Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 4

The evil propaganda of metaphysical personal insignificance

When looking back across what is known of human history; it is notable that whatever was the official and established religion of the past, and whatever is the atheistic materialism of the present - almost all of them share a fundamental, metaphysical, assumption that individual people are insignificant in the context of total reality. 

All these systems of religion or ideology seem to be united in an insistence that individual human beings cannot make any difference to the Big Picture in the Long Term.

Nonetheless, despite that individuals make no difference whatever they think/ say/ do - the conclusion is drawn that it is a sin, or dumb, or an insane delusion - but certainly a Bad Thing - if or when an individual believes that he does or can make a difference to eternal reality. 

What is recommended of each individual is always to recognize and accept his own ultimate insignificance; and therefore to strive for something like humility, servitude, obedience, self-abnegation. 

Despite vast differences between religions, and between religion and no-religion, and between ideologies - it is striking how they all nearly-always converge on this same assertion: 

"Ultimately, you don't matter. You need to accept this as a fact, and live accordingly."

So many millennia of anti-individual propaganda, hammering down on us throughout our lives, is indirect evidence that we have contrary innate, spontaneous, and instinctual conviction that we are personally significant, and we do matter as individuals; and that what we think, say and do can makes a difference to the Big Picture - and permanently. 

And that this difference may be positive. 

There is, I suggest, an inbuilt assumption that we personally and alone can potentially make total-reality Better. 

I don't think we need persuading of this, because it is a given. 

But we do need some kind of metaphysical explanation of how this could be true...*

(i.e. An explanation of just how I personally could contribute something unique, irreplaceable, and positive; to eternal reality.)

We need this especially; given that all the society-wide and available metaphysical explanations of history seem to be dedicated to explaining how we personally are necessarily insignificant, and therefore cannot make any difference to reality...

(Or - maybe - explaining that, by believing in our personal significance and trying to contribute positively, we will necessarily be doing wrong, and making matters worse.)

* An explanation of how it is true that we personally and alone can potentially contribute something positive, unique and eternal to divine creation; is a thing that my metaphysical assumptions and Christian theology intends to accomplish: to my own satisfaction, at least!

The World War II Bomber Mafia nearly lost the war for Britain - an early instance of parasitic bureaucratic delusion

The West in 2025 is replete with parasitic bureaucratic delusions - such as the CO2 climate psychosis, antiracism and xenophilia, feminism, pseudo-healthism and so on - which each weaken, and together will probably destroy, our nations and civilization.  

An early example of the parasitic bureaucratic delusion phenomenon was the Bomber Doctrine which led to the Bomber Mafia - which in World War II dominated the thinking of Winston Churchill and those with strategic control of the UK military. 

In brief; the Bomber Doctrine was that long-range bombing could win a major war, by destroying the enemy's capacity to wage war and creating a state of national chaos - after which the Army could simply "walk in" and take-over. The Navy was consigned to a very minor role altogether. 

This hypothesis (it was hardly even that - more of a story, scenario, set-of-assertions) was warmly received after the years of mass-slaughterous infantry stalemate in the First World War; and the Bomber Doctrine became the basis for the continued-existence and expansion of the RAF. 

Unless you have read some of the things said in the years leading up to WWII and even during that war, you probably could not believe the extent to which it was seriously argued that strategic bombing was, by itself, sufficient to win the war with Germany. 

Arguing that, for instance, Fighter Command was not necessary - was indeed a waste of resources that should be directed into building more and bigger bombers. 

If it had not been for the foresight, ability, character and intransigence of Hugh Dowding (in charge of Fighter Command leading up to the war); Britain would undoubtedly have lost the Battle of Britain.  

Bomber Command even regarded the 1944 invasion of France and Western Europe as a needless waste of resources that they could better have used - and strongly opposed D-Day, tried not to cooperate with planning - but were eventually compelled into reluctant cooperation. 

The appeal of the Bomber Doctrine in WWII Britain, especially in the early half of the war - was that it clamed and promised (and the word promise is literally true) that Strategic Bombing would win the war, without need for an invasion of Europe, on its own, and despite Britain's Army being outmatched by the German Army - if only the bombing could become large enough in scale.

Therefore the Bomber Doctrine had an apparently irresistible appeal to those who were determined that Britain could and should destroy Germany and retake Europe - from its position of besieged isolation. 

The consequence was that - in practice - everything possible should be sacrificed to the bombing imperative. Whatever the national emergency or military crisis, for believers in the Doctrine and their supporters; the answer was always the same: more bombers, more strategic bombing. 

The Bomber Mafia fought, with considerable success - to suck resources from all the other branches of the RAF; and from the Army and Navy in general. 

Indeed it has been estimated (it is hard to be exact, but this is not implausible) that the total resources consumed by RAF Bomber Command during WWII were greater than the entirety of the rest of the armed forces put-together - i.e. greater than the British Army, Royal Navy, RAF Fighter Command, and RAF Coastal Command, combined. 

And that this was largely responsible for the national debt that delayed UK recovery from the war for so much longer than anywhere else.    

As it was, Britain very nearly lost the war in early 1943 by severance of the absolutely vital ship-borne supplies - ie. defeat by the U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. It seems that the nation came very close to collapse - it was a real emergency, for those not blinded by the Doctrine*.  

What is horrifying to me is that this near-loss was preventable; and had been caused by the domination and intransigence of the Bomber Mafia, and the psychological hold the Bomber Doctrine had on Churchill - and those responsible for the allocation of resources and priorities between the various competing demands of the war effort.  

With the escalating U-Boat threat; air cover was essential to successfully defending naval convoys. This was perfectly possible - but until late in 1943, Coastal Command was starved of resources and aircraft by the insatiable maw of Bomber Command - which took nearly-all of the suitable escort and anti-submarine aircraft, and all of the best aircraft. 

What was needed was a very long range four-engined aircraft that could provide air-cover across the whole Atlantic; and it was well within technological capabilities to provide such machines quickly and in large numbers; and thereby protect the vital convoys. 

But the Bomber Mafia fought bitterly and tirelessly to keep all such aircraft for its own allegedly war-winning effort - and were, overall, supported in this by Churchill. 

(Eventually Coastal Command got sufficient Very Long Range Liberator aircraft to provide full air-cover, hunt and destroy the U-Boats, and win the Battle of the Atlantic.) 

My point here is that the very-nearly war-losing and delusionally-false Bomber Doctrine was never more than a purely-hypothetical, un-tested and un-evidenced, dreamed-up narrative.

But it was a make-believe tale that was adopted and sustained by a powerful bureaucracy - which "sold" the idea to those who wanted it to be true - for whatever various reasons of their own. 

Once the Bomber Doctrine was established and psychologically-accepted, and the Bomber Mafia had become entrenched and powerful - then logic, evidence, even the imminence of national collapse - could not dent it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was a psychosis, that fuelled a parasite (the Bomber Mafia), which all-but annihilated the nation that hosted it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was, then, a literal psychosis - and one that (at least) twice very-nearly lost Britain the war - and by bankrupting the nation, lost us the peace that followed - but this made literally zero difference to its proponents... Except to increase their fanatical zeal.

The analogy with our present situation is obvious. 

Nothing short of the actual collapse of the nation and civilization will stop the delusional bureaucratic parasites from their work of destruction. 

And looking-out from the ruins, upon the chaos they helped cause - still they will never admit that they were wrong all along.

*Bomber Command seemed unable to grasp even that they themselves needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic in order to function. Britain imported all her oil and petrol by ship, without which bombers would - obviously - be unable to fly! Yet such was the delusional nature of their thinking that simple self-interest could not overcome it... Again this psychotic incoherence is something seen in analogous bureaucratic situations, here-and-now. 

  

The problem of self-justifying ethical systems

It is a matter of frequent observation that during the era of modernity - i.e. for the past several hundred years - that there has been a continual pressure to change ("reform") generally-applicable religious moral systems in ways that conform to a need for people to justify their own personal and specific desires and pleasures.

Most often the impulse is sexual. 

I could not count the number of twentieth century political figures, intellectuals, and authors; whose anti-Christian atheism has been (more or less explicitly) motivated by their desire to have systemic-justification for their own sexual desires. 

(The same applies to other, non-sexual, preferences. It is quite normal and unremarked, for people to argue from their own preferences to the conclusion that everybody and everything be organized-around their gratification. But sex and sexuality is the commonest and most obvious example.)

At first this was a desire for extra-marital sex, then for (a lot of) promiscuous sex, later for same sex relationship, then for changing sex and all the rest of it. But whatever the personal desire happened to be in an individual - this was linked to a general demand that social/ civilizational ethical codes and moral values be altered to endorse it positively. 

This kind of systemic self-justifying morality is so "normal" in our era, that it seems (somehow) admirable to the modern mind (as well as supposedly inevitable) that people will advocate and propagandize to encourage society to allow/ encourage/ subsidize their personal sexual aspirations. 

This powerful desire for societal - indeed civilizational- ethical systems to permit/ approve/ enforce one's personal sexual (or other) preferences has become the almost unquestioned basis for a good deal of organized radical politics for many decades. 

And yet; such an attitude is both very unusual in world historical terms. 

It is also, and  would have thought very obviously, an incoherent and unsustainable way of developing social ethical frameworks! 

In the past it seems to have been normal for those who devised societal ethical systems to construct them on the basis of what they supposed to be "the general good" - albeit that the "general" was typically restrictively defined, to almost entirely the ruling class, priestly class, or whoever had greatest influence on societal morality. 

Individual desires were (at least among the powerful) accommodated by "hypocrisy" - in other words, those who gratified desires deemed unethical by the general system; nonetheless supported the general system - on the simple basis that: the general morality was best for most of the people (i.e. people who mattered) for most of the time and over the longer run.  

But here-and-now, it is usual and normative for an individual person - but particularly the intellectual class - to reason that because he personally has a particular sexual desire; therefore society ought to be restructured to accommodate and enforce the fulfilment of that desire. 

Personal preference is projected into the demand for social norms to be built-around it. 

This goes with a fanatical hatred of hypocrisy, regarded as The Worst of ethical transgressions - which increasingly permeates literature and the arts from the late 19th century. 

Such that it is now regarded as much better for someone to be openly and explicitly cynical, selfish, even evil - and explicitly to advocate a low standard (or even inverted) morality; than to express belief in the rightness of high moral values, but then fail to achieve them. 

Consequently the anti-hero, a selfish, cynical (but charismatic) villain who does whatever he desires and takes whatever he fancies - is the admired character in modern cultural productions. 

Whereas anyone who espouses high moral standards (higher standards than he personally can achieve) will be portrayed as boring, coercively-authoritarian, coldly cruel - and he invariably gets exposed as a vile hypocrite before the end. 

Such has been the inversional-denouement of most mainstream, popular, and (especially) critically-admired TV, movies and novels for several generations. 

It is a bizarre but stark reality of Western Civilization here-and-now that the primacy of general morality over personal gratification has become so very enfeebled as to be almost ineffectual. 

And instead the dominant societal ethic has become one in which it is explicitly argued that gratification of individual sexual desires (of one sort or another) ought necessarily and always to be the basis for general, societal, ethical systems*. 

However... Does it really need to be pointed-out that maximizing a multitude of selfish short-termist sexual desires is - and surely obviously? - a reliable recipe for social annihilation?  

Self-justifying ethical systems are clearly a blueprint for cumulative moral destruction. 

Yet it is remarkable how seldom that surely-destructive consequences of self-justifying ethical systems have been noticed or acknowledged by the most influential commentators of the past few generations...

On the other hand; sex is very far from being the only example when obviously and necessarily destructive consequences of their moral projects are invisible to mainstream intellectuals!  

Which facts tell me that the the mass of the most prestigious and powerful intellectuals of The West, have been (for a long time, and continuing) actively promoting degenerative social destruction, and are therefore (whether witting or unwitting) allies and servants of the demonic party.

This blind or wilful mass servitude to the agenda against God, Divine Creation and The Good; is something we ought continually to bear in mind when we consume the outputs of officialdom, mass media, news, science, the arts, education - and everywhere else that intellectuals are employed.

Especially whenever we suspect that general moral systems are being pushed on the basis of self-justification. 

Because I think the problem lies with a rather specific moral weakness of intellectuals as a class; which is a burning desire for ethical self-justification - at almost any cost.  

*I am here pointing out the evil of self-justifying ethical systems. But this destructive fallacy would not have arisen to dominate had it altogether lacked moral appeal; had there not been significant and oppressive evils in the previously-existing justifications and implementations of group morality - sufficient that these could seem intolerable. 

Such that a return from where-we-now-are to pre-modern morality is not just unattainable but undesirable. 

As so often; both alternatives presented by modern culture for our choice are bad; although the pre-modern is certainly the lesser evil. 

My inference is therefore that we are each required to discover a third - and genuinely good - alternative; and I observe that society does not offer us any genuine alternative ready-made. 

Therefore; moral exploration and discernment is something that each must do for himself. 

Saturday music: Some Irish reels on flute, by Kevin Crawford

I have a particular fondness for Irish reels* and jigs played on the flute; and this is an exceptionally good example of the genre - played by Kevin Crawford and backed by Bodhran (drum) and Guitar: the tunes are Dillon's Fancy, Maids in the Meadow & Toss the Feathers. 

I find Crawford's playing here to be irresistible; almost miraculous in its rapidity and accuracy, the decorations and emphasis - and the way that the necessary breathing is integrated into the rhythm - usually as off-beats which add a kind of syncopation. 

The flute tone is also rich and pleasing - especially the low notes.  

*A reel is a fast folk tune, in 4/4 time with lots of quavers, originally for dancing - but nowadays more often for listening (hence played even faster than when for dancing).

Is Everything a Total Fake?

It is an interesting and significant fact, that major-controlling institutions in our totalitarian Western society often tolerate - and indeed fund and publicise - books, TV, movies, and social commentary; the arguments of which categorically assert that Everything in public discourse is a Fake - and, in the most uncompromising versions - always has been a Fake, through history.
The expounded idea is that official and mass media narratives are (in general) pure illusion, based on nothing at all; an eggshell of false narrative enclosing a void of real life content. 

At the most extreme level, the "Everything a Fake" people seem to be saying that "nothing ever happened" - at least nothing that was said officially to have happened. They are suggesting that public discourse has always been pure illusion.  


With individual exceptions - this is not generally true, especially not as we go further back into eras in which the mass media and state propaganda systems were smaller and less effective.
I feel confident that "Everything has always been a Fake" is not true, from the big changes in increasing fakery that I have experienced through my lifespan, and by the obvious acceleration of such trends through the 1990s and into the 21st century. 
If Fakery has got so much worse in living memory, then clearly things were less faked in the past. 

Also, we know that Total Fakery isn't the norm from the huge efforts that The System invests to make things happen. 
This would not be the case if it was normal and expected to manufacture significant fakes from zilch. Important fakes aren't built on nothing, for the obvious reason that then they would be less effective. 
We all know that lies mixed with facts are much more convincing than complete fabrications.  
When fakery incorporates real aspects of actual events; fakes are far more difficult to disentangle and thereby disprove outright - hence far more convincing to the credulous and inattentive majority. 
What (in general) happened in the past was that underlying events were essentially real (albeit much more often contrived by the authorities than realized at the time); but the truth of reality was exaggerated, or twisted by fakery, in order to manipulate public opinion. 
The incremental trend (especially over the past several generations) was both for fakery to become more dominant; and for the underlying real events to become more top-down contrived. 

For instance, the 2020 Birdemic was very nearly a Total Fake; in that it was invented, planned, and implemented top-down - and some "evidential" aspects were Total Fakes (e.g. things that had not happen were theatrically staged and filmed). 
But as a total phenomenon; the Birdemic incorporated many real world actions and events - and the consequences of pseudo-therapeutic interventions (e.g. extra deaths caused by supposedly anti-Birdemic medico-social changes) - into its pre-determined narrative. 
Eventually; there resulted a hyper-complex and deliberately-confused mass of many inventions, illusions and lies - built-upon and mixed-with a few factual realities. 
Consequently; we know for sure that the official narratives are all false and deliberately misleading; but it can never be known what actually happened minus the Fakery. 

The lesson is that although some small things are indeed a Total Fake, most important lies will interweave real facts and events. 
Which does not, of course, mean that there is "some truth" in (for instance) the Birdemic, the CO2 Climate narrative, or the current top-down imposition of AI; because events and facts are not truth. 
We must learn to distinguish between facts and truth: facts only have meaning when interpreted by theory. 
Thus, when theory is false and dishonest, then "real facts" can only serve to sustain a false and dishonest understanding. 

In sum: all the major strategies of the global totalitarians are fundamentally and intentionally false - despite their not being total fakes; and despite whatever correct facts and real events are woven into them.
Total Fakery is not the real problem - which is why people are encouraged (officially!) to entertain the idea of Total Fakes at such length, and in such detail. 
It is intentional untruthfulness in service to evil intent, that is the real problem.         
 

Seeking an external, socio-political, cure for modern alienation

Like many people I began to feel alienated, cut-off, "trapped inside my head", from other people and from nature, at the onset of adolescence. 

And I sought some, at least theoretical, way of relieving this chronic state of dysphoria. Something better situation that I could look forward to. 

Up to the age of about nineteen, I pinned my hopes on socio-political change. 

It was Karl Marx who seemed to have popularized this idea of alienation as a socio-political phenomenon; due, ultimately, to class economic disempowerment. And the idea that alienation both could and should be cured by wholesale communist revolutionary societal change.  

As an adolescent; I implicitly agreed with this basic analysis. I saw the problem in The World (not myself). However, I was never a revolutionary communist. 

Nonetheless I saw the answer in socialism: either in a gradualistic Fabian socialism that would free everyone by abolishing poverty and providing universally decent and stimulating conditions. Or, more deeply, in a socialism of the William Morris type - a medievalism that fitted with my yearnings for Middle Earth, and what seemed like the paradisal societies there depicted. 

In sum - I looked outside myself and to society at large for the answer to my personal alienation. My implicit idea was that if society in general could be set right, then I personally would feel engaged with "the world" in the ways that I most hoped for. 

My impression is that this external and socio-political solution is where most people stand on the issue of alienation, most of the time; in so far as they are at all aware of it in themselves.

(This is, indeed, a deep reason why so many people are so engaged by politics; why for so many politics provides their bottom-line motivation; why ideology has replaced religion in The West. People are not just seeking different social arrangements, but more profoundly there is a hope that such arrangements will alleviate their post-adolescent estrangement and assuage their yearnings to participate in reality.) 

I mean that most people never get further than seeking a cure for their inner malaise in some hoped-for societal reform or revolution. 

But aged nineteen I changed my perspective; and changed it to one that saw the answer in terms of my own consciousness; my attitude to the world; how I understood reality, framed it, my aspirations and attitudes. 

This perspective I adopted is one that seems to have been initiated partly by the failure of politics; and then by reading several key books -- including Michael Tippet's Moving into Aquarius (which led onto CG Jung), Colin Wilson's The Outsider, and the early few chapters (written or much influenced by Wilson) of William Arkle's A Geography of Consciousness. 

Over the following years this led onto all sorts of other books of a very broadly "New Age" kind - but it is important to note that I remained an atheist (as I had been since age six); or at most perhaps an abstract kind of pantheist. 

In particular, I did not believe this reality was created - and especially not by a personal God. 

So, in practice, my perspective throughout "young" adult life was - at its bottom line - psychological; in other words the desired change of consciousness was something that needed to come from physical/ material changes in the minds and brains of myself and (plus/minus) other human beings.  

In sum, and in terms of an answer to alienation; aged about nineteen, I moved from seeking a bottom-line societal, to seeking a bottom-line psychological answer to this problem. 

And the answer was necessarily understood in terms of improving my own "happiness" primarily, the happiness of others I cared about secondarily, within the span of this mortal life - because mortal life was all that really-is.  

After a few years of approaching and circling the matter; it was only at the age of forty-nine that I fully began to seek the answer to alienation in spiritual and other-worldly terms; made possible after becoming convinced that reality was created by a personal God. 

In seeking a cure for alienation in the assumption of an individually-relevant purpose and meaning in life; I came to see that this made objective sense (that is a sense that rises above the subjective level of wishful thinking or delusion) - in a universe created by a personal and loving God. 

It is within that context I now sought a cure for alienation - and eventually found it in the resurrection promise of Jesus Christ. 

My current understanding is (ultimately) neither socio-political nor psychological but instead spiritual. 

I believe that alienation is part of the human condition in this mortal life; which life God intends to be a transitional and learning stage of our eternal existence, a phase en route to Heaven. 

We cannot escape this-worldly alienation in this mortal life, except partially and temporarily, because this is the primary creation in which entropy and evil are mixed, and permeate our-selves.

In that sense this mortal life on earth is by its nature (and considered alone, as if free-standing) something of a tragedy, that cannot be cured within its own limits. And that is why decades of seeking and striving failed to fin an answer. The was no answer to be had. 

But because I regard mortal life as a temporary phase; I can confidently look forward to a complete answer to my alienation - which answer is that full, active and conscious participation in the divine work, in context of mutual love untainted by death and evil - on the other side of death; in the Second Creation of Jesus Christ. 

Reading mainstream Christian theology nowadays, I am amazed I converted!

I have just been reading an exposition of mainstream Christian theology - the theology common to Western and Eastern Catholics and the major Protestant denominations; and I am struck by how it nowadays strikes me as utterly unsatisfactory - being over-inclusive; and consequently incoherent, and evasive. 

It would really have repelled me from becoming a Christian, had I realized that I was signing-up to commit-to believe in such stuff.

From my current understanding, the deep problem seems to be at least twofold:

One is recurrently trying to fit Christianity into oneness philosophy - which leads to a recurrent compulsion to talk of unity as our aspiration and ultimate goal; and thereby to dissolve away individuality, freedom, evil, and indeed Time.  

The other is trying to make Christianity into a this-worldly religion, suitable for incorporation in a church, a method for improving human behaviour, and to serve as the basis for a nation. 

Part of this was making Christianity into an historical religion, provided with an arc either of spiritual decline or spiritual progress. And a this-worldly end-point - including a "second coming" of Jesus. 

   

By trying to provide for too much, Christian theology ends-up making itself into a species of abstract nonsense. 

Whereas Jesus's teaching (as seen in the IV Gospel) is actually very simple and clear; but it is next-worldly. 

The reality of Jesus's "religion" was neither about making better-people nor a better-world - either immediately or in the long term - so the fact that this evidently did not happen, and shows no sign of happening, is not a refutation.  

Jesus offered individual people the chance to follow him to resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

It is by resurrection (by being born again) that better people are made, and it is post-mortal Heaven that is the better world - the world which Jesus actually promised. 

So really, the Christianity of Jesus Christ was next-worldly, and its societal effects on this world, are derivative from the individual consequences of personal confidence in Jesus's promises about the next world.

 

But, unsurprisingly, most people want palliation and happiness now, they demand that their religion promises a better mortal life, an improved society and civilization, they want justice on earth far more than the promise of Heaven. 

And (apparently) from soon after Jesus ascended; the theologians and philosophers have made valiant attempts to construct a "Christianity" that provides what various people, at various times, have demanded of a this-worldly religion. 

By passing itself off as this-worldly when it actually is not; and by trying to satisfy people's demands for a better mortal life and a more congenial social situation - official Christianity became bloated, distorted, and non-sensical. 

Which is a terrible shame indeed, because all this is a significant obstacle to the intellectually honest. 

I was only able to become a Christian by persuading myself that I was not thereby committed to believing everything that people officially told me - any more than in my life as a scientist and academic I was bound to believe everything written in textbooks, or indeed everything said or written by even the best in the field.

Eventually, I did find the truth in Christianity, and only in Christianity; but the real truth is of a different kind - than the this-worldly promises which I - like most people - were seeking and hoping for...

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to live a better life in a better world; but we need to be clear that at best this can only be a temporary and local palliation of the fundamental human condition. 

The lesson of Jesus Christ is that we really can have what our hearts most desire; but only on the other side of death, and only in Heaven but not on Earth.  

  

Owen Barfield's concept of participation provides the basis of what is needed for Christians, as of 2025

Owen Barfield's concept of participation provides the basis of what is needed for Christians, as of 2025 and going forward. 
Barfield assumes that participation in Divine Creation is both our nature as created beings; and also the proper aim of created beings. 
Creation is in the direction of developing participation in the direction of freely creating in greater consciousness. 
More exactly, that this is our proper aim as Christian beings who have chosen to live by love and therefore in harmony with God's creative will. 

The reason why participation is so centrally and vitally important to Christians, is that it is by participation that there is creation in the first place. 
Creation is itself (if properly understood) a matter of participation; because creation is (as all Christians acknowledge) primarily a matter of love. 
For there to be love in this "relational" and personal Christian sense; there must be distinct beings each with the capacity for loving - and then love needs to be mutually chosen.


The cohesion of divine creation should therefore be understood as an ongoing process of harmonizing the motivations of beings; harmonization through the love between beings. 
In different words; divine creation is (partly) a matter of once indifferent beings, coming to participate-in the creative direction of God's loving nature; through loving God and loving one-another. 
It is this love between Beings that is the basis of the harmony that is creation.

But divine creation is also living, dynamic, continuing, increasing... And by the Christian understanding it is God's intention that Men become fully (and divine) Sons of God; share in the work of creation, and who each contribute something unique (because from themselves), new, and additional-to creation. 
Therefore, the direction of creation is towards greater consciousness and choice among beings - towards an increasingly-active participation - which change must be freely-chosen by each being. 
That is to say; there is a change through time from a mostly passive, mostly unconscious, harmony of creation in which individuals largely serve the divine will and each does not bring much new and additional to the whole...
And towards what must necessarily be a more collegial participation in the work of creation; by which every single being that chooses to live by love, is consciously enabled to contribute that which is unique in himself and which he learns to the totality of creation.

Tolkien: Evil is not able to create anything new...

PS: Hope you all enjoyed this stolen meme...

Old Men in Shorts - versus growth in old age

A phenomenon that has swept my part of the world over the past couple of years is old men out and about on the streets and in shops, wearing shorts - or what Americans call "short pants" - ie. short trousers. 

This used to be very rare, except at the height of summer and on holiday - but nowadays, it's clear that old men have - in droves! - set aside their long trousers, and taken to wearing shorts all the time and in all seasons. 

This weirdly-misguided and counter-productive assertion of continuing youthfulness; fits with the theme of  a thought-provoking post from Francis Berger where he discusses "growing old" with an emphasis on what kind of growing this ought to entail:

"Growing old should refer to the spiritual—that we should use old age to focus on changing, developing, and expanding our spirit; on reflecting on our mortal lives and our memories; on learning lessons yet unlearned; on tying up loose ends and neglected frays from our mortal relationships; on preparing and building up our “self”, our true “self”, for resurrected life."

While the sight of superannuated codgers in cut-off trews seems like a trivial inconvenience, merely an eyesore; I have nonetheless come to regard this as symptomatic of a deep and increasing the spiritual resistance to growing old; which is one of the besetting sins of modern Western civilization. 

The reason is obvious enough; that, without a confident expectation of continued personal existence beyond death - a post-mortal life that is affected by present life; then there really is no benefit but many disadvantages in getting-old, and no viable coherent prospect of growing-old. 

The life of the modern middle-aged and elderly person (including, so far as I can tell, nearly all self-identified Christians) is then inevitably some kind of combination of an always-losing battle to remain (or seem) youthful; and a progressively-increasing terror of physical deterioration, suffering, dying, and then annihilation.