The God of Christians did not create everything from nothing (ex nihilo)

From Blake Ostler's essay The Doctrine Of Creation Ex Nihilo Was Created Out Of Nothing. His conclusion:

1. The Old Testament adopts the ancient Near Eastern view of creation out of a preexisting chaos or waste. This conclusion is supported by linguistic evidence of the meaning of beresit, by the structure of Genesis 1, by the textual, semantic and conceptual similarities between Genesis 1 and other creation accounts, and by the entire structure of the creation narrative. The word bara does not mean creation ex nihilo nor does it imply it. Rather, the word bara addresses creation by dividing and separating already existing realities and thereby creating something new that has never before existed.

2. The New Testament does not teach creation ex nihilo. To the contrary, 2 Peter 3:5 expressly teaches that God created out of the already existing chaotic waters, Hebrews 11:3 expressly teaches that God created the visible world from the already existing invisible world, and Romans 4:17 teaches that God created from an already existing substrate.

3. The claim made by C&C that the dogma of creation ex nihilo was already well-established in the Jewish texts about the time of Christ is simply false. None of the texts they cite for this conclusion address the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Indeed, some of the Jewish texts which they take to teach creatio ex nihilo, such as Second Enoch and Joseph and Aseneth expressly teach that God created the world by making visible those things which already existed as invisible. 

In addition, none of the Christian texts cited by C&C such as The Shepherd of Hermas and the Odes of Solomon actually teach creatio ex nihilo. Indeed, these texts are better explained by the doctrine of creatio ex materia. Further, it is clear that several Jewish texts from around the time of Christ, such as Philo Judeaus the Wisdom of Solomon, and several early Christian writers like Clement, Justin Martyr and Athenagorous, expressly teach the doctrine of creatio ex materia.

4. The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo appeared suddenly about 180 A.D. in the writings of Tatian and Theophilus in their arguments with Stoics and Middle Platonists. 

It is fairly clear that the doctrine arises as a philosophical consequence of their adoption of a Middle Platonic concept of God. What we see in all texts from about 165 A.D. and after is that Platonic philosophy, both Middle and Neo, have infiltrated Christian thought and become a basis for major innovations in doctrine. 

From the Mormon perspective, we see the apostasy in action in living color. The personal God of the Bible known through revelation and personal encounter is suddenly too far removed from the human sphere of existence to be involved in such things with humans. 

The notion that humans are created in the image and likeness of God must be reinterpreted to fit the Platonic view that God is utterly unique and entirely unlike humans. God’s mode of creation, therefore, must be completely different than any human mode of creation. 

The Middle Platonic assumption that only the absolutely immutable can be eternal is used as a background assumption to argue that matter cannot in any sense be eternal because it is subject to change. The Middle Platonic view that sees matter as necessarily entailing an eternal cycle of recurrence leads to adopting a view of God transcending altogether the material sphere. 

If one accepts the assumptions from which the Christian apologists of the late second century begin, then creatio ex nihilo becomes the only logical conclusion. It apparently never occurred to them to reject these Platonist assumptions.

 
The adoption of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo had other far reaching implications for the history and form of “Christian” theology even to our own day. 

The doctrine of creation out of nothing led inevitably to Chalcedon where Christ was described as one person having two natures, consubstantial with the Father in his deity. This two nature theory of Christology assured that the Platonic view of natures and substance would be essential to make “sense” of the doctrine of God within the creedal tradition. 

The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo also gives rise to arguments that everything that occurs must be caused by God, for if he didn’t cause each substance to exist anew in each moment, it would cease to exist. 

Thus, a very strong form of divine determinism and predestination seems to be entailed by the doctrine...

Read the whole thing...

Ask an abstract question, and you'll get an abstract answer

It has been a problem of theology since the early days of the Christian church; that people ask abstract questions and get abstract answers. 

The problem is that all abstractions are on the one hand 'models' of reality, not reality itself - and consequently they have an unreal and unsatisfying quality about them; so that 'human psychology' remains unsatisfied by abstract explanations, at a deep level*.  

Yet the identity of abstraction is typically un-clear, and the meaning of infinite likewise. So, this is an explanation that does not explain - rather, it layers incomprehension (mystery) upon incomprehension; while apparently explaining. 

What about the power of God? For Christians, God is the creator. Because 'creation' is an abstraction, this, statement invites explanation of what exactly is created - from what? Orthodox theologians say that God creates everything (except God himself) from nothing (termed creation ex nihilo). 

But creation ex nihilo is an assertion of something beyond natural human experience and understanding. Indeed, the concept of a phenomenon of creation ex nihilo seems to have arisen among Greek philosophers, who were abstractly reasoning about ultimate causes. Before this, there was no such concept, and certainly there was no such concept for the ancient tribal Hebrews who wrote the Old Testament. 

Therefore, to explain the abstract property of creation in terms of an abstract ultimate is not to 'explain' but to layer abstractions, and to create intrinsic mystery. If abstraction is regarded as the real-reality, then we get a root un-clarity that becomes definitional; as happened with orthodox Christian theology.

As another example: How great is the power of God? 

Power is an abstraction - and indeed, it is very difficult to provide as satisfactory definition of power. But in trying to explain the scope of God's (undefined) power, the philosopher finds it impossible to conceive of a clear boundary to God's 'power'.

(...Especially if the philosopher is already assuming that God is capable of creation ex nihilo; which seems to suggest that God can make anything thus do anything.) 

So the abstract philosopher then reaches for another abstraction and states that God's 'power' is 'infinite' - i.e. that God is omnipotent. 

This layering of abstractions - which abstractions are then taken as definitional - then creates all sorts of (as I would regard them artifactual) problems. Especially when it comes to explaining the presence of evil in a reality created from nothing by a Christian God axiomatically described as wholly good. 

(In that a wholly-good God, that created everything from nothing, and was of infinite power - would seem to be incapable of creating evil.) 

The apparent conclusion was that there is no evil in reality, that therefore the apparent evil which Men observe must be an illusion... 

And at this point, the philosophers - leaping from abstraction to abstraction, layering one upon another, and taking each abstraction as definitive - have apparently demolished Christianity!  

I am, myself, in search of clarity; and I am not satisfied by explanations that create mystery, and then rationalize mystery on the basis of asserting that ultimates are intrinsically mysterious. 

And, further, rationalize this by asserting than anyone who seeks (or even attains) clarity of understanding is necessarily misguided. 

A clear explanation is then regarded as a false explanation; an over-simplification, an instance of childish, human-sized, perhaps 'anthropomorphic' modelling of reality - on the basis that the philosophers have pre-decided that only abstractions can capture reality.  

For myself, this is an error traceable back to an original prejudice in favour of abstractions; which probably relates to the Platonic assertion that this earthly world of time and change is illusion; and real-reality lies elsewhere in a world of timeless-hence-changeless ideas, of archetypes: that is, a world of abstractions.  

My point here is (as so often!) that we get-out what we put-in, if we start with abstractions, we will end with abstractions; and noticing that primary (i.e. metaphysical) assumptions structure and dictate reasoning and what counts as 'evidence'. 

I believe that these abstractions are essentially alien to the core of Christianity, and have deformed and distorted Christianity since its early years. 

Christianity was originally common sense, simple and clear; as it was taught, explained and exemplified by Jesus - especially in the most-authoritative source of the Fourth 'John' Gospel; was later picked-up and rapidly, but wrongly, inserted-into a framework of pre-existing, not-Christian, philosophical and abstract modes of explanation. 

This led to all kinds of insoluble paradoxes, which were then explained-away (but not actually explained) by further abstractions; and the paradoxes were dealt with by re-labelling incoherence as mystery. 

It is such factors which led me to trying to understand Christianity is a simple, natural, spontaneous, and (so far as possible) non-abstract way - while accepting that language is itself an abstraction. 

So we can only take the process so far as to point-at a direct and intuitive comprehension in non-linguistic thinking. 

By this, I find that clarity is attained only when regarding reality as consisting of Beings in personal relationships (an 'animistic' world view); which is therefore the primary assumption of my own metaphysics.     

*Wittgenstein seems to have noticed this problem with his early (Tractatus) philosophy, and tried to resist it in his late (Philosophical Investigations) philosophy - but without much success!

Metaphysics and the Marriage of Jesus - or, how fundamental assumptions shape and determine Christianity

Our fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality (i.e. our "metaphysical" assumptions) have a decisive effect upon our perceptions and interpretations - such that when our metaphysics rules-out something, then that thing is often unperceived - or, if perceived, then regarded as impossible. 

This is, I presume, why the marriage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (who is the same person as Mary of Bethany) is either unnoticed by readers of the IV Gospel (called "John"), and/or why each mention of it is interpreted-away - despite that there is ample and coherent reference to the marriage and its profound spiritual significance in that Gospel.  

The reason is not far to seek; because most Christians have the fundamental assumption that Jesus cannot be married, because Jesus is mystically conceptualized (in an Athanasian-Trinitarian fashion) as one of the three persons of the One Godhead. And, as such, a cosmically-significant marriage of Jesus to a human being is so impossible as to be absurd. 

Consequently, each and every mention of the marriage of Jesus and Mary must mean something else; and the only task is to suggest what these references might mean. Since humans are natural experts at explaining-away whatever they regard as impossible, this is an almost automatic process.  

The same applies to reading the IV Gospel itself. As I described at the beginning of Lazarus Writes; when mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christians read this Gospel; they do so by implicitly-but-decisively subordinating it to the numerical majority "consensus" of the rest of the New Testament. First to the Synoptic Gospels (i.e. Gospels I, II, III; but especially Matthew and Luke), and/or the Epistles (especially Pauline), and to some parts of the Revelation/ Apocalypse.

(Almost as if spiritual authority was determined by majority vote!)  

My understanding - that the IV Gospel is the only eye-witness, earliest, and qualitatively most authoritative source concerning Jesus - is regarded as idiosyncratic, and indeed arbitrary. 

Therefore; the New Testament, and whole Bible, are being read in terms of fundamental assumptions concerning the weight and validity of its components, and how this question ought to be determined; that washes-away anything stated in the IV Gospel, or omitted from it, that is regarded as significant but contradictory to the majority of Books (or to other sources such as Matthew, Luke and Paul; that are treated as de facto more authoritative). 

By assumption, therefore, the IV Gospel must be explained in terms that harmonize it with other parts of the Bible; those parts that have, through history and as maintained by the churches, been accorded an assumed primacy. 

Another assumption relates to how we personally (each of us) ought to read The Bible - including the IV Gospel. 

It is assumed that we ought to defer to and obey some external authority in allowed ways of reading or understanding the Bible. 

Which particular authority we ought to defer to is a matter of contention between Christian denominations and churches (e.g. church tradition, or current authoritative church teaching as a whole or of specific persons, or some version of theology, or current linguistic and historical scholarship...). 

Among among those Christians who state that the Bible is primary, and its own authority, and ought to be understood as inerrant and literally true; there are always prior assumptions as to whether this means the Bible as a whole is true, or else the New Testament primarily, or particular parts of the New Testament. 

And the "correct" way of understanding the Bible is likewise a prior assumption. Should its ultimate meaning be understood in an overall sense of mutual cohesion - including all Boks in both Old and New Testaments? Or understood one Book at a time? 

Or does truth reside in the Bible verse by verse - or even word by word? 

And/or do those words ascribed to Jesus (spoken by him, as recorded), have the highest authority?

Even those denominations that assert we ought to read the Bible for ourselves by personal revelation, invariably insist upon some particular interpretations; at least for key doctrines, and for church members we aspire to have good standing in the institution. 

My point here is that our understanding of what is significant and what it means, is structured by assumptions that we all have before we embark on Christian exegesis; and before we read The Bible - or indeed seek guidance from any external source.

This is just a fact of things: our fundamental metaphysical assumptions have structured our Christian faith, determine what counts as evidence, and shape what that evidence means.  

We cannot choose not to have fundamental assumptions. 

Therefore your choice and my choice as Christians; lies in whether we acknowledge and become aware of the fact of prior assumptions; or - as is more usual - to deny and refuse to discuss the fact.  

 

NOTE ADDED: A further example of a prior-to-Christianity and fundamental structuring assumption is the nature of God-the-creator. Most theologically-minded Christians insist that God is and must be an Omni-God that created ex nihilo. Such a person's entire Christianity is built within such assumptions; such that (for example) "God is Love" is conceptualized within the metaphysical assumption that the loving God must be the Omni-/ ex nihilo-God; such that whatever Love means to them (their conceptualization of the nature of Love) is subordinated to the imperatives of the Omni-/ ex nihilo-God. Yet, such persons usually refuse to admit that their metaphysical assumptions regarding God Just Are prior-to, and therefore not derived-from, Christianity. 

The nature of Primal Chaos: God or Chaos versus God or Nothing (continuing a dialogue with Francis Berger)

The background goes back some way, but could be regarded as a post by Francis Berger discussing the nature of freedom, and comments from Kristor Lawson of the Orthosphere. The theme then became the nature of God, as God ought to be understood by Christians - in particular whether, on the one hand, God created absolutely everything from absolutely nothing ("ex nihilo"). Or on the other hand; whether  God created from something pre-existent - in particular "beings" (living, purposive, conscious to some degree, self-sustaining etc) that had always existed, coeternally with God. 

Bruce Charlton comment (edited by me): 

Kristor comments: "Because he is subultimate, the Mormon God is unnecessary, contingent, and dependent (like Zeus or Thor)". 

This is interestingly wrong, in part; because it reveals several of the assumptions into which philosophy came to embed mainstream Christian theology. Perhaps the key term is contingent - in that the desire of classical theology is to describe a state of affairs that could not be otherwise than it is. 

If that was true then (by my understanding) there can be no real freedom. Freedom has been excluded by assumption. 

"Unnecessary" is related to the desire to escape all contingency: to insist that things cannot be other than what they are, however this also also entails that nothing can really change. 

But when there is life/ consciousness/ being - there is change, and change is directional and sequential - and this is something that everybody is born already knowing. 

The Mormon concept of God (and IMO the real God!) is indeed "necessary" in the sense that God is the creator, and without God there would be no creation. So it is a case of God or Chaos. 

But the philosophy (expressed by Kristor) that (IMO) captured Christian theology, wants it to be that there must be God, now and always, and nothing would be without God. 

This is a case of God or Nothing. 

Well, that idea of necessity is a very particular view of God. Most gods/Gods throughout history and the world (including some descriptions of the God of the Old Testament, it seems clear enough) do not conform to this idea of necessity. 

Indeed extremely few people - now or ever - could even conceive of a God in that sense, and could not express it if they did. They would not want or see reason to posit such an entity. 

What is strange to me is that so many Christian theologians (from very early in the Christian church) seem to have decided to make the assumption that only such an abstract entity is a "real" God, or deserves to be considered a God.

It is strange because of Jesus Christ. If Christianity had been a pure monotheism, this dogmatic assumption would be comprehensible; but given the incarnate nature of Jesus the Man, Son of God, who was born, grew, lived "in time", who died etc etc... 

Well, it is just plain strange for Christians to make an insoluble problem from Jesus - just because of their pre-existing philosophical convictions. And having made the nature of Jesus such a Big Problem, but not so strange to pretend that all questions have been answered but at a level of abstraction so remote that all contradictions dissolve into each other! 

**

Francis Berger then wrote a post amplifying on some of the above concepts (edited): 

In his comment, Dr. Charlton refers to two disparate cases concerning the nature of God and Creation—the first being the conventional conceptualization of God or nothing and the unconventional view of God or chaos.

The first case posits God as the ultimate creator of everything and argues that there would be nothing without God. The second case envisions God as a primary creator who shaped and formed Creation from pre-existing “material” (for lack of a better way of putting it) that was chaotic and purposeless. God or nothing and God or chaos is another angle from which one can view the old creatio ex nihilo versus creatio ex materia debate.

The God or nothing approach insists upon the absolute necessity of God for the simple reason that without him, nothing could exist or be. God not only is—he absolutely must be, for without Him, there would be nothing but a void of nothingness.

In other words, I am must be because there is literally nothing on the other side of that thunderous I am. Every being needs God, but God needs no other beings. No being is utterly necessary but God.

This absolute necessity of God relegates everything in existence or being to the state of contingency. Every being in existence is utterly dependent on God in every way imaginable, even when they exercise their God-given freedom to reject God altogether.

However, the God-given free rejection of the Divine Creator does not negate God’s thunderous I am declaration. The creatures he created from nothing can never return to the nothing from whence they came. They either come to know and worship him or suffer the consequences of their free rejection, the capacity for which God created from nothing.

The God or chaos case envisages God as the primary creator. Without God, there is no Creation, only chaos. God can still say I am, but his necessity takes on an entirely different hue.

The creatures he shaped existed in some form before entering Creation, so he is not necessary for their core pre-existence as beings but crucial to their existence in Creation. They come to know him and attempt to understand why they are Creation, or they may reject him and, perhaps, choose to return to the chaos from which they emerged. ​ Since God did not create the freedom driving such a choice, it remains authentically free. 

**

Me, now: 

Deriving the nature of God from a "God or Chaos" distinction, seems to be a useful shorthand of the the paired alternatives that arise from the metaphysical assumptions that I share with Francis Berger. 

His comment stimulated a few further clarifications. God or Chaos could be re-framed as Love or Chaos - since creation derives from Love. 

Furthermore, it is vitally important that God creates from "beings" and not from "materia" - by my understanding, God did not start with inert, unalive, "stuff" but already alive and conscious, purposive beings. That pre-creation reality was of beings is essential to the reality and nature of freedom. 

If pre-creation reality was not already-alive and already-conscious - by their nature and from-eternity, then the problem of "where freedom comes from" remains unanswered. Because, ultimately, freedom just isn't something that can be made or gifted.

(And the same applies to life, or consciousness, or purpose - these are attributes of beings, and cannot be bestowed upon no-beings, "things" or "material".)  

Therefore, Chaos should not be pictured scientistically as some kind of Brownian motion of dead-molecules. Instead, Chaos should be understood as a situation in which beings are self-centred in their purposes and methods, autonomous in their world view... 

So, this debate is not a re-run of creatio ex nihilo versus creatio ex materia - because the starting point is an already-alive ("animated") universe, but one in which living beings are "uncoordinated" - each pulling in a different direction, all with with different motivations. 

Creation is therefore understood as the incremental and progressive harmonization and direction of a multitude of already-existing living beings by Love: that is, by Love of God (which provides ultimate coherence), and of each-other (without which creation would break-down). 

In other words; the "Two Great Commandments": first to love God, then to love our "neighbour", fellow Men (and by extension all other beings).  

Chaos is a collection of unharmoniuous beings, each "doing his own thing", wholly self-motivated, un-loving and indifferent to other beings (and perhaps unaware of them). It is this kind of situation, upon-which God initiates the process of creation.

But, this was only the beginning of creation - because it led to a mixed world of continuing chaos and ("within" this) an expanding divine creation. Creation exists insofar as love motivates; but love is (at best) incomplete in any being. 

So far this is monotheism, not Christianity. The completion and "perfection" of creation, into a wholly good world - i.e. Heaven - required the later intervention of Jesus Christ. This is therefore The Second Creation.  

 

Are some people 'born evil' (more than others)?

All the evidence, for what its worth, would say yes - some people are born more-Good than others; some people are, as far back as you go, apparently... well, evil.

In other words, there is a difference between individuals. 

But how far back does this difference go? The answer partly depends on how far back we go.

If we each go back eternally, in some primordial essence, then does this Good-evil differential go back to eternity? Do we begin morally different? Or do we all start out exactly the same and the difference arises over time? 

This is not a matter of 'evidence'; it is a matter of metaphysics - it is a primary assumption; and it can be validated only by intuition (and the validity of intuition in turn depends on its being the thinking of our divine self - that-within-us which is divine).

If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start exactly the same; then, because God is Good, this leads to the problem/ paradox of why God would make evil in the world, and men corruptible by it?

If we assume Men are entirely created by God (from nothing/ ex nihilo) and we all start different in terms of degree of Good and Evil; then this leads to the problem/ paradix of why a Good God would make some people more-evil (or more corruptible) than others - and thus more prone to damnation. 

But if (as I believe) we all start different, and we have always (in some primordial form) existed co-eternally with God (and therefore, in this independence-from God have the existential basis of genuine free will or agency) - then this difference in Good-evil was already-there before God made us his children.

...Then we can see that the problem of evil is built-in, and evil was not made by God, nor was evil deliberately made possible by God (almost equally problematic).

So, God's creative endevaor is therefore to deal-with the already-existing situation of the reality of evil, and of differential evil; in entities already-with the basis of free agency; while encouraging us to choose first salvation (and thereby join God's family); and then choose theosis (and thereby work towards participation in God's creation).

Developmental-evolutionary Christian Theology

Developmental-evolutionary Christian Theology is based upon the metaphysical intuition that divine purpose can only be attained via development, through Time.

This fits with the (Mormon) understanding of God creating by 'organisation' of pre-existent 'stuff'.

As the main example; God can only create men and women as fully divine sons and daughters of God by a developmental process, through time.


It contrasts with the Mainstream/ Classical Christian) idea of God creating instantaneously and from nothing (ex nihilo) - which implies that perfection can be attained instantaneously.

The fact that men and women (and the world) are clearly Not perfect then entails that there has been corruption. The inference is that imperfection inside God's creation is always ruined-perfection.

This creates the knock-on problem of why God creates (why God chooses to create) corruption and ruin - in the sense that the possibility of ruin and corruption must have been specifically intended by a God who can create perfection-from-the-beginning.


The problem of explaining the presence of pain, suffering, corruption and ruin in God's creation is therefore very different according to whether our theology assumes creation is developmental-evolutionary-across-time; or instant and ex nihilo.

If our theology is developmental-evolutionary, then we can know and understand the Big Picture Explanation for why pain, suffering, corruption and ruin necessarily exist in God's creation - i.e. broadly because creation is of necessity en route to the full divinity (and 'perfection') of men and women - although we do not know and understand all (or even most) of the specific details.

Is it Irrational to reject God?

There is a common line of argument in Christian theology - which is rooted in the 'omni' conceptualization of God as creating everything from nothing (ex nihilo) - which concludes that evil is necessarily irrational, i.e. evil makes no sense even from its own perspective. 

(This is sometimes extended into asserting that - therefore, sooner or later - all Men will 'come to their senses' and choose salvation; even those who initially choose hell or are sent to hell.)  

But I regard this as mistaken: partly because its premises (omni-God and creation ex nihilo) are wrong; partly because it fails to acknowledge a core aspect of Christianity - specifically, which is that it is an 'opt-in' and chosen religion; and partly because it fails to grasp the potential rational appeal of evil. 

To be Good is to affiliate oneself with God's will and creation; evil is to oppose this. 

To be Good is to desire to live in harmony with God and God's wishes and with other Beings who have made the same choice; to be evil is to set oneself against creation (and, usually, of other Beings). 

But why oppose creation? There might be several reasons that are rational - one is to resent the fact that God created thus, and not otherwise - and with these aims and not others.

Such resentment comes from our-selves as free agents, as (eternal) Beings who have our own wills and creative potential. Evil may therefore be rooted in a conviction that 'I' personally disagree with God, 'I' dislike Gods plans and methods; and 'I' therefore refuse to affiliate-myself with God's work. 

Such resentment amounts to a preference for 'myself' over God (despite that this is God's created reality - indeed perhaps exactly because 'I' am compelled to dwell in God's created reality). 

Consider: whatever the nature of my disagreement may be, the disagree-er nonetheless finds-himself already-within God's creation. 

Evil amounts to a preference of myself (and my desires and motivations) above God and this world he made, including the changes God made to me - without asking for my agreement!

Thus evil is correctly described as a form of pride - of regarding oneself as The Being who ought-to-be God. 

So far this might be a purely private 'preference', as leading merely to opting-out of God's creation. In theory a Man might disagree with God's reality, and simply desire not to be a part of it...

But in practice, much evil is also fuelled by resentment against God. 

Because he cannot do what God has done; because he cannot' replace God - the evil Man (or other Being) develops an active dislike of God and divine creation... 

Because he knows that he cannot replace God, he reacts by the desire to destroy creation: the desire to destroy all that God has done and is doing; simply because it is not what he personally would have chosen to do. 

To be Good is to desire to live in harmony with God's creation and the other Beings who themselves have chosen to live in harmony with God's creation. 

To be evil is rooted in disagreement with this ideal of harmony; and to take up an attitude of opposition to God and creation - mostly including an attitude to other Beings that regards them as instruments of this opposition (because there is no reason to desire harmony with them), and the desire that other beings with will enlisted to one's own assertion as the legitimate creator. 

(Hence the manipulative and exploitative - 'means to the end of destruction' - attitude to other Beings that is characteristic of evil - albeit perhaps not universal... I could imagine an evil that was group-based, rooted in an arbitrary preference for a particular group of Beings - who then manipulate and exploit the other Beings) 

I infer from this way of understanding; that evil is, at root, a personal response to the facts of God and creation; and that evil therefore need not be irrational, nor need it be self-correcting.  

I assume that some Beings (i.e. Men, Angels/ Demons, and indeed any other of the many Beings of which reality is constituted) may choose to adopt evil as their basic stance concerning God and divine creation.

This ultimate choice to oppose God may be based on a genuine understanding of reality; and evil may therefore be an irreducible preference and choice of perspective - which means that such evil is both rational, and also potentially eternal. 

The ultimate uselessness of Wittgenstein: Ludwig Wittgenstein by Miles Hollingworth (2018)

I came across a recent book - Ludwig Wittgenstein, by Miles Hollingworth Oxford University Press, 2018), via a podcast interview entitled "Wittgenstein as mystic" - which I found intriguing in several ways; including the Holligworth seemed rather more interesting and personally committed than the usual run of academic philosophers. 

Consequently, I got hold of and read the book with pretty intense concentration; and, at first, was stimulated and excited by the sense of some Big Thing emerging throughout. 

But, in the end, I felt very let-down. The book seemed to promise much, some kind of break-out into something free and creative and beyond the constraints of the usual... But it delivered me back to the same-old/ same-old world of mainstream academia and its solid linkage to The System - as evidenced by the insidious and soul-sapping inversional values that underlie this book, and lurk behind everything mainstream. 

It set me to reflecting, yet again, about that unusual quality in Wittgenstein; the way that he seems to hold-out the possibility of a genuinely alternative answer and 'escape' - and yet does not. And to wondering why this is.

My conclusion is that - for all his rigorous skepticism about The System (about the dominant and superficially-compelling discourse of logic, mathematics, science etc.), and for all the mysticism of that world of the unspeakable, the religiousness of that which lies beyond or behind what can be said (etc) - the whole of Wittgenstein takes-place within the core assumptions of "Western Philosophy", and so of course it cannot escape the implications of Western Philosophy. 

One needs to go deeper than W. went in order to see where we are, and thereby become inwardly free from it. 

In other words, we need to go as deep as our primary assumptions concerning the nature of reality - that is, metaphysics; and Wittgenstein shared the deep aversion to doing this which characterized his era - indeed the refusal to do this. Something which has, to very varying degrees and in different domains, characterized Western philosophy since at least Ancient Greek times when several core assumptions became habitual.  

And Hollingworth needs to go deeper than he does. He mistakes a degree of detachment from the career structures of academia for intellectual and spiritual independence. Yet it is again and again clear that he is himself a (partly explicit, more fully implicit) supporter and sustainer of several aspects of the core and mainstream 'liberalizing' agenda of the globalist-leftist-materialist System.

The explanatory 'climax' of the book purports to be a distinction between physical and mental philosophy, thinking and doing (which is itself a vast metaphysical assumptions!) and a series of reflections of sex/sexuality in relation to Wittgenstein. 

This whole section rings false, is full of strong but wrong assertions, inconsistencies, and - this is the problem - it is bounded by the very recent and local sex-conceptualizations of political correctness... Thus the foundation of the thesis is just A Mess. And since the key explanation is an incoherent mash-up, the whole of the rest of the books structure retrospectively collapses into less than the sum of its parts.

Wittgenstein's mysticism is ultimately a oneness mysticism, because his assumption is that God must be one, and one who created everything from nothing (ex nihilo) - so that everything is of God and one. 

The failure is that W. does not recognize the asserted oneness and this nature of creation as assumptions - therefore he fails to acknowledge metaphysics.

W. also shares the assumption that the world is made of Things as well as Beings; Things that include all manner of physical abstractions (relating to such as matter, forces, fields, and their mathematical descriptions). 

For instance, one major discussed philosophical example of 'freedom' is making moves on a chessboard: i.e. an abstract mathematical game of un-alive pieces within the bounds of a fixed and unified 'world'. Such a model begs all the vital questions concerning freedom. 

The failure is that to assume un-aliveness as ultimate to reality has such downstream consequences of that Beings, such as ourselves, are ultimately constrained by the un-alive. We are regarded as dwelling among un-aliveness. Un-aliveness even permeates the understanding of God (since Wittgenstein's assumed God, as with many mainstream Christians, must be the ultimate source of un-aliveness). 

By my understanding; a fundamental (albeit common!) misunderstanding of Christianity is almost inevitable given such assumptions. Indeed Wittgenstein's reflections of Christ and Christianity are ethically focused, and to do with conduct in this life - as evidenced by W.'s focus on Tolstoy's version of Christianity. Such entails a Great Deal of moral agonizing about the human condition, and its paradoxical impossibilities. 

That Christianity - on different metaphysical assumptions - might instead be about everlasting life versus death, resurrection versus spirit; and love as creation... such cosmic transformations are out-with the scheme created by Wittgenstein's ultimate assumptions.

In all this Wittgenstein is not distinctive nor unusual, but absolutely mainstream within Western philosophy. He brought a new quality to the conversation, as I say a kind of agonized and confessional quality; and the feeling (partly from his own subjectivity, partly asserted) that he was cutting deeper and making a fresh start on thinking - but this is ultimately an illusion.  

(The fact of Wittgenstein's immediate and sustained success among high status and upper-class British intellectuals of a modernists, anti-Christian (pro-evil) type (e.g. the Bloomsbury group and the Cambridge Apostles) - all this ought to be a red flag waving against the idea of Wittgenstein as a genuinely effective mystical or Christian thinker.   

Therefore, once again (and this has happened to me three or more times before), I leave this latest encounter with Wittgenstein once again regarding him as a rather fascinating character, indeed a somewhat addictive character! -- but one whose actual work is ultimately deeply-conventional and therefore useless to our fundamental needs here-and-now: not just useless but (due to its implicit promises) actually misleading.

Wittgenstein famously stated that the philosopher's job ought to be show a trapped fly the way out of a fly-bottle. The bottle was a container into which the fly had strayed (e.g. in search of aromatic food, being used as bait) but once inside the fly could not escape. Instead, he just buzzed about in a panic. To me, this seems like projection - in that Wittgenstein and his philosophy has served as a fly-trap for many people - both at the time, and since. His personality and work is baited with the promise of autonomy of thinking and escape from system; and the philosophy offers certain, limited, satisfactions. Yet once inside the Wittgensteinian bottle - all genuine escape routes are self-blocked by unexamined assumptions. 

So Wittgenstein will be discovered, eventually, to be as useless and misleading as is the work of the entirety of Western Philosophy - being - as it is - rooted in metaphysical assumptions that are unnoticed, denied; or regarded not as assumptions but as necessary truths of existence. 

Such is our situation. 

The reason for the intractability of our civilizational decline, and why the causes of decline are defended, sustained and abetted (at various levels) by Almost Everybody; is exactly that our ideological/ philosophical roots lie so deep... 

As deep as roots can be, which is as deep as our primary assumptions concerning the nature of reality.  

Note: I should give credit to the fact that - for about two-thirds its length - I was pretty gripped by Hollingworth's account of Wittgenstein's life and work. As academic books go, it is a superior product.

Yet the whole basis of the book is that it is more than just another academic book on Wittgenstein: thus it engages in various 'breaking the fourth wall' and Tristram Shandy-esque strategies of authorial insertion. These are seemingly expressive of sincerity and a perspective from 'life' rather than 'career'. 

But, by the end and overall, I felt instead the gravitational pull of the ordinary academic values, and the modern-Western socio-political assumptions into which academia is now locked by bureaucratic structures - as well as the pervasive leftism of the intellectual class. This constrains all official instances of 'rebellion' by the need to ingratiate oneself to the ethical arbiters of The System - of which the Oxford University Press is an integral element! 

So the initial promise - and the scattered and stimulating insights - only made worse my frustration at the eventual let-down: as if I had been 'taken for a ride', fallen for a line of speil... 

Leaf by Niggle and Subcreation

Niggle painting - by ejbeachy 

One of Tolkien's most influential concepts was that of Subcreation; which he described in his essay On Fairy Stories as perhaps the most important justification for that genre we now term Fantasy (more exactly High Fantasy - which is characterized by 'world-building'). 

Subcreation is illustrated in the roughly contemporary short allegorical story Leaf by Niggle, which has usually been printed alongside On Fairy Stories as the volume entitled Tree and Leaf. 

Leaf by Niggle is a really delightful, brilliantly-constructed work; which is also revealing of JRR Tolkien's own fears and hopes. 

Towards the end of the story, the artist Niggle - having died and been through Purgatory, and with help from his previous neighbour Parish - is able to 'finish' his previously-only-planned Great Painting (allegorically equivalent to the totality of Tolkien's Legendarium); and also to have this painting become really-real (a place called Niggle's Parish) and actually to dwell in its sub-world.

Finally, Niggle passes on from his real-Subcreation towards 'the mountains'; and we hear (from some voices that represent aspects of God) that Niggle's Parish is proving to be very useful for souls emerging from Purgatory as 'a holiday, and a refreshment... for many it is the best introduction to the Mountains'. 

Leaf by Niggle neatly encapsulates both the strength and limitations of Tolkien's concept of Subcreation - because on the one hand Subcreation is his justification for serious artistic activity and in particular imaginative and fantasy works... 

But on the other hand, in the final analysis; even the most perfect and fully-realized Subcreative work - such as Niggle's Parish - is for Tolkien merely a recreation (holiday/ refreshment/ introduction). For Tolkien it is the Mountains that provide the highest spiritual destination. 

My understanding of this is that the Mountains represent contemplation and worship. In other words, in Tolkien's scheme; Man's Subcreation - even at its most ideal - is a lower, temporary and transitional phase of spiritual growth; sooner or later to be set-aside in favour of inactive, immersion in God's creation.  

I think that this represents Tolkien's (Roman Catholic, and indeed broadly traditional-Christian) theological view that Man cannot really add-to God's creation. God's creation is complete; and therefore the most any Man's Subcreative activity can do is 'rearrange' aspects of divine creation for particular purposes that have possible value at lower levels of spiritual development.   

This seems to be an inevitable consequence of any monotheism in which God is attributed omnipotence and creation ex nihilo ('from nothing'). 

In a reality in which God already-knows and has-created every-thing, including every-thing about every Man; then there can be no truly original creation. Man's creativity can only be a sub-set of God's, because absolutely everything about Man is of-God.  

Therefore, Tolkien's concept of Subcreation gives with one hand, but takes-away with the other; simply because every possible thing a Man might do from-himself is actually just a kind of 'game' played with bits of God's creation. 

All possible creative activity by a Man can therefore only be partial and - at best - transitional; a kind of play, a pastime; to pass-time fruitfully en route to the Mountain peaks where all such activity is superseded; and Man becomes a purely-contemplative Being wholly-aligned with God's already-existing creation.   

By contrast; my own theological understanding of Christianity is one in which Men live in God's creation, but God's creation is not complete and always developing and expanding; Man is truly free and is a god (of the same Kind as God but much less developed, and only fully divine in Heaven after resurrection). 

Indeed, I see this development of Men to become co-creators with God as the primary reason for the original act of divine creation. 

For me, therefore, Men are therefore able to add-to God's evolving creation, from their own divine and generative nature - and in a permanent way. 

Subcreativity such as Niggle's - and Tolkien's - I therefore regard not as a pastime; but as an ultimately-valid activity; than which nothing is higher - and indeed this divine creativity of Man potentially includes divine procreativity: the begetting of Children of God.

There is only one primary creator, and we live in that reality; but creation is never finished; and it is Man's highest possible aspiration to participate in that creating.

It is the eternal commitment of resurrected Man to live by-Love which aligns all individual creative activity into harmony with the original divine conception.  

The extent and nature of each Man's contribution to creation is part of his unique nature. So, although we cannot all be Tolkiens (or even Niggles!) in terms of Subcreative ability; it is the uniqueness of each Man's nature that makes every resurrected individual's creative contribution significant. 

Free will is Not the cause of evil

It is a mistake when Christian theologians explain evil in terms of God's gift of free will. 

Because free will is not a cause of evil.

I mean: free will is not even potentially a cause of evil.   

Evil comes from evil: evil acts come from an evil nature. 

A good Man would be free, but would do no evil.

Proof? 

Jesus Christ: He was free and did not evil. 

If Men also had good natures, Men would freely do only good. 

Therefore the cause of evil is the nature of things; the cause of evil in Men is the evil nature of Men. 

If, therefore, you believe that God created everything from nothing (ex nihilo) - including Men - then this entails that God must have created the nature of Men capable of evil.

(This has nothing to do with free will. Free will does not come into it.)

But since God really-is wholly good, and also Men obviously do evil - then it follows that God did Not create Men from nothing. 

The evil that is in Mens' nature is not of God. 

Thus there is something within Men that is not of God. 

Conclusion: Men are not wholly created by God. 

(And the notion that God created everything from nothing is refuted.)

If man was created by God from *nothing* - how can Man *defy* God?

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Short Answer: Man could not defy God if Man was made by God from nothing (that is ex nihilo).

Man could defy God only if there was some-thing in Man which was autonomous from God - some-thing that did the defying.

Yet Man does defy God (life is full of it; the Bible is full of it).

Therefore Man was NOT made by God from nothing, and there is Some-Thing in Man which is autonomous from God.

This is the only metaphysical assumption which makes plain sense of the fact that Man does indeed - really and truly - defy God.

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Can evil be 'pure evil' - or is evil always a misguided desire to do good?

This is an old Christian debate - as, as usual, the answer depends on metaphysical assumptions.


There is a traditional and respectable Christian argument that there cannot be pure evil, because evil is essentially the lack or 'privation' of good. This (strange) conclusion arises from the metaphysical assumption that God created everything, from nothing (ex nihilo); and God is wholly good; therefore everything that is - is good in an ultimate sense.

By this account evil is a misguided good. An example would be Adolf Hitler, who seems (when committing his greatest atrocities) to have sincerely believed (most of the time, anyway) he was doing good according to his own ideas of good.

To go further, by this account evil is a kind of insanity. People are simply irrational to suppose that they can oppose God; because, as they themselves are wholly elements of God's creation, they have no basis for opposing God's creation.

Therefore - from such metaphysical assumptions - there cannot be 'pure evil'. 

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However, the Mormon Christian metaphysics allows for real evil, 'pure evil' - evil for its own sake.

God created from pre-existent stuff; and men were, in some essence, co-eternal with God - therefore Men can genuinely oppose God's creation from that part of them that was not created by God.

From such assumptions (which I personally hold) it is therefore possible to do pure evil; by purely opposing God's creation without any attempt to aid creation or any created entity - indeed to attack creation at the cost of expending effort, and indeed at the cost of one's own happiness, health, and life.

By this account the purest evil is not really such epic and infamous inflictors of human suffering such as Hitler - but spitefulness, and related sins such as envy and resentment.

This is the infliction of harm for the sake of inflicting harm - a child breaking another child's beloved toy; an internet troll writing something intended to annoy or wound; someone who says or does things specifically in order to 'wind-up' another person; or a political leader who acts to induce spite, resentment and envy in the population. 

Thus pure evil is something of which many, indeed most, people are guilty. And the most evil public figures are not those who cause the most death and destruction - but those who systematically stir-up spite, resentment and envy.

Why we should not be too curious, or too definite, about the origins of God

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It is vital for a Christian to known something of the nature of God - we need to know God's 'character' (i.e. that he is primarily loving); and know our relationship to Him (that He is our Father, we are His children); and that because we are made in His image it is legitimate to regard Him 'anthropomorphically' (God as Man-like, and Man as God-like).

However, I think common sense tells us that we cannot know about the origins of God, or the basic situation in which God is. We cannot know 'the universe', the reality in which God dwells. We cannot know this kind of thing, and we should not suppose that we do know this sort of thing.

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Of course, we may entertain hypotheses on these matters - indeed we may not be able to help-ourselves, we may not be able to prevent ourselves from speculating. No harm done - maybe helpful.

But I feel that the lack of clear or detailed evidence from revelation (e.g. scripture), and the extreme difficulties of reasoning on these matters, is conclusive evidence that we are 'not meant', we are not intended, to make such metaphysical beliefs into a primary foundation of our Christian faith.

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Therefore, I think that although we need to know (and love) God 'as a person' - to build Christianity around believed knowledge claims concerning the fundamental metaphysical abstract qualities of God is an error - can indeed become a type of sin.

We should not try to force an answer to these matters - this is neither necessary, nor is it likely to be helpful to Christian faith. (People may, and people have, overcome such obstacles - but that does not mean they have been helpful.) 

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This is my strong objection to the standard approach of 'classical' Christian theology. I think Christianity made a serious mistake in its early centuries in establishing metaphysical assumptions about God at, or very near, the centre of the faith as unarguable, primary, non-optional dogmas.

I mean for example such beliefs as that God is necessarily omnipotent and omniscient; and that God existed and exists in a situation of nothingness (outside time and space) and created everything out of nothing.

It seems obvious common sense to me that we do not know these matters, and therefore that the extreme importance which they are sometimes given is potentially a serious problem.

We cannot know these matters, because God is the one thing that we must accept we cannot 'explain' - because to explain God is to try and explain what is first. Therefore we cannot reason from anything else about God; we cannot even safely reason; since to do so is to subject God to what may itself be a property of God.   

This should not be regarded as any kind of arbitrary constraint. There is no need or reason why we need to know where God came from, or exactly how he differs from us, or the precise scope of His powers and limitations, or the mechanism by which he created. To focus on these matters would be to miss the point of Christianity.

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My position is not so much a denial of omnipotence/ omniscience/ creation ex nihilo etc. - as it is a denial that we really know (or need to know) such things. My position is not to claim that God must have limitations on knowledge or power and that He actually created from pre-existent stuff - more that these things might well be so, and are not refuted by scripture or reason.

The restored gospel or Mormonism should not, therefore, be seen as a set of symmetrical counter-claims to mainstream classical theology regarding the Omni-God and creation from nothing; rather Mormonism is a re-centring of Christianity away from these knowledge claims.

A re-centring of Christianity such that such matters are no longer at or near the centre of the faith; and instead a different focus on God conceptualized in a common sense and person-like, and Fatherly, and human-relational way - as being sufficient, less hazardous, more helpful, more accessible, more honest basis for the Christian faith and life - closer to the model of scripture including the teachings of Jesus.

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A Christian man who believed in an evil God - some malign consequences of of traditionalist metaphysics

I once met a man who believed, really believed, in an evil God.

He had been brought-up a devout traditionalist Christian, a practising Christian - with the usual metaphysics including that God created everything from nothing (ex nihilo). And he believed that this Christian God was in truth sadistic, was evil.


Why? This was his reasoning, so far as I could understand it:

"I have evil desires. These desires will not go away. I do not yield to them, but they torment me. My life is made extremely miserable, with no hope of relief.

"I acknowledge that these desires are evil. And that God made me the way that I am. Therefore God is evil.

"God could have made me otherwise, but God made me evil and made me miserable without relief. A God that makes an evil Man is evil; a God that chooses to inflict lifelong misery is a sadist."


(This was a specific man, with a specific and (to him, acknowledged) abhorrent sin. But, we are all predisposed to sin, he can be taken as a more-than-usually-insightful representative of Everyman.)


And I believe this man was logical in his inferences, based upon his assumptions. He was, nonetheless, wrong - because his assumptions were wrong (or, at least, not necessarily true). Specifically, he was wrong in assuming that God had created him wholly and from nothing.


If, instead, the man had assumed that he contained evil, but that this evil was not 'built' into him but was simply the way he happened to be, from eternity... If he had assumed that men differ, each is an individual - and that this was the way he 'happened to be'... then he would not have blamed God.

He may instead have seen that God was doing everything possible to save him.

My understanding (contrary to this man) is that we all lived before this immortal life, as spirits. And that this man's incarnation as a mortal on earth was something mutually agreed between him and God, as a 'chance' for this man to overcome the evil he had always suffered; and to be saved into eternal resurrected life in Heaven.

This, I believe, is how it is for all of us.

This man could have remained a spirit in Heaven with God, and his life would then have been happier. But instead he chose mortal incarnation, so that he might become more free free, more of an agent, more God-like; so that he might attain the fullness of spiritual development, as a participant in God's creation, as a resurrected immortal Man like Jesus Christ. 

It was a risk, a risk he (as a pre-mortal spirit) decided to take.


And in fact the plan had mostly worked. This man probably had been saved - all but.

He had acknowledged and repented his sin - despite that doing so made him miserable. All that he would need to do was, before or after he died, accept Jesus as his saviour and follow him through the trasnformation of resurrection to life eternal.

However, perhaps this man was still alive because he had not yet accepted Jesus as his Saviour; and perhaps he had not done this because he did not want to enter a Heaven made and ruled by 'the kind of God' who had 'made' him the way he was - who had (as this man understood it) implanted in him the desire for evil.


Therefore, in practice, this man's salvation was seriously endangered by his - largely undetected and unanalysed metaphysical assumptions.

Probably he was not even aware that it was possible to be a Christian on the basis of completely different metaphysical assumptions - as, for example, Mormons are.

But this man, like most Christians, believe that to be a real Christian one must believe in creation-from-nothing.


My impression was that this man was being severely tempted to regard his sin as not a sin. Maybe this wasn't really a sin after all? He was, I think, tempted to reject his model of Christianity with an evil God - the kind of God who would make fake sins just to torment people; and instead to seek the path of earthly pleasure and happiness.  

Instead of regarding his life on earth as having been made miserable when it could have been made easier, he could instead have regarded his life on earth as a great and successful chance to attain salvation despite the sin that he had borne from eternity.

This man might instead have felt gratitude and comfort at God's love in creating a world where this salvation was made possible; and gratitude to Jesus for having enabled him personally to attain the joy of life everlasting.


You might assert that all this metaphysical speculation is 'theoretical' merely, and would make no substantive difference to the daily (hourly) problem of suffering from sinful desires, known to be sinful; but you would be wrong.

I would answer that it makes all the difference whether God is responsible for our condition... or whether God is working with us to save us despite sin.

It makes all the difference between regarding oneself as a victim, living in a world designed by an evil and sadistic God... or living as a cherished son of God, in a world designed by a loving and compassionate God aiming at our ultimate salvation to joy. 


I believe that we are each individuals, from eternity; that therefore some men are/ always-have-been better than others overall, from eternity. Some men are (always have been) prone to particular abhorrent sins, or are more aware of their sins.

Therefore, salvation must be individually-tailored ('bespoke salvation).

This man was overall better than most men; however he was prone to a sin that he (and others) found particularly abhorrent.

This man just saw more clearly what we all ought to see. Yet perception of one's own sin is only half of what is needful - the other half is to be able to make sense of things in a framework where we can know that God, the creator, is good; and is working for our personal good.


The goodness of God is something each can know for himself, by direct intuitive knowledge - but for too many people this direct knowing is blocked by malign metaphysical assumptions; and Christianity is rejected because the Christian God is regarded as necessarily, logically evil - his goodness rejected as a false claim.

Right, real, true metaphysics can therefore - in some circumstances - make all the difference in the world.   

How Not to conduct a metaphysical enquiry! (Further responses added 3 May 2024)

Kristor, of The Orthosphere, is very good at expounding his own metaphysical assumptions (which are essentially those of Thomistic Roman Catholicism); but when it comes to making a comparative evaluation of different metaphysical "systems"... well, he just doesn't ever do it!

Kristor is an old internet pal, going back to the time before I was a Christian, and we interact affectionately offline. Indeed I would regard him as a pen-friend, a good person, honest and trustworthy and (so far, at least) On the Right Side in the spiritual war of this world!

But for more than a decade this matter of what it is to conduct a metaphysical enquiry is one concerning which I have been apparently (across multiple online interactions) utterly unable to get across my argument.

In a recent post; Kristor discusses the matter of whether reality is ultimately one (monism) or many (pluralism). By his argument, Kristor apparently supposes that he has logically rejected pluralism as in essence incoherent, therefore necessarily wrong. 

Yet what he has done in his discourse is merely to demonstrate that when someone has accepted the assumptions of monism - then swapped-out the assumptions that everything is one and replaced it with an assumptions of pluralism, the result does not make sense. 

I say again: Kristor believes he is conducting a metaphysical enquiry and comparing different metaphysical systems - but he is not. 

In actuality he is just expounding his pre-existing metaphysics, rooted in pre-existing assumptions (and I assert they are assumptions) concerning the fundamental nature of reality. And then Kristor is correctly demonstrating that his Thomism becomes incoherent if one was to introduce pluralism into it... 

Which is - of course - true! Pluralism does not (and cannot) cohere with an otherwise monist metaphysical system! 

Kristor's argument does not at all mean that pluralism is necessarily incoherent; for example when pluralism is one part of a different set of fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality.

I think the fundamental reason why I "cannot get-through" to Kristor on this matter, why we keep having the same non-argument over and again, is that he regards his own metaphysical assumptions as necessarily true; and this blocks his ability (and interest) in making any other assumptions - even for the purposes of philosophical debate. 

And perhaps Kristor regards his own assumptions as necessarily true because he does not acknowledge that they lead to any fundamental problems. 

For example, I think he does not acknowledge the ineradicable depth of the problem of explaining genuine free agency for Men in a reality conceptualized as created from nothing by an "omni-God". Nor do I think Kristor appreciates the ineradicable depth of the problem of accounting for the existence of evil in a reality wholly-created by a wholly-Good (and omnipotent) God.  

And, to speculate further! - I think Kristor does not acknowledge the depth of these problems, because he is satisfied by those abstract and complex "answers" provided by Thomism. 

And (to complete the circle) these are answers that themselves assume the metaphysical primacy of abstractions. 

(As examples; Kristor - following traditional RC teaching - assumes the fundamental and necessary truth of God's omniscience/ omnipotence/ omnipresence (etc) - and these are abstractions. Similarly; creation-from-nothing (ex nihilo) is assumed to be necessary, and that is an abstraction. More fundamentally; Kristor's understanding of God as God, is an abstract one: his understanding of God is in terms of the definitional necessity of God having certain abstract attributes - such as those above.) 

Although we can note that such a focus seems to date from early in the history of Christianity (albeit there is no evidence of it in the contemporary eye-witness account of the Fourth Gospel) we can still ask why is it that abstraction occupies such a fundamental position in Christian metaphysics? 

And our answer will depends on further assumptions regarding the nature of Christianity. For Kristor (and apparently for most Christians since some time after the ascension of Jesus) there can be no such thing as Christianity except from within the perspective of The Church (however that "The" is defined). 

For Kristor; "The" Church just-is Christianity; and this is not a matter for legitimately Christian metaphysical enquiry. To challenge or doubt what has been assumed for maybe 1900 years; makes no Christian sense: to do so is simply Not to be a Christian. 

To assume (as I do) that "being a Christian" is a primary reality that has no necessary link to any particular metaphysical assumptions; and no necessary relationship to any church in general or particular; does not for Kristor imply the legitimate possibility of further enquiry - but invites explanation in terms of ignorance, insanity or sin. 

This is related to other matters concerning what Christians ought to be doing, here-and-now. 

For Kristor; Thomism is just true, the nature of Christianity derives from the truth and necessity of the RCC; and therefore all legitimately Christian futures must build upon these. 

But for me; this version (as I regard it) of Christianity has deep metaphysical problems, that require better metaphysical solutions (or else, Christianity will continue to disappear). For me; "modernity" has been - in part - an increased conscious awareness of the unsatisfactory nature of traditional Christian (e.g. monist, omni-God, abstract) understandings of human freedom and the origins of evil. 

I regard metaphysical awareness and enquiry as non-optional, as absolutely necessary if Christianity is to avoid (what I see as) the long-term, relentless, and accelerating trend of either explicit or de facto apostasy; which (for me) was made evident in 2020 - when all the Christian churches (including RCC) willingly (and without later repentance) subordinated themselves to the globalist agenda of totalitarian evil. 

So! These apparently trivial interpersonal debates between myself and Kristor - or, failures to debate, as I regard them - are like the tip of an iceberg of differences; that I regard as ultimately sustained by a deep and long-term problem of wrong metaphysical assumptions about Christianity being instead regarded as necessary and true metaphysical assumptions. 

Note added: 

Kristor responded to this post here. 

@Kristor - I - like you - reject "radical ontological pluralism" - as being incoherent - so everything you say about that subject is (I'm afraid) irrelevant.

Instead, you can and should assume that I regard every single theologian of the past as significantly in error; and that there really is nobody else who has the same metaphysical assumptions as I do.

You are candid enough to acknowledge your assumption that since I am in a minority of one, therefore I must necessarily be wrong - so (from your perspective) there is no point in wasting time on finding out what I do believe!

I don't blame anyone for ignoring anything - we are each responsible for our own salvation, primarily. But I personally believe that this attitude of seeking truth in (some kind of) consensus of past and status, is both anti-Christian (in the sense of being opposed to what Jesus said and wanted), and (here and now) a guarantee of choosing the wrong side in the spiritual war of this world.

(We are not so alone nor so ignorant as you assume! Much true knowledge is born into us as children, and God has ensured that each of us has sufficient wit to discern his own salvation - with the personal guidance of the Holy Ghost. God would surely not have been so foolish as to depend upon each and every person getting good guidance from his external social environment!)

But, there again we are up against utterly different basic assumptions! Yours is that anything true and important on the subject of Christian theology has already been said - and therefore truth should be sought among external authorities.

My assumption is that the prime reality of our life of salvation and theosis is rooted in a personal relationship between ourselves and Jesus Christ, and that we not only can but must (post-mortally if not before) take personal responsibility for our ultimate choices.

You complain that I do not explain myself in the comments sections of blog posts. True enough! I have given up on that mug's game!

Instead; I have written hundreds of blog posts (as well as the Lazarus Writes mini-book) over the past decade, explaining and re-explaining my metaphysical assumptions and arguments from as many different angles as seemed helpful - and as simply and clearly as I am able.

I have also addressed the specific critiques you make. But I expect you would not find my points acceptable - exactly because your basic assumptions are so completely different.

(For example, your discourse takes place outside of Time/ Time-less/ in simultaneity of Time (sub specie aeternitatis); whereas I assume that Time is (as it were) intrinsic to reality (because the pluralism of primal reality is made of Beings, and Beings are living and "dynamic" conscious entities). Therefore, for me, all fundamental explanations require allowance for Time. This has many consequences. For instance, I believe we began with pluralism, with many uncoordinated entities; and God's creation - which is happening in Time - has-been and is progressively imposing "unity" or cohesion upon that primal "chaos". For me, this explains why both oneness and pluralism, creation and chaos, are part of our mortal experience.)

It's all there, on my blog, for anyone who is interested - of which only a handful of people have been, but those few seem to understand me accurately enough. And if someone is Not interested - well, that's his business, but not mine. After all, my main motive in writing so many hundreds of posts per years, is to clarify and critique my ideas for my benefit. The readers are mostly just looking over my shoulder.

In sum, you have clearly set-out some of the Many reasons why you do not want to engage with what I actually believe. You feel no Need for it, and already assume I Must Be wrong.

While, on my side, my unique theology has happened only because I have already (to my own satisfaction) known and rejected that which you regard as true.

What I am saying is that our decisions rule-out any genuine metaphysical discourse - which explains why this has never actually happened!

While it only takes one side to make a war - it takes at least two people to have a metaphysical discussion!

Satan is a process (in the modern world)

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A personification of Satan for modern times would be the voting committees that administer almost everything – from supreme courts and parliaments down to peer reviewers and job interviews and casting committees, and the millions of casual votes of ad hoc groups here and there to decide this and that.


Satan works at the level of the invisible, indefinable committee decision; because none of the participants in that decision feel responsible for it.

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What would very obviously have been a moral decision when made by a single person, is apparently moved into the level of pure abstract necessity by the simple fact of taking a vote.

'The group' is treated on the one hand as a responsible moral agent, capable of reason; and yet none of 'the group' need actually believe in the rightness of that group decision, that it really was the proper and best decision in that situation. Indeed, as individuals, every single member of the committee may disagree with the decision of the group - yet that decision stands.

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Who, then, has made that moral decision? The answer is the process has made that moral decision (the group dynamic process, the committee procedure, the voting process - whatever).

But how can we hold a process morally responsible? For instance, how can we hold 'democracy' (i.e. any specific system of voting and counting votes) responsible for electing an evil person as President or Prime Minister; or for implementing an evil law; or for unjust persecution of the innocent?

The answer is we cannot, so we do not, so evil is done by processes; and this happens countless billions of times every day.

What is remarkable about bureaucracy is that evil has been, apparently, conjured ex nihilo – from nothing.

Yes - Satan is bureaucracy; or vice versa, perhaps.

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"Free will" = uncaused causation = "Agency" = a divine attribute. (Mainstream and Mormon Christianity compared)

When people talk about 'free will' they are implicitly referring to an uncaused cause - in other words, the ability to act (e.g. to think a thought) without that act being caused but coming from within.

This can be termed Agency - the property of an entity being an Agent, which is self-motivated (in which motivation originates from within, and is not merely passively caused-by something acting upon the entity.

If this is accepted, then it can be seen that free will and agency are not attributes of the 'material universe' of mainstream modern discourse (nor of science - in which everything either has a cause or else is 'random' and presumed to be unmotivated - like some aspects of quantum physics).
*


For Christians, indeed, free will and Agency are divine attributes; attributes characteristic of divinity.

Since, for Christians it is assumed (on the basis of revelation), that Men have free will and therefore Agency - this implies that Men are to this extent divine; by which I mean actual mortal incarnate Men are divine.

Which means that God made us as little gods - partial gods, gods in embryo: this is simply a fact, and neither a cause for pride or despair.

For mainstream Christians adhering to Classical theology, this implies that God created us ex nihilo (from nothing; presumably at some time between our conception and birth) as Agents , as beings whose wills are independent from him - so, to that extent, we are mini-gods who are out-of-control of God.

The aim is (by theosis) to become more like God but - since we are created/ creatures - theosis can never go very far towards God-ness. It is an eternal fact that only God can create from nothing, and the main fact of our relationship with him is that asymmetry.
*


For Mormon Christians, Agency is explained by our essence having been in its origins eternal and independent of God - we 'later' became God's spirit children in a pre-mortal life, and then were (voluntarily) incarnated as mortals.

God as the Creator is a shaper and organizer - he does not (because it is impossible) create from nothing.

Because we were agents from eternity, theosis is seen as an (in principle) unbounded process of progression towards becoming the same as God in nature.

The asymmetry between God and Man that remains eternally is not in terms of creative potential - since Man may become a creator in the same sense as God - but a difference of relationship. An earthly Father and his Son may be of the same nature, but the Father remains the father.

Thus: For Mormonism, relationship has an ultimate, vital and structuring metaphysical role.

This is an essentially unique attribute of Mormonism (unshared with any non-Christian religion and un-shared with any pre-Mormon Christian heresy) and this needs to be understood if Mormon theology is to be understood.

Two irreconcilable concepts of Heaven - Platonic and Pluralistic

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

God - Creation - Beings

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

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

God-Love - Creation - Beings


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

Beings - Love - Creation

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

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

Beings-God - Love - Creation


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Contemplation, Enjoyment, and Creation

It has become ever clearer to me that one of the convictions that underlies my metaphysical assumptions is that Man's creative ability is real; yet mainstream, classical, 'traditional' Christian theology has no place for Men to be able genuinely to create: that is, for a Man to be able to to add something new to to God's existing creation. 

This exclusion of the possibility of creation is a consequence of the mainstream Christian's understanding of the nature and attributes of God. 

God is assumed to have created everything from nothing (creation ex nihilo), and to live outside of time (such that God knows everything that including all possible futures), and to be omnipotent and omniscient.

Putting all of these together - for the mainstream-classical theology divine creation has-been done wholly by God, has already-happened; and is complete and unchangeable (since it is beyond time).   

From this perspective; there are two basic ways we can know - which CS Lewis terms contemplation and enjoyment (and which are described and explained in this essay, but without using the contemplation-enjoyment nomenclature - which distinction is explained in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, and elsewhere). 

For a classical, mainstream Christian theologian like Lewis, contemplation and enjoyment are the only possible ways of conscious 'knowing' - with enjoyment a higher form of knowing. 

(There will also be ways of 'unconscious' knowing - in the sense of animals, or plants, that implicitly 'know' many things, because they behave adaptively; but without possessing what most people would recognize as explicit, conscious awareness of their knowing. However, I believe they do, because everything does, possess some consciousness, of some type)

Contemplation is when we retain the stance of a separate observer - it is, in effect, knowing-about something. 

For a Christian, a Man might contemplate God, or the works of God - and this means knowing-about such things; by paying attention, having experiences, studying, learning.

A higher form of knowing God would be enjoyment, or 'communion'. 

This would be when someone (perhaps a Saint, or a resurrected Man in Heaven) inhabited the divine mind, able to perceive and know God by means of a direct connection; becoming joined-with God's creative will - but retaining one's own identity as a distinct creature (created individual). 

Man in full communion with the divine remains conscious of himself; but knows God's work from the inside, and knows his own part in it. 

(It is this retaining of personal identity that differentiates the Christian understanding of divine communion, from the 'Eastern' (Hindu, Buddhist etc.) idea of Nirvana - in which the individual Man loses his distinction, his 'self'; and becomes dissolved-back-into the divine-whole, from which he originated.) 

But communion is not creative; since creation is done. 

What seems like creation to mortal Men is - by this analysis - a result of our limited perspective - and is actually just a selection and arrangement of already-created material. 

For the mainstream-classical Christian, Men cannot truly create, in a primary sense; because Men are creatures/ created-Beings; and only God is capable of true creation. 

But for me, as for CS Lewis's best friend Owen Barfield, there is a higher state than enjoyment - which is creation - or what Barfield terms Final Participation. 

This includes communion, but also involves knowing oneself to be adding-to and enhancing already-existing divine creation: that is, becoming a co-creator of God's creation. 

Therefore, Man can (potentially) become a creator with God, creating in harmony with what already exists. 

It can be seen that for co-creation to be true, several of the classical-mainstream assumptions about God must be discarded. Because it can be added-to; creation is no longer regarded as existing outside time, nor as being complete and finished. 

Man is no longer understood as wholly a 'creature' - but as an 'embryonic god': capable of developing to participate in primary creation of that which is new and unforeseen.

Thus, a recognition of Man as potential creator goes-with a rejection of the assumptions that God is omnipotent and omniscient, that God created everything from nothing, and that creation is complete and beyond time. 

Instead; creation is recognized as ongoing - within time - incomplete and capable of expansion. 

In other words; creation is God's original project; and a project in which Men may develop to participate.

To summarize; if we are to regard Man as capable of real creation; we must reject the classical, mainstream, tradition Christian theology; and adopt different metaphysical assumptions concerning God, creation and time. 

Conversely, if we choose instead to adhere to the classical, mainstream, tradition Christian theology; we must reject the possibility of Man being a true creator; and assume instead that the highest form of being that Man can aspire to is an ultimately passive state of 'enjoyment' in communion with God. 

How to decide between these incompatible metaphysical explanations of Christianity - apart from intuition? 

The Bible as a whole is apparently ambivalent and self-contradicting on this topic; but the Fourth Gospel (of "John" - especially Chapters 13-17 inclusive) strongly suggests that Men (in the new dispensation of Christ) can and should aspire to become co-creators: that is loving 'friends' of Jesus Christ and God, rather than (as in the previous era, before Christ) merely obedient servants of God.