lately, in between carrying boxes and throwing away useless crap accumulated over the years, I have been ruminating on the nature of endings and beginnings.
I was revisiting DBH in light of our discussion, and I found that I definitely do feel a bit more critical of his views now. But the thought also occurred to me that the only two possibilities I can see are Calvinism and universalism. My thinking is:
1) An uncreated spirit is not determined by anything outside itself, which means that 2) it must be determined either by its own nature or not at all. 3) If it isn't determined at all, then its decisions are random and thus unfree, whereas 4) if it is determined by its own nature, then it must be so forever. 5) So, an uncreated spirit that is against God must have been predestined for damnation by its own nature. 6) But if every uncreated spirit has a telos toward the perfection of being, then ultimately all spirits will be saved.
So I realized that it all comes down to the relationship between freedom and telos. My view turns out to be that the telos of at least human freedom is outside of itself, and that it may even be so for all spirits. And if no spirit has a telos toward evil, then it naturally follows that evil must be the result of a sapping force, a Nothing, twisting and hollowing and perverting all spirits. And then the goal is the annihilation of annihilation, which can only be achieved by . . . true creativity.
Anyway, I don't wish to bore you or belabor the point, but thank you for your extensive engagement on this topic, here. This has been clarifying, and I expect that it will prove to be useful somewhere down the line.
A thought I had earlier today was about Jesus from the Cross saying, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
That insane generosity was part of what led me to believe that He is the Lord in the first place; that He could say of His murderers that they deserve forgiveness, on the grounds of ignorance. This must be the Lord, I thought. He did not hold them as guilty, despite having an absolute reason to do so. I saw that He was beyond morality or justice, in the ways we conceive of them. An entirely other order of reality.
How does that fit with humans knowing what evil they do? I have tried, and just do not understand. My intuition just calls for mercy for the sick. Who is it you see who does evil every day, who is an actually flourishing human? All I see who deny the Lord, they live in their own Hell. That justice is swift.
I suppose I could find another verse that points in the opposite direction - how could He say, for example, that it would have been better for Judas not to be born? To me that seems to be saying that Judas is one of those that just came here to make trouble.
One could make not one, but many theological cases, out of the Bible. The atheists are correct when they say it's full of contradictions. They are just wrong to say that because of this it has nothing to teach us. A lot is about context. For example, this appears only in Luke, who was a Greek. And Jesus here is speaking specifically to the Gentiles who are doing the biding of the Pharisees. I don't think He was talking to the Pharisees, who in fact knew quite well what they were doing.
>My intuition just calls for mercy for the sick. Who is it you see who does evil every day, who is an actually flourishing human? All I see who deny the Lord, they live in their own Hell. That justice is swift.
I agree with all this. The Book of Mormon has a good quote on this: 'It is by the wicked that the wicked are punished'. But ultimately I am an arguer FOR Scripture, rather than FROM Scripture. Other than basic patterns (Heaven and Earth) one does not derive metaphysical assumptions from Scripture, but rather reads Scripture from those metaphysical assumptions - whether we admit it or not. Within my own, Evil has an existence of its own - and cannot not have, with free beings. This is not to say, of course, that we have absolute knowledge in this life. Which is why I believe the choice does not end here, but extends forever in both directions - it has always existed and it will always exist.
I guess that it seems to get to an intuitive stalemate, sometimes. Tomberg says in one of the last letters that we believe in universal salvation if we have read that specific Akashic Record—and I have no idea what that means, but by his logic I have. This is the epistemological issue I worry about. The Church proposes to be the arbiter, but that is just as arbitrary as anything else.
The Gospel professes to be history. So, are we obliged to respect a "correspondence theory" of truth (mental construct X aligns with physical object Y), or are we allowed to let our imaginations take flight?
What of His words do we choose to take as literal or hyperbolic? Is "Better for him not to be born" more like "Pluck your own eye out", or is it more like "Forgive them, for they know what they do"? Again, there's the whole problem of the infinite regress to intuition. There isn't any answer that I can discern—but I am very interested in the dilemma, there. Overall, I suppose it's about how an "I" becomes a true "we".
I have made my peace with the dilemma. and in part it's because I trust myth more than I trust history, the latter understood as 'facts' that 'really happened exactly as described'. Because if that is really indeed possible (and even that I do not really believe), it's only possible for the most irrelevant details, not for what really matters: if I want to tell you about how I met my wife, I would probably omit several factual details, and include many 'internal' ones - feelings, perceptions, emotions, thoughts. Myth incorporates these into the story and leaves out a lot of 'matter of fact' details which are truly irrelevant. I do believe Jesus was an actual person, with actual flesh, that He walked around, and was crucified and resurrected. But we don't read about Him tying his sandals or going to the bathroom. Which is another reason why I think when such details are given - like Him eating and drinking - they are particularly important. I think the key is that imagination is never out of the picture, except in the most trivial descriptions of the most mundane acts and facts. And when it is out of the picture, it is not worth considering. We actually are pattern-recognizing beings, we live in patterns. This is why it is absurd to consider the Jesus story false simply because you find parallels absolutely everywhere for every single one of the events described. This is actually the evidence of its truth, not of its falsehood.
I guess what I'm saying is I have completely rejected the idea of an impartial and clean, perspectiveless, description of events.
I agree with all of that. My concern is with what I would call a "lucidity check", or some type of answerability to an external criterion of reality outside of the internal structure of of the mythos itself. In a word, how is it not schizophrenia? People can believe in all manner of insane things in this way.
I'm obviously not asking that about Jesus or the Gospel, but as a more general matter of epistemological method. When we pursue the method of intuition, it isn't always clear what the external point of reference is. I also think that this is important for evangelism, in that we must explain today how this is not a private fantasy.
I understand but I think it's a false question. a totally modern question, that no one before would put. and in part this is because we are indeed facing never-before-seen levels of distortion of reality and abominations of every kind.
what is an abomination? something that does not fit into any known pattern, a confusion of categories.
as an example: I could not love my wife if I could not recognize her as a human female, with human female characteristics. she is unique, but she is unique within certain recognizable patterns.
and that's how we can distinguish private fantasy from true myth. the most challenging thing for evangelists today is not convincing people that the story of Jesus is true, but that narrative is more true than facts.
In my view, most people today believe that narratives are more true than facts—but they interpret that solipsistically. They can say whatever they want about themselves or about Jesus, and narrative is truth. And I don't think that the epistemological criterion of "pattern" is present in their minds. By evangelism, I mean: what might they comprehend? In an age of solipsism, it isn't immediately clear how your notion of pattern is any less of a fantasy than theirs (which of course is not my view).
I wonder, sometimes, about the possible value in the generalized acceptance of sin. I walk by a pool party in this hot, hot summer in central Texas, and what am I supposed to think? It smells like sunscreen. A modern decadent thing that also seems nice.
I am still very skeptical about the line between pneumatic wisdom versus psychic temperament: do we see what is real, or do we see what we need? I have come from an absolute psychologist-existentialist background, so I still am not sure about the line between subjective meaning and objective reality, poetic construction and metaphysical truth. We all claim that our poetry is reality, and that is just in the nature of our human condition—and what decides? (I will add that Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books in the Bible.)
I have reflected on some things you feel sure of, and I'm seeing that I just lack the intuition to feel it with your certainty. I see a beautiful and profound mental construction, and maybe that is a truth, or a window onto truth, but I do not really know how to jump from poetry to prophecy. I have too much concern for the intrinsically psychic quality of our experiences, and I hesitate to make pneumatic generalizations.
I also think about phenomenological verification. I have, for example, only ever seen the Holy Ghost and the Soul of Sophia. So, all my further inductions are based on that reality. I have not seen Jesus except as shown by the Holy Ghost; and I definitely do not know who the Father is, twice removed. I have tried to think through your notion of at least three different simultaneous divine incarnations, but it sounds almost like a sci-fi invasion and has no basis in my experience.
I have been finding myself returning more to the traditional Trinity. Actually, three persons in one essence is not odd to me, because ideally, I think we should be eight billion persons in one essence—the essence of Soul Sophia, even as our spirits are each free and independent. Adam Kadmon is in there somewhere as well, but I'm still working on that.
Practically speaking, though, there seems to be a need to express how we are all at one with each other, not only how we are individual free spirits forever. In my experience, in these times metaphysical dissolution into nothingness is not really a greater problem than the narcissistic desire for the ego's everlasting persistence.
for me, it would depend on what is meant by essence. what is usually meant is something I would find monstrous for all of us to share the same. but since I believe we have irreducible individualities, it makes sense that we all have our own way of understanding and that it is, in a certain sense, not transmissible. and ofc, I definitely disagree with the last statement: it is clear to me that it is not true individuality people are seeking - people are becoming more and more the same. what I see is a narcissistic and suicidal desire to be part of the hive mind. but I'm sure, in the larger view of humanity, we agree on more than we disagree.
I'm thinking of when we talked about how even the numbers, as manifested in this cosmos, must bear the personal imprint of the Creator. So, if we are only free spirits without souls prior to accepting His invitation to join the Creation, then it seems to follow that we would all partake of His specific Soul Sophia. I would posit that there is thus a unity of soul among us, even as there is an independence of spirit; that all souls bear a certain imprint. A voluntary communion, not a hive mind.
(And this might also suggest that at least all spirits who have made the decision to be in this Creation may be saved, because they also have the Bride's imprint.)
As for the last point, I said "practically", which is to say that people who do not understand what true personality is could easily take personal immortality as a license for narcissism—although I guess it's also true that people who do not understand true unity could take that as a license for the hive mind, so it cuts both ways. Psychologically, though, it seems to me that they mean to become everlasting egos ("ego" in the sense of false selfhood).
I can understand, and believe, the individual soul partakes in the larger Soul (Sophia, as you put it) in the same way we all partake of the same physical elements and physical laws. I'm ok with that. but I don't think this realization is countering the hive mind - at best it's insufficient, at worst it confirms the thesis of the Machine. I don't see it making New Agers or 'spiritual leftists' any less susceptible to the satanic system. quite the opposite.
but again, my way of seeing things is definitely not the only way. it's just my way.
The question I ask is: "What is phenomenologically necessary?" And to me, it seems the answer to that is: to see the Anima Mundi as personal and also the Holy Ghost as personal. And if they are personal, then in this cosmos that necessarily leads to Sophia and Jesus. So I suppose that's my priority. It seems to me that the Machine depends on seeing the world as dead and not personally alive, so that's my general angle. But I see what you're doing as well.
"With regard to the global system, in the first place, conditions (and even implementation) have existed for several decades for various global structures that, under that name or not, point to and lead to true global governance. And in the last few years we saw for the first time the full coordination of one plan across the world, with no deviations; a single narrative, a single enemy that must be fought together, and a single solution in which everyone has to participate – including conditions (marks) for a return to ‘normality’. This global coordination, while not officially under a single government, is incredibly significant."
I am immediately reminded of Solovlyov's "A Short Tale of the Antichrist," and I think his inuition is perfectly correct that the Antichrist will be recognizable by his intellectual precociousness and his promise to solve every problem.
"Next day, the visitors of the great man, and even his servants, were startled by his special inspired air. They would have been even more startled could they have seen with what supernatural quickness and facility he was writing, locked up in his study, his famous work entitled The Open Way to Universal Peace and Prosperity."
I was revisiting DBH in light of our discussion, and I found that I definitely do feel a bit more critical of his views now. But the thought also occurred to me that the only two possibilities I can see are Calvinism and universalism. My thinking is:
1) An uncreated spirit is not determined by anything outside itself, which means that 2) it must be determined either by its own nature or not at all. 3) If it isn't determined at all, then its decisions are random and thus unfree, whereas 4) if it is determined by its own nature, then it must be so forever. 5) So, an uncreated spirit that is against God must have been predestined for damnation by its own nature. 6) But if every uncreated spirit has a telos toward the perfection of being, then ultimately all spirits will be saved.
So I realized that it all comes down to the relationship between freedom and telos. My view turns out to be that the telos of at least human freedom is outside of itself, and that it may even be so for all spirits. And if no spirit has a telos toward evil, then it naturally follows that evil must be the result of a sapping force, a Nothing, twisting and hollowing and perverting all spirits. And then the goal is the annihilation of annihilation, which can only be achieved by . . . true creativity.
Anyway, I don't wish to bore you or belabor the point, but thank you for your extensive engagement on this topic, here. This has been clarifying, and I expect that it will prove to be useful somewhere down the line.
I'm glad our conversation was fruitful. even if there are a few assumptions I don't share, and a few steps I don't follow, in your scheme.
A thought I had earlier today was about Jesus from the Cross saying, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
That insane generosity was part of what led me to believe that He is the Lord in the first place; that He could say of His murderers that they deserve forgiveness, on the grounds of ignorance. This must be the Lord, I thought. He did not hold them as guilty, despite having an absolute reason to do so. I saw that He was beyond morality or justice, in the ways we conceive of them. An entirely other order of reality.
How does that fit with humans knowing what evil they do? I have tried, and just do not understand. My intuition just calls for mercy for the sick. Who is it you see who does evil every day, who is an actually flourishing human? All I see who deny the Lord, they live in their own Hell. That justice is swift.
I suppose I could find another verse that points in the opposite direction - how could He say, for example, that it would have been better for Judas not to be born? To me that seems to be saying that Judas is one of those that just came here to make trouble.
One could make not one, but many theological cases, out of the Bible. The atheists are correct when they say it's full of contradictions. They are just wrong to say that because of this it has nothing to teach us. A lot is about context. For example, this appears only in Luke, who was a Greek. And Jesus here is speaking specifically to the Gentiles who are doing the biding of the Pharisees. I don't think He was talking to the Pharisees, who in fact knew quite well what they were doing.
>My intuition just calls for mercy for the sick. Who is it you see who does evil every day, who is an actually flourishing human? All I see who deny the Lord, they live in their own Hell. That justice is swift.
I agree with all this. The Book of Mormon has a good quote on this: 'It is by the wicked that the wicked are punished'. But ultimately I am an arguer FOR Scripture, rather than FROM Scripture. Other than basic patterns (Heaven and Earth) one does not derive metaphysical assumptions from Scripture, but rather reads Scripture from those metaphysical assumptions - whether we admit it or not. Within my own, Evil has an existence of its own - and cannot not have, with free beings. This is not to say, of course, that we have absolute knowledge in this life. Which is why I believe the choice does not end here, but extends forever in both directions - it has always existed and it will always exist.
I guess that it seems to get to an intuitive stalemate, sometimes. Tomberg says in one of the last letters that we believe in universal salvation if we have read that specific Akashic Record—and I have no idea what that means, but by his logic I have. This is the epistemological issue I worry about. The Church proposes to be the arbiter, but that is just as arbitrary as anything else.
The Gospel professes to be history. So, are we obliged to respect a "correspondence theory" of truth (mental construct X aligns with physical object Y), or are we allowed to let our imaginations take flight?
What of His words do we choose to take as literal or hyperbolic? Is "Better for him not to be born" more like "Pluck your own eye out", or is it more like "Forgive them, for they know what they do"? Again, there's the whole problem of the infinite regress to intuition. There isn't any answer that I can discern—but I am very interested in the dilemma, there. Overall, I suppose it's about how an "I" becomes a true "we".
I have made my peace with the dilemma. and in part it's because I trust myth more than I trust history, the latter understood as 'facts' that 'really happened exactly as described'. Because if that is really indeed possible (and even that I do not really believe), it's only possible for the most irrelevant details, not for what really matters: if I want to tell you about how I met my wife, I would probably omit several factual details, and include many 'internal' ones - feelings, perceptions, emotions, thoughts. Myth incorporates these into the story and leaves out a lot of 'matter of fact' details which are truly irrelevant. I do believe Jesus was an actual person, with actual flesh, that He walked around, and was crucified and resurrected. But we don't read about Him tying his sandals or going to the bathroom. Which is another reason why I think when such details are given - like Him eating and drinking - they are particularly important. I think the key is that imagination is never out of the picture, except in the most trivial descriptions of the most mundane acts and facts. And when it is out of the picture, it is not worth considering. We actually are pattern-recognizing beings, we live in patterns. This is why it is absurd to consider the Jesus story false simply because you find parallels absolutely everywhere for every single one of the events described. This is actually the evidence of its truth, not of its falsehood.
I guess what I'm saying is I have completely rejected the idea of an impartial and clean, perspectiveless, description of events.
I agree with all of that. My concern is with what I would call a "lucidity check", or some type of answerability to an external criterion of reality outside of the internal structure of of the mythos itself. In a word, how is it not schizophrenia? People can believe in all manner of insane things in this way.
I'm obviously not asking that about Jesus or the Gospel, but as a more general matter of epistemological method. When we pursue the method of intuition, it isn't always clear what the external point of reference is. I also think that this is important for evangelism, in that we must explain today how this is not a private fantasy.
I understand but I think it's a false question. a totally modern question, that no one before would put. and in part this is because we are indeed facing never-before-seen levels of distortion of reality and abominations of every kind.
what is an abomination? something that does not fit into any known pattern, a confusion of categories.
as an example: I could not love my wife if I could not recognize her as a human female, with human female characteristics. she is unique, but she is unique within certain recognizable patterns.
and that's how we can distinguish private fantasy from true myth. the most challenging thing for evangelists today is not convincing people that the story of Jesus is true, but that narrative is more true than facts.
In my view, most people today believe that narratives are more true than facts—but they interpret that solipsistically. They can say whatever they want about themselves or about Jesus, and narrative is truth. And I don't think that the epistemological criterion of "pattern" is present in their minds. By evangelism, I mean: what might they comprehend? In an age of solipsism, it isn't immediately clear how your notion of pattern is any less of a fantasy than theirs (which of course is not my view).
I wonder, sometimes, about the possible value in the generalized acceptance of sin. I walk by a pool party in this hot, hot summer in central Texas, and what am I supposed to think? It smells like sunscreen. A modern decadent thing that also seems nice.
I am still very skeptical about the line between pneumatic wisdom versus psychic temperament: do we see what is real, or do we see what we need? I have come from an absolute psychologist-existentialist background, so I still am not sure about the line between subjective meaning and objective reality, poetic construction and metaphysical truth. We all claim that our poetry is reality, and that is just in the nature of our human condition—and what decides? (I will add that Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books in the Bible.)
I have reflected on some things you feel sure of, and I'm seeing that I just lack the intuition to feel it with your certainty. I see a beautiful and profound mental construction, and maybe that is a truth, or a window onto truth, but I do not really know how to jump from poetry to prophecy. I have too much concern for the intrinsically psychic quality of our experiences, and I hesitate to make pneumatic generalizations.
I also think about phenomenological verification. I have, for example, only ever seen the Holy Ghost and the Soul of Sophia. So, all my further inductions are based on that reality. I have not seen Jesus except as shown by the Holy Ghost; and I definitely do not know who the Father is, twice removed. I have tried to think through your notion of at least three different simultaneous divine incarnations, but it sounds almost like a sci-fi invasion and has no basis in my experience.
I have been finding myself returning more to the traditional Trinity. Actually, three persons in one essence is not odd to me, because ideally, I think we should be eight billion persons in one essence—the essence of Soul Sophia, even as our spirits are each free and independent. Adam Kadmon is in there somewhere as well, but I'm still working on that.
Practically speaking, though, there seems to be a need to express how we are all at one with each other, not only how we are individual free spirits forever. In my experience, in these times metaphysical dissolution into nothingness is not really a greater problem than the narcissistic desire for the ego's everlasting persistence.
for me, it would depend on what is meant by essence. what is usually meant is something I would find monstrous for all of us to share the same. but since I believe we have irreducible individualities, it makes sense that we all have our own way of understanding and that it is, in a certain sense, not transmissible. and ofc, I definitely disagree with the last statement: it is clear to me that it is not true individuality people are seeking - people are becoming more and more the same. what I see is a narcissistic and suicidal desire to be part of the hive mind. but I'm sure, in the larger view of humanity, we agree on more than we disagree.
I'm thinking of when we talked about how even the numbers, as manifested in this cosmos, must bear the personal imprint of the Creator. So, if we are only free spirits without souls prior to accepting His invitation to join the Creation, then it seems to follow that we would all partake of His specific Soul Sophia. I would posit that there is thus a unity of soul among us, even as there is an independence of spirit; that all souls bear a certain imprint. A voluntary communion, not a hive mind.
(And this might also suggest that at least all spirits who have made the decision to be in this Creation may be saved, because they also have the Bride's imprint.)
As for the last point, I said "practically", which is to say that people who do not understand what true personality is could easily take personal immortality as a license for narcissism—although I guess it's also true that people who do not understand true unity could take that as a license for the hive mind, so it cuts both ways. Psychologically, though, it seems to me that they mean to become everlasting egos ("ego" in the sense of false selfhood).
I can understand, and believe, the individual soul partakes in the larger Soul (Sophia, as you put it) in the same way we all partake of the same physical elements and physical laws. I'm ok with that. but I don't think this realization is countering the hive mind - at best it's insufficient, at worst it confirms the thesis of the Machine. I don't see it making New Agers or 'spiritual leftists' any less susceptible to the satanic system. quite the opposite.
but again, my way of seeing things is definitely not the only way. it's just my way.
The question I ask is: "What is phenomenologically necessary?" And to me, it seems the answer to that is: to see the Anima Mundi as personal and also the Holy Ghost as personal. And if they are personal, then in this cosmos that necessarily leads to Sophia and Jesus. So I suppose that's my priority. It seems to me that the Machine depends on seeing the world as dead and not personally alive, so that's my general angle. But I see what you're doing as well.
I think we're fighting on the same side, against the same enemy, though maybe in different parts of the battle field.
If you don't want a man to cut down a tree, then get him to see it lighting up like the Burning Bush. Haha. Psyops, of sorts.
"With regard to the global system, in the first place, conditions (and even implementation) have existed for several decades for various global structures that, under that name or not, point to and lead to true global governance. And in the last few years we saw for the first time the full coordination of one plan across the world, with no deviations; a single narrative, a single enemy that must be fought together, and a single solution in which everyone has to participate – including conditions (marks) for a return to ‘normality’. This global coordination, while not officially under a single government, is incredibly significant."
I am immediately reminded of Solovlyov's "A Short Tale of the Antichrist," and I think his inuition is perfectly correct that the Antichrist will be recognizable by his intellectual precociousness and his promise to solve every problem.
thank you for another inspired reflection.
in case you have interest, I found the text here:
https://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/antichrist.html
"Next day, the visitors of the great man, and even his servants, were startled by his special inspired air. They would have been even more startled could they have seen with what supernatural quickness and facility he was writing, locked up in his study, his famous work entitled The Open Way to Universal Peace and Prosperity."
thank you Max. I have read this a couple of times. it haunts me tbh.
You are a beautiful writer .. even if some of the lines are a little blurry for me 🌷
Ouch..
ahah. sorry. and thank you Amy. this one came straight from the gut.