Recognizing "Entropy" (change, death) as The Problem - there have been three suggested Answers

Even if we (somehow) lived in an utterly perfect society under an utterly ideal political system - there would still be the problem of evil. 

Even if the problem of evil was (somehow) cured; then there would still be the problem of entropy - of change, degeneration, disease, death. 

Entropy is the ultimate enemy.

(Although modern Westerners have lost sight of it; the ultimacy of the problem of entropy has been recognized at least since the earliest known Greek philosophers, and is the focus of the Fourth Gospel's account of the purpose and work of Jesus Christ - i.e. at the very heart of Christianity.)  

There have been (I think) three suggested ways that purport to solve the ultimate problem of entropy:

1. By Stasis

2. By Spirit

3. By Resurrection  

The cure by stasis is that entropy is caused by (indeed actually is) change; and is solved by a reality in which there is no change. Eternity is therefore static. 

The cure by spirit is that entropy is caused by matter, by "the material"; and therefore is solved by the replacement of matter by immaterial spirit. (Including that our death is, ultimately, due to being incarnated.) Eternity is therefore spiritual. 

The cure by resurrection is that there must first be death, and after death (for those Beings that "follow" Jesus Christ) there can be a transformation, a re-making; such that we again become incarnated (i.e. made of solid "matter") that is everlasting, inhabiting a Heaven where we remain our-selves, and in which there is change.  

The idea of resurrection as a cure for entropy is therefore something new and different from the more ancient ideas of stasis and/or spiritualization.  

I find the answers of stasis and spirit to be incoherent from a Christian perspective; because they raise the problem of why a loving personal God would compel His children to pass-through the entropic phase of mortal incarnation. If stasis, or spirit, are the answer - why bother with all this tedious mucking-about in this state of change and as matter? If entropy is to be solved by stasis or spiritualization, why create the problem at all - why create change, why create matter?  

But resurrection has not been understood as a third and qualitatively different solution from stasis and spirit - so that most supposed-explanations of resurrection, instead revert to variations and combinations of stasis and spirit. 

A satisfactory and coherent explanation of resurrection needs to include:

1. Why death is necessary? Why does God not go directly to the non-entropic state of things? 

2. Why our continued mortal life is necessary? If death is necessary to the abolition of entropy, then why don't we die ASAP and get on with the real business of post-mortal resurrected living? 

It is because I could not find any such explanations, that I was compelled to devise coherent answers for myself; and why I ended-up with a new kind of metaphysical Christian theology. 

Incoherence in traditional concepts of sin: Understanding 'sin' as the entropic nature of this mortal world; as anything-other-than resurrected life

Ever since I began to consider the matter seriously; I have found the ways that sin and forgiveness are discussed to be incoherent. They just don't seem to add up, or hold together. 

What I think I was sensing, was a clash between the temporary and the eternal, the individual and the social -- resulting from changes in human consciousness and the concept of 'Christianity' since the time of Jesus. 

I think it likely that, when Christianity was developed as an institutional, then a state, religion; it became bound-up with the prescription and enforcement of good, pro-social, 'Christian behaviour' - and this became regarded as the pre-requisite to salvation. 

So we get the idea of 'sin' as transgression of laws, and 'forgiveness' as some mixture of punishments, penances, and wiping the slate clean of past transgressions. In practice, 'sin' was externally, socially, defined. 

Thus laws and other rules of conduct were societally developed, validated and imposed; the individual was the sinner (law-breaker); and some representative of society decided what ought to be done about it.

This pragmatic system relating to social behaviour (primarily) was then harnessed to the 'cosmic' aspects of Christianity; i.e. the fact of Jesus Christ having change created reality - made possible a new Heaven of eternal resurrected life etc. 

This was the - to me - peculiar picture from Christianity; of a reality made up of moral laws/ legal codes and the system for developing and enforcing them; which was strangely linked with a narrative of the history of everything. 

It seemed hard to grasp how - in creating - God had built-in objective morality of this social kind... I just couldn't picture how this might work. 

When I spent a year or so, reading and re-reading the Fourth Gospel ("John") - I gradually became aware of a very different way in which sin was being conceptualized. 

The IV Gospel (overall) saw sin as ultimately death; and milder sins as including sickness and others kinds of dysfunction, corruption (away from proper purpose and function), wrong attitudes towards God, expounding of false realities, and so forth. 

I gathered that Jesus's work in taking-away sin, was to take-away death; in other words to offer Men the possibility of resurrection into life everlasting. 

Miracles of healing were perhaps Jesus taking-away lesser 'sins' of disease and disability. 

'Forgiveness' is not mentioned as such in the Fourth Gospel; but in some parables and miracles, Jesus seems to be declaring something about a change of mind or heart, or a reorientation, on the part of the one who is healed - this (here-and-now) commitment to Jesus is the 'faith' that has made the miracle possible. 

But this is not necessarily an eternal transformation of behaviour. I don't think we are meant to assume that one who has had faith, and received a miracle, would 'never sin again' in the sense of never again breaking any of the Laws of morality. 

The transformation of those who encountered Jesus was not a permanent change of their behaviour; but a here-and-now change of heart, of desire, of attitude. 

It seems possible that Jesus was talking about repentance or forgiveness in terms of a person turning to Jesus as Saviour, as Good Shepherd - as recognizing that only by 'loving' and following Jesus can we have eternal resurrected life. 

This can only be guaranteed as a temporary state of affairs in this mortal life - because somebody might at first decide to follow Jesus, and then later change his mind. As a sheep might begin following the Shepherd to safety; but change his mind, stray, and fall off a precipice to his death (i.e. to choose damnation). 

Thus, concepts such as 'repentance' and more generally 'faith' may best be understood as referring to the here-and-now; to the current situation in mortal life. 

These concepts are also, at root, personal and not institutional - at least to us modern men. 

Personal and institutional were, indeed, de facto inseparable in earlier stages of Man's development of consciousness, including the time of Christ and the centuries that followed. 

It was only from the late medieval era that Western Men began mentally to distinguish the individual group his group, more and more fully, and then to experience as a fact of reality. 

So, my confusion about 'sin' (and the confusion of Christian teaching, from which my confusion derived) was - in part - a consequence of trying to combine concepts from different stages of Man's consciousness.  

My conclusion is that we have now arrived at a very different point from where Christianity arrived at after the ascension of Jesus and the rapid development of first the Church, and then the Christian State. We are, indeed, now returned to a situation much closer to that described in the Fourth Gospel, during the life of Jesus. 

'Faith' is now something-like a here-and-now determination to follow Jesus to eternal life; and 'sin' is... anything else, i.e. any other commitment or purpose than that of following Jesus to resurrection-specifically. 

'Repentance' (the word itself isn't used in the Fourth Gospel) is (perhaps) simply the renewed commitment to following Jesus; whereas 'apostasy' is, like Judas Iscariot, referring to one who once had faith, later changing his mind and deciding Not to believe or follow Jesus. 

(And then, of course, apostasy may be repented.) 

So 'sin' is ultimately choosing death - meaning not-resurrection; but choosing instead some other fate for our post-mortal soul.

Thus 'damnation' may entail something like loss of personhood, loss of agency, loss of consciousness... Or refusing to leave this mortal world, and remaining bound to the domination of entropy and death. Damnation may be many or several possibilities, because it is anything-but resurrection. 

And, from this, 'sin' is used more generally to refer to mortal life and its innate nature - this world, dominated by entropic change: corruption, disease, decay, degeneration... 

In other words: 'sin' is all of that from-which we are rescued by resurrection into eternal life. 

The divine "purpose" for individual persons: God gives us what we need (but Not Only what we need)

Each person's life has "meaning" - and that meaning is related to divine purpose. 

I think this is quite clear, if you know what to look for - in your own life, and the lives of those you know and love. 

I mean that people always (sooner or later) get the experience/s they most need for spiritual development. 

However, that does not mean that every individual "automatically" learns from each such experience -- Indeed, very often, it seems that people do not learn from personal experiences that could be of great personal benefit. 

Or else people learn something wrong and contrary to divine purpose, from experiences; they choose to lean a lesson contrary to God's hope and intentions. 

For instance; when some adverse experience that could be corrective if properly understood; is instead used as an excuse or rationale for doubling-down on some sin; such as fear, resentment, or despair. 

But what makes all this less obvious is that not all of life is related to divine purpose. 

It is the nature of this life and world we are currently experiencing that there is entropy/ death and there is evil. 

What this means is that things happen that are Not part of the divine purpose. 

What God the Creator can do and does; is make the best of these things. 

So that if some-thing happens to a person that is simply the result of entropy (some degenerative phenomenon or disease for example*); or a consequence of evil motivation or service to evil; then consequently God will create - such as later to enable something to be gained (or salvaged) from this adverse occurrence.   

All of this points at the need for discernment, because understanding and learning are inevitably confused and clouded by the nature of ourselves and this world; the process of discerning and learning is one requiring active participation and culminating in freedom to choose how to be, and where to go next. 

We must be able to discern which experiences are God given, and which are not. We must and inevitably do also work from our state of freedom. 

Creation is not something done-to-us. Divine purpose is that we participate in creation. 

And when an experience was not a part of divine purpose, we may need to be able to discern at what point God has (later) been able to present us with the possibility of deriving Good from evil. 

We make such discernments partly from that which is divine within-us; and partly (since the time of Jesus Christ) by guidance from the Holy Ghost... 

In other words, the capacity for true discernment is innate, and does not need to be derived from external sources - although, of course, external sources of guidance may be helpful in true discernment - just as external guidance is (here and now) more usually harmful. 

So much for this world we live-in, this mixed-world, this world that mixes divine creation and purpose with entropy and evil...

A further thing that God purposes that we learn is that this mixed world (the Primary Creation) may be escaped after death and the separation of our spirit from our incarnate form; because after death (and only after death) we may follow Jesus Christ through resurrection with eternal life; and into a Second Creation that is Heaven. 

Therefore, there will be divinely purposed experiences in this mortal life of ours (assuming we live long enough) that may be understood (if we are prepared to learn) as pointing towards the possibility of Resurrection and Heaven beyond death. 

i.e. Experiences that may (if we discern aright) be understood as pointing towards Salvation. 

Yet if, for whatever reason, we do not get such experiences during this mortal life (perhaps we die in the womb, or as infants) then such experiences as we need to be enabled to choose Heaven; will surely be provided after death. But again we are free to learn from them or not, and to choose Heaven or not. 

In sum: there is a divine purpose (or more than one purpose) for each person incarnated into this world; and this purpose is related to learning a lesson, or several lessons, during our life. 

Each person's purpose will be unique, because each person is unique - because each person had a pre-mortal spirit life before human incarnation  - which is why people are unique individuals from before birth. 

Because our purpose is unique, and because this world is a mixture of divinely created purpose with entropy and evil; discernment is required. We must recognize when we are being divinely taught; and when not...

But even when our life's happenings are due to evil Beings, or due to the innately entropic nature of this world - we should be alert to the ways in which divine creation can shape subsequent events, sooner-or-later to present us with possibilities for learning important life lessons.

Meaning and purpose are not "given": they need to be discerned...

We need to learn from them, and that is our job: we also need to learn the right (i.e. divinely intended) lessons from them.  

*Or death. The Fourth Gospel strongly suggests that death was regarded as The Number One Main Problem of life as-is-on-earth. Death is the problem that Jesus for which usually claims to be offering a solution. 

Entropy is the god of modernity - purposeless, meaningless, destructive

We begin (as individuals and as a species) as inhabitants of an animistic world; a world in which every-thing - all phenomena - are understood as due to the purposive actions of Beings. 

This, I believe, is true (I mean; we really do live in an animistic world) --- except for entropy. 

Entropy represents primordial chaos, before Creation; and the tendency for this to return. The endemic and pervasive tendency for that which-is-created to return to chaos. 

(Entropy - evident in degeneration, disease, ageing, and biological death) is what is termed "death" in the Fourth Gospel.)

This mortal world is therefore in a dynamic state of flux, in which divine creation continues amidst entropy.  

Entropy is the only phenomenon which is impersonal: 

chaos is "a thing", not a Being.

Modernity has focused upon this phenomenon of entropy, and modernity has made entropy its one and omnipotent god. 

Entropy is a god that is unalive, without purpose, without consciousness, without meaning or values. 

A god of abstract models, of mathematics and geometry, forces and energies, laws and processes...

And modernity has made itself in the image of its god: entropy. 

  

Christianity is Not, never truly was, about morality - except secondarily

Over the past eight years; my reading-of and brooding-on the Fourth Gospel (called "John") has had many and profound effects on my understanding of the differences between what Jesus said and did, and the Christian churches that came after. 

In particular, that the core of Jesus's work was to provide Men with the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

This means that the primary concern of Jesus was to save mankind from entropy and death - therefore Jesus's primary concern was not to save us from evil. 

To repeat: For Jesus salvation means from death, not from evil. 

However, most of religion before, during and since the time of Jesus is about morality - about the behaviour (and attitudes) of people. 

Such religion is therefore therapeutic - it is "about" minimizing suffering and/or maximizing human happiness in this world and mortal life. 

That is what all those Laws and rules are about, the propitiations offered to divinity, the abasements and obedience - they are trying to make this world a better place, and ourselves to have a better place in it. 

And this is why all religions have considerable overlap in the approved behaviours. 

But this was Not what Jesus was about. 

Jesus came essentially to save us from death, not from moral sin.

Jesus was primarily against death, not evil - but his cure for death was also a cure for evil. 

For Jesus the problem of death (of entropy) was more profound than that of evil; because in this mortal life and world, death is absolutely universal and completely unavoidable; destructive change may be slowed, but is always at work...

Jesus was necessary and unique because he offered a solution to death; not because of his moral teaching, not because of his moral laws and principles, not because people could make a church from the moral laws and principles. 

This was and is very difficult to grasp; because most people (including most early Christians, including those who formed the Christian churches, apparently) - want morality.

Or else they want immortality Now in this world, and without dying first. 

People do not, therefore, usually want what Jesus actually offered... Or, at least, they think they don't want it; or they do not want it as strongly and urgently as they want other things - such as relief from suffering, or happiness now-or-soon.

But relief from suffering and positive happiness in this mortal life are not the core of Jesus's message - because these are promised for post-mortal resurrected life, not for this life. 

The error of making "Christianity" primarily moral distorted it from very early and has led to its current near-destruction. 

Those who made Christianity continuous with Judaism (including the authors of the Matthew and Luke Gospels, and Paul); tried to conflate the primacy of resurrection with their continued primacy of morality...

Leading eventually to the bizarre concoction of Original Sin - in order to pseudo-explain why Jesus was both unique and necessary. 

In other words, they made Jesus primarily "about" morality; and resurrection was made conditional upon the approved morality...

And morality was made to be why Jesus came, and curing morality was made to be what Jesus fundamentally did...

This-world morality was made of core importance to the Christian churches; and morality was made to come first - such that resurrection was relegated to a secondary status as reward for good-morality.  

But morality is about this-world, here-and-now and before death...

Whereas the advent of resurrection was of cosmic and eternal significance - it is a change in the nature of reality. 

Everybody everywhere has their ideas of proper morals; and this is continually contested. And morality does not require resurrection. 

So morality is both regarded as primary by almost-everybody; yet morality is detachable from the reality of Christianity...

And morality has, in fact, already-been detached-from Christianity! - even (or rather, especially) in those lands historically (or nominally still) Christian. 

As of here-and-now; Christianity is just one of many competing this-worldly moral systems; and gets evaluated in terms of its material "success" in producing good behaviour.  

But if we are talking about Jesus Christ, rather than social institutions and traditions; then this is wrong, a mistake, an ancient error. 

Jesus brought the possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven - and that fact should come first and foremost, and be kept at the core, of our Christian discussion and teaching. 

Why does mainstream-orthodox-traditional Christian theology underestimate Jesus?

My position is that Jesus brought us the new possibility of resurrection to eternal life in Heaven - a Heaven that (unlike this mortal world) is a place of beings motivated by freely-chosen love; and therefore a situation free from entropy/death and evil. 

Heaven is therefore a Second Creation. 

And Heaven is a place where Men are wholly Sons of God, therefore not just observers or enjoyers; but active participants in divine creation. 

Before Jesus this was not possible. Jesus's life, death and resurrection was necessary for this to happen.

And this is why Christianity is unique, and itself necessary for those who desire for themselves resurrected life in Heaven.

(It follows that Christianity is Not necessary for those who desire something else than resurrection and Heaven.) 

**

So why does mainstream, orthodox, traditional Christian theology fail to acknowledge this? 

I think there are two main reasons. 

One is the commitment to making Jesus's Jewishness into something theologically necessary. The other is the commitment to defining God monotheistically and as omnipotent. 

When theologians are committed to Jesus's necessary Hebrew ancestry (including that he was the Jew's prophesied Messiah, the rightful King of the Jews on earth); then they are compelled to integrate the Old Testament with the Gospels (including the Fourth Gospel "John" which ought to be regarded as primary).

Compelled, therefore, to emphasize the continuity with Jewish monotheism, and a specifically racial (and this-worldly) account of Jesus's work and achievement (because the Messiah was the rightful King of Jews in this-world). 

If Jesus is seen as part of an ancient and tribal process of a monotheistic God; then this apparently pushed some early Christianity theologians (whose view became dominant, then mandatory) to abolish Time from Christianity - which led them to elide, ultimately deny, the difference before and after Jesus.

(Because when Time is regarded as ultimately, divinely, unreal - then all Time is one, and there is no before or after: that sequential view of history is just an illusion from the mortal perspective.) 

Instead of being something newly possible, Heaven became regarded something more like a return - resumption of a paridisal state of blissful contemplation, worship, and joyful gratification.

The difference between Paradise and Heaven is that Paradise is essentially static. 

Paradise may be cyclically conceived (like the cycle of fights and feats in Valhalla), or a state of suspended-Time - with the abolition of Time. 

But in Paradise nothing essential changes: Paradise is not going anywhere - it Just Is. 

Whereas Heaven is properly understood as a transformation of this mortal life -- to become a life for all rooted wholly in love, having eliminated entropy/death and evil - such that love and all creation become everlasting, while remaining dynamic and growing. 

Heaven is a continuation - in a new form - of divine creation (or rather divine create-ing). 

Thus the term Second Creation for the work of Jesus... 

Thus Heaven is open-ended, dynamic, and changes creatively - eternally.  

Jesus can only bring something wholly new insofar as Jesus is a divine being distinct from God the primary creator. 

If there must be One God, and Jesus is divine; then Jesus is merely a part of God (as with the paradoxical-mystical mainstream conceptions of the Holy Trinity) - and since the One God has always been, and was primary creator: then Jesus is nothing new. 

If God is an Omni-God - omniscient, omnipotent, omni-present, impassible etc - then Time must abolished, and God must live outwith Time - therefore Jesus is nothing new, because there is nothing new. 

From the above it can be seen that (unnecessary, mistaken) decisions about metaphysical assumptions - presumably introduced by some early Christian, and probably Jewish, theologians; had the effect of rendering Jesus Christ theologically dispensable. 

(Whatever bald assertions to the contrary are so strenuously, but incoherently, asserted!)

This; because whatever Jesus did was also regarded as done by God the primary creator; and Jesus could not be separated from God the primary creator - therefore Jesus the mortal Man was inessential.

Indeed, because Time is ultimately illusory, whatever Jesus did was actually already-done before Jesus was conceived and born!

Consequently, through these and other stream of thinking that converged theologically; Jesus's work and transformative achievement was blurred, distorted and diminished; and this was done (I infer) in order to fit with Hebrew and monotheistic theological assumptions: assumptions that soon became theological dogmas.   

The progression of Luciferic, Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil; related to our loving-creator-personal-God, and to Jesus Christ

Christianity is not just about Jesus Christ; it is built upon several other realities:

1. We inhabit a creation - the world is created.

2. The creator is a God, i.e. a personal God (not an abstraction)

3. The creator God is loving towards all the Beings of creation (God might be otherwise, but is not)

In sum: Jesus operates in the context of reality being the creation of a loving (hence necessarily personal) God. 

Jesus is necessary because of the nature of creation: Creation takes place in the midst of primordial chaos. 

Primordial chaos is primal Beings existing without love - without coordination, without harmony; each Being a world unto Himself. 

This is why our mortal reality (termed Primary Creation) is subject to Entropy. Entropy is the spontaneous tendency of creation to revert to primordial chaos. (We experience Entropy in terms of disease, degenerative change, and the inevitability of death for all Beings)

Jesus offers the possibility of permanent and complete escape from entropy and the threat of chaos. 

Evil is the rejection of creation. 

Evil therefore came after creation. 

Evil entails the rejection of love, since love between Beings is what makes creation - creation is the harmony of Beings. 

The first evil is called Luciferic.

Luciferic evil is the assertion of a Being's selfishness ("my" self is all that matters) and the rejection of Love between oneself and other Beings. 

Luciferic evil therefore aspires to use (therefore not destroy) creation; to use creation in order to serve its own selfish will and personal gratification. 

Luciferic evil does not aspire to the damnation of other Beings (i.e. to make them reject resurrection into Heaven); it tends to be indifferent to the spiritual fate of other Beings. 

A Luciferically-evil Being, exploits ruthlessly and without love: desires that any and all other Beings will serve his personal satisfaction. 

In a sense; a Luciferic Being desires that creation will serve his will. This is why he is not against-creation as such. 

It could be said that Luciferic evil hates God (is anti-God; because God is loving), and is indifferent to Jesus.  

The second evil is Ahrimanic. 

Luciferic evil tends to develop into Ahrimanic evil; because Luciferically evil Beings band-together in mutually beneficial alliances, in order more effectively to exploit other-Beings. 

Ahrimanic evil is an alliance of the selfish. 

Ahrimanic evil is anti-God, which it inherits from Luciferic evil; and Ahrimanic evil is in addition anti-Jesus. 

Thus Luciferic = anti-God; whereas Ahrimanic = anti-God plus anti-Jesus. 

Therefore the alliance of the selfish will organize, manipulate and coerce other Beings, aiming that these other Beings will reject salvation: will reject the offer of resurrection to eternal life in Heaven.

In sum; while Luciferic evil desires the exploitation of Beings; Ahrimanic evil desires the damnation of Beings. 

Ahrimanic evil desires damnation because it is more spitefully evil than Luciferic evil. It's desires are not just for selfish gratification; but also for the immiseration of others. 

It could reasonably be said, therefore, that Ahrimanic evil is a greater evil that Luciferic; wanting not just its own satisfaction, but the stripping of satisfaction from others. 

This is why Ahrimanic evil has tended towards depersonalization via bureaucracy. 

The Ahrimanic aim of omni-surveillance and micro-control is not just a positive aspiration for domination; it is also actively directed-against the freedom and agency of other Beings. 

Yet Ahrimanic evil of-itself does not aim at the destruction of other Beings: it aims at domination, not destruction. 

It wants a universe of miserable slaves.

(Indeed; including the "enslavement" of animals, plants, earth and heavenly bodies, and indeed the "mineral" world; permanent utter domination of every-thing, rather than to kill every-thing.) 

And the Ahrimanic desire for damnation of other-Beings is a consequence of being against Freedom and Agency. Salvation is, after all, an eternal choice for resurrected Men to participate in divine creation; which absolutely entails their agency and freedom.   

The third evil is Sorathic. 

Sorathic evil is anti-creation; it aspires ultimately to reduce creation to chaos.

Sorathic evil is directed against all kinds of creation; it is against not only positive Good, but also against Luciferic and Ahrimanic evils - insofar as these seek to exploit or enslave creation. 

Sorathic evil can be considered a completion of the motivational shift from Luciferic to Ahrimanic evil, which is a shift from seeking personal gratification by using other Beings, to a type of personal gratification that enjoys the utter domination of other Beings. 

A qualitative shift from hedonism, to spitefulness. 

Sorathic evil moves on from the desire to dominate the whole of creation, to the desire to destroy all of creation - including oneself, insofar as we all are products of divine creation. 

The Sorathic can be seen as a purely negative form of evil, found in Beings that have lost all capacity for positive personal satisfaction, and can only enjoy destruction.

To summarize: Luciferic evil is pro-creation and anti-God because anti-Love. 

Ahrimanic evil is pro-creation and anti God (anti-Love) and also Jesus (anti-salvation). 

While Sorathic evil is "anti-" all manifestations of creation - including anti- all Beings (including anti-God and anti-Jesus Christ); also anti-Love, and anti-salvation. 

Sorathic evil tends to chaos; but it is not pro-chaos. 

Ultimately, Sorathic chaos is the negation of creation; the end-result of being anti-every-thing...

***

Note on Sin = Entropy and Evil; Salvation being from both Entropy and Evil 

Entropy (termed "Death") and Evil are, together, what is called Sin in the Fourth Gospel. 

Jesus came to save us from Sin - that is, to offer us the chance to reject Sin eternally; live without-sin eternally. 

Thus resurrection into eternal Heavenly Life saves us both from entropy including death (as well as disease and degenerative change); and simultaneously saves us from evil of all kinds. 

Resurrected Eternal Life in Heaven in therefore the Second Creation; which is derived from Primary Creation but operating entirely and eternally on the basis of Love, and without entropy or evil - because Sin is left-behind at resurrection. 

Our yearning for a life of continual enchantment

The "romantic" search for an escape from the mundane nature of life in this-world - that is, for enchantment - takes many, many forms; and is pursued by different people in widely varying ways. 

A very incomplete list of the themes would include by religions/ spiritualties/ ideologies; through reading, TV and movies; by personal relationships such as intense friendships and sexual relationships; through the appreciation and making of crafts and arts; by meditative, paranormal and supernatural encounters and experiences; via drink and drugs and other derangements; by holidays and travel; pursuit of personal or formal education; from performing drama and music... 

And so on - fully considered, there are only a few people who are not implicitly pursuing the enchanted life. 

All of these methods and others are at-least somewhat effective and may lead to enchantment: for some people, to some extent, and temporarily...

Because with time and the changes in our-selves, all methods and pursuits always lose effect: 

The once-enchanted becomes mundane. 

In other words, in our  failure to become and to stay enchanted; we are here dealing with the ultimate fact of entropy. 

We are up-against the inescapability of entropy in this-world we all inhabit. 

We are up-against this primary creation where all changes, loss is inevitable, and every-thing ends in its death. 

But this-world and primary creation is not all; because (by Jesus Christ) we all have the the opportunity to undergo the transformation of resurrection after death through following Jesus, and move on to the Second Creation that is Heaven: where the state of enchantment is everlasting. 

It is the state of everlasting enchantment in Heaven that Jesus is describing in the Fourth Gospel - when he uses "metaphorical" examples such as water, food and meat - and compared the inevitabilities of their incomplete, temporary, entropic nature in this-life-now; with the eternally present and gratifying fulfilment in the life-to-come:

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

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat... but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven... I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever... I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. 

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you... 

When Jesus says that he brings "life", life-everlasting, eternal-life; people nowadays wrongly interpret this as meaning an offer of (merely) continuing mundane life: the (mere) persistence-forever of life-as-we-now-know-it...

Merely the continuance of this entropic life...

But Heaven comes after resurrection, and resurrection is a transformation by-which not only evil, but also entropy, is eliminated...

Or, to put matters positively; when all the denizens of Heaven have made a permanent commitment to live forever wholly by love of God and divine creation and their fellow resurrected humans (and other resurrected Beings)...

Then this is a situation both of eternal goodness, and also of everlasting enchantment. 

Just as we can now, in this mortal life, know the desire for a wholly good world (without evil); but we cannot attain it. And Christians know that full goodness can only be attained after death and by resurrection...

So also we can know that our yearning for a life of continual and complete enchantment (without entropic change, decline, annihilation) - while impossible to achieve here and now - is attainable.

And/but attainable after our death - and by resurrection. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this world is not staying the same. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The double misunderstanding of resurrection by Modern Men; caused by the intrinsic evil of Modern Thinking

Jesus, especially in the Fourth Gospel promised resurrected eternal life to those who believed-on him and would follow him. 

To typical Modern Man this promise seems much less than it was. And - so long as Modern Man continues to think and reason as Modern Men do - i.e. reductionist literalism - this misunderstanding is unavoidable.

 

The eternal life Jesus made possible for us is not merely a matter of 'living forever' - it is (also) a place, a condition, a different world - a state-of-being in-which we live-forever. 

And eternal life is resurrection, not persistence. 

Eternal life is attained only-and-necessarily via death. Death is the separation of the living spirit from the body - and the eternal life is a resurrection, by which the surviving spirit is given an eternal body.

 

Modern thinking is literal merely, hence necessarily false. But it is not because ancient thinking was 'symbolic' (like a poem) - because for Jesus 'eternal life' was literal-and-more. 

Modern Man regards what he supposes Jesus to have promised to be both too-little, and impossible. Too little because - what's so great about about continuing to live? Since life is intrinsically interwoven with corruption, disease, decay and inevitable death: with 'entropy' - which rules this reality. 

(i.e. All we experience of this life is inevitably spoiled by what Christians call sin).

 

Jesus's complex and simultaneously-multifaceted promise is reduced to a single thing; and that thing made literal in terms of being this reduced thing, and this only. 

So Modern Man 'knows' that eternal life is neither possible (because of entropy/ sin) nor is it desirable - because (to the Modern sensibility, her-and-now in 2020) life is suffering - and gets worse the longer it continues. 

Thus Modern Man supposes that Jesus was offering something he does not want; even if it were possible - which it isn't. 

 

To escape this damning illusion requires that Modern Man thinks differently than Modern Men think. The primary sin lies in the Modern mode of thinking, which itself intrinsically frames all discourse (not just eternal life), reduces all concepts, and dis-values what Jesus actually said. 

The actual gift of Jesus - as rendered in the unsurpassed poetic-prose of the 'King James' Bible - has been 'translated' into managerial bullet points of a bureaucratic discourse: and this 'executive summary' was regarded as the whole truth... and rejected on that basis. 

The Modern rejection of Christianity is not, therefore, a matter of 'evidence' or 'facts'; it is a consequence of fundamentally incoherent thinking spilling-over into public discourse. 

The rejection of Life Eternal is, indeed, a consequence of evil thinking. 

 

The way Modern Man thinks is itself evil; he turns every-thing he thinks-about into evil: he trivialises, drains meaning, drains purpose and hope. His mode of thinking leads to value-inversion - consequently to fear, resentment, despair - and then (quite spontaneously) to active-embrace of the Satanic agenda.

As we see all around us... And this is found even among self-identified Christians; because mainstream Christians (nearly all) think exactly as typical Modern men.

What Modern Man needs (and I mean needs) to recognise - is that the way he thinks is a choice; a choice he has-made. And that choice was for evil. 

 

Modern Man must (and I mean Must) repent his choice to think-reductionist-literalism: must repent, or surely die. 

 

Note: After all, the word repentance can itself be understood as amounting to think-differently-about.

The hope (not mine) of a divine negentropic/ alchemical redemption of this mortal life and world

As I have previous said, from reading the Fourth Gospel as well as the core sense of Christianity, I do not believe that Jesus Christ promised a Second Coming. On the contrary, I believe Jesus fully achieved everything he incarnated to achieve in a cosmological sense - in terms of changing reality; and that since ascension His role is to guide all who ask for His help, by the Holy Ghost. 

But a familiar worldly-Messianic project of redemption of this sinful and suffering mortal life, of Jesus returning to take-up kingship of a New and Purified this-world, seems to have been introduced into Christianity at an early stage - and continues. 

For such redemption to happen, this-world would need to be remade, in such a way that all that is evil and of-sin - including death - would be removed, purified, transformed; and only Good remain. 

This might be envisaged to happen all-at-once at the second coming; but there have always (I think) been some who saw this happening gradually, incrementally, a bit at a time. 

I first understood this in listening to lectures by Stanley Messenger in which he expounded the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. In this explanation, the spilled blood of the crucified Christ entered the substance of the Being that is planet earth; and initiated a process of transformation that could be explained in terms of alchemy and homoeopathy; and would lead eventually to the total redemption of earth and everything the dwells here. In the end (as I understand it) there would be a complete integration of all, into full accord with divine purposes. 

I have also come across what seems to me a variation of this basic idea in Philip K Dick's Exegesis; where he is discussing Jacob Bohme and AN Whitehead. PKD's version is that this reality began as dominated by chaos and continues as entropy. God began creation in this context; and there has since been a process by which creation gradually overtook chaos; in which negentropy incrementally overwhelms entropy... Until either at or by the Second Coming, the process is completed and all that is evil, destructive - all suffering and pain - is transformed into Goodness and Happiness. 

My above summaries are themselves of secondary sources, thus unreliable as to detail - but I offer them as the kind of thing that would need to happen if this mortal world were to be saved, redeemed, made into Heaven on Earth. In other worlds, all that is evil, all destructive change, all death - would need to be transformed into harmony with divine creation. 

And this transformation is regarded as something that will happen. It is not a matter of choice, but of processes acting-irresistibly-upon Beings. Evil and Sin are eliminated by being made good. 

Now - I regard this as both impossible - because evil cannot be made Good; and undesirable to Christians - because salvation must be chosen.  

More fundamentally; I do not believe that this is what will happen! I think it is a mistake to suppose that Jesus said he would make Heaven on earth, or by processes incrementally to transform mortal to immortal life. 

The real situation is much simpler; which is that evil and sin will not because cannot be eliminated in this world and mortal life; which is why we must die and be resurrected to enter the state of only-Goodness: we must be born again.  

Those, and only those, who choose resurrection (and allow/ embrace the necessary transformative changes to themselves) will be added to Heaven, will join Heavenly life - leaving-behind their sins and all evil; and from thence, living only by love. 

This mortal realm with its sins and evil will be left-behind; as a place for those who choose to hold to their sins and evil, and those who choose not to live wholly by love. 

Such must happen; in order that Heaven be possible; and it must happen because eternal Beings must dwell somewhere.

And if Beings do not want to dwell in Heaven, then they will remain in some part or variant of the mixed-world of this-world of mortality - where entropy and creation contend. 

Notes on mysticism of thinking

I would describe myself as 'a mystic'; despite that I probably strike other people as mundane in the sense that I don't do anything very noticeably mystical - like meditating in the lotus position, using magical technologies (tarot, astrology etc) - and I don't claim to have had anything that would strike other people as spectacular spiritual or religious experiences (like overwhelming visions, near death experiences or striking paranormal events). 

This is because I take mysticism is be synonymous with regarding intuitive experience as the bottom line, and a conviction that mystical experiences are intended for the person who experiences them - and not for general public consumption. 

I have, like everybody, experienced many everyday miracles, and synchronicities - inspirations and the like. But it is immensely liberating Not to feel I need to convince anybody else that they were spectacular or of general relevance. 

One big difference between the mysticism I practice versus that which has become enshrined in the mainstream - is that I strive-for and value conscious experiences in thinking. I neither seek nor much value the usual (so-called) 'mystical' state of non-thinking, death-of-the-ego; of being blissed-out/ unaware of time/ convinced of being literally transported elsewhere... 

I do not want to be overwhelmed-by something that seems objective and external; nor to have visions that I believe to be real; nor to hear voices speaking to me - telling me things or conversing...

Yet some (most?) definitions of mysticism insist that these are what mysticism is. 

For example, that a mystic is unaware of time - more exactly that the mystic perceives that in reality there is no time ('all time is present'). In total contrast, the mysticism I seek is more like a 'process', it is a situation of things happening, a flow of life. 

In a nutshell, it is a kind of thinking that I regard as a higher state - I have called it primary thinking, heart thinking, and direct knowing - the state of Final Participation; and it simply amounts to a conscious and chosen thinking in the divine way; with and from that which is divine in me; and aligned-with/ in-harmony-with God's divine motivations and purposes.

It is me, my-self, joining-with God in God's work. It is therefore a creative state, and not merely a contemplative state. In it I add-to divine creation (I do not merely become aware of it, nor do I immerse in it.) 

For me, creativity is what we are meant to do, we are meant to active participants in God's creation - that' for me, is what the mission of Jesus was all about.  

Now, it is often said (and by writers I respect) that we ought to be striving to engage in this kind of thinking all the time - and any lapse from it is a failure. The idea is that we are supposed to be primary thinking at every moment, whatever we are doing; and that when we aren't, it is a lapse and a failure. 

But this assumption makes every human life a failure, and a tragedy - since nobody ever has achieved this unbroken continuity of mystical thinking (except for Jesus, in the last three years of his life). 

I cannot believe (I mean this literally - I mean the idea is incoherent) that our loving-parents God (who I know, in this state of mystical thinking) created his mortal children on earth to fail. 

Indeed, for mortal life to make any sense, for it to have a necessary reason for happening, we cannot regard it as being set-up to attain any kind of perfect, continuous state --- since here in mortal earthly life we are ruled by entropy, subject to change/ disease/ degeneration and death. 

Jesus's ministry described by an eye-witness in (only) the Fourth Gospel, is a joyous, not tragic, message - 'Good News' indeed. So we ought to realize that Jesus brought a positive gift - and not merely the negation of a negative situation. (As with the doctrine that Jesus came to save us from original sin: i.e. Jesus came to negate a negative deficit.) 

And indeed Jesus did bring a positive gift - as repeatedly described in that Gospel: the positive gift of resurrected life eternal in Heaven.

That is the essence of Christianity. Clear and simple. 

Therefore I am not supposed to be a full-time and permanent Mystic in this life on earth - the evidence for which is that it is impossible. But I am supposed to value mystical thinking above all else, because that is what is on-offer in Heaven. 

More exactly (since each person has an individual destiny) anyone like me who knows and values mystical states, is meant to strive for them on the permanent and continuous basis offered only by resurrection into life everlasting. 

So - since mystical thinking cannot be done all the time on earth, then we are not meant to do all the time it on earth. But our valuing of mystical thinking is what provides the correct framework for that learning from personal experience that is the main point of continued-living in this mortal life. 

We can see immediately that there is a potential problem here; in that we are essentially intended to learn from personal experience - whereas the mainstream modern world supplies us with a merely secondhand and abstract experience. 

Indeed, as of 2021; The System does not provide genuine experience, but a form of non-experience. 

The System intends that we live abstractly, vicariously, and as guided by The System. This is the opposite and inversion of learning from personal experience.  

One thing I used to worry about (and many others worry about - to the point of paralysis) is the matter of self-deception concerning mysticism. 

The question of 'how can I tell?' when I really am 'doing' mystical thinking - or when instead I might be pretending to myself, or engaging in wishful thinking (merely relabeling ordinary mundane and manipulated thinking as 'mystical'). 

But most of this is dealt with when one regards the significance of mystical thinking as being personal rather than public. 

Self-deception becomes a problem among actual or would-be spiritual leaders, people trying to get power, make money, gain status, influence people, make-a-better-world, heal people, create or administer a movement/ cult/ institution/ religions (etc) from their own spirituality. 

All such objectification seems to create self-deception. Even great mystical thinkers such as Rudolf Steiner fell (deeply) into this trap of self-deception by striving for objectification, abstraction, generalization... 

But intrinsically, it is not difficult to know when one is, or is not, engaged in mystical thinking. 

The state is self-validating - as must be intuition in general. That is what intuition must be - if it is to serve as the bottom line. 

We need to assume that there is a divine self in us. 

And we must further assume that when our consciousness, our awareness, is motivated by Love; then conscious awareness can know the divine self. 

It is Love that distinguishes divine-thinking from any other kind of thinking. We can therefore consciously know when we are (here and now) thinking mystically, from our divine self; and when we are not. 

That's all there is to it. That is direct knowing.

The fact that it is based in the motivation of love is exactly why mysticism fails when made objective, when the attempt is to harness mystical thinking for 'use' in this mortal world.

We do not love The World; love is not abstract - indeed we love only some, specific beings - sometimes a person loves only one being. 

That defines the scope of mystical thinking. One can think mystically only about that which is loved. 

Love must come first. So we cannot 'use' mystical thinking by a forced application of love to that which we merely wish to know!   

(Lack of real love is where public mystics go badly wrong. The give-away is that they always claim to have a lot of love, for a lot of people. The engage in a lot of promiscuous love-talk... They try to operationalize love, by equating it with some kind of 'altruistic' or sacrificial action. Doing so, they are trying to control love; which manipulation is intrinsically putting second that which must be first. Abstract, generalized loving is a snare - and a lie.) 

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. 

Pantheist, Monotheist, and Jesus-centred Christians

It seems to me that the religion of Christianity - as expressed in the major churches (variously, since very early in church history); was formed from people who wanted several different and mutually incompatible things. 

There were "pantheists" who believed in one deity which was everything - so it was vital that the deity was itself everything, or else had-created everything from nothing. 

They were focused on the inevitability of change and death ("entropy") which they saw in all material things; and therefore recognized the ultimate and ineradicable insufficiency of incarnate mortal life on this earth. 

They also believed that consciousness was a false separation from the reality of universal deity, hence a curse. 

These pantheists yearned most for escape from this incarnate, earthly, mortal life and the curse of consciousness; and their hope was to become pure spirit, and exist in a "timeless" state of impersonal bliss. 

There is no essential role for Jesus Christ in this tradition. 

Jesus is either dissolved back-into the unity of deity; or else regarded as a teacher, helper, advocate or some other such...  

(A job that is no doubt admirable, but secondary and dispensable.)  

This pantheistic strand got rolled-up into orthodox/ mainstream Christianity, especially from the pre-existing Neo-Platonists and mystery religions. In its purest form this led to the Christian Gnostics; but it is found in all the main Christian churches today - most of all in the monasticism of the Catholic churches, and least of all in Mormonism - but is present in all to some degree. 

The other main strand of the religion of Christianity was monotheism; which was mainly from the ancient Hebrews, and the Old Testament. 

This emphasizes a supreme and jealous personal God as the only deity; but its focus was on Man's behaviour and happiness in this earthly mortal life. 

The monotheistic concern was with evil rather than with "entropy". Its concern was with forming "God's people" as a group. 

The monotheistic focus was on morality, on the conduct of life - which was conceptualized as a comprehensive and mandatory Law; with many rules - dictating that which is virtuous; prohibiting that which is evil. 

Morality in this-life dictated the after-life; and the major focus of the after-life was Hell rather than Heaven. 

Hell was the default state of eternal torment - while Heaven was both uncertain and vague, and mostly co-opted from the pantheistic tradition. 

In other words, the monotheistic Heaven (in so far as it is thought about at all) is only superficially distinguishable from the depersonalized state of a pure spirit, dwelling in timeless bliss; thus we get the mental-pictures of de-individualized ranks of Heavenly choirs engaged in perpetual cycles of worship, praise, and celebration of the one God.  

Since there must be only one God; the role of Jesus in this monotheistic scheme is very confused, and indeed incoherent. In practice therefore; Jesus is seen as a Messiah whose fundamental task is to abolish evil on earth. 

This means that - for monotheists; the concept of entropy is subsumed within the concept of evil.

The monotheistic strand of Christianity is found wherever law, rule, and authority are primary; and in such situations Christian churches become structurally all-but indistinguishable from other monotheisms - Jewish or Islamic.   

The task of Messiah is to transform earth into Heaven, to immortalize this mortal lie - and purge it of all evil. 

Since this has not happened; Jesus's mortal life was seen as a failure - and he must therefore return in a Second Coming; in a role indistinguishable from that of the one God; to finish the work of Messiah. 

Traditional, orthodox, mainstream Christian churches are composed of various and oscillating admixtures of Pantheism and Monotheism - varying between times, places, and persons. 

Jesus-centred Christians only really exist as individual persons, or small groups - because they (we) are not church-rooted. 

This kind of Christianity is (potentially) described pretty fully in the Fourth Gospel ("John") - when this Book is regarded as autonomous from, and primary among, all scriptures. 

The focus is post-mortal and incarnated - on resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and Jesus is seen as having made this possible - which is a divine act of creation.

Therefore Jesus is fully a God; therefore a God later than, and in addition to, God the primary creator (therefore monotheism is not true).  

For Jesus-centred Christians; Jesus was absolutely essential for those who desire salvation. 

Before Jesus there was no salvation; and without Jesus salvation would not have been possible. 

Jesus-centred Christianity is personal and inter-personal. 

Jesus was and is a person. Men are individual persons in mortal life. Jesus and Men stay persons after resurrection and in Heaven. 

Love is between persons - not abstract, not "unconditional". 

Consciousness is retained after resurrection. Individual natures and purposes are retained after resurrection.  

For Jesus-centred Christians; without Jesus, there would not be any resurrected eternal life, Heaven would not exist; and it is only by following Jesus that Men can make the choice of resurrection into everlasting life in Heaven. 

Note added: In summary; Pantheists and Monotheists fitted-Jesus-into pre-existing religious structures; suitable for church-based religions - a process that inevitably had the effect of leaving Jesus structurally-inessential, if not redundant (despite whatever protestations). [Of course; I presume that many Christians have been ignorant of, ignored, or pushed hard against the official theology and doctrines - and lived what was de facto a Jesus-centred Christianity - which needed no church, and need not be known to anyone else.] If, instead of insisting upon Pantheism or Monotheism; we start with Jesus and what he said and did (according to the most authoritative source) - we get a Christianity with a very different structure and emphasis. 

The future of this world is Not assured - All good (mortal) things Will come to an end

I regard it as a serious spiritual error - despite its being so very common - when it is assumed that the future of this mortal world has been assured by the promises of God and Jesus Christ... 

e.g. The idea that eventually the powers of Good must and will prevail on earth... The conviction that The Church must survive and will ultimately thrive.  

Such ideas seem to me deeply mistaken, in terms of setting aside the central fact of Man's agency, his freedom on the one hand; and the fact that this mortal world and earth are ultimately ruled by 'entropy', by the powers of chaos - such that all which is formed and organized needs to be sustained by constant consumption of energy and effort; and eventually degeneration, destruction and death will supervene. 

This is the nature of this mortal life, and such was recognized by the first Men capable of conceptualizing our basic situation - i.e. the ancient Greeks. 

To believe otherwise seems to be one of the earliest and deepest errors that came into Christianity; due, I suppose, to sidelining of the (first and most important) Gospel - i.e. the 'Fourth' Gospel, of 'John'. 

But the core message of Christianity is (surely?) the the Messiah brought us the possibility of resurrection to eternal Heavenly life; and he did Not (contrary to much Jewish expectation) come to usher in any kind of paradise upon earth. 

Again and again Jesus emphasizes that the things of this world are temporary, but what he brings is - by contrast - permanent (hence necessarily elsewhere).   

The clear and simple inference is (surely?) that our mortal lives, the things of this world, and the earth itself; are all impermanent and will come to an end; but that we shall instead (if we want it deeply, and by following Jesus Christ) receive something much better - because everlasting. 

I therefore find it quite strange to see Christians speaking as if there is some kind of guarantee that eventually 'things' on this world will be sorted-out; as if there was a divine pendulum that would always swing back from the brink of dissolution; or as if history was a wheel that would cycle back and away from disaster.

Such an impulse to reassure oneself seems like clutching at straws; and worse than this, seems to be pushing against the kind of next-world-rooted attitudes which Jesus is often (in all Gospels) reported to have taught as our proper goal. 

Although (ideally) rooted in the next - Christianity acknowledges that the details and sweep of this world - and in particular of our own specific mortal life - is of great and eternal importance; while also being temporary and doomed to destruction. 

So the proper Christian attitude is not indifference or hostility to this-mortal-world. Although destruction will eventually overwhelm creation in this world (potentially including All the churches) - and this needs to be accepted; nonetheless we are placed here by God for Good Reasons - and this is the right kind of world for those-reasons. 

Therefore, here-and-now; we have choices to make, goals to strive-for, work to do - as best we may

What makes Good good?

All Christians believe that God is Good and loves us. 

But what does this actually mean? 

What does it mean to be Good? 

In particular; is Good a matter of preference merely, as modern materialistic ideology would have it. Are Good and evil "relative" and interchangeable? 

What this "relativism" of values seems to mean in current Western/ Globalist culture, in an underlying and implicit way, is that what matters are peoples' feelings (or more exactly, some peoples' feelings) - especially their "hedonic status", i.e. whether they are happy or suffering. 

What counts as Good is what is believed to lead to happiness, while evil is whatever causes suffering (or is asserted to cause suffering) - and Good and evil can therefore change places according to the cause of gratification/misery in the current situation. 

It should be noted that this modern Western hedonic morality as the basis of values, is rooted in the assumption that we can objectively know, and indeed measure, the hedonic outcome of choices... 

The assumptions that we know and can quantify other-people's state of happiness; and that we understand the relationship between present action and future emotions - including in large numbers of people; and that that we can predict the major psychological consequences of material actions.

These assumptions seem to me nothing but wishful-thinking at best; and most often sheerly-obvious nonsense...

Nonetheless; these are among the assumptions upon-which modern mainstream morality and values are based.  

  

Or is there instead some objective basis to Good and evil? By "objective" I mean here to ask: is there something about the nature of reality that distinguishes Good from evil? And if there is something objective about Good - what is it? 

Traditional orthodox mainstream Christian theology has it that God is Good because God created everything from nothing, because God is "omni" in nature. 

This is the argument of monotheism, something that this type of Christian shares with Jews and Moslems, and which is rooted in an assertion that God is Good because there is nothing else. 

In other words, by this argument, God is Good because God is everything, so that it is irrational, meaningless, to believe otherwise. Because there is nothing else but God - to be evil is meaningless, futile, insane... evil (by this account) has nowhere to go, and nothing to believe-in. 

The obvious objection to the monotheistic omni-God argument; is that if God made everything, is everything, controls and knows everything - then this abolishes the difference between Good and evil. 

The trad-orthodox definition of evil is more a matter of "Good is God" than "God is Good"; because (by this account) there is ultimately nothing except God and that which is wholly made by God - and God has been defined as Good. 

Apparent differences between Good and evil can therefore only be illusory, or temporary... But, even then, it is unclear why God should make or allow such illusions. 

(Indeed, it is unclear why the omni-God should do anything at all - since everything that has happened, is happening, or could happen - is all God Himself and his own 100% God-made creation. Creation seems to change nothing essential, to have no purpose or direction; because everything always was/is/shall-be.) 

Therefore, if we regard Good as relativistic, we just get a kind of this-worldly hedonic therapy, in which anything and everything is "justified" by assertions that it will make "people" happier, or less miserable. 

Or else, by trying to make Goodness identical with an omni-God, by asserting that all-is-God and God-is-Good; we end up actually abolishing the distinction between Good and evil. 

Anyone evil is then insane by his opposition to the only actual reality... Yet even this statement does not stand, because God must have made that person the way he is - i.e. insane.

The omni-mono-God philosophy explains nothing because it explains everything!

And such a conception of God seems especially antagonistic to Christianity; which must surely have an essential place for the divine Man Jesus Christ, and his doings at some point in history; and for the necessity of (in some meaning) "following" Jesus.

For a Christian; Jesus must make a difference, and that difference must be deep, cosmic, temporally-located, crucial. 

My own views on this subject have been expounded scores of times on this blog; but I will focus on the major objection to it. 

My understanding of Good: If God is a Being (or indeed two Beings - Loving Heavenly Parents) who found-themselves among a multitude of other Beings; and if this God began creating at some point in time; and if this creation is founded upon Love...

So that creation is something like "the purposive and mutually loving relationships between Beings that were previously and otherwise mutually unloving, lacking in shared-purpose"...

Reality is therefore a growing creation in an environment of chaos...

By this "model", Good is defined as God's project of creation; and evil is some kind of opposition to this project (anything other than joining with the project of creation - is may be any kind of opposition, from trying to exploit creation for selfish reasons, or trying to destroy creation). 

In theory, there is also the alternative of opting-out from creation. 

By my understanding of Good; Beings such as ourselves find-ourselves in an ongoing divine creation; and we need to decide whether we are on the side of creation or not.  

Good is the decision to join with God's creation. 

Opting-out is the decision Not to join with creation. 

Evil is the decision to oppose creation. 

Main objections to my understanding: Some things that some people find wrong with this scheme, are that I regard God as "just" a Being (actually two Beings) among a multitude of other Beings; that God's creation had a beginning and has therefore not been eternal; that God is finite in knowledge and power...

And that Good is only one among other rational possibilities. 

By my understanding; to be evil is to oppose the project of divine creation; but that opposition need not be irrational. Evil may be short-termist, evil will be un-loving, and may be manipulative, sadistic, spiteful... 

But evil need not be irrational (evil is only irrational when it denies the reality of divine creation). 

By my understanding: There really is no compulsion to be Good, because Good is one side in the spiritual war arranged around the actually-existing reality of divine creation. 

There is indeed One God, in the sense that there happens-to-be one divine creation, and this was an is the creation of God. 

There is one creation which is that we know, and which includes all other Beings that we can know. One creation within-which we and other Beings find-themselves when they become self-aware, when we/they become "conscious" of reality and their places in it among other Beings, and having relationships with these other Beings.  

Such matters could have been otherwise, but were not otherwise: this is reality - this is the situation within-which we exist.   

To loop back to the original incoherent ideas that Good is relativist because choice is rational and real; or else that Good is objective and necessary because there is mono-omni-God creating everything; I would say instead that Good is objective because God is The Creator; but the choice of Good versus evil is also real, has consequences that may be permanent, and it is a coherent choice to choose evil - even when the reality of one divine creation is acknowledged. 

By my understanding: To choose Good is to choose to affiliate with God's objectively real project of creation, and this project is built from love, because creation is the product of love.

Any Being capable of love is capable for choosing to affiliate with creation.

But evil may be a coherent choice, because creation takes place amidst continuing chaos - and continuing chaos is termed "death" (by the Fourth Gospel" and is spiritually-analogous to the scientific-material concept of "entropy". 

Evil is not entropy, but coherent evil entails an ultimate commitment to entropy and chaos in preference to divine creation, because entropy/ chaos is all that would remain when evil has done its work...

After evil has worked through to its conclusion; there would be a world without creation, which is a world without love; and that would be the return to a pre-creation world of mutually un-conscious and unloving Beings; i.e. the end state of evil would be Beings uncomprehendingly existing in a situation that has no coherence and no direction.

Thus evil is a possible and coherent thing to desire.   

In other words, by my understanding, divine creation is incomplete and (in principle) vulnerable to evil, and to entropy; or, this would be the case without the Second Creation of Jesus Christ. 

Primary creation of God is of-itself therefore incomplete and contingent; and Jesus Christ is therefore essential to the triumph of Good. 

But the triumph of Good is not the imposition of Good across all that exists - it is a Second Creation that consists of Beings that are only and wholly Good. That situation called "Heaven". 

This is why Christianity is the only coherent religion; and why Jesus Christ is and was essential. Jesus was Not essential to the primary divine creation; but Jesus is essential to the indomitable and eternal triumph of creation - in Heaven. 

   

Note added: What makes Good good is loving-creation - but only if you agree that love is, indeed good. Otherwise not. That which is good is therefore objectively real; but what makes the real objective, is personal.