion of the idea that God (the Creator and our loving Father) has put us into a sinful world, ourselves being riddled with sin; and that to reach Heaven we must have this sin stripped out from us - implying that what is allowed into Heaven is an incomplete version of ourselves... 

(Indeed, perhaps, for very sin-full people, there will not be much of ourselves remaining, by the time we are suitable for Heaven.)

The purpose of this mortal life - according to such theology - is to reject sin: a negative purpose.  

I find this kind of behaviour - imputed to God - incompatible with him being a loving Father; who might have created things differently and better.

And I find the idea of this mortal life as a negative motivation (against sin, which sin is against-God) both inadequate and somewhat repugnant. It points at the via negativa - a life of rejection that amounts to life turned-against life.

Whereas I feel in my heart (and from the example of Jesus Christ, who was incarnate, active, positive), that this mortal life is - or ought to have - a positive purpose. We ought to be able to become better through our living (experiencing and learning), rather than merely 'avoiding becoming worse'.   

Instead, I see 'sin' as essentially meaning 'death' (which is clear from the Fourth Gospel) - and also the other forms of anti-creative innate corruption and decay that lead up to death (and which modern physics terms entropy). 

Sin in this sense, is the severing of our souls from our bodies at death - and it is this 'death' which Jesus overcame himself, and made possible for those who followed his path. 

Sin, more broadly, is a turning-away from what God desires from us. And a turning-away is not dealt with by purgation but by turning us in the right direction - permanently!

In other words, the main thing that Jesus did is to bring the possibility of eternal life; and this life as a resurrection of our real selves, and with a body - destined for a Heaven where all beings are turned in a direction in harmony with divine creation. 

All beings in Heaven have made an eternal commitment to God's creative goals. 

Rather than a purgation of all that is worst in our-selves; I see the work of Jesus in terms of an amplification of our-selves at their best. 

In this mortal life we find ourselves, intermittently and infrequently - turned in a Heavenly direction. So we know from experience what it is like to live in harmony with divine creation - to work with (rather than against) God.

(We also know what it is like to be turned-away from God and creation - what this feels like, where it leads; and we may learn something of how to overcome this turned-away state in ourselves) 

To prepare us for life in Heaven is therefore something like making it possible for us to stay permanently turned in the direction of Heaven and Creation, in permanent harmony with God's creative will. 

For this to happen, we each must choose whether to allow it to happen. 

Do we want the best in ourselves to become our whole self - or not? 

(This naturally entails leaving-behind those things that can only be achieved by going against God and creation - but the positive reason is that we desire wholly to be our best selves; and because we want to dwell eternally in a situation where we can whole-heartedly and actively work for such goals.)

It is a matter of what we want, and what we want most. 

By analogy; if this mortal life is a walk; then it is a walk when we spin around: sometimes walking with God, sometimes off on a tangent, sometimes pushing against the direction of God. 

Those who choose to follow Jesus Christ, are those who value most - indeed, at root, deeply-value only - those times when they are walking with God (times when they are motivated by love, and participating in the work of divine creation). 

Those who choose Heaven are those who want to do this walking-in harmony with God and sharing God's goals all the time - because they value love and creativity above all else; and indeed these are ultimately the only things of mortal life that they truly, everlastingly value. 

"The poor always ye have with you" - Jesus's harsh rejection of double-negative theology

John: 12: 3-8. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Jesus is both impatient and decisive in his rejection of Judas Iscariot's attempt to impose the deadly trap of double-negative theology on Jesus's message. 

The danger of this demonic lure is evident. 

If Christianity becomes primarily a matter of dealing with the sufferings of this-world, there will be no end or limit to such activities, such a mind-set. 

To live for "compassion" is un-Christian and spiritually lethal; because it excludes the ultimate life-purpose of salvation*. 

"The Poor" of one sort or another (including our poor-selves, our own sufferings and needs!) will always be with us, their needs will always be present and, unless a higher and positive life-purpose is in place and dominant, will always usurp the purpose of salvation  - as the present self-identified-Christian churches exemplify with such horrible clarity. 

Only from the primacy of a commitment to following Jesus Christ through death to Heavenly resurrection; is it spiritually virtuous to consider the endless, boundless, intractable problems of this mortal life and world. 

And then only from personal love - because abstract, universal, unconditional love is another net to catch the devil's prey**. 

Make no mistake about it: we are talking about a Satanic snare! 

To live double-negatively in order to alleviate the ills of this mortal life is evil - even-more evil is to advocate this, to push an "altruistic" ideology.

Jesus's harsh, aggressive, repulsion of Judas's concern for The Poor should help make this evident. 

+++

* That it was not just Judas's hypocritical motivation for helping the poor that Jesus was rejecting, is evidenced by the larger scope of Jesus's explanation. 

** That promiscuous altruism and alleviation of the ills of this world is indeed a devilish trap, lure and snare; is indirectly suggested by the way in which not-Christians and anti-Christians are so addicted to making accusations of an un-Christian attitude; if or when any Christian person or institution fails to lend public support to a socio-political scheme that presents-itself as intended to alleviate some species of suffering. 

Are you a Christian or (just) a theist? What role does Jesus have in your theology?

To become a Christian it would seem necessary that Jesus has an important, probably vital, role in your understanding of divine activity - in addition to God the creator. All Christians regard Jesus as divine and necessary - but most Christians are unable satisfactorily to explain why.

And this is something that each must workout for himself, it seems to me; in practice. Because of this, for a long time I found it hard to be a Christian in any theoretically solid way - explanations kept crumbling...

(The ability of Christians explicitly to defend and explain Jesus seems to be increasingly necessary in the modern world - since naive Christians are falling to secular materialism with sustained high frequency.)

I was not satisfied with any of the usual explanations of what Jesus did, because they were either incoherent, or depended on an understanding of God and creation that (on living-with them) I sooner or later regarded as mistaken.

For me, any explanation leads on to further questions - until eventually I reach an assumption, and I must assent to this intuition: it must seem right at the deepest and solidest way I can manage, by sustained and intense thinking. I've reached such firm ground with Jesus - at least for the past few years.

I regard all theories of Jesus that start with an omnipotent God (who created everything from nothing) as fundamentally and necessarily mistaken - because such a God can do, and does do, everything - so there is by definition no need for Jesus.

This rules-out the entirety of traditionalist Christianity - Orthodox and Roman Catholic, and Protestant.

The only large scale theology left standing is Mormon; with its God (i.e. Heavenly Parents) who is wholly good by constrained by time and that creation is ongoing, continuing, open-ended; and began with pre-existent unorganised 'stuff' and the primordial spirits of men and women (who were embryonic Gods).

But, in my view, mainstream Mormonism errs in making Jesus primarily about atonement. This falls into being a double-negative theology of Jesus that I regard as refuted by intuition as well as the Fourth Gospel. Jesus came to bring us something more, life more abundant; not merely to undo sins and errors.

Because if Jesus was essentially an undoer, a negative figure, then that leads back to why God created the situation such as to require an undoer, but that undoer cannot itself be God... It also diminishes Jesus to be an undoer rather than the bringer of a great gift.

Yet, the strangest thing is that the work of Jesus is explained, repeatedly and clearly (albeit poetically) in the Fourth Gospel, which is about 2000 years old. If it can be read without a superstructure of preconceptions - the answer is there.

Jesus Christ, Giver of Life - an alternative to ICHTHYS

You probably know about the 'Jesus Fish' symbol, and how it supposedly came from the first letters (in Greek) of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour - that spelled something that sounded like the Greek word for 'fish'.

I was reflecting on the extent to which this is a helpful summary of Christianity - as I understand it. One can see that the word Christ is of compelling importance only to ancient Jews, as referring to their anticipated Messiah, a divinely-anointed king - but that this has no meaning or validity to a modern secular person. However, 'Jesus Christ' does make clear who we are talking about - not just some Spanish footballer called Jesus... So we can keep Christ as an identifier!

Son of God? Yes, but so are we all. Jesus is divine, and he is not identical-with 'God the creator'- but this kind of subtle theological consideration is probably not an appropriate focus for a brief summary of the importance of Jesus. Better to leave-it-out.

Then there is the word Saviour... Saving from what? is the first question. And a one word answer is Sin - but by Sin is properly meant something close to what we would say by Death; rather than by what most modern people mean by Sin, which is moral transgression, the thinking and doing of evil. Because of this moral/ ethical understanding of Sin, modern people don't regard it as the kind-of-think that one can be saved-from...

Yes, there is the idea that we need saving from 'Original' Sin - but this was supposedly inflicted by God on Adam and Eve and all descendants as a form of Justice; and that kind of Justice seems (on the face of it) un-just...

And anyway, it makes for a rather strange kind of double-negative theology if Jesus's role was to save us from a punishment inflicted by his Father. It sound close-to: good-Jesus saves us from evil-Father...

In sum: If Jesus is primarily about saving us from the consequences of sin-evil, and these consequences are divine in origin; then we are (merely) being saved from God, by God. I know there are theological explanations for this - but at a common sense level it would strike a modern person to have been better, easier, quicker for God not to condemn all Men in the first place.


So, if Saviour is not a satisfactory summary-word for the work of Jesus; is there a better one?

Yes! In the Fourth Gospel we are told several times and in several ways that Jesus gave us Life Everlasting, Life Eternal. Which means that after 'biological death', instead of everybody going to the demented, ghostly half-life of 'Sheol'; Jesus has brought the gift of resurrection to a Heavenly life, as divine children of God, in Heaven.

This Gift is given to all who follow Jesus through death.

And to follow Jesus we need to love him, have faith in him, trust him - as sheep follow a Good Shepherd.

So Jesus is, mostly, the Giver of Life.


Now, any such brief summary is bound to lead to questions, to require elucidation. And Giver and Life both invite elucidation. But I think these explanations can briefly and simply be provided, along the lines expressed above.

Such obvious questions include - why can't God give Everybody this kind of Life. Why only those who love Jesus?

And the answer is that some people, perhaps most people, do not want what Jesus offers; and the reason why they do not want it, is where the more familiar idea of Sin as moral transgression comes-in.

Another obvious question is why we can't simple be born directly into Heaven? Why all this 'tedious mucking about' in mortal life?

And that answer to that has to be along the lines that this is the only way it can happen, it is the way things-work. Evidence is that Jesus himself had to attain resurrection via mortal life; and so we must do the same.

I think other questions can be given similarly brief and comprehensible answers. 


So that is my suggested alternative to ICHTHYS: Jesus Christ, Giver of Life.

The double-negative values problem - so Very tempting...

By Domenico Fetti

 (Wrong illustration of double-neg values on so many levels!)

I have been banging-on about the inadequacy of double-negative values (including double-negative theology) for such a long time (it seems) that it might be supposed that I am myself immune to this specific deception. 

Far from it! It really is so much easier to be opposed to bad stuff, to discover ever-more bad stuff, and to express this opposition - than it is to have positive values and aspirations; that this is a temptation which never goes away!

More than a temptation, double-neg thinking can become a mind-set; so that we end-up scanning our relationships, life (and the mass media, and System-outputs generally...) for things we can oppose. And they're so very easy to find!

And this mind-set gets to be a habit, because it is reinforced. We feel good about ourselves for pointing out bad stuff and our opposition to it; and other people think we are good for doing so. 

Even when the bad stuff isn't very bad, we can get self- and other-credit for pointing out that it can become bad - that it is full of hazards, highly risky, may be a slippery slope.

And all the time we can disguise from ourselves and others that either we lack coherent positive ideas; or that our own positive ideas are open to exactly the kind of double-neg critique as we inflict upon others. 

After all, how many positive ideals are not open to potential problems? 

How many positive values cannot be abused, misunderstood, or exaggerated into something bad? 

How many people are there who aren't harbouring sinful motivations? 

This, I take it, is the real meaning of the mote and beam in the eye parable in the Bible - which I would guess is indirectly from Jesus's true sayings, but seems to have been misinterpreted, and misleadingly-explained by the evangelist. 

The point of acknowledging the beam in our own eye is surely Not so that we can better perceive and cure the motes in other people eyes; but in order that we should cease to focus on the endless and addictive temptations of a double negative value system; and instead strive to build our lives around positive values...

Despite that this really does open us to infinite criticism from the multitudes of highly-motivated mote-detectors! 

And even when these positive ideals are (or seem) simplistic and incomplete - better that, than to live by negations.*

*Because, one great and decisive spiritual advantage of positive ideals is that - when they fail or reveal serious limitations - they can be improved by learning from experience. 

The spirit of Antichrist in the Queen's Christmas Message 2019

One important factor in this era of things coming to a point, is the distinction between good and evil becoming ever clearer even in our own hearts - and even within Christianity. Among which, the very longstanding errors and false emphases of Christianity are being exposed mercilessly.

One such error can be seen when comparing the Fourth Gospel with Luke's and especially Matthew's Gospel's - and is related to the idea of Jesus as Messiah of this world, of being a socio-political saviour of his people. And the idea that this will be evident in terms of Jesus, and then of Christianity (and the purported institutional continuation of Jesus's mission) being a positive influence in the development of this world.

It is normal now - and has been from not long after Jesus died - to claim that Jesus made The World (this mortal life) a better place; just as it is common from the enemies of Christianity to claim the opposite. And often to claim this better world as the main 'benefit' for Christianity, the main reason why people should be Christians*.

But in our time, with our pervasive materialistic world view; the arguments for Christianity have become almost entirely this-worldly. And, to make this appealing to the mainstream masses, the effects of Jesus Christ are seen in terms of Christianity promoting the values and outcomes that are currently mainstream.


This can be seen in yesterday's Queen's Speech. Elizabeth II is Head of the Church of England - officially responsible for appointing the bishops who ordain the priests; so that having Christian references is normal and mandatory in her annual address; the question is: what are these Christian references, and what do they imply?

This year, the nature of these Christian references shows clearly the ways that the spirit of Antichrist is at work in this era, here and now; such that references to Jesus and to the Christian churches are framed in social terms quite alien to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel.

Of course, at the heart of the Christmas story lies the birth of a child: a seemingly small and insignificant step overlooked by many in Bethlehem. But in time, through his teaching and by his example, Jesus Christ would show the world how small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding. As Christmas dawned, church congregations around the world joined in singing It Came Upon The Midnight Clear. Like many timeless carols, it speaks not just of the coming of Jesus Christ into a divided world, many years ago, but also of the relevance, even today, of the angel's message of peace and goodwill. It's a timely reminder of what positive things can be achieved when people set aside past differences and come together in the spirit of friendship and reconciliation.

This false idea of Jesus as primarily, essentially, the agent of overcoming differences and division, of offering a blueprint for harmony and understanding, and of instituting a society of peace and goodwill; is a modern version of the same error and distortion seen when Jesus was regarded as a Jewish political leader; whose primary mission was to inaugurate a new way of living on this earth and during this mortal life.

Whereas, in reality Jesus was essentially addressing the individual person; and any social changes were secondary to that person coming to believe-on Jesus, have faith-in and love-for him; and desiring to follow Jesus through death to resurrected life everlasting in Heaven.


The influence of Jesus, of Christianity, on this world and mortal life is therefore via the effect of transforming individual minds by the love of Jesus and the expectation of Heaven.  

The error of regarding Jesus's mission as primarily political is even more harmful now than it was at and around the time of Jesus's life; because we have (as a society) lost our ability even to acknowledge the reality of the spiritual - and this is also the attitude of the Establishment Christian leadership such as the Queen, Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis.

I call this the spirit of Antichrist, because the idea of Antichrist is to be a fake Christ who uses Christian language and concepts but whose covert motivations are evil; the spirit of those who affect to be on the side of God while operating on the side of Satan. This is done by incorporating selective aspects of Christianity with a false emphasis, and by leaving-out the essence. (Plus, of course, by lying.)


So, the actual religion of the 2019 Queen's Speech is, unsurprisingly, Leftism: we have a Leftist fake Christianity of social reform, and an overt Leftism of that modern 'climate' focused pseudo-environmentalism that has become merely an excuse for a wholesale, Global totalitarian power grab:

Since the end of the Second World War, many charities, groups and organisations have worked to promote peace and unity around the world, bringing together those who have been on opposing sides. By being willing to put past differences behind us and move forward together, we honour the freedom and democracy once won for us at so great a cost. The challenges many people face today may be different to those once faced by my generation, but I have been struck by how new generations have brought a similar sense of purpose to issues such as protecting our environment and our climate.

Here we have it, the Antichrist spirit; where it turns out that many 'charities, groups and organisations' are involved in (supposedly) promoting peace and unity around the world; with a special endorsement for that most immediately threatening evil of putting-aside-differences (ie. enforcement of sameness and elimination of borders) that is being pursued under the excuse of 'protecting our environment and our climate' [sic!]).


In sum, the Queen is explicitly making an equation between the aims of Christianity and the aims of mainstream charities, groups, organisations, environmentalists and climate change activists.

In other words, since Christianity and Leftism are being regarded as amounting to the same thing, and both are to be pursued by the same strategy of promoting peace and unity. Therefore, in practice: pursuing Leftism is claimed here also to be promoting Christianity. And the Christian message is transformed into eliminating inter-societal and inter-personal differences/ imposing uniformity of thoughts, attitudes and behaviours/ empowering international agencies with total powers of surveillance and control etc.

Thus we see the spirit of Antichrist at work. And, as always, the greatest danger is the failure to discern it; the failure to perceive that - whatever the Christian language - evil is the true motivation.


*Note added: Jesus came to offer the new possibility of resurrected Life Everlasting - which is the positive meaning of the double-negative theology of saving us from 'sin' - where 'sin' is being understood as 'the mortal condition', which is itself being understood primarily (but not wholly) to be death. That was what Jesus did, what his life and death was for; and Jesus succeeded completely in this objective with nothing of it left outstanding or still-to-do. And the further things that Jesus came to do are contingent; being secondary to this primary completed act of Jesus, and contingent upon the human individual and his circumstances, and to the society at that time and place. Of course, becoming a follower of Jesus necessarily affects your life and this world, but that is not the point of it. Nor can such societal effects be made into a checklist, code, blueprint or System - separable from the souls of specific Christian individuals.  

The marvellous originality and profundity of the Mormon theology of eternal marriage

I have given-up on trying to persuade others of the wonders of Mormon theology! Instead, I will here merely vent some of my enthusiasm. 

Even Mormons regard their theology as very-much subordinate to specifics of this world practice in the CJCLDS. 

And hardly anybody else outside the CJCLDS (although, a few!) is sufficiently interested even to engage with the subject - often because of ineradicable ignorant hostile prejudice. 

But for me, I don't know that I have come across any richer source of metaphysical originality and genius across the span of Christendom, as in Mormon theology*. 

One of the greatest insights of Mormon theology was that God (The Creator) is the eternal and loving marriage of Father in Heaven and Mother in Heaven; in other words God is a dyad, not one. 

Properly understood and explored; this can be an astonishingly rich insight into the fundamental nature of reality - transcending centuries, indeed millennia, of false antitheses between monotheism and polytheism. 

The Mormon concept of God can be the basis of a positive metaphysical concept in its own right (not some combination or compromise of pre-existing concepts); as such, it needs to be understood in its own right. 

The Mormon church (the CJCLDS) has confused and distorted matters - in this as in several other ways - by claiming that such eternal "sealed" marriage is possible among mortal men and women, here on earth; and restricted to the administration and approval of the CJCLDS. 

This is understandable, perhaps it is and was inevitable - yet we must distinguish the reality and truth of things, as separable from the compromises and practicalities of organizing and maintaining A Church, in this world. 

But this is not merely something that demonstrably fails in practice (since many sealed marriages have ended in divorce); but is clearly impossible in theory, due to the basic nature of human beings and our life in this entropic and evil world. 

The basic nature of this mortal life cannot be transcended by mortal Men - and the fact of Men organizing into churches. 

Making claims of the church's transcendent power, or that church rules for living are mapped onto post-mortal and heavenly realities, are simply false - because they contradict the nature of this-world; and contradict too the whole rationale of Christianity as entailing death and resurrection. 

We cannot make Heaven on earth - else there would be no need for Heaven.

(And Jesus Christ insisted that there was need for Heaven, and by his work showed why and how.) 

We cannot replicate the eternal realities of Heaven with our mortal minds and bodies - and claiming that we can, acts against the core realities of what Jesus did and why. 

Churches - and their rules and rituals - do not control our access to Heaven; and indeed, the behaviours of church members (since 2020, especially) demonstrates that nobody really believes that they do. 

(They are merely too concerned at the implications of acknowledging they don't believe - which double-negative is not the same as - and much weaker than - positive belief. )

So, to understand the profound truth of the Mormon theology of God, requires that Mormons (as well as other Christians) set-aside the confusions related to how such spiritual realities are crystallized into material and mortal terms here in our lives on earth. 

Yet, our aspirations can and should be heavenly and spiritual - even as we acknowledge that their practice is mortal and corruptible (not just corruptible, but actually inevitably corrupt-ed - to some degree, sooner or later - by entropy and death - even when not by evil). 

(Thus the desire and aspiration towards eternal marriage in the Mormon sense is a new (as of 1830) beautiful and life-enhancing one - and a vital corrective to the destructive (indeed nihilistic) "mainstream" Christian doctrine that marriage is necessarily a temporary expedient that is dissolved by death, combined with the assertion that "there is no marrying in Heaven".) 

This aspiration is true and good; although eternal marriage cannot be actually attained until after we are resurrected and have become wholly and eternally committed to live by love. 

It requires resurrection to be able to make eternal commitments; for the reason that resurrection is itself the foundational eternal commitment - i.e. to live wholly by live (and leave-behind sin). 

Earthly marriage, and the innate desires and motivations we have in relation to it - even when we may be unable to find it during this mortal existence, provide the basis for understanding the reality of Heavenly marriage; and of the original, originative, creative nature of God (originating, that is, in love - with creation, including but not restricted to procreation, understood as a manifestation of love.)

When Joseph Smith had his vision of the dyadic nature of God, he was both a prophet and a philosopher of genius; but when he tried to make this vision a concrete reality among the members of the new Mormon church, he was merely a gifted and able leader, a kind of "king and judge" perhaps. 

Furthermore, the nature of God as from a Heavenly marriage need not be, and I think is not, a template for every man and woman - past, present and future. 

Christianity is for individual persons, and entails that each individual person affiliates to divine creation; I don't see that this entails that everybody ultimately wants the same thing - indeed that would seem vanishingly unlikely. Since each is unique - surely there will "always" be genuine exceptions? 

(As well as those making excuses to justify special treatment!) 

And what we be the point of a creation consisting of everybody doing the same thing! Multiplicity would then have no function or reason!

Another of Joseph Smith's great prophetic insights was that Heaven was A Family, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. And a loving family - even here on earth - can and often does incorporate many kinds of life-motivations and self-chosen roles, among its loving members. 

Resurrected and eternal individual men and women will develop what is distinctive in their original and innate nature - and this may or may not lead them into eternal marriage of a kind analogous to that of God, our Heavenly Parents and the Primary Creators, and thence to procreating spiritual children - in the way that Joseph Smith seemed to regard as the proper goal of all people. 

I include this, not because I am necessarily correct in contradicting this particular aspect of Joseph Smith's revelations - but as example fo how we ought to engage with them, as realities.

Realities we may know-about now, and experience temporarily and partially in mortal life; but realities that are only do-able in resurrected post-mortal life    

 

*For all its essential insights (at least, they have been essential for me) there are significant deficiencies in Mormon theology. Two of the most important are an incoherent and double-negative understanding of Jesus's real vital importance and the true nature of his work, which error was (apparently) inherited from mainstream Protestant theology. Another mistake - I believe - is also inherited; which is to regard the Holy Ghost as a separate personage from Jesus Christ - which (as with mainstream Christianity) makes the HG into a nebulous abstract entity with no clear provenance or role. 

Mercy versus Justice, and Mary the Mother of Jesus

I am still reading Geoffrey Ashe's The Virgin - his dense, fascinating, and very stimulating book about the historical development and meaning of the Catholic veneration of Mary, Mother of Jesus. 

(Ashe was himself a Roman Catholic, and deeply involved with Marian societies - especially the Carmelite Friars' shrine to Mary at Aylesford in Kent.)  

This passage was one I found very striking. Ashe is describing the theology of Saint Germanus, who was Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 700s. 

Mary, Germanus maintains, does not simply put requests to the Deity on matters they could agree about; she actively and successfully opposes him. "You turn away the just threat and the sentence of damnation, because you love the Christians... Therefore the Christian people trustfully turn to you, refuge of sinners." 

The universe is split at the summit. God stands for Justice, and since we are all sinners more or less, most of us have little to hope for at his hands. 

Mary stands for Mercy, and it is only because of her influence at court, not because of love or goodwill on God's part, that Heaven is within reach for more than a handful of human beings...

The Byzantine Virgin seems the only friend close to the throne and the only rescuer from utter awestruck despair...

The Greek church agreed that Mary was indispensable to salvation. An edict issued from Constantinople in 724 condemns anyone who withholds worship from her... 

She is no longer the gentle Lady to whom Christians may turn for help. She is the unique being... to whom they must turn or be in peril of losing their souls forever.    

[From before 1233] the norm of Marian miracles in hardening. The people concerned are apt to be commonplace and sometimes repellent. 

The sole redeeming feature they have in common, "redeeming" quite literally, is their love for the Virgin. This protects them against the consequences of wrongdoing. Her devotees seem able to get away with anything....

It is unfair to treat this mythology as a license to sin; by saving misguided mortals the Virgin enables them to repent. 

But the moral is not always conspicuous... 

The medieval popular Virgin represented the all-too-human, the irregular, the exceptional. She was superior to the system and could break through every rule. Humanity had her on its side in its perpetual protest against divine law and human ordinance. 

For her, every case was a special case. She could draw "her" sinner up out of hell itself, giving him another chance.

Such considerations stimulated various thoughts. One is that - however theologically alien and contradictory the role of Mary in Catholic devotion; the effect of Marian devotion has often been exemplary from what I regard as a strictly Christian perspective (as well as this-worldly-expedient - in terms of sustaining and strengthening the churches). 

I understand the above descriptions to represent a spiritual correction to the not-Christian (i.e. not Jesus-derived) emphasis on Justice that has so often overtaken Christian churches of almost every kind. 

When Jesus is made into a divine ruler of the universe, he has often been attributed with the characteristics of an idealized human ruler in some particular society - hence the de facto primacy of justice, defined legalistically - despite this being multiply-contradicted in the Gospels. 

Furthermore, the tortured theology of Original Sin (which was only required because early theologians made it mandatory to conceptualize and define God as Omni) - led to the weird double-negative explanation of Jesus's work; as having been accomplished by a vicarious sacrifice (torture and death) demanded by Divine Justice to compensate for sin. 

Against this historical backdrop of systemic misrepresentation of the fundamental nature of Jesus Christ's work and the paths to salvation by love of Jesus; Mary seems to have emerged, with the consequence of  re-creating the truth of Jesus's salvation by personal love.

With the difference that the necessary love is displaced from Jesus, to his mother (but his mother having been re-conceptualized to possess the salvific attributes of Jesus). 

But I don't doubt that this displaced or indirect love was none the less effective in attaining salvation for Marian adherents ; so long as the motives were true. 

The simple heart of Christianity - i.e. resurrected eternal heavenly life to those who follow Jesus - has always been open to the kind of "license to sin" misrepresentation Ashe describes in the second excerpt above. 

This is a kind of parody of Christianity, along the lines of: I can do what I like, be as selfish and gratification-seeking as I like... yet Mary will save me if I love her... 

Such is the exactly the same type of criticism made of Jesus's teaching during his life, by those whose real concern was social order and sustaining the power of their church...

Popular with those who do not really believe that All Men are sinners including themselves; and that no Man good enough for Heaven without first passing through death and resurrection*.

(Or who may regard following Jesus as less a matter of love than of following rules.)

 

The parody is untrue, because it ignores that motivation is primary, and that the love really must come first. 

Salvation is not attained by using love as an excuse to enable the primary motivation of doing evil. That is to put this-worldly gratification first. 

But, on the other hand, salvation really is - not for those who successfully past some test of following some laws; but salvation is for all those who love and desire to follow Jesus more than anything else.

Or, in this instance... love and desire to follow Mary more than anything else - so long as Mary is conceptualized in the way she has been by some ancient (and some modern) Catholic Christians, as described in Ashe's book. 

*I suppose I should state that I regard it as theologically incoherent from a Christian perspective to claim that Mary was conceived and existed without sin, and was assumed into Heaven without going through death and resurrection. The necessity and work of Jesus - and the requirement that we are all  incarnated into mortal life - only makes sense when it is understood that death and resurrection was and is the only way to "fit us for Heaven". Nonetheless (fortunately for all of us!) theological coherence is not a requisite for salvation! 

What is basically-wrong with The World? (suffering versus entropy)

Although I harp-on about the dangers of double-negative theology for Christians; nonetheless the positive achievement of Jesus Christ (and his 'message') would not have much traction unless people felt that there was some-thing basically, fundamentally, ultimately wrong with The World - some thing which Jesus (at least potentially) set right.  

And what I mean here is at the level of our personal feelings of what is wrong: What is it (what kind of a thing) that we personally feel is wrong about our life and the world?

(What problem to which Jesus offers a solution?)

There are probably any number of things that might in theory be thus regarded; but I think there are just two apparently common but distinct wrong-feelings that seem to dominate people. 

Probably the commonest (in the Western civilization at any rate) is that suffering is the main problem, the main thing wrong with the world. So widespread and powerful is this idea that it hardly requires explaining - but anyway...

Any or all kinds of suffering might be meant: pain, misery, disablement, fear, despair, humiliation -- different people mostly experience, are most susceptible to, or focus on; different kinds of suffering. 

And the wrongness of suffering my be my suffering, the suffering of particular loved others - whether human, animal, or something else; it may be the totality of suffering in the world; or it may be the wrongness of suffering of any Beings anywhere, ever (i.e. that there ought never to be any suffering).

In sum: this is the idea that the suffering - whether its existence, its prevalence, or its severity - is what is basically wrong with this world. 

This seems to be a hugely powerful and widespread conviction - it is apparently the basis of several religions, and what they claim to cure. Suffering as the main problem to be addressed is the basis of almost all public moral discourse nowadays; the rationale of preventing, reducing, or stopping various kinds-of-suffering (or putative suffering) is the basis of a great deal of all mainstream policy and political action.  

But there is another idea of basic wrongness - less often expressed, but just as real; and that is that the main thing wrong with this world is that nothing lasts.   

Anything that we value will not last; everything will die, or in some other way be destroyed. 

...No matter how large, strong, how long it has existed - it will crumble, it will come to an end. 

All that we value the most - our love, those we love the most, whatever we most love doing, our achievements - will change, will end. All that is most virtuous or beautiful will end. 

And Be Forgotten Utterly.

We ourselves will die, everybody will die; all the animals and plants will die; our living planet, and the mineral planet, the sun and solar system - all will change, crumble, end.  

This aspect of the nature of our world, I often term 'entropy'; and entropy in this sense, is a rival to suffering as the major candidate for what is wrong with the world. 

The "weight of entropy" may be the tragedy of life.  

Yet suffering and entropy as the main problem of life, are each very different in their nature and consequences. 

For example, a selfish person might feel there is nothing wrong with the world at times when he is personally completely-happy (i.e. when he personally is not suffering); and someone might also assume that if suffering could be abolished from the world - then there would be essentially nothing wrong with it. 

But someone who believed that entropy was the main problem would perhaps be most aware of the wrongness of the world at exactly those times when he was most happy, and did not suffer. Because he would realize that this state could not last. 

(Have we not felt this ourselves, in the first full flush of falling in love? Perfect happiness... all-too-soon undercut by the fear and conviction that it Will Not Last?)

Indeed, the more 'successful' was a Man's life - the more joyous and fulfilled, the more loving and creative -- the more strongly would the fact of entropy weigh upon him; because he would be ever-aware that all this would, for sure, be lost.  

One who regards entropy as the main problem in this life, this world; cannot envisage any this-worldly way in which the situation could be cured - because this world is 'ruled' by entropy. 

No conceivable political program or psychological treatment would make any difference. The better that things became - the more tragic the sense that none of it would last...

This circles back to Jesus Christ; because Jesus did not claim to eliminate or even diminish suffering in this world...

Or, even if you think Jesus did claim this, then the past 2000 years have (surely?) been a massive refutation that He could deliver it! 

Consequently; those who focus the most on suffering as that which is basically wrong with the world, are often those most hostile to Jesus and Christianity. 

But Jesus did claim to offer a way of escape from entropy: this is what Jesus meant by resurrection, eternal life, and heaven. 

It was to fix the inadequacy of this mortal life, that Jesus offered resurrection

Jesus's job was to fix the inadequate nature, the insufficiency, of this mortal life on earth. 

This was achieved such that the purpose of resurrected eternal life in Heaven is for there to be a real and accessible state and place, where the intractable and incurable problems (that currently wreck any possibility of a good life) are permanently eliminated.  

If this mortal life was sufficient, or even if mortal life was perfectible; then there would be little benefit in offering the chance of Resurrection after death - because it would obviously be better to have all the good stuff and fix the problems of this world without first needing to die. 

"Christianity" is therefore for those who realize that the core problems of this world and mortal life - i.e. entropy/ death and evil - cannot be solved inside this life and world - because they are of the nature of this creation. 

Because the core problems are insoluble within this creation; our only possible and real hope is for a second creation; for our-selves to look forward to a "second" life, in a world without death and without evil.

And such a world, as a matter of reality, can only exist on the other side of mortal death. 

So; Resurrection is not about "jam tomorrow" or "pie in the sky" - it is not a wish-fulfilment daydream...

Because the truly wishful daydreams are radical politics and utopian schemes - like socialism and "transhumanism" - ideologies that pretend to offer a future that solves the core problems of life... 

Ideologies that pretend to make possible a situation where Mankind (here and now, or soon) will have fulfilment and satisfaction, and escape from fear and suffering - where mortal life will suffice. 

Those who believe such claims are real and possible, are never interested by Jesus's offer of Resurrection into Heaven that is located on the other side of death.  

Also wishful are those religions (including Christianity, in many times and places) that promise a "millennium"... 

That promise their adherents Heaven on Earth, perfected Man, a world purged of evil and death; a second coming, an earthly-saviour - such promises are also in this wishful category. 

Yet, if such things really were possible; there would have been no need for Jesus, and what he offered would be redundant. 

After all; a chance of post-mortal Resurrection to post-mortal Heaven would be a shabby second best to Heaven on Earth accessible without dying.  

The commonly-expressed idea of Resurrection and Heaven as a reward for a Good Life is grossly to under-sell what is on offer. 

This is to downgrade Resurrection and Heaven to a delayed "earthly paradise"... a world and life that is quantitatively better than, but not qualitatively different from, what we already now have.

If quantitative improvement of this mortal life ASAP is that which is most strongly desired; then Resurrection and Heaven are of merely subordinate interest.    

Even worse is to explain Resurrection in terms of the double-negative theology of Resurrection and Heaven as an escape from the default of eternal torment in Hell! 

This bizarrely posits a God who purposively creates a mortal life so-often dominated by evil and entropy, and always terminated by death; after which everlasting pain and misery is the default destination of all...

And then the same God devises Resurrection and Heaven which constitute a delayed and selective escape route from horrors of His own devising. 

If such a creator-God existed, He is not the same Good God as known and described by Jesus. 

So, even before we decide whether we personally desire Resurrection and Heaven; and even before we decide whether Resurrection and Heaven are believable...

We first need to know our present situation, what R&H mean in context of our present situation, what R&H are for: and what they do. 

Unfortunately, the clarity and simplicity of what Jesus did and made possible; is by-now grossly obfuscated by millennia of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, disinformation - and deliberate lies. 

The only viable answer would seem to be for each creatively and actively to work it out for himself - from intuitive-experiential knowing; as it were from "first principles'. With the assurance that God and Jesus Christ will with certainty have made this possible for all Men... Possible if not now, or during mortal life, then for-sure post-mortally.  

Double-negative Christian thinking blocks the search for a positive solution

One of the themes on which I have harped in recent years is the importance of recognizing when we are engaging in double-negative thinking, without any positive strategy behind it. 

I mean that pervasive deformation of modern Western thinking which organizes society in terms of what people are against, with absolutely no notion for what people are for.  

This is a recipe for social destruction; but also for personal despair - since emotions are negatively triggered, and social life becomes a multi-pronged, recurrent sequence of urgent and often fanatical crusades against this, that, or the other "bad-thing"; but with no concept of where this is supposed to be leading. 

Thus we live in a society of dystopias, without any remotely plausible - or even remotely appealing, utopia For instance; the supposed-utopias put forward by the WEF over the past years "own nothing and be happy", "fifteen minute cities" etc. are actually horrific nightmare visions of the future, as well as ludicrously implausible. 

But a somewhat analogous situation applies to Christians; who are much clearer about what they are against than what they are for. And when most Christians do describe what they are for - typically they only succeed in painting a kind of nightmare scenario (usually with a totalitarian flavour); or else some more-or-less ludicrous and unconvincing clearly-subjective-and-partial daydream (e.g. of a sexual nature). 

This is apparently a basic and civilizational phenomenon, because what is most striking about the trajectory of religion in the West is the extent to which it replicates all other social institutions; and the extent to which broadly the same path has been followed by all the Christian denominations - and indeed all the religions, and all the political ideologies. 

Thus the publicly observable faith of all kinds of Christian is obviously much feebler than in the past; but also we can see the same in all other religions in the West. 

And the same again applies to political ideologies such as nationalism/ communism/ socialism; ideals that - only a century ago - inspired extreme personal heroism at a mass level -- yet now are feeble and tawdry excuses for personal hedonism, careerism, money-grubbing and power-seeking. 

Furthermore; while religion and ideology have declined; so has romanticism. People are more mundane and materialist in their thinking than ever before; accepting or indeed embracing of mechanistic, dehumanized, life-less and soul-less workplaces, art and architecture, music, movies and TV, literature - and churches. 

All of which are organized and conceptualized in bureaucratic terms - ruled by such abstractions as flow charts, auditing, hierarchy, surveillance and micro-control - and in which creativity is replaced by systematic plagiarism and fakery. 

There has been no significant mass movement in favour of individualism for half a century -- and even that one (in the late 1960s-early 1970s) was largely a fake: stage-managed by the Establishment/ Mass Media and Intelligence services.  

So if we honestly and rigorously seek for a genuinely positive outlook on life; we will search in vain through the public arena and public discourse. 

At all turns we will be baited-and-switched with (more or less disguised) double-negations of things-we-are-against; instead of things we are positively for.  

This change is so pervasive that I personally believe that it only makes coherent sense to regard it as a change in human beings, in human "consciousness" - that is; a change in the way we approach, perceive and understand The World, Our-Selves and The Divine. 

The above analysis and interpretation is why I feel that Modern Man already-is in a situation where the public realm is net-harmful (overall and by intent); where all forms of external guidance are harmful, not helpful; where all kinds of institutions, organizations, formal groupings are harmful, not helpful...

And therefore a world in which the only place to look for a positive approach to the future is in ourselves as individuals, and the direct and unmediated relationships we have with other individual selves - including those we love among the living and the "so-called dead"; among the material-beings and spirit-beings; among human-beings and not-human-beings; and especially with God the Creator and Jesus Christ. 

How we personally formulate and describe this individual situation matters less than that we actually do it - that we actually take personal responsibility for doing it. 

This is why I put-forward, describe and affirm my personal vision of Romantic Christianity - despite that I simultaneously urge each individual person not to accept this but to do it for himself.* 

The first step (but only the first) is to break free from the self-imposed prison of dependence on external authority - and to take personal responsibility for ones fundamental assumptions and convictions. 

Then comes the process of self-critical evaluation and development of a coherent world-view in harmony with all of our deepest assumptions and convictions. 

Because of the entropic nature of this world, and the triumph of evil in the public realm; this process has no end point in this temporary mortal life - but must aim beyond it and towards resurrected eternal Heavenly life.  

This is why there is no coherent or plausible utopia in this-world. 

And this is also why Romantic Christianity is the opposite of subjectivist escapism - in spite that it is rooted in each individual and seeks salvation beyond life. 

The real subjectivity is willingly and by choice, to be subordinated to the nihilistic will of evil-affiliated demons, Men, and institutions - and to be manipulated by them, at their will - towards their goal of opposing creation by means of unending double-negations. 

The real escapism is to be deluded into regarding this death-pervaded, temporary, and mortal world as a possible location for Heaven.

Whereas the Heaven reached after death, by resurrection, and through following Jesus; is the only proper object of, and context for, positive hope. 

*Note: A particularly important point that I want to get-across, is that there is more than one way of being-a-Christian. 

That the Orthodox-Traditional-Mainstream theology (shared by all Catholics and Protestants) is not the only possible way of sustaining Christian faith. 

That there is more than one set of assumptions that - with broad coherence - can sustain Christianity. 

This was first evident to me when I began to understand Mormon theology, how its assumptions were qualitatively different from the Mainstream assumptions; and that it had important advantages (in terms of explaining and validating free agency, and the nature and origins of evil) compared with Catholic-Protestant theology.

But Mormon theology is only semi-rooted in its metaphysical assumptions; and Mormon doctrine and everyday practice almost ignores, and sometimes contradicts, its own theological metaphysics. 

Which is why I first realized that a more-coherent and comprehensive theology was possible than either mainstream-traditional or Mormon - but that discovering this needed to be an individual and inwardly-motivated project. 

Saving us from what? The twin prongs of Romantic Christianity

From what does Jesus save us?

To simplify, one might first say Jesus saved us from death, by his offer of resurrection. 

And Jesus also saved us from an ultimately purposeless and meaningless mortal life - i.e. "alienation", by resurrection into that "second creation" which is Heaven. (Both are achieved by an eternal commitment to live by love.) 

Salvation from death and from alienation are the "twin prongs" of Romantic Christianity (the Christian, and the Romantic) - which are distinguishable, but which can be separated only by destruction of the valuable whole. 

In theory (as of here-and-now) we might be Christian or Romantic solely; in practice, in these End Times ruled by evil; unless both are present, then motivations are so enfeebled that we shall become corrupted into conformity with the demonic agenda. 

In stereotypical traditional societies (although not nowadays in The West) - this might be summarized as the first appeal of Christianity being different for those who live in expectation of death (e.g. in famine, war, or old age); than for those (adolescents and young adults, mostly) who are preparing for a functional adult life, and who are often afflicted by a sense of the pointlessness of mortal existence. 

In the past; alienation was often ameliorated by social palliatives - by those leaving their birth family becoming members of another close-knit group. hence the vitality of churches. But this alternative has been largely abolished by modernity and bureaucracy - and changes in human consciousness. Mostly, such communities are now experienced negatively: as intolerably oppressive, as exploitative. 

From here-and-now it seems that the answers of Christianity remain qualitatively the same; but have shifted from the material and external (e.g. churches, and the objective efficacy of religious symbolism and observances causally-linked to resurrection) to the spiritual - to inner commitments within the realm of thinking.  

Of course; to regard Jesus as Saviour is an instance of double-negative theology; and the underlying reality is that in a positive sense Jesus offered a possible basis for living well this mortal life; for a mortal life that escapes futility and gains eternal purpose and meaning from the expectation of resurrected life.  

In other words; both prongs of Romantic Christianity ought to arise from the same root; which is that we know with inner and intuitive sureness that our own individual reality is truly personal, and we have chosen to be part of divine creation - and that our part is eternally significant for the whole. 

Fourth Gospel meditations (essentially) complete

Regular readers will no doubt be relieved to hear that I think my 'project' of reading the Fourth Gospel in isolation, on the basis that it is most important book of the Bible, seems now to have reached its natural end-point.

I regard the Fourth Gospel as chronologically the first, and qualitatively the most authoritative, source on the life and teachings of Jesus. As I read and re-read, I found that the discipline created a situation as if the Fourth Gospel was the only scripture.

And indeed, whenever I turned to other Gospels, or to the Epistles and Revelation, they looked very much inferior; very much like rag-bag collections of theology, memoirs, theories and folk tales about Jesus; and of very mixed validity - since many things in them contradict the Fourth Gospel.

I don't know that I can ever again regard the bulk of the New Testament as any more intrinsically authoritative than I already regarded the Old Testament - which I see as a collection of many types of writing (including myth, fiction, poems, rulebooks, histories and prophecies), made over many years and with no single purpose in mind - a collection of potentially valuable resources.

At any rate, I feel a sense of completion - and I no longer feel internally-driven to continue. My initial assumptions about the special and unique validity of the Fourth Gospel remains and has been greatly strengthened; and I can understand why it has been systematically downgraded by the historical churches throughout history.

(By 'sytematic', I mean that the method and assumptions by which the historical churches created and have interpreted The Bible, and especially the New Testament, have downgraded the Fourth Gospel in multiple ways. By choosing Not to accord it primacy, the unique and challenging qualities of the Fourth Gospel have been negated, simply by its being 'outvoted'.) 

This downgrading seems inevitable, given that the Fourth Gospel provides no authority for churches, nor for a priesthood, nor for celibacy, nor for the ritual communal life that has often dominated Christian practice; the Gospel's vision of the Christian life is highly individual, personal, un-institutional. 

In the Fourth Gospel; Christians are seen to more like a new kind of family, than a new version of ancient religions.

And the historical church has mostly portrayed Jesus as a rescuer of an otherwise-doomed Mankind - a double-negative description, with Jesus negating the negative state of a 'fallen' world. Whereas the Fourth Gospel shows a Jesus dealing with individual persons to enhance their existence - a positive addition to human possibility, with Jesus making possible a qualitative transformation of mortal to divine Life.

The Fourth Gospel sees 'Christianity' as a one-at-a-time opt-in life, likely to be chosen by a minority of people; not a thing of masses, not a matter for politics or organisation.  

So, on the one hand, a Fourth Gospel-centred understanding tends to undermine the validity and relevance of a great deal of historical Christianity - including undermining things that have been, and are, seen as the very essence of the religion.

On the other hand, Fourth Gospel-centred Christianity may be exactly what is most needed in a world where, already, most of historical Christianity (in the West) has-been not just undermined, but subverted and inverted into purposive anti-Christian evil...

The Fourth Gospel is a message of hope directly and immediately applicable to every person in every situation - no matter how isolated. Across the centuries, leaping the millennia; the Fourth is precisely the Gospel for here and now.

Next-worldly, but not world-renouncing - not ascetic but loving (Christian life)

I think it is a mistake when Christians present the faith as ascetic, world renouncing, world-rejecting; as if this mortal life was merely a matter of (whether patiently, or not!) waiting for death and resurrection.

This makes no sense to me, because if mortal life is about rejecting this world, then we would die as soon as possible - or indeed, not live mortally at all but would go straight to Heaven. 

I think the error ultimately derives from double-negative theology - of seeing life in this sin-full world as a matter of avoiding as many sins as completely as possible. The modern world is more this-worldly and materialistic than any society ever before, so the "natural" reaction is often to aspire to reject everything, all material things, all attachments... But that lands us in Buddhism or Hinduism - not Christianity. 

What about the example of Jesus's own life. Well, it depends on which source you regard as primary. If, like me, you regard the Fourth Gospel "John") as broadly authoritative, then there is no sanction for asceticism; since Jesus is depicted as living very socially, even feasting; and having very personal and loving attachments to family and friends. In this Jesus is contrasted with John the Baptist, who is depicted as much more of a world renouncing ascetic.

On the other hand, most people prefer to take the Synoptic Gospels, especially Matthew and Luke, as their primary sources - and these describe Jesus retreating into the desert for forty days and nights. Very ascetic. Either this actually happened as Matthew and Luke said, or it didn't as positively implied and negatively omitted by "John" (who could hardly have chosen leave -out such a major event!). 

The truth is not complicated; it is simply that we are supposed neither to be worldly materialists nor unworldly hermits (both red herrings, a false dichotomy); but to love during mortal life. That seems pretty clear, pretty straightforward.

Loving not rejecting. 

And to love means to love persons, beings, the living world; which is why we remain alive in this mortal life - and why we are not supposed to be trying to make mortal life into a second-rate version of being dead already.   

To love; is to love material things as well as spiritual things (except that there are no "things", not really - creation is alive). 

Of course love is a dynamic thing, and is two-way; which is why we never stop needing to learn about it. That is what we are supposed to be doing while we are alive; and we shouldn't be hankering after the next life when there is important work to be done in this life. 

But love is something we must do while living - although love is the purpose, it is not a purpose that can be aimed-at of itself. 

We must love while living - while doing all the material mortal things we need to do... 

Which, presumably, is why we are alive.