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. 

Entropy is Not a part of evil - these are two separate problems

The problem of entropy is one that presses upon us the average mortal life perhaps more strongly than evil. 

By "entropy" I mean the universal tendency for beings to experience cumulative adverse change with time: dysfunction, degeneration, disease - and the ultimate manifestation of entropy is death. 

All of these are unavoidable, are universal. 

Traditional Christian theology usually conflates entropy with evil; indeed entropy/ death is usually subsumed within the concept and causes of evil. 

For example, the traditional interpretation of the Adam and Eve story is that they began as good and immortal beings; free from both evil and death. 

With The Fall they chose evil, and at the same time necessarily became mortal - subject to entropy and death. 

(In traditional theology) with the salvation from Jesus Christ we are allowed to return to the primal situation of Adam and Eve - saved from our self-caused punishment of both entropy and evil. 

After their fall; A & E and their descendants also needed to toil in order to live - in effect toil was needed to overcome entropy. 

Because (in effect) entropy meant that, over time, our minds and bodies and the environment are all against us: we must make efforts every day, we need to toil simply to remain alive and functional, but all such efforts are temporary palliative: will inevitably be overcome and will fail.

(In this sense, entropy is a more pervasive problem than evil.) 

And ultimately all of this bad stuff supposedly happens because of The Fall! 

Everything bad is down to an evil choice of ancestors, and its ramifications. 

This is very difficult to comprehend or believe. There seems a gross disproportion between the events described in Genesis, and thousands of years of billions of people's suffering and toil, disease and dying in fighting - and failing to defeat - entropy.   

Well, be that as it may; traditional theology regards evil as primary, entropy as a part of evil: evil is the ultimate cause of entropy. 

Therefore trad-theol has it that we overcome entropy by overcoming sin, where "sin" is understood to mean the manifestations of evil. 

That is; the repentance of evil/sins, leads also to the escape from entropy: leads to eternally healthy and vigorous - and happy - life in Heaven.

I have described elsewhere my understanding that entropy and evil can and should be distinguished, and that they have different causes. 

Entropy is intrinsic to this creation, the one we inhabit now; to the original or primary Creation by God - this creation that we are born-into. 

Heaven can be conceptualized as the answer to entropy; by a second and opt-into creation (i.e. the creation made possible by Jesus Christ) - with resurrection conceptualized as a voluntary re-making without entropy, as leaving-behind entropy. 

So, while traditional Christian theology regards entropy-death as secondary to evil - and regards Heaven as the answer to entropy-death because, in repenting moral sins and having the effect of sins removed by Jesus, we also and simultaneously eliminate entropy. 

But instead; I regard entropy and evil as ultimately distinct concepts: (in this creation) entropy is unavoidable, while evil is a choice. 

However, the confusion and conflation of entropy and evil among Christians seems to be a consequence of the fact that the answer to both entropy and evil is the same: i.e. resurrection and our "escape"/ progression-into eternal, wholly-good life in Heaven; by following Jesus Christ.

In a nutshell: entropy and evil are different problems with different causes in this-world, but both problems are cured by the same treatment: following Jesus Christ to Heaven.

And otherwise they are not cured. One who does Not follow Jesus to Heaven; has thereby chosen to continue to live with entropy and evil. 

 

Note Added: The difference is that:

Entropy is intrinsic to the nature of God's creation - the First creation. 

Evil is about a specific-Being's attitude towards creation: positive, or negative, affiliative or hostile. 

Evil is a subtype of Entropy, in this Pluralistic-Animistic divine creation

I have often written about the twin ultimate-problems (ineradicable insufficiencies) of this, our mortal life; under the headings of Entropy and Evil. 

My understanding of reality is that its fundamental divisions or units are eternal Beings, i.e living-Beings; such that (to modify the title of William James's book) this is an Pluralistic Animistic universe; i.e. there are many fundamental entities (not one); and these fundamental entities are alive, purposive, with agency and other attributes of Beings.  

Because things began with many Beings; God's divine creation (that we inhabit) is the primary source of cohesion: in a crude sense, by creation God imposed harmony on pre-existing and originally autonomous Beings. 

For creation to be sustained (insofar as it is sustained) there must me harmony/ cooperation/ cohesion etc between the Purposes and motives of the many Beings which constitute creation. 

Otherwise, divine creation will tend to fall apart - with different Beings pursuing different goals, or living by different values.  

It is this tendency for divine creation to fall-apart into a chaos of competing directions and behaviours that is the essential cause of the tendency named Entropy: i.e. the tendency of all life, order, organization, forms, functionality etc to decline towards chaos, with time. 

The primary source of Entropy is therefore the disharmony of Beings.

Therefore we need to stop thinking of Entropy abstractly, as if it was a branch of physics, as if it was some kind of force (or anti-force) that broke-up stuff... 

Instead, we should think of entropy as a consequence of the fact that the Beings of divine creation are imperfectly aligned in their nature and purposes. 

Our situation is that we may find ourselves loving God and experiencing profound desiring to live in harmony with divine creation; but we simply cannot do this in reality as we experience it, in this mortal life - because of our innate nature, because of the way we are (and have been) eternally.  

We may want to live in harmony with divine creation, but we cannot. 

But not all Beings want to live in harmony with divine creation, and some Beings hate God; and these are Beings that have chosen (or, at least, are currently choosing) Evil.

So, Evil can be defined as a kind of chosen Entropy; when the inevitable disharmony between our-selves and divine creation is made into the positive choice our-selves to oppose divine creation.  

From this perspective we can see that Evil is a type of Entropy - in a sense a worse type of Entropy: a positive decision to pursue negative outcomes. And worse than non-evil-Entropy; because Entropy is universal and unavoidable, whereas Evil makes the personal choice to oppose divine harmony....

Motives for Evil are various, but perhaps some kind of resentment or grudge against God and the imposed aspect of divine creation, might be the most basic motivation.  

Aims of Evil, too, are various. 

Perhaps the aim is to exploit divine harmony in pursuit of personal gratification or other selfish benefit; perhaps (more extremely) to oppose divine harmony simply from a desire to see it destroyed, taking spiteful pleasure in the destruction. 

This was the unavoidable human condition, blighted by ineradicable Entropy, and worsened by chosen Evil; and the situation for all Beings, until the advent of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was a mortal Being, incarnated into this world of imperfect harmony between Beings - but Jesus himself loved God wholly; and was himself (at least, at the time of his ministry, after his Baptism by John) wholly-aligned with divine creation. 

Jesus was himself mortal: which is to say he was subject to Entropy. And Jesus was subject also to Evil. However; because Jesus was perfectly aligned with God and creation he knew that after death he could (and would) be remade as himself but "perfectly" - in other words, resurrected into eternal life, freed from Entropy. 

Resurrection takes our aspiration to live wholly in harmony with divine creation, and rebuilds us from that basis.

Furthermore, Jesus knew that if or when others had followed him into this eternal (because wholly-aligned, Entropy-purged) state of resurrection - which remaking process would be guided by Jesus himself - then a world of such persons would be a world without Evil.

In eliminating Entropy, resurrection also eliminates Evil, as a subsidiary effect. 

And this wholly-harmonious and wholly-God-aligned post-mortal world would be Heaven: in which the deepest and ineradicable problems of this mortal life are eliminated; and free and creative Beings live spontaneously in harmony (loving God and each-other), and from common aims and motives. 

 

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. 

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.

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. 

Evil as un-creation - a metaphysical speculation

*

Since we know God is Good, and that 'everything' is therefore Good; yet we also know that evil is real, then what happens to evil?

If there ever has been evil in the universe, then surely it cannot be gotten rid of - maybe it it sequestered somewhere, in Hell?

But then the universe would not be Good...

*

But evil is the destruction of Good; evil is, then, de-differentiation: the undoing of created order.

Thus evil is - at this ultimate and metaphysical level - a chaotic rearrangement.

Thus evil does the same as entropy, that is it undoes divine order: but does this will-fully, with malice, from pride.

*

Thus the main metaphor for evil has often been fire - and fire is the heat released by disordering the stucture of that which is burned: an excellent metaphor for the action of evil.

Since evil cannot create, it operates by destroying - and lives-off the heat generated by increasing disorder.

*

So what happens to evil?

It strikes me that because evil destroys creation, and that includes itself; then evil can be undone and made as if is had not been; since chaos is the raw material of creation.

(Primary creation is from nothing, secondary creation is order from chaos. )

*

So evil destroys itself and - if God wills - leaves not a wrack behind.

Reality remains untainted. Wholly Good.

*

Well, it seems to make a sort-of sense...

*

We are born and live as young children with a coherent world view

It is strange to a modern mind, but makes obvious sense if this is the creation of a good and loving God; that our innate understanding of the world, which we spontaneously experience as young children, often (and ideally) seems to be more coherent than any of the others which come to replace it. 

In other words; a child's experience and explanation of reality makes sense and hangs-together better than mainstream modern materialism, and also better than the complex intellectual structures of religions. 

However, a vital element of this coherence is the mind of the child - the consciousness of a child (the way he apprehends, experiences, explains the world); which is different from the minds of those who come-up with alternative explanations. 

I have come to regard the young child's understanding as innate because God-given, part of divine creation - which is why it is true; so although different, other forms of understanding (e.g. among adults, and in various societies) ought to be compatible with those of the child. 

This innate understanding relates to the pre-Christian world, the not Christian world - or what I term Primary Creation: creation without Christ. 

A loving child in a loving family knows the goodness of God; and that this world is purposive and has meaning is implicit. 

Reality is personal - a matter of beings not things. And the world works in terms of the relationships between beings - in terms of desires, motives, etc. 

I don't think young children spontaneously think about "creation"; rather, they implicitly assume that the world is created by personal intentions - the world doesn't "just happen", is not random nor mechanical.  

But the child also has an implicit understanding of both entropy (change, death) and of evil that sometimes impinges upon goodness and happiness. He realizes there are threatening beings, that want to scare and harm him. 

The child also knows that he is involved in this, that bad things happen in part because of something in himself - e.g. it is because he thinks about them or dreams about them - that monsters and other threats are attracted, and may come. (It is because he got angry that his favourite toy was smashed.) Yet he cannot stop himself from thinking/ dreaming about monsters; cannot stop himself getting angry, spiteful...

This implies a knowledge of evil in himself. 

The child also realizes also that people and "things" change, and he does and may lose things and people from forgetting, breakages, destruction, theft, removal, death etc. 

And also that when these happen, or might happen; the child will also himself have something to do with it. 

Irresistible, irrevocable change is inside himself, as well as outside. 

The child's spontaneous "answer" to these problems would seem to be a wish for invulnerability for himself and those he loves; so that the bad things of the world do not affect him or his life.

A wish, too, to be free from those bad thoughts that attract trouble and misery.  

This relates to the fascination for heroes - whether divine, demi-god, angelic, or "superhero"... what lies behind this is the idea that we may personally be transformed - while remaining our-selves - such that the bad things of life do not affect us personally, or those we love. 

If this were to happen, then we could live in the world without fear of pain, harm or loss; and this I believe is a daydream hope of young children. 

So far this is negative; but a child aspires to the positive as well. 

Especially if we recognize that a child spontaneously knows that the material is always spiritual, and nothing is neutral - all has meaning and relates to purpose. For a child; everything is personal and relational, and everything has resonance and depth and is important - nothing is mundane or trivial. 

Children's play and talk is full of fantasies, of wishful thinking and make-believe. And these are important to the child. 

It is here we should be looking to find spontaneous creativity. 

One common fantasy aspiration of childhood (which can stand for many others) is to fly - fly without wings and by will-power (again the "superhero" idea, or in the past some kind of spiritual being, were-being, demi-god or the like). 

This is a way in which a young child is creative, or proto-creative: wanting to expand his experience, especially in ways that lead to a new quality of experience. 

Hoping to do something of his own that adds to the world (adds to creation).

This lies behind the wish-fulfilling fantasies of being a superhero or a princess; of being unique, special, famous. This isn't merely trivial hedonism or conceit; because to a child such a possibility is creative, important - enlarging and changing the world for the better.   

It seems to me that - in terms of a young child's world - the meaning of what Jesus Christ made possible lies in the relationship between his understanding of everyday reality; and the world of his wishful thinking and fantasies. 

The work of Jesus impinged upon the already existing world; to offer a new possible reality; and this unique historical event may be recapitulated in the development of a child. 

Anyone who was genuinely wholly satisfied with "Primary Creation" - with the world as-is - would not be interested or attracted by Jesus's possibility of resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

What such a person wants is to become something like an invulnerable superhero - a super-man (Ubermensch) who inhabits this world as it is, but is personally invulnerable to the entropy and evils that are intrinsic to Primary Creation. 

Resurrection and Heaven are, on the other hand, attractive to those whose child-like day-dreams are of a world - that is, a Second Creation - in which there is only love and no evil in ourselves and all other beings whom we love.

A world in which all change is good: the exciting possibility of growing-up. 

What Jesus offers is that instead of only living in this world but becoming invulnerable to its bad things; we can also inhabit a world where we have become all-good, there are only loving relationships, and happy day-dreams can become reality - with our help.  

That - in a young child's terms - is approximately what Heaven offers; above and beyond the wishes or hopes of pre-Christian and non-Christian understandings. 

Negentropy = divine creation

Modern science acknowledges a single universal tendency called entropy - which is assumed to explain everything and applies everywhere and eternally (entropy never 'runs out'!); which leads to the problem of why anything exists in the first place. There is also the difficulty of explaining why reality hasn't wound down long ago.

Physics has expended ingenuity on 'explaining' such matters - but the point I am making is that the need for explaining everything in terms of undirected and degrading forces arises only because of the fixed assumption that only such entropic tendencies exist.  

Entropy crops-up in biology as natural selection - which is supposed (assumed) to explain everything; despite that it is a negative, destructive, disordering tendency. 'Teleology' - direction, tendencies towards form and function... these are excluded by assumption from modern (post 1950s) biology.


An opposite force is sometimes posited and termed negentropy - and this is hypothesised to explain why there is anything in the first place and why everything hasn't already been destroyed... But in a world dominated by entropy as its prime reality - the assumption is that any countervailing tendency is limited, and will run-out sooner-or-later.

So the most ridiculous thing in physics is to posit a 'perpetual motion' machine - because physicists 'know' (i.e assume) that all positive, form-making, movement-generating, reparative and functionally-innovative tendencies are limited, and will (soon or late) get used-up.


But if entropy is negative then negentropy is a double-negative... so what is the positive thing that negetropy is trying not to name?

The answer is: divine creation.

So, the proper name and concept of negentropy is divine creation.


(Thus we discover why only entropy is allowed by mainstream science. Science is based on the exclusion of the divine from explanations - that is what makes it useful, practical. There is nothing wrong with that assumption - so long as it is remembered that the divine has been excluded by assumption; and not because it is unreal or unimportant. However, that is exactly what scientists have forgotten, and which they now deny! Scientists excluded God by-assumption, forgot what they had done - then claimed that the fact God was not present in science, meant that God did not exist!)


It seems that Mankind was spontaneously capable of supposing divine creation as the primary reality - as an inexhaustible source of form, order, motivation and whatever else was supposed to be characteristic of creation.

The negative forces came after - as the product of evil/ demonic beings - creatures 'gone bad' - or bad in their original natures.

So entropy exists in a world of divine creation. There is ongoing creation - and there is a countervailing entropic tendency that tends towards death, destruction, disorder...


Most important, therefore, is for us to make a very different, opposed, assumption that divine creativity is inexhaustible; and therefore 'perpetual motion' is actually the primary and natural state of things as we know them!

We live, in fact, inside and part-of that perpetual motion 'machine' which is divine creation.

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. 

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.   

Parasitic destruction - Increasing local order, by increasing total entropy? The Neo-Darwinian assumption of Western geopolitics

Deep theorists of biological evolution since Schrodinger, have (by ignoring his speculations on negentropy) mostly assumed that it is a parasitic process; which exploits already-existing order. 

This is inevitable in an atheistic context, where divine creation is rejected. 

In effect; because entropic change (and death) is unavoidable; modern secular societies must theoretically derive order from chaos - because nothing else is conceivable, must derive adaptive evolution from a tendency towards random disorder combined with zero-sum competition, positive from negative, good from evil.

In a nutshell; local creation is seen as only possible by net-destruction.   

What happens (in ultimate terms) from this mainstream secular "Neo-Darwinian" point-of-view is that an organism maintains or increases its own functional order by increasing total entropy.

(When the existence of a positively creative force/ tendency/ purpose has been ruled-out by assumption, and only negative/ destructive/ entropic tendencies are allowed for consideration - then some version of this "getting positive outcomes from from negative inputs" must be the case. Neo-Darwinian evolution is the best known version of such reasoning; Adam Smith-type "free market economics" is another.)   

For instance; the functionality of an animal depends upon them consuming (using-up) the energy and organization of plants; and plants use-up inputs of solar energy to construct high energy molecules that are used by animals to remain functional. 

All the time; no matter the level or organization achieved by organisms and their social structures; overall entropy is increasing, net energy is being used-up by the existence of organisms - and societies.

This model has, over the past century and a half, become the basis for the fundamental value-system of first Western, then global, society. 

To put it differently; all that is "good" (i.e. functional) in a society - effectiveness, prosperity, capability, law and order, consumer goods, entertainment... All this necessarily and ultimately derives from a parasitic exploitation - by a process of extraction. 

Such parasitic exploitation typically including other societies. 

Because every such transformation of order is always less than 100 percent efficient (usually much less) then every time there is extraction there is loss of order, i.e. increase of entropy. So that the more finance, industry, trade, exchange, complexity of organization is generated and sustained; the greater must be the increase in disorder which is its price.

Indeed, such processes are not zero-sum (whereby the positive/ good/ creative is merely a re-arrangement of what went before); but less-than-zero-sum - because we always end-up with less of the good stuff than we began-with.  

Such a less-than-zero-sum world view is (I infer) explicit among the leadership classes - it is (I think) a "dirty secret" about geopolitics; something shared among the social strategists in private; and a secret by which they are initiated-into the power club.

And because this class of people have either excluded the divine and creative as unreal, or else (at the highest levels) explicitly joined with the demonic alliance against God; these people "know" that they "themselves" can only thrive - can only be prosperous, powerful, comfortable, and have pleasurable lives -  by destruction of others. 

The conviction is that - in an ultimate and absolute sense; "their" well-being (both physical and psychological, and indeed spiritual) is only achievable via actual destruction of the well-being of others. 

They "understand" that to generate what "they" desire, necessarily entails a greater volume of destruction of what "other people" desire. 

This is the dirty secret by which they operate. 

And this is what is happening, all the time and all over the place - it is the world-view that drives Western strategic policies of all kinds - although this is covert, except among the higher human leadership class (i.e. many national "leaders" and CEOs of big corporations are ignorant of this reality - believing in ideological nonsense and serving only as manipulated puppets).  

Western Geopolitics is a combination of the (Ahrimanic) totalitarian desire for control and social order as primary goal; with the recognition that this can only be achieved for a small and shrinking minority and by means of (Sorathic) destructive-exploitation of the majority. 

The driving belief is that the greater the destruction of the mass majority, the more "order" and "energy" will be liberated for exploitation...

The greater the scale of mass collapse into social dysfunctionality - the greater the scope there shall be for generating small islands of order and purpose; by transmutation of the energies and potentialities of a collapsing world, into that which they desire for themselves. 

At the highest level of anti-God, anti-creation evil, the demons understand that this vastness of destruction consumes itself, and the number of those who "benefit" from parasitic destruction will necessarily always be shrinking, and as matters proceed that shrinkage will be more rapid; and that the end can only be a kind of universal death. 

But meanwhile, they derive vast satisfaction from covertly engineering the process of exploitation - and especially that the masses who are destined (if plans go right) to be consumed and annihilated, in order to extract their positive energies are consenting to this. 

In sum - there is a duality to the current nature of global evil; by which those whose desire is to maintain order and functionality - i.e. the Ahrimanic totalitarians, bureaucrats, managers etc - operate on the basis that this is only possible by social destruction elsewhere. 

The basis of current geopolitics is that the survival and thriving of The System (and "my" place in that system) is achievable only by increasing overall chaos - because order must consume order, always at the cost of increasing total entropy. 

Because they believe that parasitic destruction is fundamental to reality; the Western leadership class is therefore purposively creating chaos all over the world, as well as within their "home" societies - as the "fuel" they need to maintain their position - for a while, anyway. 

And this is done with a clear conscience, and indeed a sense of virtue; since "they" regard parasitic destruction as an unavoidable reality - and themselves as superior by knowledge of this tragic reality - hence most deserving to be the "winners" in the inevitable process. 

And they also recognize that this process must of its nature accelerate, as the negentropy of the masses is consumed; and recognize too that the membership of the parasitic ruling class must shrink - which is why there is so much, and accelerating, "civil war" among them. 

Is all this true and inevitable? It parasitic destruction that nature of ultimate reality?

Of course not! 

This demonic world view of the necessity and desirability of parasitic destruction; is a product of fundamental assumptions, of personal commitments to the metaphysical principle that there is no God and no divine creation...

Or, at a more advanced level of evil; the personal conviction that God and Creation are evils that should be opposed; and joining the side of those who oppose these. 

The way out (the only way out) from the "imperatives" of this mainstream, global geopolitical alliance - which regards destructive evil as necessary and "good" - is to know the reality of God as personal, good, loving, the creator - and to join our-selves to the side of the divine. 

Note added: To put it another way... Because our society and civilization has no belief in the reality and primacy of God and divine creation - it cannot be motivated by any concept of positive good. Any and all apparent public examples of generally accepted good; turn-out to be double-negative in form. this means that "doing good" is ultimately, bottom-line, a matter of destroying (or otherwise eliminating) "evil" - so destruction is baked-into modern ethics, that is all there is. Furthermore; all evil is defined in negative psychological terms; in terms of pain, misery, suffering... To a remarkable extent, therefore, ethical behaviour, "doing good" is a matter of eliminating whatever makes "me" and "us" happier or less unhappy. Doing good on a global scale, therefore becomes the business of weakening and destroying any nation or groups by which we personally (and those of whom we approve) feel threatened. And this is what we find.  

What would be better than what Jesus Christ has to offer?

God is an answer to the problem of our existence in reality. 

The Christian God is a personal creator; and as such provides the possibility of purpose and meaning, if we choose to align with the divine. 

This God loves us each as a parent loves his or her child; and therefore we may have a personal role in creation - as a member of God's loving family. 

Jesus Christ is an answer to the problem of our life in this world. 

This actual experienced world is a mixture: life and death, creation and destruction, good and evil, joy and despair, love and fear...

Jesus offers the possibility of a life of creation, good, joy and love - forever and unmixed. 

It seems to me that Jesus's offer is the best I know of, that I can believe.  

It has one disadvantage, which is that Heaven lies on the other side of death: we must first die and be resurrected if Heaven is to become possible: if we are to be fitted for Heaven, and if Heaven and our-self is to become eternal. 

The only offer that I can imagine which would be better than that of Jesus is if it was possible to provide Heaven on earth now and without dying. 

I don't believe that this is possible*. I believe that the nature of this mortal life and world is such that entropy, death and evil are always going to be present.  

But I imagine that someone who could believe that real, unmixed, everlasting Heaven on earth and on this side of death was a genuinely possibility; would probably prefer it to what Jesus offers.    

 +++

* In case anybody is interested why I (personally) do not believe Heaven on earth is possible (others will reason differently, of course); the main reason is that I regard the free agency of Beings as primary. 

Unless each and all of the Beings on earth and in this universe (i.e. every single Being, including the mass of non-human Beings - animals, plants, "minerals" etc.) were to choose to live wholly by love; and allow the elimination of everything about themselves that was incompatible with Heaven -- then there would still be evil present in this world, and Heaven could not be made on earth.   

So much for evil: what of entropy and death? 

I regard "chaos" (of autonomous, uncoordinated, unaware of each other Beings) as primal; and God's creation as being imposed upon that. While there is no end to God's create-ing, there is a constant tendency to revert to the primal state, which is termed "entropy". So the harmonious cooperation that is creation, is always tending to degenerate; and "death" is the end of all earthly "things", forms, structures, Beings. 

In other words this is a mortal universe, everything changes, decays, "dies"; and everlasting life cannot be imposed upon it (cannot - because otherwise, with the creator as good and personally loving, eternal living would already have happened and be normal). 

I regard it as a fact of life that we all must therefore die, before we can be re-made eternally; from scratch, on the basis only of love (i.e. resurrected).  

I state my reasons, not to defend or debate them; but because I find them compelling. The point is not to argue about it, but to discover what You find compelling. 

The choices of spiritual development made by all Beings

The primary reality is of Beings who, at first, existed as individuals dwelling in chaos; until God's creation arose. 

The first choice was whether to dwell in creation, whether to join-in with the God's 'project' of creation. This incarnated mortal world consists of those who made this choice. 

But some Beings who dwell in creation desire to live in harmony with God's plans, while others live in opposition to them - for example, desiring to exploit their situation at the expense of harmony. So that is the second choice - to live in harmony, or opposition, with divine creation. 

This mortal life is what might be termed 'temporary creation' and is finite; such that every incarnated Being that inhabits it will undergo entropic decline tending towards death - in which the spirit will separate from the material. 

After the point of death, there is a choice of whether to move-on to permanent creation - which is Heaven - or not. To move on to Heaven; entails that each Being makes an eternal commitment to live by Love, and to reject all that is incompatible with love (i.e. sin).  

So that is the next choice - repentance and resurrection to life everlasting (i.e. without 'entropy') in that part of creation called Heaven; or to remain out-with Heaven in some way or another.  

Of those Beings who enter Heaven (by following Jesus Christ, who is the unique guide from discarnate spirit through-to resurrection), there is a further and ongoing choice; which is how far to proceed with consciousness. 

In other words, the choice of "how conscious do I wish to become?"

This choice applies to all Beings; but all Beings are unique individuals - albeit apparently the fall into broad and continuously-varying categories; such as men, animals, plants and minerals. (All of these categories are considered to be living Beings, purposive, conscious - but in different ways and to different degrees.) 

If we focus on Men; there is a choice of how much consciousness we desire to develop the over long term of eternity. The 'top level' of consciousness is to become like God: a full creator, albeit within God's primary creation. 

Lower levels of Man's consciousness can be understood as analogous to the different developmental stages of Men... e.g. baby, young child, pre-adolescent, adult. 

But not a permanent adolescent, that is Not an option in Heaven; because that phase meant to be merely transitional - which is why the powers of purposive evil strive to make Modern man desire to remain a permanent adolescent (i.e. perpetuating this desire can only lead to rejection of the divine).

That, then, is the 'final' choice of spiritual development made by subclasses of beings: choosing to become fully-divine, and a grown-up child of God; or some lower and lesser degree of consciousness...

I say 'lower and lesser'; yet this is the destiny and desire of some Beings; whose nature is such that they do not have a fully-divine-desiring disposition. These 'natural-children' will become Beings that - to some variable extent - will passively (and less-than-fully-consciously) be 'controlled' to attain harmony with the other Beings of Heaven, in a top-down fashion by God, or God's agents. 

Such are the choices. 

How did Jesus accomplish the Second Creation (Resurrection and Heaven)?

Jesus Christ's work came naturally to him - he was not acting upon instructions. 

When he awoke to his divine creativity, Jesus knew what needed to be done - because he was a Man (as well as perfectly aligned-with God's creation); and he spontaneously realized that what Men needed to live wholly by, for and from Love; was eternal Heavenly life - that is, to be saved from evil, entropy and death. 

Jesus knew this for himself, and from himself. But partial notions of the idea were also (apparently, according to some historians) implicit in some of the ideas of his time and place; found in places such as the Hebrew, Greek and Roman religions. These may have been confirmation or a clarification, but were not the origin. 

All humans who grow up into the dawn of consciousness know implicitly what is needed for the purity and completion of our mortal lives; and so did Jesus - but Jesus knew it explicitly. 

And because Jesus was wholly-aligned with divine creation (this happened at the time of his Baptism by John), and motivated solely by love of God and fellow Men; what Jesus knew and willed, was thereby created. 

That is how divine creation works - without intermediary. 

(Indeed all true creation works that way. Once created it is directly - intuitively - available to all of good will, aside from communication.)

For Jesus; to know what is good, is to desire and make it possible.

Jesus began to teach that eternal resurrected life was now possible for Men who chose it, but to attain the perfection of Love eternally, they must die and be "born again". 

(And they must want to live by love, above all else.) 

However, it was not necessary that Men be told of resurrection in order for them to choose it. 

The soul after death had always moved to various states of Being after leaving behind the dead body (destinations such as reincarnations, or underworlds, or demonic affiliations), as hinted by the various recorded ancient religions. 

The Second Creation by Jesus now became available to the soul after death, including those who had previously died; as a new possibility - as a possible choice. 

(A choice never previously available until the work of Jesus; impossible to God the primary creator, and only possible to a mortal Man who attained complete alignment with God's Primary Creation.)

    

Resurrection to eternal Heavenly life thereby "immediately" became possible after its creative conception (without need for Jesus himself to die and be resurrected); as was shown by the resurrection of his "beloved disciple" Lazarus. 

Jesus then demonstrated how things could be, by his own resurrection and his temporary return to work among his disciples, and many other people. 

But the Second Creation was made for all the Beings of the First Creation who desired and chose it, post-mortally - not just those Beings who had heard about it, and not just human beings.  

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. 

Mortal life as a high stakes gamble - a suggested explanation for our 'entropic world'

This mortal life is a high-stakes gamble because we live in an entropic world - a world dominated by the tendency for destructive change, disease, decay, corruption and eventual death. 

This is the world that our loving-parent God has created for us; and we must therefore assume that it is the best kind of world for His creative purposes and for our own individual ultimate benefit. 

In the first place we need to understand that this mortal world is for our learning - our life is a kind of spiritual school. But why should this school be entropic?  

The potential hazards of life in this mortal world are obvious - pain and misery in the short term, and damnation in the long term. 

This means that the potential benefits of our lives must be even larger, great enough to outweigh the hazards (because the creator loves us, individually). 

What is the advantage of entropy? 

Entropy is the innate tendency towards destruction - and, in a broad sense; one advantage of this mortal life is that of discarding what is evil in us. 

This is a conceptualization of repentance. By repenting sin, we 'leave it behind' when we are resurrected to eternal life. 

Thus, our eternal selves will be free from sin, and fitted to live in Heaven while being free agents. Because our free choices will then always be Good: always aligned with God's will. 

And this, in turn, means that we can be trusted with divine powers of creation, can our-selves become Sons of God and co-creators with God - adding to already-existing creation from our own unique (and sin-purged) selves. 

Anyone can enter Heaven who - by repentance - consents to having his sins purged, stripped-away; but the more sins, the more will be stripped away. 

Therefore, one of the hazards of mortal life is that we will become so sinful that, when it comes to resurrection, there will not be much left of us that is Good, and fit for Heaven. 

This does not bar anyone from Heaven - because the power of repentance is unbounded, and anyone who follows Jesus Christ can be resurrected; but the Man who has led a deeply evil life before final repentance will be a lesser Man after resurrection than would otherwise have been the case. 

This leads to one of the aims of the Devil. 

His primary aim is that Men should choose damnation and reject Heaven; but even among the saved, the Devil (and his demonic and evil-human henchmen) gets secondary satisfaction from corrupting Men: that is, from encouraging sins that will reduce and impair the resurrected Man; and thereby diminish what might-have-been as resurrected Men enter Heaven.

(This corruption of individual Men does not make Heaven less-good - because Heaven is wholly Good, nothing evil is there. But it does diminish the stature of those resurrected Men who enter Heaven.) 

So, this is a way of conceptualizing theosis - the process of becoming more divine in human life - because (to put it crudely) the more divine and less sinful we are in mortal life, the more of us there will be to resurrect and live eternally.  

So, the plus-side of this entropic mortal world is that we can leave-behind sin; and this is necessary to salvation. The negative-side is that we may fall so far into sin that we either reject salvation (are damned); or by the end of our lives have very little left that is Good, so that even if we accept salvation - we will need to repent so many and bad sins, that we start-out as lesser Men when we resurrect. 

So what of Heaven, which is a world of creation and without entropy? 

In Heaven all is retained, life is cumulative. 

Whereas in earthly life we change (partly) by leaving-behind; in Heaven we change by adding-to. 

In mortal and entropic life; Men may transform radically, by deletions; in Heaven resurrected Men transform only by additions.  

This scheme may help explain why this mortal life is entropic in its nature; and how such a hazardous life is nonetheless necessary and potentially useful, as a transitional experience between pre- and post-mortal existence, before a soul proceeds to the creative world of Heaven. 

It also helps us to understand our own role in this life; and how our choices during mortality make a permanent difference to our potential after resurrection.  

"Masculinity" and "femininity" versus the actual person of Mother in Heaven

While I assume that God is Dyadic (a Heavenly Father and Mother) - this is something I have not really grasped, not does it correspond much with daily experience. 

Partly this may be because we Christians are intended to relate primarily to Jesus, rather than the primary creator; but partly it is because I tend to get "hung-up" on inaccurate and unhelpful assumptions relating to principles, rather than persons. 

An example of an unhelpful/ misleading conceptualization would be that of Coleridge's "polarity" between "two contrary forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely ["masculine], while the other strives to apprehend or find itself in this infinity [feminine]". 

One such assumption is that habit of thinking of male and female in terms of being specific exemplifications of those abstractions: "masculinity" and "femininity"... Abstractions that are somehow floating unattached beyond time and space, and sort-of imposing-themselves-upon Beings (as it were to make them men, or women)...! 

Really; things must be otherwise. 

Our Heavenly Parents are those two Beings who (in actuality, not by any prior necessity) first committed to eternal love; and on that basis began divine creation. 

It is their two natures, originating as two Beings, that ramify through all of creation since.  

Thus male and female both structure and power creation; but in this personal way - derived from actual living, conscious, developing Beings; and not therefore in terms of abstract metaphysical forces or fields or tendencies. 

As (always?) with metaphysical realities, it is not possible to derive the metaphysics from empirical specifics (such as actual men and women) - nor is it possible to derive any particular empirical specifics from the metaphysical assumptions. 

If the universe truly is derived from a dyadic God; then that universe includes everything that exists, has existed, or could exist - and this reality (this Primary Creation) in which we dwell; includes not just divine creation, but also entropy/death and purposive evil. 

What this seems to mean - among many other things! - is that our experience of Mother in Heaven ought not to be pre-conceptualized in terms of an ideal earthly-mortal Mother, nor any other archetypal female conceptualization. 

Of course, if that is what we have decided in advance that we will find, then that is what we will find - and any female archetype really is there; but only as a selective, hence distorted, part of the reality. 

This stricture applies both to Goddess conceptualizations; and to the Blessed Virgin Mary - whom I regard as ultimately a selective and distorted representation of the reality of the actual person of Mother in Heaven.

(Albeit the veneration/worship of the Mary, Mother of Jesus has - in some times and places - been very valuable as such; and IMO far preferable overall to an exclusively "masculine" conceptualization of God.)

I think the difficulties of you and I experiencing the person of Mother in Heaven are therefore partly due to the nature of God the Creator - who is not personal in this world, in the way that Jesus Christ is personal; partly it is due to the ultimately-dyadic nature of God (and the consequent difficulty of disambiguating Father and Mother, who are necessarily participating-in each-other); and partly due to our usually false expectations concerning what She is like.   

So, what is She like? 

The best answer is: She is like who-She-is. 

...Which can be known - as here on earth - by personal experience, by getting-to-know a person. 

But She is not to be known in terms of exemplifying a list of supposed-female attributes, nor can any list of attributes validly communicate her reality.

The imaginative failure of cynics: Why so many people fail to perceive the purposively destructive motivations of the ruling Establishment

I continue to be astonished by the inability of most people to perceive the increasingly obvious destructive motivations of at least a substantial proportion of the most powerful and influential people in the world today. 

This inability is most striking among those who consider themselves to be suspicious and cynical types; those who delight to 'see-though' hypocritical masks to the self-seeking natures beneath. Such are adept at stripping away moralizing rhetoric, to reveal a sordid world of bribery and corruption, and self-gratification. 

However, these cynics suffer a complete failure of imagination when motivations are seriously evil in nature - rather than merely selfish: when the motivations are actively destructive. The cynics continue to explain the world on the basis of selfish-interest even when the rulers have explicitly stated their destructive intent! 

This imaginative failure is due to the in-practice atheism of cynics - cynics do not live by-God (a Christian cannot be a cynic, nor a cynic a Christian) and therefore cynics lack the discernment to know real evil. 

For cynics; evil is just normal human selfishness - amplified by operating unconstrained. 

In a strange sense, the blind-spot of cynics therefore derives from their residual natural and unconscious goodness! Cynics are 'normal' people, who imagine themselves in a position of great power; and then imagine how they-themselves might behave... 

Cynics thereby come-up-with some schema by which the assumed-normal people who are actually in power behave. Like all Men; cynics are significantly motivated by self-gratification - yet recognize that this is anti-social - and so self-interest forms the basis of their understanding. 

Yet the flaw in cynicism - as a species of atheism - is that not all motivations are 'normal'; the ruling Establishment are not 'normal people'; and therefore self-interest is not the most profound of Establishment motivations. 

This is a profound difference between the world situation Now and at any earlier time of history. There has never been a time like now when the Established rulers were essentially not mostly-'normal' people, with mostly-normal selfish motivations.  

We are alive in a time when value-inversion has becomes (and is increasingly) the basis of global strategy. Value-inversion is precisely not-normal; and its roots are not-human - they are instead demonic, Satanic.

This is why it has become absolutely essential to acknowledge and believe the reality of purposive supernatural evil in the world; because only thus can the real motivations of the Global Establishment be understood.  

A key fact about supernatural evil is that it does not depend on the essentials of human life: it does not need warmth and shelter, food and drink - it does not want marriage, family, children; it does not desire truth, beauty and virtue. 

Instead; supernatural evil's desires, its pleasures, are in the inversion and destruction of such things. 

Evil needs to be understood as oppositional: evil does not want any particular state-of-affairs to prevail; instead evil wants to destroy particular things - in particular to destroy Good things.

And that is the key to understanding the world today. 

If one can grasp that the Global Establishment is most-deeply motivated by a destructive animus - then it becomes simple (albeit horrific) to comprehend what they are up to. 

As a single example that ought to be obvious but is missed by almost everyone; there is a strong motivation being implemented to destroy the world economy.

If we - like any cynic - set-aside the supposed but falsely altruistic 'justifications' for destroying the world economy - such as 'fighting' the birdemic, climate change or the Fire Nation - we can see that what lies behind all of the major initiatives and strategies is (quite simply) the motivation to destroy production and distribution of 'goods'. 

While some individual human beings, and even a few small groups, can perhaps benefit from such destruction, for while; such selfish reasoning is both conjectural and fraught with uncertainty - and is not at the root of motivation.  

We need to notice that - whatever today's supposed-problem happens to be - the long-term, strategic, 'answer' is always includes some version of mass economic destruction.

(Although naturally, since all major policies require mass compliance, and because economic destruction entails the suffering and death of billions of humans; wholesale economic destruction can never be explicitly stated as a primary objective - but only as dressed-up in the disguise of a fake-means towards some humanly-desired end - controlling the birdemic, preventing climate emergency, promoting equity/ diversity/ justice etc, etc yawn...) 

The problem for a world of atheists and cynics; is that actually to desire wholesale economic destruction as a priority and for itself, is a motivation that makes no human sense - therefore it is not noticed by humans who deny the supernatural. 

And so - what ought to be obvious is denied as absurd - and anyone who notices the fact is regarded as crazy, as insane!  

Because it would indeed be insane for humans to desire wholesale economic destruction; normal people assume that therefore it doesn't happen. But when demonic-evil is in control - the insane becomes normal. 

Another thing about destruction is that it is easy! 

In this mortal work dominated by 'entropy'; creation is very difficult, but to destroy that which is-being, or has-been, created is easy - a child or an animal (or dud computer programme) can do it. Therefore; people can easily be tricked into doing the work of destruction under pretense of creating something impossible or incoherent, improving something, or any 'change for the better'. 

Almost the entirety of Leftism, through its history, has been a series of such vague, half-baked or impractical 'altruistic' schemes - the legacy of which is always... destruction. 

All of these schemes are, from the perspective of supernatural evil; merely con-tricks to mobilize energies towards destruction. 

For instance; currently The Great Reset is exactly such a scam; whereby some of the richer and more powerful Establishment figures are being 'tricked' into a colossal and coordinated effort...

The outcome of which is sheer destruction - yet hypnotized by an incoherent and impossible daydream of themselves as benign dictators of a 'sustainable' and utilitarian world of omni-surveillance on micro-control - the here-and-now destruction is explained-away as just a step towards a 'better' world. 

All the Reset schemes are immediately destructive - reduced production, reduced trade and transport, reduced energy supplies, reduced labour, degradation of money - while this gross fact of actual, ongoing destruction is concealed (even from themselves!) by vaguely conjectural aspirations of 'building back a better world' - sustainable, Green, equitable, peaceful - blah, blah, blah...

This is exactly what must (therefore will) necessarily happen when Men reject God and deny creation - therefore cannot perceive, understand or resist the operations of supernatural, demonic evil. 

Active destruction is all around us, yet explained-away over-and-again as merely accidental incompetence (but why are errors always in the same direction?); the mistakes of 'weird' ideology (but why has the world embraced weirdness?); the consequences of selfishness (but why does modern selfishness take such inverted forms?) - and so on. 

Nothing can or will be done to stop or reverse the gross destruction; because the purpose behind the destruction is outwith the explanatory models of a Modern Man. Modern Man - maimed in his soul by choosing to be cut-off from reality - has made himself utterly helpless. 

Meanwhile, those who recognize supernatural evil at work; can only watch the vast and deliberate - yet invisible - collapse of the world, with mingled astonishment and horror.