Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 54

Francis Berger on True Freedom, and its centrality to Christianity

Francis Berger has, for some time, been writing on that vital but neglected (and discredited) subject of freedom; in particular how this is absolutely foundational to Christianity. I recommend exploring his blog on this matter - maybe starting here. 

Freedom is vital to Christians because it is an opt-in religion, and one cannot meaningfully choose without freedom. This fact has often been suppressed and distorted through Christian history (e.g. by concepts of divine omniscience, and predestination) - which is why it is so important to get clear. 

Yet the nature of freedom, what freedom is; is itself something that has been badly (and wilfully) misrepresented; such that the entire debate is typically framed in such a way as to exclude real and true answers. I mean that discussions of freedom often include built-in assumptions that exclude the possibility of freedom. 

Unless we do some serious and deep thinking for ourselves, it is unlikely that we will escape these endemic and chronic confusions. And even then it will probably take a good bit of time and effort to escape the toils of misconceptions. (It certainly did in my case!)

A proper understanding of freedom opens many doors. For example, I never could understand creativity - or indeed divine creation - until after I had understood freedom. 

Even more crucially; I never could understand God, or our relationship with God, until I had grasped freedom. 

There is no more important subject. 

How long before "Trad" Christians realize that they have picked the wrong religion?

I have observed that among traditionalist or Trad Christians online, there seems to be a constant apostasy, a leaving of the faith - whether explicitly, or implicit (i.e. by a relentless focus on this-worldly and socio-political issues - including, currently, elections). 
This saddens but does not surprise me. 
As I read Trad Christians, I constantly find the question recurring: How long can it be before they realize they have picked the wrong religion? 


For some it is the monotheistic Omni-God who created everything from nothing; and who demands submission and obedience above anything else. 
Such Christians can only find an essential and defining place for the work of Jesus Christ, by regarding him as a Trinitarian aspect of the One God: so that Jesus is asserted both to be, and not to be, simultaneously a unity with the Creator and a person separate. 
But (for Trads) God's indivisible one-ness is always regarded as primary and foundational. 
How much clearer, simpler - and more honest! - simply to assert the single, oneness of God!
(And regard Jesus Christ as ultimately-inessential.)  

For other Trads; their most viscerally compelling wish is for a particular, hierarchical and patriarchal, relationship between men and women; here-and-now - in this mortal life and world. 
This is a thing that some Trad Christians apparently desire more than anything else in the world (considering that they Never Stop writing about it). 
Yet it is a situation that has never been implemented by Christianity as strongly or as thoroughly as by an already-existing and expanding other religion.

How long will it be before before the Trads abandon Christianity altogether; and join the existing major and growing world religion that already and unambiguously provides almost-exactly what they really most-want?

High-, Intermediate-, and Low-level Evil in this world

Low-level evil is the ordinary, everyday, evil exemplified by politicians, managers, journalists, doctors, professors, lawyers etc in the modern West - and by most of the passive, irresponsible, non-thinking and manipulated masses. 
Low-level evil is atheist, materialistic (disbelieving in the realms of soul and spirit), this-worldly exclusively; and devolves towards hedonistic selfishness. 
This means that the bottom-line "morality" for Low-level evil is how "I" (currently) feel about things; and how I can feel good about myself/ people/ things, and avoid suffering - whether physical, social or psychological.
In this sense; for Low-level evil "myself" is God - or takes the place of God as the bottom-line reality, because there is nothing higher or other than how I currently perceive the situation from "my" perspective.
As I implied: this morality of self-gratification is currently the normal state of values for most people in The West; and characterizes almost-all people who have some kind of leadership role, wealth, power, and high status .   
A level above this in the evil-hierarchy of this world are those who exemplify Intermediate-level evil. These are a kind-of "elite" of power and wealth (or control of resources, including military and police power) - although it seems that only some of them are famous or even known about at the lower levels. 
The Intermediate level are the Satan-worshippers, the demonic practitioners. 
Satan is their god - or, at least, the patron to whom they look for protection and favours. 
Intermediate-level evil beings may or may not believe in God as the Creator - but they do believe in the spirit realm; and they believe that this world is ruled and controlled by the devil and the demons - the powers of purposive evil. 
Consequently they are focused on appeasing and pleasing Satan* - by whatever means they regard as effective. 

High-level evil is the evil of Satan and "senior" demons. 
These at the High-level know that God is real, and they know God created this reality. They are therefore theists. 
Approaching the Highest-level of evil, therefore, the goal is partly positive: to retain creation but to take-over creation and remake it in accordance with Satan's wishes: to make Satan explicitly the sole god of this-world. 
At the very Highest-level, however; the goal is to subvert, corrupt, and eventually destroy all of creation - because God is hated, and all God's work is hated. 

So; at the Low-, Medium- and High-levels of evil; we have 
1. Self-worshippers 2. Satan-worshippers3. God-haters  


*My best guess is that there is only one Satan at a time, at the top-of the hierarchy of evil and providing its cohesion and direction. But that there may have been more-than-one Satan through history. Indeed, I think this is likely, and that the role of Satan has probably more than once been usurped  (and the first and perhaps other Satan's deposed) - given the nature of demons.  

The futility of missionary work: The main thing in avoiding damnation is Not conversion to Christianity, but that people Want the right things

As of 2024 (in The West); I am finding that whether or not a person self-identifies as A Christian (or a Christian of any particular church or denomination) is not of any practical value in establishing which side that person has taken, in the spiritual war of this world. 

Most "Christians" are nowadays (it seems to me) on the side of the powers of purposive evil, and some of those who do not call themselves Christian seem likely to be open to salvation. 

Therefore the old ideal of "conversion" has come to seem almost irrelevant - and traditional (church-membership-focused, mortal lifestyle focused) missionary, conversion and apologetic activities have become worthless, or harmful.

(Although I am sure that apologetics, missionary and conversion work was effective and valuable in the past when Men were different, and the situation was different - including the fairly recent past of a few decades ago.) 

What I look for, and most hope for, among those I love; is that they ultimately would want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - if they knew that this was a real possibility. 

And this seems to be mainly a matter of whether that person is capable of, and values above all, inter-personal love in a "creative" sense: that is, love between people (or indeed beings - e.g. potentially love of a particular animal/s, such as a pet dog, cat, horse) which is alive, dynamic, and develops - forever. 

If love is their highest value (for which other goals are willingly sacrificed), then I think such people will choose salvation when it is offered to them (after mortal death) as true, real, possible. 

In other words: Is a person's ideal to live forever in a world in which love is the ruling value?

When people call themselves Christian, and lead a devout life etc; but don't want this above all else - then I usually assume that they would not choose salvation (when it comes to the crunch) but something else. 

  

Note: Of course this all hinges on what is understood by "love" - and what is regarded as the model for the highest love. I think this is quite simple and everybody capable of love already knows it. By my understanding; the proper Christian model is the inter-personal love between members of a family (i.e. of the best imaginable family, which everyone (i.e. everyone who is capable of love) knows innately; even when he has not personally experienced it in mortal life. This is the proper model for the love of God and by God, and the love taught and modelled by Jesus Christ.  

Recommending Michael Gambon as Simenon's Maigret, 1992-3, Granada TV (And a comment on how a bad man could create a good fictional character.)

I've recently watched the two series of adaptations from Georges Simenon's Maigret stories; released in 1992-3 by the British ITV company Granada; and starring Michael Gambon as the eponymous detective.

I found these extremely enjoyable. They are excellently constructed TV plays, with good teams of actors; and Maigret as depicted by Gambon was a very decent, likeable, and impressive detective - which is (for me) a vital aspect in the enjoyment of any such series. 

The setting of 1950s Paris was strikingly convincing (although it wasn't actually Paris!); and (being made more than thirty years ago) the characters also seem of-their-time-and-place; so that I got the feeling of being transported to another world. 

**

Somewhat aside; I found it interesting that Simenon was able convincingly to create such a basically good man as Maigret - given that he was not himself such a person: at least not overall.

(...This negative evaluation of Simenon is from what I have gathered, and indeed it seems to be a general belief - I leave it to readers to explore this issue for themselves.)

How is it that a mostly-bad man (as I think Simenon was) can write an essentially-good man like Maigret? 

One answer is presumably that Simenon was, like everyone, a mixture of good and bad motivations; and he wrote Maigret from that which was good in himself - from the better part of himself. 

Another aspect is that Maigret mysteries are light literature, in a minor genre - and do not attempt to tackle the greatest or deepest matters such as the conflict of spiritual good and evil, or the nature and implications of death.

It would - I think - be impossible for Simenon to write great literature. To attain greatness an author must draw upon his deepest nature, and for his vision of reality to be essentially good, would entail that he himself was personally committed to goodness.

In other words: the work cannot be greater than the man.  

(The greatness of The Lord of the Rings is necessarily a product of Tolkien's greatness as a man; etc.) 

But a man who was fundamentally petty, greedy, dishonest, unprincipled, selfish or the like - and one who was affiliated to such values - cannot produce genuinely great work - try as he might. 

**

Note: Of course, an author or other creative artist may be good when producing a masterpiece of greatness; yet may change, may become corrupted, later - and I suggest he would then become incapable of greatness. 

Something of this kind has, I think, been the case for JK Rowling - whose Harry Potter series I regard as great (although at a lower level than Lord of the Rings). 

The Potter books (especially "Deathly Hallows") were written when she was committed to Christian metaphysics and values. 

But Rowling later rejected her former ultimately spiritual perspective; instead embracing and advocating this-worldly secular leftist values. Her post-Potter work is consequently (it seems to me) at a very much lower level. 

The strategy of evil - and how (in principle) it can be "defeated"

Evil is strategic, it has long-term plans - and these are long-term because behind evil are demons, they spirit beings, who are not mortal, and who don't need sleep. Therefore; behind evil are wills that are active 24/7 and across a timespan greater than human lives. In other words, evil can be unrelenting - when it wants to be; in a way that is impossible for humans. 

Modern Western people are materialist hence cannot understand evil, and don't believe that demons are real or possible. This is a disadvantage when it comes to understanding life, and therefore living one's life as it should be lived.   

Humans don't behave strategically, or only seldom and partially. Most people, most of the time, simply adjust to (take for granted) whatever strategy is governing their lives. They look to be successful, happy or whatever within... whatever context is given. 

For instance; nearly all modern Western people are unaware of, indifferent to, or lazily misinterpret their leaders' recent and current activity of long-term, step-by-step, purposively engineering a global and maximally-annihilative war to include their own nations. People may be very concerned by micro-issues (such as the "climate-destroying" usage of a plastic covering to laminate paper notices) - but unconcerned or disbelieving that the contextual, ongoing, strategic intent is to unleash mass destruction in their direction ASAP. 

Modern people have been systematically degraded on multiple fronts - by alienation; passivity of expectations; PSYOPS confusions, contradictory ideology and statements; by praising and encouraging negative, destructive and sinful motivations; and maximizing addiction to mass and social media - and many other things. We are unhealthy; damaged, disordered, distorted, disorientated... all to an unprecedented degree. 

The means operate in support of the ultimate end of corruption; which is at the deepest level of false and destructive metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality, themselves, and the relationship - the purpose and meaning of life.  

All this (and more could be said) seems to make evil so powerful that our situation is hopeless... 

Yet Christians know that - in principle, from first assumptions - this cannot be true; because God is the Creator, and we are each a beloved child of God. 

So, we can be sure that our life will have potential for ultimate salvation, and potential for positive learning - for as long as we are sustained alive.  

But how can this work - given the vast and sleepless strategies of evil? 

It seems hopeless only in terms of the double-negative life purpose of resisting evil.  

My current best answer is therefore to frame the question in positive terns: asking what is the basis within each of us, from-which we can each pursue good?

And we can then assume that we each have within us a core self, untouchable and uncorrupted, with sufficient innate divine nature (being God's children), and sufficient capacity for receiving divine guidance (from the Holy Ghost - who is Jesus Christ). 

We cope with evil by comparing and evaluating whatever The World throws at us, with the ongoing transcendent purposes of this core self. 

When the core is (overall) orientated towards good; then the quantity, strength and variety of evil is a nuisance, maybe a horror; but cannot drive us off-course for long, or in the end. 

So long as we locate our aspirations within this self, and no matter our many and inevitable sins, errors and lapses; and because God is creating from love of us -- when we have chosen to be on God's side then nothing can touch us - not even the world-dominating power of sleepless strategic evil. 

Evil is a preference: a choice - and so is Good (contra- or pro-creation)

Many Christians have for many centuries wanted to be able to argue that evil was an insane unjustifiable irrationality. That it made no sense. That the only thing which did make sense was to live in obedience, and conform to the single reality that is God's creation - in the strongest possible sense that there is nothing else but God's creation. So, to be evil is to reject the only reality. 

One important half-truth behind the "relativistic" ideology of the dominant West-Globalist secular Leftism, relates to its rejection of this traditional "objective" Western Christian conceptualization of good and evil as reality versus anti-reality. 

For traditional Christianity - as (I understand) for Judaism and Islam - Good was theologically conceptualized as bound-up with God as the sole source of creation (God created everything from nothing); therefore Evil was conceptualized as objectively irrational, because it is against everything. 

Good was therefore conceptualized primarily in terms of conformity to God. 

With this scheme, there was no positive role for Man's freedom and agency except to submit to the divine order; because there is nothing except the divine order. 

There is only one coherent choice for each Man, for each Beings, in such a scheme - which is to choose allegiance to God - thus all evil is necessarily incoherent and insane*. 

Against this the false-half-truth ideology of secular Leftism proposes some version of "relativism", of the non-objectivity of values -- which is calibrated against the bottom line "hedonic" assumption that mortal life is the only life, and that the values of mortal life are therefore (merely) means towards the end of maximizing happiness and/or minimizing suffering. 

In other words, by this account, truth is whatever happens to make me most happy (or those I care about) over some timescale that I prefer - whether immediate happiness, or some kind of predictive happiness ranged over some future span. 

The more recent conceptualization that swaps happiness for the double negative-freedom-from-suffering , works the same way. Truth is just expediency with respect to minimizing suffering on a timescale from now, to some variably longer span. 

But relativism is itself incoherent for many reasons, as has been known since antiquity. It has no basis for asserting its own validity. 

And, after all, why is it assumed to be better to experience happiness and avoid suffering? Supposing I, or somebody else, says the opposite - then that is as true or untrue; and the choice between inverses depends on some utilitarian prediction of the consequences. In practice it is facile to argue that suffering now leads to happiness later - or the opposite; and the wrangling never stops unless coercively imposed!

If there are no objective values and all opinions are equally valid; then this assumption, and all other values, can be inverted - for any reason, or for no reason.

Yet relativism - in a soft and short-termist sense - clearly has some kind of powerful and lasting appeal when measured (as it is) against the "traditional Christian" version of values as objective, impersonal, and therefore a matter of submissive obedience to what is asserted to be the nature of reality. 

I think the element of truth in relativism is embedded in an individual intuition that a moral system which utterly downgrades "my" individual conscious human to (near-) irrelevance, cannot be right. 

When morality is made utterly objective, nothing to do with me - it becomes simple tyranny. 

Surely real, spiritually-compelling, mortality must be something that is in each of us, from each of us - and not just a thing "out there"? 

Surely we must be able to choose our values, or else they aren't values? 

And surely our choice depends on what each of us is by nature and wants most; on what each of us regards as good - and surely this is the primary moral act? 

We are confronted by reality - and (on the basis of our specific personal nature) we must and shall choose what will be our overall attitude to that reality?  

From this perspective, good does not feel like a wholly external reality, and evil does not feel irrational or incoherent; but both and either a choice rooted in what we personally most want among various possibilities. 

Then; whether we want it here-and-now, or want it in the long-term (a long-term that potentially might extend to eternity).  

So - In mainstream culture, we are apparently confronted with two incoherent and therefore false alternatives: the "Christian" supposedly being an objective and impersonal morality in which individual discernment has no positive function. 

Or there is a nihilistic fatalism where there are no values, but only an unbounded choices between arbitrary individual preferences - presumably based on the fluctuations of current feelings and emotions. In practice, the choice between-relativistic moralities seems to hinge on relative differences in the power to coerce and deceive, desire to belong to particular groups, and the like.    

My conclusion is that both alternatives should be rejected because incoherent hence false; and the truth needs to be sought in some other scheme of things. 

The truth embedded in relativism is that it is possible, rational and coherent that some people (and other beings) can and would choose to reject God and divine creation; would choose Not to affiliate to God's hopes and plans. 

And that rejection is the essence of evil. 

This rejection is a choice rooted in the fact that although we all are created Beings, are indeed Children of God; we are not entirely so - and we each and all "contain" aspects of that primordial self from-which we were created - and these primordial selves are each unique. 

Some primordial selves are less able (or perhaps unable) to love, or maybe the love is present but very weak and a low priority compared with other desires. 

Therefore, when confronted by God's creation which is rooted in love and aims at a reality of love; there are some beings who reject that vision - and who are therefore evil.

(So, I am defining good and evil by either affiliation to God's creative will and plans - rooted in love - or else the active rejection of that, for any reason. 

(There is also, I believe, a theoretical possibility of a wholly passive and personal declining to join the work of creation - a simple opting-out; without any attack on creation or any attempt to persuade others to reject God. Just a cosmic "no thanks" and a reversion to unconscious unawareness in isolation. If this happened, we would not know anything about it except that a being would "disappear" from creation.) 

As I said, some Christians (and others) want to be able to state that this rejection is incoherent, irrational, illogical - and that evil is objectively-impersonally wrong. 

They want to say that evil is: Just wrong without reference to any consciousness of any Being. 

But I would say that the objectivity of the wrongness of evil derives from the fact that by rejecting actual divine creation rooted in love, an evil Being ultimately places itself against creation as such. 

To be against creation is not relativistic; it is an objective fact about a Being's relationship with God and divine creation. 

Thus values are not subjective, nor are they objective - values are about a relationship. 

Evil is not a "mistake" of itself; but is a choice. There may be a mistake in terms of an evil Being wrongly predicting the consequences of rejecting God, rejecting love, rejecting creation...

But the error is not a logical one. Its more a matter of getting what you asked for, but not liking it when you've got it. 

*(Why it is possible for Men, or anything, to reject the divine order? If the theology says that such a choice is incomprehensibly insane, then where could this desire comes from in the first place except from God Himself?  This logical incoherence has never been clearly explained; and indeed it cannot be made coherent. Because because if God created absolutely everything that exists, then the desire to resist God must ultimately have been created by God Himself - as must all evil. Saying that God gave men Free Will does not answer this - because agency can only operate using the materials provided by God, which must mean that God made the evil in the first place, for evil to be choose-able. Yet for Christians, specifically, God is known and said to be wholly Good - so how (for a Christian) could a wholly good God provide evil for free will to be choose-able? My answer (in brief) is that God is wholly Good, and did not make evil - because God did Not make everything from nothing; but instead created using pre-existent Beings; some/most/ all of whom were capable of evil by their primordial nature. Thus evil has always been present in reality - and God is creatively working towards Goodness.) 

Do Not reject the enemy's ideology wholesale: Seek the truth behind totalitarian-Leftist distortions

A trap devised by the powers of purposive evil is for Christians (and others) to reject the core agenda of evil, the Litmus Tests, outright and in total - and to develop a counter-ideology on that basis. 

This is obvious across the board, and began with economic socialism (the basis of old-style communism and Fabianism) being opposed by "libertarianism". Another example is when feminism is opposed by supposedly traditional demands for the socio-political submission of women as being inferior beings; or an analogous counter-ideology to antiracism. 

This is a trap because all effective Leftism contains some truth - else it would have zero traction and could not motivate support. Therefore if it is wholesale rejected, then some aspect of motivated and inspiring truth will also be rejected - and the consequence must be that the counter-ideology is a significant distortion of Good, that is significantly evil. 

This makes the counter-ideology significantly false and evil; which is evident to any honest person, and is responsible for a sense of revulsion among sincere and honest Christians when it comes to so much that purports to be reactionary and traditionalist. 

The problem is that such distorted and dishonest outright rejection and reaction with respect to Leftist strategies, is pretty much forced upon resistance to Leftism; forced by the demands of rhetoric and the attempt to shape group opinion and action in the public realm. 

There is no nuance in effective politics: when politics is not simple, then it does not work...

The trap is that in politics nuanced resistance is ineffectual; but simple rejection is false, hence evil. 

So much the worse for politics!

And it is vital to grasp that The Left here-and-now owns and dominates the public realm; has leadership of all major social institutions of all kinds. 

The Left therefore structures public discourse and group action on a large scale. To fight Leftism on those battle-grounds, is to to be located exactly where They want You to be. 

When any person or group rejects any Leftist strategy outright in the public realm, be sure that they are either being herded into a cauldron to be annihilated; or else groomed into developing a different kind of evil - to serve the demonic agenda. 

This is why the attempt to meet and defeat the globally hegemonic Leftist Totalitarianism on its own ground is both pragmatically-ineffective and (when believed) spiritually-corrupting.  

If we are to pursue a genuinely Good agenda in opposition to the ruling-evil; we need to be able to set-aside the practicalities of propaganda and public persuasion, and group organization and action; and get things clear in our own minds, as tested against the discernment of our own hearts.

Clarify our understanding, make our own commitment to God and divine creation; and discern the implications for our own actual life, and what we can do via our own life.  

This seems to require a very pure and strong faith in God's creative power: a faith that any truth, any goodness, that we may learn and God recognizes to be valid and helpful... Any such insight can and will be amplified by The Creator to affect "the public" for the better - insofar as the public can positively be affected; done through the developments of ongoing creation. 

   

Historical parallels are Not a reliable guide to action, because the present is fundamentally un-like the past

I've done it myself often enough; but nonetheless I am dismayed by the many people who currently seek guidance for present action and strategy from historical parallels. 

Including in the case of our Christian religion. 

When Ecclesiastes said "there is nothing new under the sun", he may have been right for his time and place, but he is dead wrong about here-and-now. Cherry picked, distorted and partial historical parallels are misleading. 

There has never been anything like the world now - this eight billion industrialized globalized totalitarian world - with its strategically evil, demon-affiliated multi-national rulers and their fingertip-ready capacity for military, economic, financial, legal, religious, environmental and other destructions - and their command of a colossal and coordinated mass media to which the masses are willingly addicted and from which they derive ideological and everyday guidance. 

The world is different, and people are different. 

There have never been such human beings as there are now. Anyone who knows history should be able to see that people have desires and exhibit behaviours, respond (and fail to respond) in ways that even four generations ago would have been regarded as alien and insane. 

But argument is futile. If you don't see such huge differences between here-and-now and anywhere-else at any time, then nothing I can say will persuade you. 

This difference is why - no matter how genuinely well-meaning you are (by which I mean how genuinely Christian are your aspirations); to sift through the past for traditional guidance of what to do from where we are, is doomed to failure - and likely to do harm. 

Before we can do anything good, we must first understand who we are and where we stand. 

That is possible to attain - at least in a broad sense; but not if we are determined to discover our understanding in the past, in some other civilization. 

There is no realistic alternative but to make the effort to understand things as they actually are. Perspectives derived from study of the past and other places may be helpful, may contain clues... but The Answer is not there to be found. 

We cannot get the recipe for a Good Future from what has-been. At best we may get some ingredients needed for a good answer - but it's just as likely vital ingredients may be found elsewhere (e.g. in literature, art, real-science, and from our enemies), and almost certainly some key ingredient will be new, unprecedented.   

The Answer we hope for is something that must be created - not discovered. 

I can't even hate-watch Amazon Rings of Power, second season

I perversely enjoyed watching the epochal incompetence that was Amazon's Rings of Power, Season One - mostly because it was constantly surprising and amazing me by its ludicrous ineptitude; and because it was interesting to try and understand how such a thing had come to be, and what were the global implications... 

I was, in a mean-spirited sort of way, actually looking forward to the second season. 

But I have to report I could only stomach fifteen minutes of the first episode, and shall not be returning. 

Why? Simply: to watch series two is to enter such an angry, miserable, sordid, sadistic and hate-filled world; that it makes me simultaneously bored and depressed. Just horrible. 

I am not a masochist, nor am I looking for reasons to embrace nihilistic despair as my philosophy of life; so naturally I shall not be subjecting myself to any more such stuff. 

Sorry! - if you want to know any more about the most expensive train wreck in the history of television; you will need to watch it for yourselves, this time.