Francis Berger's Blog, page 108
December 27, 2020
Recognizing and Acknowledging "The Point" Was The Point of 2020
"Things coming to a point" has been a central theme of Bruce Charlton's superb and insightful blogging over the past decade. Dr. Charlton draws the phrase from C.S Lewis's That Hideous Strength, in which the concept is described in the following manner:
"If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family--anything you like--at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow-room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder."
As I mentioned above, Dr. Charlton has been blogging about things coming to a point - about the line separating good and evil becoming increasingly clearer and the space of neutrality between them increasingly diminishing - for years, but his recent observations on the subject suggest the process has ended in 2020.
Put another way, 2020 obliterated the gray area between good and evil. The sharp, hard point that had been building for decades, if not centuries, has finally materialized. Things are no longer coming to a point. In 2020, things have come to a point.
I fully agree with Dr. Charlton's lucid observation. Even a cursory glance at the events of 2020 (the birdemic, lockdowns, the global totalitarian coup, election fraud, faux Brexit) reveals that evil did indeed become undeniably direct, clear, simple, and obvious over the course of the year.
Thus, the overall point of 2020 is the understanding that we have reached the point; but what does this entail? Dr. Charlton summarizes the meaning of things having come to a point in the following manner:
In sum, when things have come to a point - life-choices will be substantially (this can never be absolute, due to our mixed-nature and mixed-motives) simple, dichotomous and direct. The choices will be between God, Love, Beauty, Truth, Virtue, Harmony... and the negation of these.
Once we have people choosing against-Good, against God, consciously and with their eyes wide-open; then that will also be the situation when people will choose eternal damnation in preference to the gift of salvation and eternal life as Sons and Daughters of God - they will reject Heaven and choose to reign in their own personal Hell.
This is the end game; yet we can see that this must be carefully prepared if the situation is not to 'backfire' from the perspective of evil...
The clearer that choices become, the more likely that the mass of distracted, cloudy-minded, muddled, partly conscious and not-yet-fully-corrupted people will perceive the situation and choose Good.
So - a world of things coming to a point is also a world in which it is easier to discern Good. Much easier...
The iron fist has emerged from its velvet glove; the wolf has shrugged of his sheep's clothing. Strategic deception becomes a thing of the past.
For Men of Good intent - life becomes clear and simple - right choices are easy to recognise.
After that - it is up-to-us, each as individuals.
Dr. Charlton further clarifies the matter in the following:
The Good side are those who support the goals of God's creation, and who hope to join with God in the eternal work of creation - the evil side are those who oppose this.
Things coming to a point mean that it is becoming ever-more clear cut whether we choose the Good side or the evil. There is less blurring, less chance of confusion. Our choices, therefore, cluster - since the Goodness and evil are so clear and separated; when we choose, therefore, we know what we are doing.
Our choices are more conscious, more deliberate - more significant.
It is worth noting that the ease of recognizing good and right choices does not imply that mortal life will become easier or better for those who choose to side with good. On the contrary:
This creates all kinds of problems, suffering, hardship, But in a world such as this one, coming to a point is a Good-thing. By 'Good' I mean in a spiritual and eternal sense - not a materialist and this-worldly sense. The process is Good for our souls, even when it is bad for our minds and bodies.
If we take full awareness of "the point" to be the point of 2020, then the active, conscious, and committed choosing of a side - that is, the active and conscious commitment good or evil - must become the overarching point of 2021 and beyond. As Dr. Charlton notes:
People have agency, people can choose evil, and they are apparently doing so in very large numbers. If so, they have made their choice and Will live with that choice (unless or until they repent it, which usually gets harder with time).
This is a test for everyone: it is a test for Christians. Christians are confronted with worldly-expediency versus spiritual virtue again and again, every day and in multiple situations; and their response (I mean their response in their own thinking) will necessarily go one way, or the other way.
Our true motivation is recurrently being tested, hence refined and strengthened.
This is Good and we ought to be grateful; because this is exactly theosis; it is how we grow in divinity (or the opposite).
A crucial item to remember as we confront "the point" of 2020 and move toward 2021 is that failing to be "a saint in all virtues" does not disqualify one from being on the side of good. Conversely, possessing considerable virtues does not render one immune to working for the side of evil. Motivation and repentance are key in determining which side an individual ultimately chooses:
Individuals are always a dynamic and evolving mixture of virtues and vices, good behaviours and bad; and modern fighters on the side of Good may well be notably flawed in terms of feebleness of virtue, proneness to sin, and selfish short-termism of behaviour... yet (thanks to the 'infinite' power of repentance) they may still be on the side of Good.
While, on the other side - the side of evil; individuals may have considerable virtues, and display considerable altruism and steadiness of purpose... yet these positive factors serve, in the end, merely to increase their dangerousness to the cause of Good.
To sum up, the point of 2020 was the recognition that things "have come to a point". The point of 2021 will be the choice individuals make in light of this recognition.
No one will be spared this choice going forward.
Failing to recognize the point as "the point" or attempting to maintain some semblance of neutrality after acknowledging "the point" will also count as choices in 2021. Needless to say, neither of these "non-choices" will count as a choice for good.
"If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family--anything you like--at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow-room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder."
As I mentioned above, Dr. Charlton has been blogging about things coming to a point - about the line separating good and evil becoming increasingly clearer and the space of neutrality between them increasingly diminishing - for years, but his recent observations on the subject suggest the process has ended in 2020.
Put another way, 2020 obliterated the gray area between good and evil. The sharp, hard point that had been building for decades, if not centuries, has finally materialized. Things are no longer coming to a point. In 2020, things have come to a point.
I fully agree with Dr. Charlton's lucid observation. Even a cursory glance at the events of 2020 (the birdemic, lockdowns, the global totalitarian coup, election fraud, faux Brexit) reveals that evil did indeed become undeniably direct, clear, simple, and obvious over the course of the year.
Thus, the overall point of 2020 is the understanding that we have reached the point; but what does this entail? Dr. Charlton summarizes the meaning of things having come to a point in the following manner:
In sum, when things have come to a point - life-choices will be substantially (this can never be absolute, due to our mixed-nature and mixed-motives) simple, dichotomous and direct. The choices will be between God, Love, Beauty, Truth, Virtue, Harmony... and the negation of these.
Once we have people choosing against-Good, against God, consciously and with their eyes wide-open; then that will also be the situation when people will choose eternal damnation in preference to the gift of salvation and eternal life as Sons and Daughters of God - they will reject Heaven and choose to reign in their own personal Hell.
This is the end game; yet we can see that this must be carefully prepared if the situation is not to 'backfire' from the perspective of evil...
The clearer that choices become, the more likely that the mass of distracted, cloudy-minded, muddled, partly conscious and not-yet-fully-corrupted people will perceive the situation and choose Good.
So - a world of things coming to a point is also a world in which it is easier to discern Good. Much easier...
The iron fist has emerged from its velvet glove; the wolf has shrugged of his sheep's clothing. Strategic deception becomes a thing of the past.
For Men of Good intent - life becomes clear and simple - right choices are easy to recognise.
After that - it is up-to-us, each as individuals.
Dr. Charlton further clarifies the matter in the following:
The Good side are those who support the goals of God's creation, and who hope to join with God in the eternal work of creation - the evil side are those who oppose this.
Things coming to a point mean that it is becoming ever-more clear cut whether we choose the Good side or the evil. There is less blurring, less chance of confusion. Our choices, therefore, cluster - since the Goodness and evil are so clear and separated; when we choose, therefore, we know what we are doing.
Our choices are more conscious, more deliberate - more significant.
It is worth noting that the ease of recognizing good and right choices does not imply that mortal life will become easier or better for those who choose to side with good. On the contrary:
This creates all kinds of problems, suffering, hardship, But in a world such as this one, coming to a point is a Good-thing. By 'Good' I mean in a spiritual and eternal sense - not a materialist and this-worldly sense. The process is Good for our souls, even when it is bad for our minds and bodies.
If we take full awareness of "the point" to be the point of 2020, then the active, conscious, and committed choosing of a side - that is, the active and conscious commitment good or evil - must become the overarching point of 2021 and beyond. As Dr. Charlton notes:
People have agency, people can choose evil, and they are apparently doing so in very large numbers. If so, they have made their choice and Will live with that choice (unless or until they repent it, which usually gets harder with time).
This is a test for everyone: it is a test for Christians. Christians are confronted with worldly-expediency versus spiritual virtue again and again, every day and in multiple situations; and their response (I mean their response in their own thinking) will necessarily go one way, or the other way.
Our true motivation is recurrently being tested, hence refined and strengthened.
This is Good and we ought to be grateful; because this is exactly theosis; it is how we grow in divinity (or the opposite).
A crucial item to remember as we confront "the point" of 2020 and move toward 2021 is that failing to be "a saint in all virtues" does not disqualify one from being on the side of good. Conversely, possessing considerable virtues does not render one immune to working for the side of evil. Motivation and repentance are key in determining which side an individual ultimately chooses:
Individuals are always a dynamic and evolving mixture of virtues and vices, good behaviours and bad; and modern fighters on the side of Good may well be notably flawed in terms of feebleness of virtue, proneness to sin, and selfish short-termism of behaviour... yet (thanks to the 'infinite' power of repentance) they may still be on the side of Good.
While, on the other side - the side of evil; individuals may have considerable virtues, and display considerable altruism and steadiness of purpose... yet these positive factors serve, in the end, merely to increase their dangerousness to the cause of Good.
To sum up, the point of 2020 was the recognition that things "have come to a point". The point of 2021 will be the choice individuals make in light of this recognition.
No one will be spared this choice going forward.
Failing to recognize the point as "the point" or attempting to maintain some semblance of neutrality after acknowledging "the point" will also count as choices in 2021. Needless to say, neither of these "non-choices" will count as a choice for good.
December 25, 2020
Masking the Divine
Back in April I suggested the face mask would become the lasting symbol of the birdemic global totalitarian takeover. Though face masking was still voluntary in most places around the world at that time, I was concerned the practice would eventually become mandatory in the same manner social distancing and lockdown measures had become mandatory. While the latter two measures have triggered well-justified unease in some segments of the general population, the former has been mostly regarded as a minor and pointless inconvenience. Yes, many have very astutely pointed out that face-masking is an infringement of personal rights and freedoms, but only a handful of people appear to be aware of the deeper spiritual implications behind the masking mandates.
In my April post I proposed coerced face masking contained an intentionally and intrinsically dehumanizing element:
There is something inherently dehumanizing about masking the human face. A crucial channel of communication and existence is denied when the human face is hidden. True, eyes are the windows to souls, but faces are windows to human personality.
I then went on to equate the masking of the human face with the masking of God. Though the notion struck me as somewhat histrionic at the time, I felt the need to communicate it all the same. Since then I have come to understand that - far from being exaggerated or stilted - my intuitive assumptions about the pernicious implications of face masking strike at the very core of the current spiritual onslaught that has been unleashed upon us. Face masking is certainly an attack on individual rights and freedoms, but many fail to see that it has also morphed into a direct and prolonged siege against the Divine - that the prime objective of masking the human face is the total removal of God from the public sphere.
Of course, this only makes sense if one considers the human face to be conduit of the Divine - as a potent spiritual force through which the Divine continuously communicates - rather than simply a material component of the human anatomy. One thinker who recognized the divine implication of the human face was Nikolai Berdyaev, who noted the following in his Slavery and Freedom:
The face of man is the summit of the cosmic process, the greatest of its offspring, but it cannot be the offspring of cosmic forces only, it presupposes the action of a spiritual force, which raises it above the sphere of the forces of nature. The face of man is the most amazing thing in the life of the world: another world shines out through it. It is the entrance of personality into the world process, with its uniqueness, its singleness, it unrepeatability. Through the face we apprehend, not the bodily life of man, but the life of his soul.
This "action of a spiritual force", this "other world" that shines through the face of man, this "entry of the personality into the world process" are exactly what mandatory face masking conspires to obscure and deny.
Even worse, masking has inimically inverted the very sight of an unmasked face in public. Rather than perceiving the life of a soul in the human face, many now regard the sight of the mask-less human face with trepidation and terror. The unmasked face is now viewed as source of potential harm and danger. Many go out of their way to avoid encountering it all costs, and in situations where they are forced to confront it, they react to it with fear and scorn. Nowhere is this more true than within the walls of Christian churches, where the very act of mandating face masking during services borders on outright blasphemy.
Berdyaev once noted that the elimination of the perception of God in the world would signify the end of the human being on earth. I propose the reverse holds true as well.
In my April post I proposed coerced face masking contained an intentionally and intrinsically dehumanizing element:
There is something inherently dehumanizing about masking the human face. A crucial channel of communication and existence is denied when the human face is hidden. True, eyes are the windows to souls, but faces are windows to human personality.
I then went on to equate the masking of the human face with the masking of God. Though the notion struck me as somewhat histrionic at the time, I felt the need to communicate it all the same. Since then I have come to understand that - far from being exaggerated or stilted - my intuitive assumptions about the pernicious implications of face masking strike at the very core of the current spiritual onslaught that has been unleashed upon us. Face masking is certainly an attack on individual rights and freedoms, but many fail to see that it has also morphed into a direct and prolonged siege against the Divine - that the prime objective of masking the human face is the total removal of God from the public sphere.
Of course, this only makes sense if one considers the human face to be conduit of the Divine - as a potent spiritual force through which the Divine continuously communicates - rather than simply a material component of the human anatomy. One thinker who recognized the divine implication of the human face was Nikolai Berdyaev, who noted the following in his Slavery and Freedom:
The face of man is the summit of the cosmic process, the greatest of its offspring, but it cannot be the offspring of cosmic forces only, it presupposes the action of a spiritual force, which raises it above the sphere of the forces of nature. The face of man is the most amazing thing in the life of the world: another world shines out through it. It is the entrance of personality into the world process, with its uniqueness, its singleness, it unrepeatability. Through the face we apprehend, not the bodily life of man, but the life of his soul.
This "action of a spiritual force", this "other world" that shines through the face of man, this "entry of the personality into the world process" are exactly what mandatory face masking conspires to obscure and deny.
Even worse, masking has inimically inverted the very sight of an unmasked face in public. Rather than perceiving the life of a soul in the human face, many now regard the sight of the mask-less human face with trepidation and terror. The unmasked face is now viewed as source of potential harm and danger. Many go out of their way to avoid encountering it all costs, and in situations where they are forced to confront it, they react to it with fear and scorn. Nowhere is this more true than within the walls of Christian churches, where the very act of mandating face masking during services borders on outright blasphemy.
Berdyaev once noted that the elimination of the perception of God in the world would signify the end of the human being on earth. I propose the reverse holds true as well.
Merry Christmas To My Readers
I wish everyone who stops and spends time on these pages a Merry Christmas! The relative silence into which I retreated over the Advent season has now ended, and I will resume regular blogging tomorrow.
Adoration of the Child - Gerard van Honthorst - circa 1620
Adoration of the Child - Gerard van Honthorst - circa 1620
December 24, 2020
December 23, 2020
December 22, 2020
December 21, 2020
Advent Post: Waltz Of The Snowflakes - 2020
Well, I don't know where to begin with this one. I think I'll just let it speak for itself.
December 20, 2020
December 19, 2020
Advent Post: A Grasmere Nativity
Bruce Charlton shared this enjoyable video on his blog today. I found the video so delightful, I simply had to share it here (despite the fact that most of my readers are essentially a subset of Bruce's). Enjoy!
