Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 10

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Necessity does not obviate the requirement for repentance

As Jesus apparently tried to make clear; following Him to resurrection ought to be about repentance of all sin; not the literal impossibility of ceasing from sin, nor even the (salvific) irrelevance of ceasing from some list of particular sins. 

Because they have the idea that Christians are supposed to stop sinning, or at lease reduce it considerably; people are very concerned to explain that most of their sins are trivial, that it would be unreasonable to expect that they be ceased; or that it is or necessary - unavoidable to sin in some particular way. 

(The subtext often seems to be that because sins are trivial, coerced, needed - then they are "not really" sins, and don't really count. Not so long as Big Sins - murder etc. - are avoided.)  

The truth is that mortal beings on this earth just aren't aligned with God's will, with divine creation; and that is sin. 

We can't enumerate sins, because life isn't divided up in that way - thoughts, speech, actions etc are linked, there aren't boundaries between them. 

What we are required to repent is "all the ways" in which we diverge from living wholly by love... The idea that we need to avoid (or strive to avoid) some particular list of sins is wrong; or that someone who avoids the worst sins is set up for salvation is likewise a mistake. It doesn't matter how good we are relatively to others - in the ultimate and vital sense, we are all sinners. 

All that isn't fatal to salvation, because Jesus came "to save sinners" - which is another way of saying he came to save potentially all men who acknowledge that they are sinners and know what would be needful not to be sinners.  

But while we live, while God maintains us alive; we have useful work to do. 

That work isn't stopping sinning; but part of it is discerning, acknowledging, and repenting sin - whenever possible. This is just a by-product of knowing what we ought to think, say, do - and knowing that we aren't doing it - and that we would do it it that were possible. 

This is particularly important when it comes to the sinning that we are incentivized, coerced or even compelled to do. For instance (my favourite example) untruthfulness - dishonesty, lying; deliberate misleading of others by repetition, hype and spin, and by selective omissions. 

Nearly everybody does this a lot of the time, and the leadership class and most professional class people (including priests, pastors, ministers and the like) do it for a living. They do it much of the time, and the must keep doing it if they want to keep their jobs. 

Indeed; calculated and systemic untruthfulness is essential to much modern work, mandatory for employment; necessary to get and retain one's position, and get prestige and promotion. 

This are sins that are active, purposive, obtrude into our consciousness many times every day. 

People do them, and have zero intentions of stopping doing them. Indeed, they could not stop doing them without abandoning their responsibilities. Without "giving up". 

And even then, they would still be sinning in innumerable ways - and would very likely be required to commit more of other kinds of sin.  

The first thing t acknowledge is that there is no way out of this - as we actually are, on this mortal earth!

The second thing to realize that the many and various excuses of why we "have to do it", do not make any difference to salvation even when they are perfectly true! 

What we should do about all this is quite simple, and described in the Fourth Gospel! 

We start with our commitment to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal Heavenly life. 

And recognize that this will require us to be remage as beings of love, which also (negatively) means without sin. 

Therefore, one of the most significant things we can do, here-and-now, in this mortal life; is to notice and acknowledge when we are actually sinning.

It is important for our salvation, and the state of our souls, to acknowledge this actual sinning; much more more important that to focus and expend our finite efforts and attention in (Oh So Admirably!) diminishing one or a few selective sins - in what Jesus might have called the Pharisee Strategy. 

Showing off about one's (supposed) immunity to this or that temptation or sin may be an effective way of manipulating other people - it might (less often) even be a good thing for particular or overall social functioning. 

But is not the way to learn spiritually, to improve one's soul - and it has almost nothing to do with salvation. 

If the requirement for repentance is regarded in this way, then we will all find that there is no shortage of material for learning! 

If we are not much tempted by one kind of sin, there are plenty of other sins which we are doing some or most of the time - and which we have (for whatever reason, good or bad) have no intention of stopping. 

And there are sins that because of our nature, and/or circumstances; we cannot stop, we do not have the ability to stop. 

Jesus Christ did not ask the impossible of us; indeed he made salvation possible for anybody capable of love. 

Ultimately, those who attain resurrected eternal life need to desire themselves to be remade wholly good, without sin. 

We can't do this on this side of death; but can always and everywhere be learning what that will entail. 

This is time well spent. 

Each and every repentance is both an affirmation and strengthening of our ultimate commitment to follow Jesus after death; and also a (small but significant) proximate betterment of our souls as they now are, and shall be carried forward into eternal life.

Free will is Not the cause of evil

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

Because free will is not a cause of evil.

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

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

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

Proof? 

Jesus Christ: He was free and did not evil. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Men are not wholly created by God. 

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

Even Heaven isn't ideal... Total and perfect completion is not even conceivable - let alone achievable

One of the reasons that some people do not want salvation and post-mortal eternal life in Heaven; is that Heaven is imperfect and incomplete. 

For example, not everybody gets to Heaven, so that some people we want to be-with in Heaven, will not be there. 

A related imperfection is that some of those who won't be in Heaven will be suffering - and this can be seen as an imperfection - in that we can imagine a reality without suffering, and yet some kind of hell will continue to be forever. 

So, for these and other reasons Heaven is incomplete and imperfect, and may be rejected on these grounds. 

Yet if Heaven is rejected as a goal for such reasons, then (presumably) this is because something better is imagined and desired?  

However; all conceivable situations are incomplete and imperfect. We cannot coherently conceptualize a state of perfection and completion, and therefore cannot really desire it. 

For instance; the idea of oneness spirituality is an attempt at conceptualizing a state of perfect completion - the idea that in reality all is one and there is nothing lacking.

Yet this is incoherent because there is, at least, the fact that we recognize a lack of oneness in our yearning for it - and if all is really one there could be no such lack, or yearning, or even self awareness. If our dissatisfaction is put down to delusion, then how could there be delusion in a state of oneness? 

If reality really was one, there would be nothing else. 

If the incompleteness of Heaven, the fact that it leaves-out some (or much) of reality, is to be solved by conceptualizing a future state of the perfection and harmonization of every being, including every being and thing left-out of heaven; then the necessary (divine) power to perfect and complete reality is being assumed to be constrained by delay... for some reason. 

And that reason is itself a breaking of oneness/ perfection/ completeness.

If all is one, why has perfection and completion not already been achieved? 

(Why must we and others continue to suffer its lack?)

For that matter - if perfection and completion really are attainable by God, then why create anything else that perfect completeness? What is the point? 

Why should deity create this imperfect and intermediate world with its entropy and evil, and where all gratifications are incomplete and temporary?

That itself, whatever the answer proposed, is a break of perfection and completeness.  

My point is that, although we may imagine and desire perfection and completion of all reality; this wish is incoherent and cannot - even theoretically - be attained. 

The insistence on total, perfect completion is indeed, a disguised form of double-negative ideology. 

I mean that "perfection" is actually the negation of our divine impulse towards creative love; which is a dynamic and developing thing, future orientated. 

Instead of regarding this fundamental quality of being as an attribute of reality - the lack of a permanent state of perfect completion is re-interpreted as a problem. A problem that is insoluble, because it negates creation, life, consciousness, love... 

The same for completion. Completion is a negation of the potential for eternal growth, development, increase of love. There is no end to creation... But this possibility is being re-interpreted negatively, as a current state of incompletion. 

The insistence upon completion is, again, a denial of the most profound nature of reality - which is why it leads nowhere but paradox. 

In sum: when people reject Heaven because it is incomplete and imperfect; they have fallen into a trap - a spiritual prison that has no escape... 

Incoherence is a reductio ad absurdum - a conclusion revelatory of false premises. 

No escape except by becoming aware-of, examining, and rejecting their most fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

 

"The Hanging Signs of Huddersfield" - On the magical significance of specialized factual books, by Irish Papist

...Imagine, for instance, a book called The Hanging Signs of Hudderfield. Not a novel with a quirky title (I hate those), but a book literally devoted to that subject. 
In a way (as I see it), such a book would bring something new into the world. The hanging signs of Huddersfield already existed; now they have become the subject of a book. 
This might seem like a throwaway sort of claim, somewhat smart-alecky and idle. But I actually mean it with all my heart and it's one of the ideas that brings me most pleasure in the world. 
The joy I take from scanning a book of shelves and seeing that someone has written a whole book on this or that subject (which one might not have expected them to) is immense, bottomless.Within the confines of that book, the author and the reader are primarily concerned with only one thing. 
If you are reading The Hanging Signs of Huddersfield, everything else recedes into the background. World War Two is important. Dinosaurs are important. Laurel and Hardy are important. But within the covers of the book, nothing gets top billing over the hanging signs of Huddersfield. 
There is something here that penetrates to the very essence of life and reality; the magical fact that every place and every moment and every soul has its own irreducible importance.
From a post at the Irish Papist blog
**
One of my currently favourite blogs, as I mentioned recently, is Irish Papist. 
This seems to be going from strength to strength, with its quirky, buttonholing, insightful essays on... whatever takes the IP's current fancy.  
The above excerpt makes a point about specialist factual books I don't recall seeing before, that I recognised immediately as true - and which I don't think I shall quickly forget. 
A blog for browsing. 

Learning, understanding, awareness? What should Christians do in daily mortal life?

I've said elsewhere on this blog that we each need a purpose for this mortal life; and that for Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) our individual purpose in this mortal life should be "framed" by the confident expectation of  resurrection into Heaven. 

That still leaves-open the question of what we are supposed to be doing on this side of death; given that we would not be sustained alive by God unless there were reasons that were good for us - meaning eternally good for our immortal souls. 

I have expressed what we should do using the term "learning" - learning now for a "pay off" in post-mortal life; and this can be further expanded by the concepts of understanding and awareness.

(This presumes that God, by the continual action of creation, "engineers" the kind of learning-experiences that we each need, or could benefit from.)  

It seems to me evident that Christianity includes a great deal of emphasis on the positive value (and perhaps even essential nature) of understanding and awareness. 

So, it is not enough (or at least it is sub-optimal) for Men simply to experience mortal life unconsciously, passively, and without reflection - because that is unfree: such an "automatic" life does not entail the needful positive decision to align with God and work in harmony with divine creation. 

What is required then is a kind of learning that has risen to some level of understanding of what has been learned; and this understanding of what has been learned should rise to a level of awareness. 

This is what enables freedom to have its vital role. 

(And such freedom can most profoundly be understood as a bringing to bear of our own divinely creative selves - such that God's creation is expanded and enriched by the creativity of individual beings in voluntary alignment with God's aims and methods.) 

With respect to the need for understanding; it would, of course, be unrealistic (if not impossible) to suppose that we can attain anything much like a final and comprehensive understanding of this world - not least because the reality is of a world massively causally-interlinked; such that any specific understanding is bound to be deficient and distorted to some degree. 

Nonetheless, I think many will know by experience a kind of understanding that might be called an epiphany, an insight-into or showing-forth-of reality; a creative moment underpinned and endorsed by intuition. 

This seems to be close to the kind of thing we most need. 

Now, it is also essential to realize that the constraints of this mortal incarnation mean that - at least in our physical and material manifestation - this kind of epiphanic insight can be misremembered or completely forgotten in a bodily sense; we might suffer all kinds of accidents, sickness or degenerative disease. 

It would (after all) be pretty worthless if our needful spiritual learning/ understanding/ awareness depended on such fragile things as the functionality of human brain and body. 

Therefore, we must assume that true knowledge is never forgotten in a spiritual sense; that our intuitive epiphanic insights are permanently stored as part of our spiritual-person, our immortal soul.    

A further constraint that needs acknowledging is that most actual people most of the time, are "victims of" (in thrall to) their innate personality, abilities and circumstances. Such that they (we) will mostly be making bad choices and leading lives that are not just un-virtuous - but considerably more sin-full than they "ideally" might be. 

The message I get from the Fourth Gospel and other confirmations; is that this does not matter ultimately; and that a Christian life is possible for everyone capable of love, who value love most highly and who desire above all to follow Jesus to Heaven. 

Ultimately, it need not matter how weak, mean and corrupt such a person might be, or what terrible kind of life he leads. Jesus came to save (even) sinners - not perfect, nor even better-than-average Men*.  

It is crucial to note and absorb that Any bad circumstance of this world, including the self-inflicted, can be (and actually is) overcome by faith - sustained by hope and driven by love. 

But although all manner of spiritual guidance and support are available when needed; none of this happens automatically, nor can it be achieved by any external power. We cannot be "made" to live in a worthwhile way; just as we cannot be compelled to salvation. 

The crucial aspect is always in our-selves, in our freedom (properly understood as the creative agency of our real self, in chosen-alignment with the divine); and the basis of freedom includes learning, understanding, awareness. 

There is always something eternally-valuable to be learned from any person's actual life here-and-now; and/but this learning always requires to be driven primarily by the free spiritual life of each person...

Indeed by the free spiritual life of each being of any kind; since Heaven is populated by those Beings of all kinds who - after their mortal deaths - commit eternally to live primarily by Love.  

*It is not really relevant here - but I suppose that I need to comment on the fact that none of this is meant as an excuse for being selfish, sadistic, spiteful - doing evil. But the usual problem with those who do evil is that they deny that what they are doing is evil, or (nowadays, invertedly) say that the evil they are and do is good. The take home message is not that utter impossibility that we should cease from sinning, nor that "real Christians" are better (more ethical) people than others on average, nor that becoming a (real) Christians entails becoming a "better person" -- but that Christians need to acknowledge and repent the evil that they (we) inevitably do; and that (in principle) nobody is so bad in their behaviour that they cannot become a Christian. What excludes so many modern people from salvation is not that they are worse than past people in their behaviours; but that modern people Do Not Want Salvation.  

How does Melkor get to be evil in Tolkien's Silmarillion?

There is a problem in explaining the origin of Melkor's evil nature, in the creation myth Ainulindale of The Silmarillion . 

If Eru is wholly good, and if Eru was wholly responsible for creating Melkor - then Melkor's evil nature and choices must derive ultimately from Eru...

(Which apparently means that Eru is not wholly good.)

I discuss this, and some possible answers, over at the Notion Club Papers. 

The Hedonic-Therapeutic, Right-Left axis of morality

Because the assumption of modernity is that human existence is bounded by conception and death - outwith there is nothing of our-selves - therefore the morality is one based upon living human experience. 

The relevant aspect of human experience adopted by modern morality (perhaps inevitably) relates to pleasure-pain - in motivational terms this is hedonic (pleasure seeking) or therapeutic (suffering avoiding). 

This roughly corresponds to what people term as Right and Left of the political spectrum - those on the Right are broadly orientated to maximizing positive and pleasurable experiences while those on the Left have a more therapeutic stance - in that their ultimate justification is the relief of negative experiences, alleviation of suffering. 

And this is why the Left sees itself as a higher morality than the Right - in that therapeutic alleviation of suffering is seen as more sophisticated, altruistic, compassionate etc - than trying to create as much positive emotionality as possible.

The Right sees our finite life as something we should make the most of (for ourselves and - some- others; the Left as something we should get through with the least misery (for ourselves perhaps, but mainly justified in terms of therapy for others). 

All this is bizarre and incoherent and unfounded as a basis for "morality" - but that is what we've actually got. 

Why does Western/ Globalist ruling ideology have no name?

It has often been noticed that the morality, ethical system, ideology; that rules the Western world and globalist institutions Has No Name - indeed it will acknowledge no name for itself as valid.

It is typically atheistic, materialist, politically leftist, totalitarian in aspiration etc etc - but the most powerful and pervasive ideology of recent generations does not attempt to describe itself, and will mock or muddle any attempt to do so. 

This is rooted in the reality that the dominating ideology is oppositional - so that it does not have an essence; and that what-it-opposes (i.e. ultimately God and divine creation, in all manifestations) cannot be acknowledged; or else the evil-affiliated nature of our world leadership class would become explicit. 

In sum: the true name of the dominating W/G ideology is "evil" - which is The Reason that it has no acknowledged name.

So most people, and all people who deny the reality of God and divine creation, live in a state of perpetual confusion and perplexity with respect to what has happened and where we are going.

Any possible particular name for the Western/ Globalist ideology would be incomplete and misleading, would fail to capture the protean and fluid nature of an inverted morality that opposes (ultimately) all that is truly good. 

While the above describes the ultimate nature, at any given place and time (proximately) the Western/ Globalist ideology is necessarily opposing something or another; some-thing much more particular and specific...

But this thing can and will change according to context and expediency, and there is not positive and coherent logic behind its multiple and shifting oppositions. 

Last week there it was pacifist, today and here it is warmongering; a few months ago it was passionately environmentalist but before that it had been implementing massive and lasting radioactive environmental contamination; once upon a time it was aggressively feminist but lately its long-term policies ensure increased violence-against and rape-of of women.

And so on... 

No mystery, no paradox, not any kind of self-contradiction is involved here: That is the nature of what we are dealing-with, for the simple reason that that is the nature of evil.  

 

Reversing death, or resurrection? What Jesus did with Lazarus wasn't "a miracle"

Jesus was a prolific miracle worker - but far from unique in that. He was also a remarkable healer, but far from unique in that. 

Most accounts of Jesus's miracles put the raising of Lazarus at the pinnacle of achievement and note that it was this action which brought upon him the implacable hostility of the official Jewish priesthood. 

But most accounts fail to understand the qualitative distinction between miracles of healing, food production etc - and what happened to Lazarus. 

This is missed because the raising of Lazarus is presented as if it was "merely" a reversal of a recent death - which might be framed as an extreme form of miracle; whereas it was instead the first example and public demonstration of resurrection. 

Nobody had ever resurrected anyone before, because it was something that only Jesus could do. 

Jesus's Father, i.e. God the primary creator, did not and could not resurrect anybody ever; which was why Jesus's incarnation and work was necessary if Heaven was to be possible. 

A miracle is something done to the world; but the raising of Lazarus was something Jesus did with him. 

Lazarus could be resurrected because he loved Jesus, knew Jesus was divine; and therefore was led by Jesus through death to life everlasting.

Lazarus was the first Man to die who fulfilled the conditions that Jesus described* as necessary for resurrected eternal life.  

The distinction is between a Lazarus brought back to mortal life, temporarily - but destined to die like everybody else...

Or on the other hand, a Lazarus who has died mortally and desired to be transformed to eternal resurrected life; to become fully a Son of God, and the first potential inhabitant of Heaven. 

The first inhabitant of Heaven was Jesus himself, he made Heaven possible and then actual. But after his resurrection Lazarus was ready and able to ascend to Heaven, at any time.  

So the raising of Lazarus ought not to be considered "a miracle" - rather it was a public demonstration of what Jesus came to do for all Men who desired resurrection and who loved and followed him.  

*From the IV Gospel: As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name... God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned... He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life...  I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die... That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.