Why I am Not a universalist with respect to salvation

The basic reason is that I have an extremely different understanding of ultimate, metaphysical reality from that which underlies the belief in universal salvation.

Universalists tend to regard Heaven as the only place of happiness and therefore a place where everybody - sooner or later - wants to go, and God as gatekeeper to this place. A loving God would - on this model - want all of his children to be happy, and would not bar the door to the place of happiness to anybody who wanted to enter.
 
In other words, universalists are unable to conceive of anybody who would not want to be in Heaven, rather than the alternatives.

In this sense, universalists regard all humans as being fundamentally alike in their nature and aspirations.

I, by contrast, see humans as having fundamental differences in their nature, and differences in what they want, from the beginning. I regard some people as having always been evil, in the sense of being opposed to Good (and Good derives its meaning from God's creation - so that to be evil is to oppose creation, and favour its destruction - to want to prevent the possibility of Good).

I presume that some souls have always been - by their nature, and for many possible - opposed to the idea of joining God's creation. This is not necessarily evil - because Heaven is an optional opt-in; a positive option.

So throughout eternity, there have been souls that preferred (for many reasons) not to join the creative and loving endeavour that is Heaven. Only some of these are the fallen pre-mortal spirits that we call demons. Others might have chosen permanent solitude, others might have chosen destruction of the Self and permanent bliss. Such choices are not necessarily irrational. 

There is also a difference in the understanding of freedom. Universalists see that any choice other than Heaven is a failure of freedom; that Heaven is the only rational choice for every person - or, that every choice other-than Heaven must be based on ignorance which, and when (sooner or later) eventually ignorance is cured - then the decision to reject Heaven would certainly be revised. And then God would (being loving) accept them into Heaven.

In sum; I believe there are some people whose nature is such that they have rational grounds for rejecting Heaven, and there are also some people whose evil opposition to creation, whose desire to see other people suffer, to inflict pain etc. is a trait they have possessed from their origins.

My understanding is that God, as our loving Father, keeps open the possibility of redemption for these people as long as possible, But a vital part of freedom is the freedom to make permanent commitments - for Good and also for evil. Indeed, this freedom seems to me vital for the existence of Heaven.

Heaven is only possible because people can make a permanent commitment to live in love, and work in participation with God's creation, with the other inhabitants - for eternity.

And the 'flipside' of this is that it must also be possible to make permanent commitments in the other direction, in the directions that involve choices other-than Heaven (some of which are actively evil, others of which are more of a passive opt-out).

So, I am not a universalist - nor do I regard universalism as evidence of God's goodness. But I can understand why, for those who accept the 'standard Christian metaphysics' of who reality is set-up, they can be led into universalism - because God's love is indeed his one essential characteristic.

However, universalism is not - long term - and in a church setting, a sustainable answer. Because when universalism is inserted within a traditional Christian framework introduces a kind of fatal flaw that tends to destroy the institutional system.

But perhaps this is itself an inevitable and necessary phase? Because if churches rely on God being seen to exclude people from Heaven who want to be there, than perhaps such a gross distortion to the essence of Christianity is so great that it invalidates any particular instantiation of the religion that depends too heavily upon it?

How is Jesus *necessary* to salvation? The process of resurrection

It is a stumbling block for potential Christians that Jesus is necessary for salvation. And, such is the essential nature of Christianity, that this is a matter which modern people find it very difficult to understand - or, at least, they find it hard to understand as something good.

Quite reasonably, people find it unacceptable that people should be pressured (indeed blackmailed) into becoming Christians by the 'or else' kind of threat represented by the idea of being 'sent to hell' if you don't. There is also a worry about the billions of people (past and present) who either know nothing about Jesus and Christianity or know only some kind of biased/ prejudiced/ selective version - or else are unable to understand it (due, for example, to being babies or young children, mentally handicapped or mentally ill/ brain damaged).

So, it seems unreasonably, and indeed wickedly, restrictive for salvation to be confined only to those who know, understand and accept Jesus. Or else eternal torment in hell...


But the other side of the coin is that salvation should not (indeed cannot), be forced upon anyone - Christianity is an opt-in kind of religion; and that opt-in needs to be conscious, deliberate, a kind of 'informed consent'. How can this be the case - given the above problems of ignorance, misinformation, incompetence, lack-of-capacity... How could everybody be given a fair chance to opt-in?


One answer might be to consider what happened with the resurrection of Jesus; and that he promised resurrection to everybody. Death is the separation of soul/ spirit from body - the body dies, and the spirit remains. Yet the spirit alone is a maimed thing, hardly self-aware, unfree, 'demented' - and this was widely recognised in ancient religions, especially before Christ; where the realm of the dead (Hades, Sheol etc) was a place of barely-sentient spirits. Not a place of torment, but a place where we lost our-selves - forever (unless there was reincarnation).

So, the process of resurrection has at least two aspects: the first is that spirit and body are reunited, we become sentient again, we regain our souls, our selves...

The other part of resurrection is the spiritual process of being re-born to eternal life. This involves a positive, conscious, deliberate choice - because what this entails is allying ourselves permanently with God's plan, his goal of a reality based on Love. Heaven is this world based on Love between persons.

We cannot be coerced to love (else it is not love) - and indeed we would not want to dwell in Heaven if we did not want to live in this world of loving relations - more exactly we cannot live in this world of loving relations if we do not, ourselves, love.

But to be able to live in such a world is not something that we can accomplish for ourselves - it is, indeed, the gift of Jesus. This is why there is no other way than by him. To live in heaven we must believe in, have trust in, Jesus - must surrender our-selves to him so we can be remade fit for heaven.

Such absolute, trusting surrender is only rational if we believe that Jesus loves us. In other words, we must believe-in Jesus - his power, goodness, love - in order to surrender utterly to him; in order to be able to participate in eternal life in Heaven.


For this to be universally available to all men and women, at all times in history and today, regardless of circumstances and place - then it must be something which occurs (or at least can occur) after death. That is; everybody must be brought, after death, to a situation in which he or she makes a fully-informed choice, with understanding of the consequences. This is 'judgment' - and it is our personal choice (although Jesus was responsible for setting-up the choice).

Those who did not (for whatever reason) repent during mortal life are able to repent after mortal death, in this fashion. That is, they can choose whether to accept the gift of Christ, or not.

Hell is what happens to people who choose not - Hell is the people who choose not to live by love, who choose not to trust Christ.


But why specifically Jesus Christ, why must we believe in him personally? Now that the system is set-up - couldn't Christ's role be discarded?

My understanding is that Life, including eternal life, is ultimately personal - not abstract. I regard this as one of the essential aspects of Christianity - because Love requires persons.

It was the work of Jesus as a person to enable us to be saved from permanent death (severance of spirit and body) by repentance, and to be resurrected to eternal life. It was (it seems) necessary for Jesus as a person to go-through what he did (incarnation, birth, life, death and resurrection), and to do so by choice, for us to receive the benefits. It was necessary for Jesus to do this in order that we (that is all men and women) can follow the same path.

Why exactly this should be so is another matter - but that it is so is central to the Christian story.


Anyway, my take-home-message here is that belief in Jesus is indeed necessary to salvation; because being saved entails a surrender of our self to Jesus; and without belief (faith, trust, love) we will not allow ourselves to be saved.

Furthermore, all men and women have been and will be presented with this choice to believe-in Jesus Christ or not - and this choice in full clarity of consciousness and sufficient comprehension of the implications - regardless of their earthly circumstances. This situation is something that is always (sooner or later) made possible and arranged by divine action and intervention.

How Jesus Christ enabled Heaven (with its exclusion of evil)

The religion of the Ancient Egyptians - which is massively documented - provides a detailed picture of how the world of God's creation was before the work of Jesus Christ. 

Creation was made by the pushing aside of chaos; civilization was like a clearing in the wild forest; and the chaotic forest was always trying to take back the world of religion, agriculture and the domain of the creating Gods. 

Most of the Gods were Good, but the representatives of chaotic evil remained - such as Set (or Seth) who dwelt in the deserts around the fertile and civilized state of Egypt; and Apophis the primal world-serpant who, every night, attacked the ship of the sun, to try and prevent dawn. 

Thus light/ life/ goodness/ order was engaged in a continual and eternal battle to hold-back the chaos/ evil that surrounded on all sides; and which would otherwise return the world to its primal disorder. 

 

This may be taken broadly to represent the situation of divine creation on earth before the work of Jesus. And Jesus's work can be seen as the additional creation of Heaven, as a New Place to be inhabited by resurrected Men who have first been temporarily incarnated onto earth as mortals. The mortal state is that from-which each Man must choose Heaven - or Not.

 

By this understanding, Heaven is - and for the first time - a place that free men can inhabit where evil has been excluded - permanently.

By 'free men; I mean Men who are agents; operating-from their own distinctive divine selves; generating their own thoughts - mini-gods. In other words: In Heaven Men are secondary creators (operating within God's primary creation) - who can fully participate with God on the continuing creation of God's ongoing, expanding world. 

 

Jesus gave Men the possibility of resurrection to eternal life. Resurrection means eternal bodies; and bodies can only be eternal in an eternal environment - which is Heaven. In other words, Heaven in a world without death.

By contrast; this mortal life we know, here on earth, is ruled by chaos (or 'entropy', dis-order). All changes and decays, nothing lasts unchanged; there degeneration and disease are everywhere and death is the inevitable terminus. This mortal world - taken in isolation - is therefore the same as that described by the Ancient Egyptians.

However, since Jesus Christ; we have the chance to opt-into Heaven; which is an everlasting world without evil - without chaos or entropy.  

And at the same time, when resurrected into Heaven, we remain our-selves; indeed we become even more our-selves and able to participate in the ongoing work of God's creation. 

So, our mortal lives on this earth give us all lived experiences of chaos, entropy and evil; and the opportunity to learn from these experiences in order to make a final, irreversible commitment in favour of Good. 

In other words; mortal life on earth is what enables us to understand what is being offered by Jesus: eternal resurrected life in Heaven. And knowing (by contrast and implication) both sides, both possibilities... our free choice may be informed.   

 

My understanding of this new possibility of heaven; is that it is due to the possibility of each Man making a permanent commitment to Goodness, to creation, to the work of God. Because Heaven is composed only of Beings that have made this permanent commitment - then Heaven is a place without evil. 

All the inhabitants of Heaven (Men and others) are on the side of God and creation; and everything they (we) do in Heaven is in-harmony-with God and creation. Thus, In Heaven there is no tendency towards chaos, entropy, evil...

In another description; Heaven is based on the principle of love. The harmonious working of many free agents is possible by their mutual love. It is therefore love which is the principle of cohesion in creation - which 'organises' the work of many free individuals into a coherent, ongoing, creativity. 

 

The 'process' by which any mortal Man from earth was made able to be resurrected-into Heaven was made possible by Jesus Christ; and the 'method' made simple and accessible. Since Jesus; anyone who wants Heaven merely has to 'follow' Jesus, who will lead us through resurrection and into Heaven (a path which he himself has taken) as The Good Shepherd. 

It seems that (here on earth, in this mrtal life) not everyone knows-about Heaven, not everybody wants Heaven; and among those who do want to go onto Heaven, there are some who do not want to follow Jesus, or do not believe Jesus can or will lead us to Heaven. 

But we can trust that God the creator will ensure that everybody will have the fullest chance to know such things sooner or later; and before each needs to choose between a commitment to Heaven - or Not.

Primary creation (of God the Father) is opt-out; the second creation (of Jesus Christ) is opt-in

The primary creation was imposed-upon the pre-existing and eternal Beings by God. 

This imposition was by necessity. Before creation, Beings existed in isolation and without relationships - thus direction, purpose and meaning in a creation based-upon Love emerged only after primary creation. 

In this sense, also, freedom and the capacity for an agency based on distinguishing the self from the not-self was only possible post-creation. 

(i.e. We cannot know we are a self until after we know of other selves.)  

Therefore it was impossible for any Being to opt-out of creation, until after creation, because there could be no consent to creation, nor of 'opting', until after creation had-happened -- hence the necessity for its imposition. 

But Love is by mutual consent only; and this meant that Beings were 'incorporated' into primary creation without consent; and (it seems) some of them withdrew consent almost immediately. 

To be clear: all the Beings of creation (even Satan, the first rebel against God) have been, even if briefly, subordinated to God's creation. 

Probably some who withdrew consent - who rapidly opted-out of creation - were incapable of Love; probably others were capable of Love, but did Not wish to make Love the basis of 'organization'... 

Those who opted-out include what we regard as Satan and the demons - in other words these were never-incarnated spirit Beings. 

Because primary creation cannot be undone or reversed (because now Beings Know about each other) the 'rebels' ultimate or distal 'goal' (insofar as they are explicitly aware of it) is a power-based reality; in which Beings are in a situation of antagonism and attempted domination or exploitation - which themselves (and, maybe, some recruits?) as the dominant exploiters. 

In a nutshell; the demons, and all others who have rejected Love/ God/ creation at some later point - aspire to a reality based-on relationships of power and selfishness. 

Thus they have chosen to opt-out of primary creation.

In primary creation (which was all of creation before the advent of Jesus Christ) God operates as a power acting-upon us, i.e. upon Beings. 

In a sense; God does creation to us. 

Living in creation is therefore the default situation; from-which we would need to opt-out if we did not want it.  

This imposed-creation situation was recognized by all the old religions, and still is recognized (at least implicitly) by those religions that have a supreme God but do not recognize the truth and desirability of Jesus Christ. 

Therefore the Old Gods, and the understanding of the ancient monotheistic God of the Hebrews or the later God of Islam - regard God as primarily power. 

And such a God of non-optional imposed-creation demands of us obedient service above all else - which goes-with a relationship as essentially one of awe, fear, submission, propitiation etc. That is; a relationship analogous to that of an ignorant peasant towards the absolute Emperor of vast domains. 

As I said; this attitude is a natural consequence of the primary creation in which creation was done to us. Our understanding-of and relationship-to God is of one who is done-to - who is insignificant; not one who participates-in, or who himself contributes something of substantive value. 

The secondary creation was made-to-happen by Jesus Christ; and this fundamentally changed our relation with God. 

The second creation was (for the first time) an opt-in situation, and made God (potentially) the supreme beloved Father of a vast family -- rather than King of 'a people'. 

Since the second creation; God no longer requires or desires us to regard him as primarily a power, but a loving parent; God no longer requires our obedient submission to His imposed authority, but invites our loving participation in his continuing work of creation. 

The secondary creation involves Beings that are already free agents, and who know about other Beings; it involves making the choice of an eternal commitment to live harmoniously with other beings guided by, and in a condition of, mutual love. 

This secondary creation mode-of-Being is achieved by the willing transformation that is resurrection - and the second creation is called Heaven, a situation where we go by our own active desire.  

In the second creation; we are Not supposed-to regard God as remote, incomprehensible, as like a Monarch or a Judge before which we ought-to abase ourselves in submission and obedience... 

And we are Not supposed to regard our-selves as insignificant, superfluous, functionless... but as irreplaceable and able to add some-thing worthwhile to what-is - across eternity.  

We are instead supposed to have an attitude to God of love, gratitude, joy, positivity, energy, excitement; a desire to bring the best of ourselves to the work of God's divine family; to join-in with the plans of divine creating.  

Because the second creation is opt-in; some who reject God include those who opted-out after becoming incarnated into this mortal life. They lived in primary creation as pre-mortal spirits without opting-out; but after they were born as Men, they made the decision (whether before or after death) "not to opt-into" the second creation.

To clarify: Because the second creation is opt-in; there are those who positively reject the second or the first creation (presumably Satan and the demons, but probably others too), but also those who negatively do not want the second creation. These may still be prepared not to opt-out from the first creation - these would include many religious but-not-Christian people, including some self-identified Christians who actually don't want what Jesus offers!.   

The difference between dwelling in the first and second creation is therefore a vital difference for Christians to grasp; if they are not to fall-into an attitude to God that fits the opt-out primary, but not the opt-in secondary creation.

"Christians" who get their idea of God from the pre-Jesus era of the Jews of the Old Testament, tend to have the 'negative' attitudes of the first creation (e.g. the primacy of obedience to power), but fail to understand or embrace the essential qualitative difference that Jesus made. 

Such people are sometimes therefore de facto non-Christians, in terms of their attitudes and expectations, and their desires. 

But the reality is that Jesus Christ changed the fundamental possibilities of reality; things are possible since Jesus that were not possible before Jesus.

The Big Question is whether we personally want what Jesus made possible - or not? 

If we want it, we each must choose it. 

We must then opt-in...

H/T - Loic Simond for a comment that triggered the thinking that led to this post. 

Freedom (spiritual and physical) in 2020: The importance of our agency to God

In these times of astonishingly rapid reductions in our 'physical', bodily, personal freedom - the matter of spiritual freedom becomes ever more important. 

Important not merely because the spiritual is the proper emphasis; but because (as 2020 has shown) without individual spiritual freedom then people cannot/ do-not care for their personal or societal physical freedom. 

Lacking spiritual freedom; people invert Good and evil; fail to notice when they are being physically enslaved, lack the inner conviction that sustains courage - and have become the passive dupes and servants of evil.

 

The Christian understanding is (or ought to be!) that our personal freedom is vital to God. 

In particular, we must be free to in order that we can choose to follow Jesus Christ to eternal resurrected life in Heaven. Heaven is not a default state - Heaven is 'opt-in'; therefore Men must truly be able to 'opt'. 

And we are.

 

It was one of the important insights of Mormon theology that incarnation - i.e. being embodied, having bodies - is an important aspect of human freedom. Or, better, human 'agency'; because 'agent' is the term for a self-motivated entity, and that self-motivation probably a clearer conceptualisation than freedom of what is required. 

The essence of freedom is agency, which is something like the 'ability-to-choose from one-self' - and freedom is not (as sometimes mistakenly supposed) a freedom-from compulsion, nor the availability of many options. It is this agency which makes Man also a god; because agency is a divine attribute.

But agency is not categorical; it is a matter of degree. My understanding is that every-thing (i.e. every individual Being) has agency - including the 'mineral' and 'plant' worlds - because all things are beings; and agency is a part of being an individual and alive.  But the degree of agency in a tree is much less than in a child, and a child less than an adult Man

 

So, the purpose of creation is, in part, the development of agency. God wants more agency in creation, and especially in Men; because God wants Men (or, more exactly, some men) to become more divine, to be raised closer and closer to God's level of divinity and agency; so that Men may increasingly - and with greater individuality - participate in the world of creation.

My understanding is that incarnation is a concentration and boundedness of the spirit. The body, to a lesser or greater extent, is a concentration of our being, and the body is a (partial) boundary against our perception of the spiritual world.  

Before our life on earth, we were spirit beings; and on earth we attain a temporary incarnation of mortal life, our body being made of earthly and material things (which are prone to 'entropy'; hence are always changing). 

Even to be born in a body is itself a partial separation from the realm of the spirit - although as young children we are still spontaneously and naturally aware of the spirit realm. But as we develop and grow, we increasingly separate from the spiritual realm including the divine; until, typically with adolescence, we become fully separate from God and the spirit - and that point it requires our agency to re-acknowledge the reality of God and the spiritual.  

In other words, God wants us consciously to choose to believe in his reality - and not for this belief to be unconscious and unchosen. If we make this choice we are theists - God-believers - but not (yet) Christian; it is by the further choice to follow Jesus Christ to resurrection that we become Christian. 

This is why we must die to attain Heaven - the temporary mortal body must be replaced by a permanent Heavenly body. But it is this temporary mortal body that grants us the agency to make that permanent choice (and commitment) for God, divine creation and Heaven.

 

In our mortal incarnation we are uniquely 'located' in time and space; we have an unique experience (an unique experience that is continuously 'managed' by God through the continuity of creation); we are in a world of continual change (indeed, an entropic world of net decay, disease, degeneration - tending towards death). 

Thus our experience of mortal life is one of constant and unstoppable change - and this provides the continuously-varying experiences from which we can learn.  This learning is why some of us live as mortals for extended periods; while other individuals, who do not need this learning, experience relatively brief lives - and die after conception, in the womb, or soon after birth. 

When this mortal learning is (Christianly) orientated towards our eternal resurrected life; this constitutes that spiritual development that is variously termed theosis, sanctification, or deification; we are becoming more god-like (although this learning will not become permanent and fully effectual until after resurrection). 

In sum: this mortal body is derived from the earth; while our resurrected body is derived from Heaven. Our mortal body provides the freedom, or agency, required to choose Heaven; and our lived experience in this entropic world provides potentially valuable experiences that may enhance our agency in Heaven.

We are free to reject God, and beyond that - having accepted God to reject Jesus Christ. Or, to put it more exactly; it is necessaryfor Christians that we first actively choose to believe in the reality of God, and then actively choose to dwell eternally in Heaven. 

For Christians, the current rapid destruction of our physical freedom is therefore an experience; but the relevant experience is that which is from the exact perspective in time and space which we each - as individuals - inhabit. 

Loss of physical freedom does not reduce our agency; it simply provides experiences from which we need to learn. However, we cannot learn from these experiences unless we acknowledge and deploy our agency - which is itself a consequence of the divine within us. 

 

All of the time we are alive, we are being-confronted-by experiences which (for a Christian) need to be met by our personal agency. Our agency needs to be acknowledged and deployed; which means that we each need to take responsibility for our knowing and learning, and for our choices concerning God and Jesus Christ. 

I would hazard that a particular, general, lesson of these times, is related to this; in the sense that it is being made more-and-more difficult for a Christian to be unconscious and passive and remain Christian. 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that one who accepts external guidance is accepting the demonic (i.e spiritual powers that are anti-God, anti-creation) - since this external guidance is almost always (and more clearly) corrupted, and increasingly inverted in its values.  

 

My point here is that what we physically do in mortal life, about the events of 2020; need to be grounded in a conscious apprehension of our personal divine agency; which is itself the basis for discerning guidance from external divine agency - the Holy Ghost. 

The fact that we have physical bodies is an advantage. Yes, they make us vulnerable to physical intimidation; but they are also what enables us to be agents who can choose from-our-selves: from our True Selves. 

And that - whatever happens physically, and however we may choose to support or resist the various (better or worse - much and increasingly worse) powers of this world - our primary task is to learn from the exact situation in which we are placed - which situation is continually being shaped by God for our best learning in this mortal context.

Which is why we must remember to Trust in God, now more than ever; so that we are not afraid - and are able to retain our necessary focus on the spiritual. 

Dealing with the problem of entropy. Love versus Bliss - Creation versus Stasis

Mainstream Christianity (although, presumably, not what Jesus actually said and did!) has apparently always embodied a fundamental, metaphysical, incoherence  - whereby it has tried to assert two incompatible world-views and life-aspirations. 

(I assume - but cannot "prove" - that this arose as a consequence of early theologians being unwilling to give-up their Judaic assumptions and/or the Classically-derived Greek and Roman philosophy - especially Neo-Platonism; and instead fitting the simple reality of Christianity into one, the other, or both of these pre-existing moulds - thereby creating the unclarity, paradoxes and "mysteries" which have existed since.) 

Entropy - leading to our death and the death of every person and thing that we know - is an unavoidable experience and fact of life; unavoidable so long as we are aware, purposive, and/or take memory seriously. 

People have therefore dealt with entropy, tried to remove it from experience and/or from reality, by several tactics and strategies. 

One is the goal of living in a perpetual present. If Time is cut down to a present-moment in which (so far as we can tell) nothing happens; then we have apparently deleted Time. If there is no Time, there is no entropy, and no death...

The idea in practice may become manifested as life being cut-up into a sequence of disconnected "now"s; each without relation to what went before. 

To some extent, this can be seen in popular mainstream culture, and its extreme un-interest in looking at trends, or "joining the dots" between facts or experiences. "That was then, this is now"... so why bother about it? Concern about the past or future is a "downer". If I feel OK now, then that's all that matters... 

In effect: if I can say "I see no entropy now" (i.e. there is no change, no degeneration, no death) in the time-slice that is the present moment under consideration; then (it is inferred) entropy can be denied or ignored.

This "works" insofar as analysis is restricted to this present moment. 

Ultimately, this aspires to delete Time - or, if not possible, to delete any perception of Time. 

Thus life aspires to a state of stasis - preferably blissful stasis. 

The aim is contemplative, not creative.

Thus the ideal state is to "stop" or escape Time, and therefore (necessarily) to "stop" creation - more exactly, to stop creating. 

(God's creation is seen from this perspective as done and finished, completed once and for always, total and complete - a creation to which nothing can be added.)

The above analysis and purpose seems to be converged-upon by a wide range of religions and spiritualties; I think because it arises from commonly shared assumptions and practices - from a particular way of dealing-with, of escaping-from, the problem of entropy. 

The attitude aimed-at is indifference, detachment, not-feeling, not-caring; the desire is to become unaware of entropy and its consequence. 

The attitude aimed at is acceptance: don't compare, don't remember, don't plan... 

Accept whatever happens. Maybe it is all regarded as "good"... But however regarded What Is, Just Is, and should be accepted. 

(Our misery is interpreted as a consequence of failing to accept.)

But (by my understanding) what Jesus said was aimed-at those of us who choose creation as our primary goal, not contemplation. 

Those of us who choose love as our fundamental value, rather than indifference.  

Jesus dealt with entropy by accepting its inevitability in this mortal life; and offering the elimination of entropy ("life everlasting") in resurrected heavenly life - after death. 

The need for resurrection derives from the inevitability of entropy in this mortal world. From the fact that this mortal world cannot be "redeemed". 

Entropy is a part of this mortal reality - therefore there cannot be a heaven in this life or on this earth - which is why the Heaven of Jesus is in the resurrected life and in Heaven.

Jesus's teaching is linear, sequential, includes time, includes change, entails freedom and the capacity for love - and from this it promises to eliminated death - which concept included sin and corruption. 

In the Heaven made possible by Jesus; there will be love, creation, and change - but there will not be sin, corruption or death. 

Resurrection is a voluntary remaking: we desire and allow ourselves to be remade without entropy, and without sin by following Jesus - and that is the only way it can happen. 

Implicitly; Jesus dealt with entropy by love; and love is a choice - love entails freedom. 

Jesus embraced creation rather than contemplation, and invited Men to join with the work of creation (to become Sons of God). 

This is why Heaven is necessarily opt-in - because people cannot be made to love, nor to create - these come from freedom, not coercion. And this is why those who do not (from their freedom) opt-in, are thereby (self-) excluded.

And those self-identified Christians who aspire to a Heaven that is without Time, that contemplative not creative, is changeless, is experienced as a constant present... 

Well, such people are wanting something different from what Jesus actually offered. 

How can Christianity be both true, and also necessarily a choice?

It is crucial that Christianity is an opt-in religion - it must be chosen, it can only be chosen.

(Therefore Christianity absolutely entails the reality of agency, of 'free will' - and the impossibility of agency on the basis of mainstream modern metaphysics is a reason why normal public discourse is absolutely incompatible with Christianity.)

At the same time, Christianity is true.


This appears to set up some kind of paradox, in the sense that (surely?) if Christianity is true then it must be accepted; yet if it must be accepted then there is no real choosing of it...

My understanding is that this is indeed a genuine contradiction in mainstream 'classical' Christian metaphysics (in which God is omnipotent, and created everything from nothing) - a contradiction to which there is no rational answer; but not in a different theology. Because to deny Christianity on such a scheme, would be to deny reality - which is incoherent.

But, if we instead believe that creation is the effect of God shaping pre-existent chaos - including ourselves as God's children; then reality so far as it is ordered and understandable is God's creation.

However, the primordial chaos included beings: included God, and also ourselves (i.e. Men) but ourselves in a primordial, unconscious, disembodied sense - embryonic and lacking, but existing nonetheless. God's creation was the shaping of chaos, and the parenting of our primordial selves into God's children (as we are now, as we find ourselves). 

 All that is Good is inside this creation - creation is where the concept of Good has meaning. In particular all loving relationships are inside of creation, made possible by God's creation.

Yet there is another reality outside of creation; so denial of Christianity is not incoherent - there is another reality which might coherently be chosen in preference to God's creation.


What would such an opt-out of God's creation entail? Outside creation is not evil; but it is chaotic, meaningless, purposeless and lacking in any true relationships between beings.

Our primary choice is whether to opt-in to the reality of God's creation - or not. This is a real choice - and has real consequences. In principle a person might simply decline to join creation - and to surrender self-consciousness, and all the personhood which has been given us by becoming a child of God. This is not an evil choice - it is the choice of nihilism, of non-reality - but it is not evil (it indeed bears some relation to the ideal of 'Eastern' religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism).

The evil choice is to decline to joining God's work of creation; but to hold onto God's gifts to us - to hold-onto meaning, purpose and relationship - but to impose our own personal meanings upon them. It is to try and take what is personally gratifying from creation, but not to join creation. It is to adopt a stance towards creation that sees it primarily as a thing to be exploited.


In sum, Christianity is true - because it describes the world of God's creation, in which truth is given meaning and value; but this is not the whole of reality - therefore there is an alternative - therefore must opt one way or the other.  And because we are agents (with free will) this choice is real and meaningful.

The necessity of opt-in arises because of the nature of God's plan for creation - which is one in which we (as Men) are agent and divine beings, in loving relationships, engaged in a mutual project of further creation.

(If creation were done and static, there would be no need for agency; but because creation is ongoing and endless, agency is of-the-essence.)

Among divine beings, there is no possibility of ultimate coercion - either we choose to join the great work of creation; or we opt-out fully - or else, as with evil entities, we try to exploit creation for personal gratification.

The work of creation ('Heaven') is both real and chosen.

Alternatives to Heaven - active and passive evil or love

'Regular Readers' will know that I have an understanding of Christianity that sees God's creation as emerging from Chaos; that God made creation from a disorder of pre-existing primordial beings, which were already and from eternity somewhat alive and conscious.

Creation therefore began with God, grew from God's work, and is a dynamic and expanding thing. 


God's creation is made with love as its glue; creation 'uses' (to be materialistic) love as the attractive force that orders chaos into creation.

This is, ultimately, why Christians regard love as primary - because love is that which makes creation. Without love there is chaos.

So, creation (or Heaven) is ultimately an opt-in thing. because love is not compelled, we can only opt-into Heaven.


Creation has-been set-up, and is an ongoing project; and our primary decision is whether to join this project or not. To join the project we must share its aims. To share the aims entails joining the web of love which binds the participants, as creation continues to grow.

Love is what enables creation to be dynamic and open-ended, while not flying-apart or drifting off-course - love is what gives direction and coherence' and this love is the interpersonal love of beings.


For this to work, creation needs to be ruled by love; to be ruled by love means that the participants in creation must have chosen it - and that choice must be both freely made and irreversible.

(We must be able to assume that this is indeed possible: that part of free agency is the freedom to make irreversible commitments based on love.) 

So creation is much like an ideal family - in that when a family loves one another; they can continue to hold together through time, while constantly and permanently growing and changing. 


This view makes evil a very different thing from traditional Classical Christian metaphysics. For me, most evil is a form of parasitism; it is the choice to feed-off creation without making the commitment to love.

There is an alliance of evil (the devil, demons and other beings) - but ultimately this alliance is merely a temporary - because expedient - mutual exploitation. The purposes of evil are not aligned, there is no commitment to evil; there is merely a shared motivation to favour self over creation.

Different evil beings may be more selfish on the one hand, or more motivated by a negative, destructive hatred of creation.

Probably self-interest - that is 'using' creation for pleasure - is the commonest evil. But at higher levels of strategic evil there is a hatred of creation that goes beyond selfish, emotion-based hedonism in taking an abstract delight in the destruction of creation; turning creation against-itself.


I think there are two strands at work in evil (distinguishable; but not fully separable and tending to converge over time)*. There is the kind of Luciferic selfish hedonic evil that seeks not to destroy but to 'farm' creation for personal gratification. This is evil as a parasite; and insofar as it is strategic, the goal is to get as much personal pleasure as possible for as long as possible. All of creation is to be used.

But, like any parasitism, there is no real balance point between maximising the short and long term; and the innate tendency is, sooner or later, to take too much from the host (especially when competing with other parasites) over the immediate and short term; and thus 'accidentally' to destroy the host, like a cancer.


The cold hatred of Ahrimanic evil is more purely destructive. The motivation is resentment rather than pleasure; negativity rather than desires like pride, lust, greed, or sloth. For the satisfaction is in reduction.

The ultimate goal is destruction of all creation (including God); reducing it down to the level of unconscious chaos. Implicitly, the goal is to kill everybody and smash everything until one is the last conscious being; and then to kill oneself. The desire is to undo creation.

(In practice to destroy one's own consciousness; and return the universe to primordial disorder; but minus God. This may be impossible, but is the implicit ideal of the purest form of evil.)   


There is, however, a third strand - another alternative to Heaven; which is Nirvana. The key to Nirvana is the obliteration of consciousness, the loss of awareness of the self. It is a total opt-out from both Heaven and selfishness in the only way possible - since being is eternal. Thus it aims at total unawareness of anything - mere simple being.

Total lack of consciousness may be impossible for eternal indestructible beings. But it seems that God can gift people a minimal, here-and-now, awareness of a blissful kind; if they are willing to commit them-selves to an impersonal, abstract and non-specific or general love of creation.

This, I take it, is what happens when Hindus or Buddhists achieve their religious goals.


I think these three - Heaven (active personal love), Evil (exploitation or destruction of creation) and Nirvana (passive abstract love) are probably the only possible alternative 'destinations' for our souls.


Love must actively be chosen - so, in this sense, evil is the 'default choice' - it is where we begin. But in another sense, we are all born-into God's creation - inside the web of love that sustains creation.

So the choice of love may be seen as simply the choice to remain where we already are, that is 'in' creation. Therefore, in another sense, evil is also chosen actively, since it involves rejecting our actually-existing situation.

In sum; for those who love, evil involves an active rejection of that love; for those who do not love, evil is the natural default choice. Since most love is personal, love is what draws us to Heaven.


*Note: Ahrimanic and Luciferic evil can also be understood in terms of Morgoth's versus Sauron's evil; according to a distinction Tolkien made in some unpublished later writings, which are quoted here. 

What does it mean that this is a 'fallen' world?

It seems a pretty general claim of many religions, and is confirmed by the intuition of many individuals; that this is in some sense a 'fallen world'. 

By which I mean that there is a conviction that - compared with conditions in mortal life on earth - in some way there was a past era of innocent, blissful happiness. Some 'Garden of Eden' for instance. 

I agree that this is broadly the case, but my understanding of how and why this world is 'fallen' is probably unique. 

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try and set-out clearly and concisely how I understand this business. 

 

I regard life much as do Mormons; divided into 

1. Pre-mortal spirit life - when we were innocent and childlike spirits, living under the direct influence of God. 

To become mortal Men is to opt-out of pre-mortal spirit life. 

2. The first great transformation is birth into mortal incarnate life (a world of 'entropy' - of change, degeneration and death) - which we chose to experience, as the necessary pathway to fuller divinity. 

3. The second great transformation - for those who choose to follow Jesus Christ - is death and resurrection to immortal and incarnate life; to dwell in a Heaven peopled by God, Jesus Christ, Lazarus (the first resurrected Man) and all the people who have gone before us. 

To become a resurrected Man is to opt-in to Heaven. 

 

The 'move from pre-mortal spirit life into this earthly word was either involuntary or voluntary. 

Satan and the demons were spirits who were involuntarily expelled from pre-mortal bliss (because of their prideful, resentful, opposition to that state); and who are now bound to the fate of this world (unless they instead choose utter isolation): the demonic spirits cannot move on to Heaven, cannot be resurrected. 

In addition this earthly world is peopled by mortal incarnates such as you and me; who chose to get temporary bodies with the possibility of gaining an eternal body; and who experience situations of this earth with the possibility of learning and developing from them. We can die, leave the world, and move-on to Heaven.

 

So this earthly world we inhabit is a mixed world; inhabited by both mortal incarnates and demonic spirits. Our dwelling here is indeed a fall for incarnate Men, in the sense that we are no longer innocent, and are beset by evil. 

Whereas our pre-mortal life was blissful in the same kind of way that we can imagine the happiest possible young childhood in the best possible family - but our current life is not. 

We have gone from a life in which simply to be alive was a joy, but where we were unfree and going nowhere; to a life where we may be agents free to choose or reject Heaven; and whose primary purpose in living is to learn from our experiences (which may be various mixtures of happy and miserable, according to need). 

This mixed mortal life is indeed well-designed for its core purpose of providing learning-experiences for Men - especially because God tailors each individual's lived experiences to that individual's greatest needs. 

Therefore, 'fall' does not wholly capture the transition into this world - because this world is the best place for doing that which this world is set-up to do. 

 

So there has indeed been a fall, in terms both of lesser happiness, and also the pervasive and unavoidable presence of sin (which includes all forms of entropic change). 

But at the same time incarnation brings potentially (if we so choose) an increase in freedom. As we become bounded by bodies so we are less influenced by the divine and reach a point when our affiliation (with, or against, God) must be chosen - much as an adolescent faces the choice whether to re-affiliate-with - or reject - family.

Yet, on the other hand, this mortal life is a necessary 'upward' step if we wish to become more fully divine; with divinity being defined in terms of becoming able - consciously and by choice - to participate in God's ongoing creation. 

 

So yes, this is a fallen world - less happy than pre-mortality, and permeated by evil in ourselves and others. This is a life of inevitable entropic change - hence 'pain' is inevitable. And we can be finally rescued from evil and pain only by death and resurrection.

But this life is not necessarily miserable and evil all of the time (this would be extremely rare); rather, this mortal life is not about every-body being-continuously-happy and sinless. 

Instead this life is in essence a time of transition, learning and choices: that is what this life is for. 

And, the exact purpose of this mortal life also differs for each individual Man - since all Men differ innately. 

 

This mixed mortal life is for the Heavenly life to come... Which doesn't at-all mean this life is un-important in its own right. On the contrary this mortal life is vital. But the importance of mortal life derives from its being underpinned by the possibility of eternity. 

 

The Creator's POV: God, Jesus, and the overcoming of entropy

'We will come', said Imrahil; and they parted with courteous words. 

'That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,' said Legolas. 'If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising'. 

'And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,' said Gimli. 'It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.' 

'Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,' said Legolas. 'And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.' 

'And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,' said the Dwarf. 

'To that the Elves know not the answer,' said Legolas.

The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien

I have always found the above to be a particularly deep and resonant passage; and so do many others. 

At one level, the difference between short-lived, distractible but procreative Men; and the Elves and Dwarves who are (especially Elves) potentially relatively longaevus - seems to be profound. Elves and Dwarves are both capable of greater works of arts and crafts, better able to work on long 'projects' without losing interest...

Yet this is only a relative difference, and sooner or later, all the achievements - all the 'stone work' - of Middle Earth, will decay, and be destroyed. 

The rate of change can be diminished by better work, by steadier and more focused effort - but, it seems, only by a 'slowing' of existence. 

Dwarves and Elves have a longer time horizon, but this goes-with a lower rate of procreation, a lesser focus on reproduction - which stands-for and is symptomatic-of a tendency towards desiring to slow life, trying to hold-things static, attempting to prevent decay by 'crystallizing' achievement... 

But, this has a price; being bound-up with a tendency against life.  

Men, by comparison, are more alive, do more stuff (good and bad, careful and slapdash); just keep on trying different things; bounce-back after defeats and start again - have kids, rebuild the ruins, make another new civilization... 

But Men never seem to get very far with anything they attempt; and they each soon die, and their best civilizations are brief. 

So; in this mortal world, in all we know of this material universe, entropy will always win in the end - whether sooner or later; it will prevail. 

If we imaginatively identify with the perspective of God the Creator, take his Point of View (POV); then this continual dismantling of creation by entropy is unsatisfactory. 

Of course, we (as God) can keep-on creating forever and without limit; yet this is always going to be a matter of patching-together repairs and not a restoration to a pre-entropic state. We can continually compensate for the damage of entropy - a bridge collapses, so we build a new one; a Man dies and another is born - yet whatever we do, entropy accumulates. 

More familiarly for Christians, a closely analogous situation occurs with Sin (which may be understood as an aspect of entropy). God can compensate for the effect of Sin, can repair the consequences, can provide the world with help from Angels and Saints... but, nonetheless, Sin accumulates. 

The way out from this unsatisfactory situation was for God to create another and secondary world from this-one; by using this-one. 

In other words: God's creative plan was two-stage (which is why Jesus was necessary - for the second stage). 

While the first creation is mandatory; the second creation is discretionary: optional, opt-in, for those who choose it. 

The second creation is a 'world' without entropy, a world in which the tendency for destruction and sin has been left-behind. 

I am talking about Heaven, of course. 

And Heaven did not arise until after Jesus Christ.

The reason that Jesus Christ is an essential aspect of salvation; is that He was what made it possible for Heaven to exist, for Heaven to be populated... 

To put it bluntly; God the primary creator needed Jesus Christ in order to make possible the second - and final - creation that is Heaven. 

Jesus Christ came from within the prime creation, lived within the world of entropy - and died; but did so in perfect alignment with the values, aims, love, of God the prime creator. 

In other (more familiar) words; Jesus was a mortal Man who was fully divine. Mortal in body and by living in the primary creation, divine in terms of wholly Good and on the side of God; knowing and being in complete-harmony-with God's creative plans.

Thus Jesus was unique: nobody-else could have done the job (not even God the prime creator) because Jesus knew - experientially, from living fully in both worlds - 'how' to guide Men from this primary and entropic-mortal creation to the secondary and eternal-immortal creation that is Heaven.

       

Sins and repentance - (properly understood) an easy problem, and simply solvable

The main problem of the modern West is the inversion of sin; which is that the traditional sins (especially sexual, but also pride, envy, greed etc.) are not sins, but instead virtues. 

And the reciprocal invention of new "deadly sins" that are not sins, such as (the actual current usage of) racism (seemingly now regarded as the sin of sins - unless the recognition of traditional sexual sins as sin, is even worse). 

But value-inversion is made worse by a legalistic understanding of sin, in terms of categorical lists with operational definitions. This is literal rending of sins is necessary if any "sin" is to be made the basis of our totalitarian System.  

For example; the not-sin of racism is a specific concept referenced in bureaucratic strategies, regulations and laws - operationally defined in measureable terms; such as specific words, or percentages of personnel (pre-divided into good/ disapproved and bad/ being-promoted races); and by mandatory active participation in defined antiracist initiatives and actions (e.g. mass genuflecting, parades and speeches, display of posters and flags etc.). 

So, although the not-sin of racism is supposed to be a thought-crime, a wicked motivation; in practice it gets operationalized in quasi-objective terms: you are guilty of racism by saying or writing this taboo, or by failing to join with that ritual, or in terms of percentage "representation". 

In strategic spiritual terms; this legalism and literalism represents the reduction of (imperceptible) spiritual conceptualizations of sin, into a controllable material manifestation; in a world where official and public discourse recognizes only "the material" as real and significant. 

By the sustained operations of actual social reality; the populace are trained to regard the legal and bureaucratic definitions of detectable and measurable material manifestations of sin, asif they Just Are the sins themselves. 

In other words; because society treats sin legalistically and objectively in categories; that is how people habitually, unthinkingly, moralistically regard the reality of sin. 

 

Of course; what I have described as the current materialist-totalitarian reality of values; is a simple inversion of the old religious system of values, which was dominant from the medieval era until recently - which also regards sin in a legalistic and categorical way. 

Sins were conceptualized in terms of categorical lists of behaviours that would send someone to hell, unless he specifically repented each of them. Repentance was often understood as going through the entire list of one's sins, and repenting them each and specifically - before being allowed-into Heaven. 

(I find it bizarre to suppose that the whole world of creation and our-selves can thus be cut-up into discrete chunks, some of which are sins! My understanding is instead that reality is only validly divided into separable Beings; but sins are part of the continuous field of divine creation - they can be distinguished in terms of emphasis, but cannot ultimately be separated and divided.)  

Such a linear and sequential procedure of repentance might need to be done during mortal life (e.g. by confession and absolution) or afterwards (for instance in a Roman Catholic purgatory, or the "toll-booths" of Eastern Orthodoxy).

In practice; such a way of thinking and behaving was so dominant that people also came to believe that only these categories of official sins were real or significant sins. 

Consequently; many of the besetting sins of modernity - such as dishonesty, existential fear, and resentment - became invisible, ignored, denied. 

So that habitual and expedient exponents of untruthfulness (such as nearly-all modern managers, politicians, bureaucrats; and professionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, the police and military, and church leaders); will mislead, be dishonest, and outright lie systematically and for-a-living - on a daily, or even hourly, basis - while having a clear conscience! While regarding themselves as good-people, including Good and exemplary Christians. 

One side-effect of this categorical way of thinking about sin has been that people come to regard themselves and others as not-sinners (and other people as sinners) - the world of Mankind being divided into sinners and the Good. 

Such people regard themselves as basically good human beings; so long as they refrain from the listed sins (or the worst of them, at least) - or else repent them specifically. This leads to a sense of self-righteousness that is a gross distortion of the realities of our mortal life. 

On the other hand; the ubiquity of some of the listed sins can lead to a sense of despair and helplessness; and other people react-against this by asserting that if a sin is universal, or very common - then it can't really be a sin! - and is simply being used by religion to control the population. 

This also applies to modern value-inversion - for instance when white people are officially regarded and regard themselves as inescapably racist, and therefore experience inescapable white guilt - rendering them demoralized and obedient to those who offer rituals of expiation.

  

My point is that - from the Fourth Gospel Christian perspective which I believe is true - legalism and categorical description is a basically mistaken and itself-sinful way of thinking about and conceptualizing sin. 

From Jesus's teaching, we are all sinners all of the time; because we are not wholly-and-always motivated by Love. We are thereby misaligned with God's creative will, hence all of us (as we are) are utterly unsuited to dwell in Heaven. 

But this is Not a cause for demoralization, demotivation or despair; because Jesus has said that all who follow Him shall be resurrected to eternal life in Heaven.

The best way to think of sin is very generally; as whatever would prevent us (as individuals) from accepting the gift of everlasting life. 

We may each have one or more besetting sins that we find difficult (or impossible) to give-up in order to enter Heaven - but this is ultimately a matter of not loving Jesus enough, not wanting Heaven enough. 

If we love and desire above all to follow Jesus Christ; if we take the side of God and divine creation in the spiritual war, and wish to participate in creation eternally - then quite naturally we will repent, shed, leave-behind any and all sins (named or unnamed) in order to attain our deepest desire. 

If we desire to be re-made (i.e. resurrected) such that we become motivated only and always by love eternally - then sin is just the name for anything and everything which would prevent that process of re-making. 

Repentance is the word for our agreement to having stripped-away and left-behind all that would otherwise prevent resurrection into Heaven.  

It is really very simple. 

Christianity is a positive (not double-negative) religion; it is opt-in (not a matter of passing a test); God is our loving parents (not a judge administering laws), Christianity is a family (not a monarchy). 

We are not meant to worry over sin! Jesus came to save sinners - we need to focus primarily on the saving, not the sins: we will know the sins in consequence of our desire for salvation. 

If we understand Jesus's teaching in the way it was intended and exemplified (and which can be confirmed here-and-now by the guidance of the Holy Ghost); 

and if we therefore base our faith on positive love and the choice of following Jesus Christ to Heaven -- 

then we know that everything important about "our sins" will be recognizable clearly and simply, and we will know what to do, and we will do it - when the time of choice arrives. 

The dilution/ abstraction of love by Christians (and by non-Christians)

I regard love as the primary fact of God's creation - it is love that makes creation possible. Love is the opposite of chaos; and it is the love between Beings that is what 'organizes' chaos into creation.

Furthermore, it was another aspect of love that enabled the new dispensation brought-on by Jesus Christ - because Jesus enabled Men - by resurrection - to make a permanent commitment to love; such that each resurrected Man would embrace the goals and methods of God's creation and could then take his place as a Son of God - henceforth living in harmony with all other Men and with God and Jesus Christ. 

So, real (Christian) love is always personal, always directed at a 'person': a Being. There is no such thing as abstract love, and real love cannot be diluted or extended beyond the actual love of actual known Beings. 

Love is inter-personal, and requires at least two Beings - therefore real love is not comparable to a force, a field, a spirit, or any 'thing'. 

Real love is not, cannot be, and should not be universal or equal - it is individual and specific.  

Love is a choice, and cannot be imposed... Love is a choice and not a default state; which is why Heaven is an opt-in situation; and why that opt-in is dependent on love. 

Consequently Heaven cannot be entered by those who cannot, or will not, commit to love of God (this 'cannot' including both those incapable of love, and those who reject love as their over-riding priority). 

And Heaven will not be entered by those who regard love as impersonal, abstract or generalized; because such people will not want Heaven. They will instead want something else... 

Perhaps they want some kind of diffuse, impersonal state ('Nirvana'?) in which there are no persons, no selves, no inter-personality; only a generalized awareness and perhaps the experience of bliss? 

I think these realities need emphasizing because there is a tendency for Christians to abstract and dilute love towards a 'universalism' that makes no distinction between the followers of Jesus and everyone else. 

And this abstraction/ dilution is met by a tendency among non-Christians to misinterpret Christianity in the same impersonal and abstract fashion so that it becomes just one among many possible paths to the same destination. 

But the truth of Christianity - as it may be known from the Fourth Gospel and by intuition - is that Christian love is the basis of the Christian religion; and Christian love is personal/ interpersonal - and it must consciously be chosen. 

Christian salvation is to love and follow Jesus to resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - this happens after biological death. To be a Christian - here and now in this earthly mortal life - is to make a decision to accept Jesus's gift of resurrected life; to make that our highest priority which happens by loving Jesus. 

And, as with all real love; love of Jesus Christ is both a choice and a desire from deep within; it begins with our deepest yearnings and motivations, and is completed by our conscious decision. 

 

There are many other things a Man might want or decide, and many other possible priorities - but these are not Christianity  

This creation we inhabit depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation

Lazarus was apparently the first Man freely to choose the Second Creation

One big problem with this divine creation, the "primary" creation, the one we inhabit here-and-now; is that it depends upon an inevitable degree of compulsion and unconsciousness.

This is a problem that God acknowledged implicitly; by sending Jesus Christ to make a Second Creation, and ensure that all who wanted-it and chose-to, would be able to move onto that Second Creation after their biological deaths. 

 

God began with a universe of Beings, living without mutual awareness, without cohesion. Creation proceeded by God endowing these Beings with the beginnings of conscious awareness, and by coordinating them with His own divine love - binding them together and providing a direction, and principles of interaction.  

In this, it resembles a Man's young childhood with loving parents. 

The child is born-into this world mostly unconscious, and his life is given shape and direction by the parents' love. (In an idealized childhood...) While still hardly conscious the child lives and develops immersed in the atmosphere of parental love - and the child is required to do little more than return that parental love, and therefore be obedient to the greater wisdom of his parents. 

(This corresponds to the situation of early Man, and the earliest phases of true religions - obedience to God was core.)  

In a negative sense, the child is compelled to go along with parental guidance; but this compulsion is concealed by the child's unconsciousness of it. 

In other words, a young loving child in a loving family just accepts the situation in which he finds himself.  

However, it is a common destiny of babies to develop and mature, to become more conscious; and often to become aware of their situation. 

In other words, as a child becomes more conscious, he becomes aware that he is living in a world he did not choose, and which he is compelled to fit-into - if he wishes to survive and thrive. 

This is a microcosm of the situation in this divine creation that we currently inhabit. Insofar as Beings are unconscious and immersed in divine loving-guidance, they simply go-along-with divine creation. 

But as a Being becomes more conscious, he becomes aware of the essential element of compulsion in this world, this creation. 

This happens in the development of a human, and it has happened to Mankind (overall, on average) throughout history. Primordial Men were more like young children, with little self awareness or freedom of will; and knew God (and the spirit world); and when capable of love - they went along with it, hardly aware there was any alternative.

However, through recorded history, there has been an increase in Man's conscious awareness analogous to the development towards adolescence - Man became more conscious that this universe was based on a compulsion, that he need not obey. 

More conscious Man could, and sometimes and increasingly did, opt-out of creation.

Thus; Men ceased automatically to ally with God's creation - it became a choice whether to join-with God's creation - or else to oppose it, exploit it. 

Or sometimes the reaction was a desire to opt-out of Primary Creation altogether - and return to that primordial unconscious separateness which prevailed before creation began. 

This is, by my understanding, the ultimate but implicit teleological basis of Buddhism, and some kinds of Hinduism -- as well as of some who would call themselves Jews, Christians, or Muslims (I mean the traditions respectively of Qabalah, Via Negativa, and Sufism - for instance).     

I presume that this development was foreseen by God as an inevitable consequence of Man (and other Beings) increasing in consciousness. 

Sooner or later; the First Creation would be know for what it was, which is a top-down and imposed scheme - and as consciousness increased in created-Beings, sooner or later some Beings, some Men, would desire to opt-out of it. 

Therefore; the divine plan was for there to be a Second Creation, which would be individually chosen, an opt-in scheme.

This happened with the work of Jesus Christ; and the way-into Second Creation was to follow Jesus through death into resurrected eternal life. The Second Creation is, therefore, Heaven. 

The Second Creation both required, and was necessitated by, the increase of consciousness of Beings that was a consequence of ongoing divine creation. 

In sum: This "first" creation we inhabit here-and-now depends upon compulsion and unconsciousness; but Man (and other beings) are destined to increase in consciousness - hence the need for Jesus Christ and the Second Creation. 

We now can choose the Second Creation - but the Second Creation can only be chosen - it is not, and cannot be, imposed. 

And choice must be free, which entails conscious. 

How does salvation-damnation work? A choice of The Moment - described by CS Lewis

From Surprised by Joy The Moment with a choice of salvation: 

The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein. I say, "I chose," yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. On the other hand, I was aware of no motives. You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not be the opposite of freedom, and perhaps a man is most free when, instead of producing motives, he could only say, "I am what I do."

From That Hideous Strength - The Moment with a choice of damnation:

Still not asking what he would do, or why, Frost went to the garage. The whole place was silent and empty; the snow was thick on the ground by this. He came up with as many petrol tins as he could carry. He piled all the inflammables he could think of together in the Objective Room. Then he locked himself in by locking the outer door of the ante-room. Whatever it was that dictated his actions then compelled him to push the key into the speaking-tube which communicated with the passage. When he had pushed it as far in as his fingers could reach, he took a pencil from his pocket and pushed with that. Presently he heard the clink of the key falling on the passage floor outside. That tiresome illusion, his consciousness, was screaming in protest: his body, even had he wished, had no power to attend to those screams. Like the clockwork figure he had chosen to be, his stiff body, now terribly cold, walked back into the Objective Room, poured out the petrol and threw a lighted match into the pile. Not till then did his controllers allow him to suspect that death itself might not after all cure the illusion of being a soul--nay, might prove the entry into a world where that illusion raged infinite and unchecked. Escape for the soul, if not for the body, was offered him. He became able to know (and simultaneously refused the knowledge) that he had been wrong from the beginning, that souls and personal responsibility existed. He half saw: he wholly hated. The physical torture of the burning was hardly fiercer than his hatred of that. With one supreme effort he flung himself back into his illusion. In that attitude eternity overtook him as sunrise in old tales overtakes trolls and turns them into unchangeable stone.

From this blog - The Moment occuring after biological death:

Heaven is a choice, a decision, an act, an opt-in - and salvation therefore happens only through faith - that is love, trust of Jesus. To understand this requires recalling the fate of the soul after the death of the body, and before the resurrection of Jesus - the soul was a witless, demented thing of little intelligence, little memory, little judgement, no free will... incapable of helping itself... (This, at least, is how both the ancient Hebrews (with Sheol) and ancient Greeks (with Hades) regarded life after death - and other variants may be understood similarly. The soul after death was a damaged, incomplete, incapable thing - eternal life was merely eternal existence.) I regard the Good Shepherd parable as providing the key to understanding salvation - which is that while the soul is always resurrected, resurrected Man cannot find his own way to Heaven. The resurrected soul must be led to Heaven; that is, Man must choose to follow the guidance of the Good Shepherd. This following is not imposed, it is chosen. This was made newly possible by Jesus because the resurrected soul has greater capability than the discarnate souls destined for Sheol/ Hades; the resurrected soul has sufficient capability to recognise Jesus, to know him; it has the capacity and necessity to choose whether to follow the Good Shepherd, or not. Why would the resurrected soul follow the Good Shepherd to Heaven, except that the soul loved and trusted the Good Shepherd? That is the need for faith.


Note:  It might be asked why there needs to be a permanent and irreversible decision on salvation versus damnation. Why can't people change their minds?

There are a couple of aspects to this. First is that all decisions are irreversible - in the sense that they have permanent consequences. This is because Time is real, sequential, and linear. Every decision changes the sequence, changes the future; and Time cannot be rewound - because that is its nature. We know this; albeit are inclined to wish it away and that we might undo our mistakes of the past.

Second is that Heaven would not be possible unless Men were able to make a permanent positive commitment to it; a permanent commitment to Love, God, The Good and God's work of Creation. Therefore, salvation must, at some point before we go to Heaven, be irreversible.

The same need not logically apply to damnation - which is (broadly considered) the negative decision to reject Heaven; because in principle that decision might be reversed.

But in practice - as we know from the experiences of our mortal life - there is a strong tendency for choices in favour of evil to lead to further corruption, to further evil choices... and the tendency is for a choice for Good to become harder and harder, less and less likely.

This is a matter of 'psychology' rather than logic; but I think we can see from the example of Frost in That Hideous Strength how unlikely it would be that someone who has seen reality and then chosen damnation, would later reverse that decision.
     

The difficulty of Heaven, the easiness of Hell

The difficulty of Heaven is that it requires mutual love, mutual harmony, mutuality of purpose. Whereas Hell is potentially a solo venture - we can 'go it alone'. Hell does not need other people, and tends-towards solitude.

It is typical of the value-inversion of an atheist-communist that Sartre got things exactly wrong; when he said that Hell is other people." 

Rather: Hell is what you get from having Sartre's conviction that Hell is other people. Hell is a consequence of souls who regard other people merely as instruments or obstacles to the assertion of one's own Self; who regard 'other people' as objects to be manipulated or eliminated as required to attain one's own goals; and this attitude is itself a product of the rejection of Love.

 

Heaven is essentially a family; and for a family to work - all of its members must be loving of each other. Any one can opt-out of family, reject family, unilaterally; but sustaining family requires mutuality. 

This shows, in microcosm, the sense in which Heaven is difficult, and Hell is easy. 

But when Heaven does happen (which it can, since the work of Jesus Christ has - by resurrection - made possible a permanent and eternal commitment to Heaven); then the possibilities are open-endedly expanding. 

Heaven will spontaneously increase, will develop, will create - without limit; because in Heaven creation is mutually-reinforcing and cumulative - because Love feeds on itself, nourishes itself. 

 

However, in Hell the opposite is true: Pride feeds upon itself; Pride increases at the expense of everything-except My Self. 

The long-term tendency in Hell is towards rejection of cooperation, towards solitude; thus towards diminution.

 

In The Great Divorce, CS Lewis depicts Hell as a place where everybody tries to get-away-from everybody else; by spreading-out, locking themselves in and others out; by socially-distancing. 

Lewis's Hell spreads-out even as all human interaction breaks-down. Men contract and repel, thus Hell spreads.*

This contraction of Hell to self-isolated and mutually-hostile souls happens as a natural consequence of increasing Pride: Self-assertion, self-ish-ness, and ever-more immediate short-termism... all these ensure that life trends-toward a continually-escalating conflict of each against all. 

 

*However, in a Hell ruled by Satan; the population who crave self-isolation would be prevented from spreading-out; and would instead be forced-into close proximity in over-populated cities; in order to torment them further. And this is indeed the Global Establishment's plan for planet earth. 

Note: By no coincidence; we can perceive an earthly approximation towards Hell in the global developments of 2020: towards a world of self-asserting, resentment-driven, mutually-hostile individuals - each of whom increasingly regards himself as a victim of the prejudice and selfishness of others. A world that regards other people as threats and obstacles. A world of physically-distanced and identity-obscured solo-individuals; fighting (hopelessly) against overwheling impersonal tyranny by asserted entitlements and 'rights'. A world demanding to 'use' others and their lives to extend my personal survival. Here in the UK millions of people are currently legally consigned to the literally-Hellish state of 'self-isolation'; characteristically (fiend-ishly) presented (by our inverted morality) as a public duty, for the 'protection' of others. PSYOPS...    

Deep (oneness) meditation is like dying

This two minute audio is the clearest and most concise description I've come across of the difference between Nirvana and Heaven - and the difference between the aspirations of Christianity and 'Eastern' religion (as it is known in The West).

What John Butler expresses is the desire for oneness with minimally-conscious, immersive, abstract bliss; an impersonal absorption into the unity of divine love. He describes deep meditation - which he practices for about five hours a day - as being similar to death (as he understand death).

And he yearns for death to come; to be rid of his body and the thinking mind - and thus to become a discarnate and ego-less spirit.


John Butler calls this state the Kingdom of God and Heaven - but of course it is not: it is instead the stripping-away of all that makes us human. JB uses Christian language, but this is not a Christian desire.

There would be no reason for Jesus Christ to incarnate as a Man - to experience mortal life and to die and be resurrected; if our ultimate destiny was to become impersonal spirits fused with the abstract divine. In fact; if such was our intended destiny, there is no reason for mortal incarnate life at all - this embodied, thinking, personal life serves no positive function. 

Jesus Christ offered us a totally different kind of Heaven: a resurrected life eternal of immortal Men with indestructible, solid bodies. We die, but remain our-selves. We continue to think! Christ was resurrected, not reabsorbed; he continued to think and be a separate person; he did not lose his ego-identity and consciousness.


The Christian Heaven is one of persons, each different and distinct. And the loving relationships of Heaven are not any kind of fusion, but are inter-personal; they depend on us remaining individuals. As I understand Heaven, it is a place of creating; and we will participate with God, and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost in the eternal work of continued creation.

By contrast, in Nirvana there is no creation - only being: it is change-less; outside time and space. The God of Nirvana is not really a God of creation; because our created world is seen as an evanescent illusion (maya); and for us to believe creation is real or eternal is a delusion. The God of Nirvana Just-Is, unchanging, forever. 


There seems little doubt that John Butler genuinely wants a blissful and impersonal Nirvana; and does not want resurrection to the Christian Heaven. He wants to cease to be as an embodied thinking person; he wants to remain alive forever, but conscious only of the bliss of being absorbed-into divine love - with 'love' being understood as an impersonal disposition (perhaps something analogous to glowing light, a gas, field of force or magnetism, or a vibrational state).

How would God, our Heavenly Parents, be likely to regard John Butler's wishes? Would God be likely to grant them?

I think God would be sad that JB has rejected the great gift made possible by Jesus Christ; and sad that JB regards incarnation, thinking and the capacity for inter-personal love as worthless. Sad that JB regards this world, and the mortal lives of Men as worthless. From JB's perspective, implicitly - this life and our experiences are temporary errors that he wants to be undone forever.

God might be irritated, or even angry, at John Butler's preaching of Nirvana as if it was Heaven, and by his denigration of God's work of creation, and Jesus's work of salvation. But this may well be regarded as a product of humanly understandable confusion - since there are major inconsistencies in JB's ideas. For instance he praises and responds very powerfully to nature, animals, the stars, even human beings sometimes! Yet, ultimately he regards them all as worthless, indeed meaningless; implicitly he regards his powerful subjective responses as mistaken.

God would therefore be understanding of the misery that mortal life seems to hold for JB; and sympathetic about his desire to 'hand back the entrance ticket', and give-up on being a Man. Listen again to that recording above: there is a man who - at the bottom line - really wants to be dead, with his death conceptualized much like a permanent, deep sleep of unawareness.  


More importantly, resurrected Heavenly life is voluntary, a opt-in situation. God would not, therefore, punish those who chose otherwise, as such; else the choice would be coerced and the followers of Jesus merely conscripts!

Heaven is for those who love Jesus, and fellow Men and such love is free and cannot be enforced. Those who are incapable of such love, or who have other priorities, will have other fates. From various clues and insights; the 'system' seems to be that the eternal consequences of each person's own free choices are themselves their own justice - we judge our-selves: external 'punishment' is neither required not appropriate.

In sum, Men make their own Hells by their own choices; and, presumably, their own Nirvanas too. A Man who wishes to cease being a Man, and wishes to become fused with what he sees as the impersonal reality of the divine (since he is unable or unwilling to regard God as a person); will presumably be given pretty-much what he asks for - that is, an eternal state in which his consciousness experiences what he most desires.

So, I would expect that, when John Butler dies, he will reject the possibility of following Jesus to resurrection; and instead be enabled to experience what he so much wants: that is, a state of mere-being, aware of impersonal bliss with no perceptible change, and an absence of experienced time and space. As consciousness dwindles towards this minimum, John Butler will (I guess) probably be very pleased and grateful at the prospect!