Bruce Charlton's Notions

I was interesting in philosophy from my late teens; and then in my mid-twenties became gripped by some philosophical problems to the point that they seemed of vital importance to sort-out, in some way. 

These rather abstract problems - such as about how we could know something, and be sure ("certain") that we knew, what did knowing mean? etc - seemed also very relevant to my then personal happiness, and my ability to make life-choices, and to lead a satisfying life in my future. 

I had a general hunch that if I questioned and questioned, rigorously and honestly, I would reach a bedrock of solid truth that would satisfy me, and upon which I could build my life. 

Being then young and gregarious; I thought of philosophy as a group activity; and I wanted above all to be able to discuss it - A Lot - until I got to the bottom of these things. It hurt to put off this discussing, yet of course there was nobody in my circle that wanted to talk (and talk!) about the things that seemed important to me. 

Nonetheless, I though that maybe I could find a situation in which I might be guided to the right sources, and find such conversation. I went to a couple of evening classes, but I presumably did not find them to be what I wanted, because I quickly dropped out of the courses. 

The problem was, at root, I was being taught about the stuff on the course - whereas I wanted to work on what seemed important to me: here, now. I did not want to put-off my life until later. 

So I thought maybe I could go back to university and do a philosophy bachelors degree. I realized that this would still have the problem of being taught other stuff; but I thought that I would there be able to spend a lot of consecutive time on working at the problems that really interested me, I hoped I would find the conversation I wanted; and at the end of it get credentials by which people would 'take me seriously' when I reached my own conclusions. 

There was a mixture of wanting to make a life-commitment - to show to myself (perhaps) that I was serious about this stuff, and of expediency. 

Since I had found Wittgenstein's On Certainty to be discussing almost exactly what concerned me - I went so far as to arrange to study philosophy at his college (Trinity) in Cambridge but in two years instead of three (shortened because I already had a degree); my recollection is that I was to begin the degree in autumn 1986. 

But I did not proceed with this plan, partly because I had seriously underestimated the extra cost of college fees (on top of university fees), and partly because my experience of meeting and talking with three philosophy academics at Cambridge (including Wittgenstein's pupil Elizabeth Anscombe) was disappointing. 

You see; reading about the best old philosophers - and I had been especially reading about some of the more ancient and more 'existential' ones (and in this respect Wittgenstein was a throwback); you get the impression of people whose lives were dedicated to the 'love of wisdom' - but meeting modern philosophers, you meet professional academics whose specialty is philosophy (although some of them can act the part of the old-style type - whether in person or in print). 

This was, of course, my own stupid fault. It was a case of wanting something exact but incoherent that could not be had, and then being disappointed when I could not get it! 

Instead of a bachelors in philosophy, I ended by doing a masters in english literature; but spending about half that year reading philosophy, and informally attending philosophy seminars, and talking to a few philosophers - albeit rather superficially because our interests were so different.

Over the following years; I gradually realized that philosophy was really important to me (e.g. I continued attending seminars while I was on the faculty at Glasgow University), but that it was something I would mostly need to do by myself - navigating my way to the relevant authors and ideas, and working my way through the ideas. 

For a few years I did have a lot of genuine philosophical conversations with a colleague (Peter Andras) about Niklaus Luhmann's Systems Theory - so I did end up having that experience. 

I mean really working ('doing' philosophy, as Wittgenstein called it - but in his case it sound like a kind of monologue to disciples, rather than genuinely dyadic); in real time, sticking to the detail of specific and mutually fascinating ideas.

Talking on and past the surfaces that are usual in social chit chat so that personality falls away - being led by the ideas rather than politeness, or trying to be interesting; the conventions and considerations of sociability and the other limitations that constrains normal discourse to be little more than amusing or arguing for dominance. 

Philosophical conversation turned out to be very helpful in grasping the (already defined) theory, and at developing applications and implications. 

But - since two people are always somewhat different in the content and direction of their lives and destinies - conversation also can have a constraining effect on development and learning. And therefore it became necessary to return to working (essentially) on my own at philosophy. 

My impression was that serious conversation about philosophy is only sometimes and temporarily possible, when the interests of two (maybe more) people happen to converge and run together for a while; but that this has a natural lifespan of value, after which it would become routinized, professionalized, or merely sociable. 

In other words, and despite the allure of Platonic Dialogues - which are, after all, a kind of fiction; and also seem like expositions of ready-made philosophy, rather than depicting a process of genuine discovery - I have come to believe that philosophy is in its essence a solitary activity. 

If we don't do it ourselves; there is nobody that can do it for us. 

Indeed, given all the constraints and difficulties, it is nearly always easier and more philosophically helpful to engage deeply with a book than with a person. And even better to debate 'with oneself'; in the sense that we ought to become our own best critics. 

And the whole business of following set curricula, performing exercises and examinations, developing professional expertise, or being guided by a canon of required authors; that stuff constitutes an activity which is something-else other than real philosophy. 

This is a little gem of television from a BBC TV comedy-drama called The Detectorists - (2014-2017 plus a best-ignored later 'special' edition). 

The series was uneven in quality (any bits about featuring the metal detecting hobbyist duo and their club were superb; those parts about the human relationships... not-so-much); but at its best, this was about as good as modern television gets. 

The following sequence ended series three, episode one; and its combination of script, acting, visuals, with the thrilling harmonies of the Tyneside sisters The Unthanks song Magpie - is literally hair-raising. 

Enjoy!

There is no point in combing-through the mass media, or scientific journals, and trying to filter-out the truth; because there is no such thing as a truth-filter! 

If there was a truth-filter, there would be no need for honesty - and clearly there is need; as we see all round us!

Yet so much of what purports to be alternative or 'based' mass-social media; does little but (post by post, article by article, day after day...) cherry-pick through fake-news and fake-science, fake-government reports, fake-polls; sifting sources that are Not Even Trying to be truthful. 

All this activity is therefore (de facto, if not by intent) just part-of The System; part of The System of attempted manipulation and control - even when, as individuals, the people concerned are genuinely trying to present an independent, alternative, anti-Establishment perspective.

It seems one cannot be sufficiently paranoid about this stuff! Yet he who touches pitch will be defiled; and to engage with dishonesty for much time, has an almost inevitably corrupting effect - at least that's what I observe, in myself and in others. 

Yet we must judge: we must evaluate; we are creatures of values, and the vast amount of incoming stuff of our world therefore must-be - and shall-be, whether we like it or not - evaluated. And evaluated By Us! (I mean evaluated by you and me, specifically.)

So we are compelled to form some kind of judgment on even the most stupid and insubstantial material of our virtual world - showbiz/ royal romances and scandals, show trials, manufactured war news, baseless pseudo-science etc, etc. 

But we should expend the minimum of time and effort on this unavoidable work, in order to avoid corruption.

How can this possibly happen? So Much garbage, and yet we cannot help forming judgments on it!

It seems impossible - yet as Christians we know it is possible - because God has placed us and sustains us in this situation; and therefore we know-for-sure that we personally can do it; not perfectly, of course, but sufficiently well to attain salvation and to learn-spiritually. 

I think the answer lies in first adopting an Us and Them attitude to the world, to this mortal life; where the two sides are defined as those allied with God and creation, versus those who oppose. 

We must trust something and somebody, and should trust Us, not them. 

But we should be ready to accept that the category of Us (those we know sufficiently to trust) is a very small one; as befits a species who have spent most of our history in very small, clannish societies. 

The category of Us is therefore likely to be one containing perhaps a dozen or a score, as it always has been; and indeed in the mega-mass societies of today the category of Us in The West is probably going to be smaller than it would have been 1000, 5000, or 10,000 years ago; or in other parts of the world. If we can trust a handful of people to provide us with informed, competent, and honest evaluations - we are doing-well.  

Secondly, by bearing in mind that this mortal life is about learning, which is often a matter of making mistakes and learning from them. 

In practice; this means making a clear and explicit (at least with ourselves) judgment -- then being honest about whether or not it stands-up to further experience; and being prepared to abandon that which does not stand-up. 

This, in turn, means that while coherence is very important, we should not allow a fear of inconsistency (e.g. being accused of changing our minds) with respect to our past evaluations to stand in the path of learning. 

As of 2023 in The West, this means that most learning will be in the direction of becoming an ever smaller minority! 

Those who claim to be learning by joining-with more and more System-evaluations (e.g. the way that the mainstream Christian churches have claimed to be learning over recent decades!) - are in truth merely converging with the side of evil. 

Such people are incrementally being-corrupted; incrementally rejecting the Us which is the side of God and divine creation; and joining the side of Them who oppose Good.  

In sum: if we find ourselves believing those whom we do not trust, or joining the majority (or large minority) view with respect to an evaluation; then we are almost certainly making a mistake. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) research began by claiming to be able to make a thinking machine: an intelligent computer that was intelligent in the way human beings are intelligent. 

It has ended-up by fobbing us off with computer programmes that use human intelligence to mimic human intelligence (in ways that the uninformed and inattentive users do not always and instantly detect - this being the current ultra-low bar criterion of successful AI!...)...

And then claiming that they have done the job they set out to do! 

It seems that people simply do not notice that human beings are involved at every step of the current so-called AI!

The currently vaunted text AI is first programmed by human beings; then it uses human-produced texts in order to generate human-mimicking texts; then it "learns" by being subjected to continual positive and negative reinforcement by human beings!   

In other words; the "Learning" of AI by "feedback" gathered during usage; amounts to a continual process of re-programming!

It has reached the bizarre situation that a massive and continual process of human-dictation, direction, and correction of computation; is somehow being edited-out from our awareness - and all the 'credit' is being allocated to Artificial, not human, intelligence! 

People are fooled because they want to be fooled; and they fail to learn from experience because they fear to learn. 

Obvious failure may thus be 'sold' as success; and System-sustaining propaganda gets lapped-up by masses of willing dupes who want nonsense to be true.

Note added: Why do so many people want the AI nonsense to be true? Perhaps because they (rightly) mistrust and fear human beings; and have rejected faith/trust in the Christian God so deeply and thoroughly that they are almost insensible to their own consequent psychosis -- therefore they grasp at the straw of potentially wise-and-benign AI, as the only hope they know for avoiding the nihilism of utter despair.

Over at The Notion Club Papers, I describe the real nature of hobbit authority structures in the Shire. 

Clue: The Shire was Not (as so often mistakenly asserted) any kind of an 'anarchy'!

I have noticed that there are a lot of people who believe that They possess secret advanced technology (e.g. ultra-advanced aircraft and weaponry; but also 'free' energy, space travel, time travel). 

These are, overall, the same group of people who regard AI as being actually artificial intelligence, as having massively advanced recently, and as now poised to take-over from humans because it is better than humans. 

I don't! I believe that real science is dead, major geniuses are essentially extinct, the international bureaucracy has partly caused but massively exacerbated both of these problems; and the overall capability of mankind has therefore been declining for some decades. 

I believe that AI is not intelligent At All, and takes over from humans because this is in line with the demonic agenda and expedient from the managerial class; and takes over despite its gross functional inferiority.   

I have also noticed that those who 'believe-in' ultra-advanced technology and AI capability; also tend to believe that this world (and maybe ourselves) is some kind of simulation, a Matrix-like world of energetic projections and images - or something.

I don't. I believe this mortal life and earthly world is absolutely real, albeit temporary; and functionally intended to be an intermediate phase between our pre-mortal life as spirits, and the possibility (if we choose it) of eternal resurrected life.  

We seem to have two different metaphysical systems here; that is, different fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

Both can't be right; but the distinction cannot be established by 'evidence' because there is no agreement of what constitutes 'evidence'. Nor can scientific (or other) theories help us; because the truth of such theories is what is at issue.  

As so often; by the normal methods of argument, we are compelled either to ignore the problem, or else address it via useless rhetorical clashes. 

The valid alternative is to expose to awareness our own fundamental but unexamined metaphysical assumptions - and then evaluate with the deepest possible intuition whether we really-do believe these once tacit assumptions; and whether indeed we want to believe them!

(I have written previously on the specific subjects referenced above - if you want to know what I think more exactly; then you might do relevant-word searches using the search-box in the top left-hand corner of this page.)

The Total Lie may be contrasted with both "Normal lies" - i.e. a deliberate dishonesty that has been twisted to serve expediency; yet seeded with truths, to make it plausible... 

And also contrasted with the Big Lie - which has always been possible. 

I would (now) say that the Big Lie is characterized by stunning us with its audacity. 

With a Big Lie, ordinary people cannot believe that anyone could or would lie about such a thing. 

As when someone falsely - for expedient reasons or self-gratification - claims to have cancer, or to have been raped; or that a national leaders would strategically destroy its own people and society, for their own profit and gratification... Such notions are just Too Much for the masses to believe - especially for typical secular-modern-leftist people; whose grasp of the nature and reality of evil is tenuous or non-existent 

There is certainly a significant element of the Big Lie about the vast modern deceptions such as the birdemic, climate change or Fire Nation war - the 'ordinary' (unthinking) person thinks that 'all those people' 'couldn't possibly!' be lying about 'something like that'. 

But there is more to these modern fake reality lies than audiacity; and this is that each Total Lie relies on its being vastly mutually supported by many other lies. 

Each Total Lie comes surrounded by an interlocking shell of multiple kinds of untruthfulness: other lies, distortions, selections, misunderstandings - and supported by a variety of evil motivations (pride, greed, control, destruction etc) and a variety of types of blind incompetence and insightless insanity. 

It is this protective shell of mutually-reinforcing evil, dishonesty and incompetence which makes it, in practice, impossible adequately to address the Total Lie. There are just too many lies-piled-upon-lies for people to believe it possible. 

(Impossible especially given the indifference and impatience of the masses - and their basically wrong assumptions and motivations.) 

In other words, the Total Lie is only possible in a modern totalitarian society; and in a society in which totalitarianism is (in some combination) both accepted and denied: that is; a society where the only truth is external and public truth, and the private individual has implicitly subordinated his inner self to worldly power.

In the past; it was necessary to seed overall-lies with specific-truths - indeed, the most effective forms of dishonesty were mostly-correct, but with a few key falsehoods that made all the difference. 

But when basic assumptions are false, there is no limit to the scale of dishonesty; and nowadays assumptions are false - so we have a situation of unlimited dishonesty: the Total Lie. 

Examples abound!

The birdemic is best understood as a Total Lie. From bottom to top, in terms of its 'facts' and their interpretation - it was essentially a complete falsehood.

CO2 Climate Change/ Emergency-Global-boiling is another such. It is based upon false observations, manufactured theories, nonsensical inferences - to make-up a tapestry of such utter nonsense that one stands awed and aghast. 

The Fire Nation war... It is clear that the 'understanding' of nearly everybody in The West is utterly-made up, a virtual war, completely disconnected from reality. 

The antiracism agenda, the feminist agenda, the whole diversity/ equality/ inclusion/ equity business... Where can one even begin to discuss such a tissue of malignant drivel?  

It seems that the combination of a totalitarian and multinational tyranny - with all significant governments, institutions/ organizations and corporations linked-bureaucratically; and with a vast and growing mass-social media - leeching attention, controlling and coordinating human minds; has led to a virtuality - a Total Lie which most people inhabit most of the time; rooted in cycles and elaborations of false assumptions, fake fakes, and incoherent concepts. 

Corrective feedback no longer happens; since common sense based upon personal experience and observation is is regarded as a kind of evil, and crushed into non-existence by wrap-round consensus from the totalitarian-media complex. 

Ultimately; the Total Lie has become possible because - officially, top-down, and by the assumptions of all institutions - there is no coherence to be had in reality. 

Reality is solidly-regarded as nothing-but a mixture of randomness and blind determinism. 'Truth' can thus only be arbitrary and imposed. 

Ultimately; people have allowed to be built, supported, then walled-themselves-into, a world of Total Lies; by their rejection of God and the spirit.

When there is nothing-but The System, then The System is everything and (of course!) defines "reality".

So, when it is expedient for those who stand out-with and manipulate The System, to lie about everything, then a condition of Total Lie will become the permanent dwelling place of the masses.

I've often written that real science is dead, and that there are no longer any world-class geniuses of the stature of the previous centuries; so it may be an obvious inference that real art* - as of here-and-now, is dead in an analogous sense to science. 

[* I mean art in its wide sense - music, literature, architecture &c. as well as the visual arts.]

That is, the institutions of art are dead - and such art as continues does so at the level of individual persons, or informal groupings of individuals built on dyadic relationships. The end of art institutions/ organizations/ formal relations - makes a significant difference. 

It means that 'objective standards' have become largely irrelevant, since the real art is not mass consumed; but is for self-consumption or 'local' consumption. 

Likewise, professional versus amateur has almost reversed its meaning; since to be professional means putting one's artistry in a very subordinate position - only amateurs can be committed artists. 

Putting all this together; I think we can see how it is that art has lost its power; people neither get, nor demand, strong - life-dominating - aesthetic relationships with art, in the way they used-to, up to a century ago. 

(Consider the intense attitudes to art displayed in Bernard Shaw's writings in the late 19th century, or James Joyce's work in the early decades of the 1900s - but seldom much later.)  

In my generation, a small minority were intense about art for a short phase of adolescence and young adulthood - but even this residue seems to have dissolved away. Nowadays, people demand - and receive - extremely little of art; just amusement or distraction, the stimulation of a bit of conversation (or writing), maybe a brief evocation of (visceral, not aesthetic) feelings; and the 'artists' are just the same... 

There may be the reality (or a simulation of) some aspect of the leftist-totalitarian socio-political agenda, as a claim to seriousness; but that isn't art... As used to be obvious - but isn't anymore.    

Art is dead in the sense that its public manifestations are feeble; and also corrupt - in that 'art' (self-defined) now pursues anti-artistic goals, anti-aesthetic goals; on the basis of that demonically-inspired value-inversion that grips our 'civilization'.

Yet - what it is that made art possible remains a factor in at least some people. And after all, art as a separate entity is a relatively modern phenomenon; since (apparently) 'art' used to be (up to the renaissance, at least) an inseparable part of what might be called 'religion'.   

Since I assume that our destiny is to complete - but this time consciously and by choice - a kind of return to the ways of being, thinking, knowing, doing of childhood (or, probably, early hunter gatherer-type life) -- I therefore suppose that art might again become a small scale, personal/ local, manifestation or enhancement of 'religion'; rather than there being a return of self-sufficient and powerful 'art works'.

After all, it was expected - and to a significant degree it was indeed the case - that each 'art work' (picture, sculpture, building, novel, poem, play, symphony etc) - from the renaissance to early 20th century - would be 'autonomous'; would be able of-itself to generate a powerful and objective (including generally, publicly shared) artistic experience.  

When this intent and possibility goes, and after the expectation of it goes; then people may begin to do art for themselves - including not just making artifacts and alterations to the world, but also in thinking, in imagination. 

Of course; this is not really "art" - not in the sense that art was from c.1500 and until a century ago. But it may stem-from and nourish the same ultimate aspect of Man's nature. 

In terms of objective achievement and autonomous power, such an activity will be as-nothing compared with the genius works of the past, according to the expectations and possibilities of this past.

But it may be much more like the artifacts are remains we see from ancient civilizations; little things and evidences that happened to survive; and which seem to result from the spontaneous impulses of ordinary people doing some-thing for their own satisfaction - and not for the consumption of others. 

Such 'gestures' were common among the better of the relatively less-corrupted people of earlier generations - people who did not look to the mass and social media for continual distraction. 

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labor of his ax,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

I'm beginning to think that positivity is The Thing!

(Of course, it is vital to positive about the Right Thing - although honest positivity even about a wrong thing is self-correcting, and often a path to truth.)

I find myself often falling into a habit of negation; because, looked at objectively, there is just So Much that we need to reject!

Yet, for exactly that reason, rejection is endless, and therefore leads nowhere.

(Knowing what not to do is almost useless. If not, then what? - must always be the key question.) 

So a habit of negation must be resisted; kept within-bounds - if it not to take-over and wreck everything... 

An ounce of positivity will outweigh a ton of rejections in the scales of God.

As long as the positivity Really Is positive... And not (as is usual) in root and by motivation merely some version of a double-negativity. All of modern mainstream 'leftist' ideology is double-negative; but so is a great deal of religion, including traditional Christianity. 

To do ourselves any Good; we must therefore be positive; but we must find that positive for ourselves and judge for ourselves that which we are positive about and its genuineness...

Also that positivity must come from us, and be endorsed by us; if it is be be any use as a motivator in this adverse, negative world!

I continue to be intrigued by 'ritual' or 'ceremonial' magic, which in the UK was,  I believe, often (in the practice of such as Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight) a valid means of Christian living - up into the middle 20th century. 

But (I think) is nowadays insufficiently-effective (that is; insufficient to resist the strategic evils of our society and civilization) - or net-malign an influence (i.e. when it has 'converged' with the values of globalist-media-totalitarianism). 

This is because ritual magic was (it seems) rooted in the learning and repeated practice of directed imagination. Initiates were trained by being told what to do, and what to think about or imagine: what to visualize and to feel - while doing prescribed rituals or exercises. 

And the rituals or exercises were repeated multiple times; so that performing them either in real life, or in imagination, would lead to these inner sensory and emotional outcomes. At the end of such training, initiates were able to control their own responses to rituals, symbols, narratives ("path-workings") so as to experience them intensely. 

Beyond this, magic works by making 'contacts' with spiritual beings; and these beings were traditionally specifically named and sought - although in later years there was also the possibility of seeking a contact, making contact, and then (perhaps) finding out who that was (to a greater or lesser degree). (By this stage, Magic had begun to overlap substantially with New Age "channeling", in its various manifestations.) 

The purpose of these spirit contacts was perhaps instructional - intended to get information from the contacts; and partly the actual process of interaction with a contact may itself provide intense experiences of consciousness.  

So, for its adherents, magic could provide information about the nature and functioning of the world; and enable the initiate to have experiences of more intense consciousness - imaginations that are visual, auditory or via any other perceptual sense; and accompanied by strong emotions. 

Consequently, the motivational power of a magical kind of Christianity could be enhanced - in directions that depended upon the content of material that was being inculcated, top-down; by the magical society or individual leader.  

This type of Magical practice recognizes that Modern Man can and does (unavoidably) 'make his experienced-reality'; which is the 'reality' he knows and lives-by. Magic responds to this, by attempting to train people to make a more-or-less standard particular and desired reality for the members of a particular magical group. 

In other words; reality is given to magical adherents in a top-down fashion, analogous to the situation ins a traditional church. 

And this is exactly why I believe that ritual/ ceremonial magic has become essentially obsolete. 

Almost all institutions and formal groups have nowadays become converged with the secular-leftist materialism and its Litmus Test issues via which this agenda-of-evil is being pursued throughout Western civilization, and the places and people influenced by it. 

Since organizations are compulsorily politicized by bureaucratic means and through relentless mass-social media pressure (and usually politicized willingly, enthusiastically; since this evil corruption is so widespread among the masses); then this will affect more and more of the activities of ritual magic - the content of which is more and more leftist hence evil. 

In other words; ritual-ceremonial magic is susceptible to exactly the form of corruption that are the "Christian" churches; and for the same reasons. 

Men make their own experienced-reality - but the only true reality corresponds with that of God's creation. All others oppose created-reality, and lead away from resurrection to eternal Heavenly life. They lead, indeed; to self-chosen, self-made, self-imprisoning hells - of various kinds. 

I believe that already and increasingly; all forms of top-down influence are net-evil (that is, they contain some Good, because all that is created contains some Good - but overall and by motivation they are evil); that is. they are encouraging and enforcing one or many of the false realities in opposition to divine creation. 

As of 2023, these top-down experienced-realities are not just destructive of truth and Goodness; but often invert real values: therefore the methods of ritual magic, insofar as they retain effect, will tend to be dishonest and enforcing of lies; will tend to support and promote sin; will call ugliness beauty and reject the truly-beautiful as being ugly and oppressive.  

My conclusion is that here-and-now we cannot trust the content or motivations of any external sources - including magical traditions or societies; because they will very probably, implicitly if not explicitly, be training us in ways-of-being that net-oppose divine creation and serve the powers of evil.  

Group-ish and top-down (e.g. initiatory) practices that were possible, effective and overall Good just a century ago, or eve more recently; now almost always are the opposite; and are either merely ineffective or feeble, or else their power is harnessed against the divine and transcendental values. 

Like it or not; we are forced back upon our own powers of discernment; and the taking of active personal responsibility for our beliefs and practices.

And - as part of this - a recognition that our defense against corruption and possibility of pursuing Good is almost always by becoming aware-of, and actively-choosing-of, much that used to be unconscious, passive, taken for granted, taken on trust. 

Perhaps it is driving the principle too far to say that Being with God is less than Being with Self?

It is something which depends on the way we understand this statement. If we give-up our own individuality in order to be God's own Self - as some, it seems, are trying to do - we simply become God's own Self again, and lose our own identity. This means we are no longer in the context of the statement anyway, as there is no Us anymore. 

If it is a temporary at-one-ment, we can absorb a lot of God's presence quality, and therefore grasp the way His feelings and mind work...

We may still feel that we can know us-being-ourselves better than we can know God being God. It's the Teacher/ Pupil situation again, in which the Teacher wants it to become the Teacher/ Teacher situation - as Friends. 

Excerpted from a letter by William Arkle of 15th September 1995; to Jon Flint. 

This short statement by William Arkle seems to highlight the problem with aiming at oneness with God (or Deity); as so often advocated by Eastern-Influenced spiritual people nowadays; including many self-identified "Christians" whose implicit aims are actually oneness, rather than resurrection and Heaven. 

The problem is that if oneness with God is achieved, then we are no longer ours-selves, and therefore are no longer a part of the situation (the "context of the statement").

And therefore aiming at oneness is a species of the mainstream atheistic assumption that this mortal life is destined for annihiliation. Oneness spirituality may amount to little more than positively embracing the unavoidable annihilation of mind and body posited by secular materialism. 

[Which may be why mainstream secular materialism - even globalist totalitarianism - is happy to advocate and support oneness spiritualties - such as 'mindfulness' and (Westernized versions of-) Buddhism, Hinduism and the like.] 

But Arkle also mentions that a temporary, and somewhat incomplete, enhancement of oneness; can be considered a way of learning more about God's nature and motivations. 

In other words, some partial elements of the kind of passive, immersive, un-selfing, not-thinking meditation advocated by oneness advocates; can be a way of getting-to-know God better. 

A good old-word for this is communion - and may lead to making a useful distinction between the Christian seeking of comm-union with a personal God; and the "Eastern" aim of union with an im-personal God (Deity). 

The value of communion is obvious*; even when it occurs on the way to a temporary state of experienced-union - which by definition (if complete) is not experienced, neither is it remembered - because there is no Self either to experience or to remember what has happened.

Therefore communion with God ought Not to proceed to union, assuming we desire to learn and benefit from our knowledge of God. 

Union is good only for escaping from our-Selves, since it annihilates all experience of being...

*I would go so far as to say that nothing is more valuable to a Christian than a solid and faithful knowledge of God's nature and motivations; since this can serve as the basis of discernment and guidance though all manner of confusions and deceptions; including those propagated by the Churches.

Freedom is of-thinking - freedom is "pure" thinking from one's true (and divine) self - and recognizing that such thinking is not private and subjective, but a part of reality. 

Yet such freedom is not wanted by most people most of the time; not even among self-identified Christians (who might, on principle, be supposed to value freedom more than most). 

Thus, people will not allow their own thinking to be free -- we block and constrain our thinking, and subordinate it to external influences, and desire the same (even more so) for the thinking of others -- and we do this for reasons that seem Good and have partial validity.  

Yet the consequences of undervaluing our freedom and the freedom of others may be serious, eternally; because unfreedom means the rejection of Heaven. 

One who does not desire freedom may desire a Paradise of peace, pleasure, and without suffering; but he does not desire Heaven. Because heaven is a domain of creation , and creation entails freedom. 

Thus one who does not give a core valuation to freedom will reject Heaven, will reject Jesus Christ's offer of resurrection and salvation.  

It is a matter of common observation of our-selves and others that people often set a very low priority on freedom, regard other things as more important: we may prefer pleasure, freedom from suffering, security, or continuation of some sin - resentment, lust, pride etc. 

Indeed that we often fear and resist freedom in ourselves - and do so even more so in other Beings (we fear the freedom of people, animals, plants, the mineral world...). 

And such caution about freedom is rational, sensible, truth-based! Because it is only in Heaven, where mutual love of all Beings is the fundamental and continuous principle, that freedom can or should be unconstrained. It is only in Heaven where freedom necessarily leads to creation.

Freedom plus Love equals Creation...  But, on the other hand; freedom without Love is selfish desire. 

It is therefore rational to fear the freedom of those who do not love us. 

It is rational for those who desire to be Good; to fear their own freedom - since they know that (in this mortal life)    love does not always or fully rule their motivations. 

In sum: Freedom is thinking (thus living) from-oneself; but that is insufficient in a world of other Beings, it does not take account of other Beings except insofar as they gratify us. 

Thus, freedom without love is demonic - and regards the rest of creation as ripe for subordination to its own gratification.  

Yet indifference to freedom is potentially demonic too: especially indifference to the freedom of others - and the idea that "the rest of the world" might be/ out to be subordinated to our own untrammeled freedom to think/ say/ do... whatever we want. 

[This, indeed seems, to be a recurrent demonic temptation - to couple individual freedom with personal gratification without reference to love. The 'offer' is of a situation in which the individual is presented with a absolute-freedom fantasy of doing whatever he wills, whenever he wills it. As for other people/ beings... well in one version everyone is supposed to get this freedom, and we get the prospect of an eternal war of each against all; in another version (popular in recent decades) our personal freedom is sustained and implemented by the reciprocal subordination of others to our will - presented as being 'for their own good' - or, 'for the good of the planet'.] 

The situation is that only those who genuinely value freedom as a core and indispensable basis of life, will want Heaven - because heaven (unlike Paradise, Nirvana, or Hell) is a place of creation - and creation entails freedom. 

Yet, this absolute, non-negotiable ideal of freedom also requires a full acknowledgement that freedom is only Good when it is absolutely subordinated to love; and in this mortal life, love is not absolute, therefore freedom will not be subordinated to love either fully or always. 

There is no paradox or conflict here; there is no place for compromise or a 'middle way' - it is a simple reality rooted in the difference between mortal life and heaven, and a recognition that what is not just possible but absolute in Heaven; is only partly possible and never absolute here on earth.

The Christian will desire and value freedom without reservation in Heaven; while recognizing that here on earth there are inevitable and necessary constraints that mean we require discernment; and that the path of Good will usually tend to be expedient, temporary, and involving compromises. 

For this to happen; I submit that Christians must know freedom while in this mortal life; freedom in thinking. And to know this, we need to seek it consciously and explicitly; because the powers arrayed against freedom in thinking are so formidable.

Yet, at the same time, Christians need to discern and be selective about the consequences of this necessary freedom; because love is greater than freedom. In this mortal life, our free thinking may lead us away from love - it may undervalue other persons/ Beings; freedom of thinking may become negative, may be merely freedom-from instead of a positive manifestation of our innate partially-divine nature.

And double-negation (freedom-from) is a spiritual disaster when adopted as a positive life-program; since it so effectively masks a strategy of active evil.  

Love first, creation, freedom... All are needed, and all are indivisible; because related aspects of the same divine motivation - but love must come first. 

What happens after death to those who reject resurrection? 

I find this an endlessly fascinating question, and one I feel impelled to return to; especially when I remember to take into account that everybody is, ultimately, an unique individual; and there is no reason why all unique humans should fall into a fixed number of categories. 

As I have often said; the first approximation is that what happens after death depends on what we want and choose. God "gives us what we want". 

But this applies primarily to our subjective experience after death - i.e. it is our post-mortal subjective experience that God gives us. 

So that those who want not-to-exist, that is who want to have themselves annihilated (as is the case for many atheists), will have that experience of annihilation. 

In other words, they will cease to be aware of their own existence; despite that (as I assume) beings are eternal and cannot be annihilated (although they can and do change, transform).

Those do not want to be resurrected (and dwell in the state of Heaven); but want to remain self-aware as spirits; will (I think) get what they want. But then the question arises as to where they go as spirits, and what they do?  

Some spirits become demons, and return to earth to do that stuff. Others seem to reject leaving earth in the first place, and after death of the body voluntarily remain 'attached' to the material in some way as what we call ghosts. 

Others who choose to reject resurrection and remain as spirits; seem mainly to be motivated by a desire to avoid all suffering, to rule-out all negative experience - they seek 'peace', 'bliss', non-being yet not to the degree of annihilation of awareness. They often also seek a kind of universal awareness (oneness), of a contemplative and passive kind; such that ideally they want to experience everything as Good, but not intervene, and not create (because that would be to add something from oneself, and would imply that reality was ultimately incomplete). 

My guess is that they would gravitate towards some kind of impersonal and abstract communion with God the Creator; but not recognizing God as a person; instead regarding God as a deity - as abstract tendencies and properties. In other words, these souls would take the side of creation (and therefore oppose Satan and the demons) - but by regarding creation as an abstract direction. 

Such an idea lies behind Platonism, Neo-Platonism (and their descendants) and the Life Force (and other names) which was popular among some intellectuals of the late 19th, early 20th century; and was seen as embodying positive values such as consciousness, intelligence, creativity - but in an abstract and impersonal way that 'used' Beings, and ultimately would discard Beings such as to exist in a purely spiritual, immaterial, ideal way. 

Then there are those who choose to be reincarnated, for what are apparently quite a wide range of reasons. By their own accounts; some who choose reincarnation just don't want to die from mortal life, and therefore they just want to repeat the experience of living. While others seek further mortal experiences, with the hope of learning more by having different kinds of experience. 

Some would-be reincarnators apparently regard reality as a test; and each incarnation as imposed upon them; as punishment from failure or a challenge to do better. Such a reality/ universe may be unchanging - or else cyclical  

By contrast; from what is known of hunter-gatherer tribal peoples; they seem to want to be reincarnated within a known circle of beings that include humans (mostly genetic relatives) and also some kinds of animals - or maybe even other more remote kinds of being (what we would term' vegetable' or 'mineral'). 

This comes from a perspective that sees the world, reality, as a fixed thing within-which energies cycle and Beings transform, so there is never an exact repetition yet everything - overall- remains the same. 

I have classified people above, but my exact understanding is that individual persons may want individual outcomes. Within these many and various individual outcomes there is the great division between those who take the side of God and creation, and those who oppose them. 

Christians are those who both take the side of God and creation; and also choose resurrection into Heaven. So, this means that in principle there are (many) ways of being on the right side, but not being a Christian.

But that is in principle, and not in practice. In practice - it seems to me that people are lying to themselves, and trying to fool themselves on a massive scale. They are telling other people, and glibly reassuring themselves that Of Course they want X - yet their lives and opinions suggest that they really want something else altogether. 

In particular, it seems to me that extremely few people really want the Christian destination of resurrection into Heaven. 

We first need to be honest with ourselves about what we really want - in an unconscious and habitual way.

And then - having brought to conscious and explicit awareness what has previously been unconscious and implicit  - we further need to decide whether that is really what we want for our-selves - on a timescale of eternity. 

Sin often deceives us by short-termism, and selfishness; and the deception works by an unexamined and automatic assumption that what we want in the short term will be what we want forever; and by the assumption that gratifying our purely selfish pleasures and personally avoiding suffering, will suffice as an entire way of living.

With this situation, it is a very pure and ideal form of choice we will make - it is not a matter of what we can manage to achieve among the problems and limitations of mortal life. It is simply a decision. 

Decisions rely upon motivations, and motivations are a fact. In this mortal life, weak motivations are useless - our behaviours is a product of strong motivations.  

But in eternal life; we may choose to endorse and live by our weak motivations: this is part of the gift of Jesus Christ.

Jesus made it so that we can choose our weak motivations as the basis for eternal life. We may be (most people are) dominated by sinful motivations, by selfishness, hedonism, spitefulness... But we can choose to recognize these as sins and repent them; which means that we leave them behind at resurrection, discard them in order to enter the state of Heaven.   

This, then, is something we can do now, with some reasonable hope that it will effect our 'final' decision after death. We can see our situation clearly - both in terms of the possibilities, and in terms of our real selves, and across the open-ended timescale of eternity. 

The powers of evil, that are hostile to divine creation, operate by keeping us unconscious of such distinctions, by inducing people to regard their own here-and-now inclinations as the best guide to eternal choices. 

And then the powers of evil work (tirelessly, across many human generations) to fill our unconscious motivations and habits with a mish-mash of selfishness, impulsivity, hedonism, fear, resentment, despair and all manner of 'sins' which share the tendency to make that 'final', post-mortal choice one that will serve the agenda of evil - and not what would be best for us in an eternal timescale. 

So often in modern life, the crucial requirement is to become aware of that which is unconscious, and to understand matters from the proper and larger perspective - in a situation where the opposite is encouraged and enforced.  

Such a framework will then interact with our own individual real nature; such that it is hardly to be expected that everyone will make the same choice; or that everyone will choose resurrection. 

Yet it may be that many of the other choices are being made on the basis of misunderstandings, or of too short-termist and selfish a consideration; without adequate thought: that is, on the basis of wrong understandings, from incomplete and false information. 

God will - broadly speaking - give each Being what he wants after death: where 'wants' is understood in personal-experiential terms, and so that it does not interfere with the salvation choices of other Beings. 

Yet that question of "what we really want", includes considering whether we really want it; and whether it is really 'us' that wants. 

This is where our hard spiritual work ought to be focused - in terms of conscious clarification and truthful consideration. And this is something that cannot be imposed, only encouraged; but we can only do this voluntarily, by and for ourselves.  

It is a kind of obvious common sense that the Christian God must be responsive to us. 

And to respond is to change. 

Yet it is a Big Thing - and apparently has been since not-long-after the ascension of Jesus - that God should be unchanging, always the same. 

This is asserted all over the place among theologians, by Catholics and Protestants; yet it is clearly nonsense in terms of our relationship with God... So why is the idea such a dogmatic obsession?  

Why? To cut my answer short, the reason is that theologians are (and - it seems - always have been) captives of their own philosophical categories inherited from the ancient Greeks and Romans; which see the alternatives as a thing changing or not-changing, and can therefore see no way that God's identity as God can be maintained except by His never-changing. 

But this way of regarding identity is not the one which we were born believing, and not how we assume identity through time. 

Instead; we regard someone as staying the same person when they continuously exist.

My mother was my mother throughout her mortal life and beyond, despite whatever transformations her mind or body may undergo (development, ageing, dying, resurrection); so long as she continuously remains that person. 

She can respond to my needs; and be changed by these interactions - yet she still remains herself. 

Analogously; there is no reason to assume that God must not change in order to remain the entity, the being, the person that is God.  

What of nature, in particular of Goodness? There may be a concern that is God could change open-endedly in response to His interactions with Men and creation; then he might sooner-or-later cease to be Good? 

But that is only so in this mortal life, where our natures are partly sinful and our motivations are mixed. 

Christians believe that God is wholly Good by nature and in His motivations - and there is zero reason why God's characteristic and defining nature and motivations should change as a consequence of interactions - no matter how much God is changed by the interactions.  

As usual, I trace the problem down to fundamental metaphysical assumptions; and to the too-common inability to recognize when we are assuming, and when what is assumed could be different in reality. 

So long as people decide (assume) that all valid metaphysical possibilities have necessarily been captured by previous generations of philosophers and theologians, and our job as Christians is simply to choose between them -- then we remain trapped by their errors, omissions, limitations - and any differences in consciousness they had from us.

I contend that Men are spontaneously wiser than they realize, and in particular we come into this world with the divine gift of a broadly-correct understanding of its basic nature - for example, the assumptions that the world is alive and conscious ("animism"), and that our thinking interacts with the world. 

After all; why wouldn't God provide His children with broadly-correct assumptions built-in? 

It seems an obvious necessity. 

Thus ordinary Men have often been wiser than theologians; and lived Christianity truer and more-Good than than the often unloving, impersonal, Christianity of the theologians. 

Ordinary Christians have always known that God is changed by us, just as parents are changed by their children. This is not a problem - indeed it is absolutely necessary for the Christian God. A God who is not changed by His children is imaginable, and indeed such an understanding of God is common now and has-been through history. But this is not the Christian God. 

Here is a treat for you! - a record that I borrowed from the Bristol record library back in 1975, and recorded on cassette tape for my own usage (except for the modern music at the end) - long since lost or broken, alas. 

It has many gems featring recorder as solo, in ensemble, or as obbligato, spanning several centuries - including such songs as "Sheep may safely graze" sung by Norma Burrowes, Robert Lloyd singing "Ruddier than the cherry", Martyn Hill doing a Shakespeare song by Arne, and James Bowman's superb rendering of Esurientes from Bach's Magnificat. These are all singers that I enjoyed 'in real life over' the next few years; and indeed I once sang in a choir for which Martyn Hill was the tenor soloist. 

This LP was also where I first came across that absolute gem by Bach featuring a pair of recorders, which I have twice featured on this blog. 

David Munrow was an important figure in my development of appreciation for "early music", and early classical music - both through his playing of various wind instruments; and from his scholarly and educational activities on vinyl and via TV and radio. He committed suicide in his thirties, almost out-of-the-blue, apparently; but the suicide was never mentioned at the time, and I never understood why he had died so young, until several years later. 

I retain a special fondness for the Treble Recorder, which has an unique, innate, plaintive and yearning quality. It was reintroduced to classical music in Germany, especially by Arnold Dolmetsch - but I always found Dolmetsch's playing to be rather constipated and lacking inspiration. 

It took Munrow to 'free' the recorder from the smoke of academicism - where it now basks openly!

I am sometimes astonished by people's blindness to the obvious fact that their whole lives are based on double-negative motivations; and that therefore they can only motivate themselves to get-through life, by maintaining a continuous state of frothing anger and seething resentment...

And then they develop a scheme of inverted values by-which this state of angry resentment is regarded as right, proper, praiseworthy!

Of course; in this totalitarian-secular world, where all major institutions are left-affiliated - double-negativity is inevitable, since that is the basis and nature of leftism. 

But, sadly, a great deal of Christianity (as well as other religions) is also mostly negative and oppositional in its theology, hence its motivations. 

So we are all surrounded by encouragements to base our lives on negativity, on oppositions; and to value only this...

What eventuates is a public, social, political, media world in a waxing-and-waning (but never-ending) frenzy of opposition to... something or another (mostly or wholly made-up, invented, manipulated)...

And this being resisted and opposed by Christians on a point-by-point basis; such that the end-result is a Christianity of triple-negation! 

(That is, group Christian life substantially consists of Christians opposing the secular-leftists, who are themselves motivated by one or many of the oppositional leftist ideologies such as socialism, feminism, racism, climate change, healthism, anti-Fire-Nationism...)

And public discourse is consequently oppositional in nature - consisting of ginning-up personal disputes, and escalating the interpersonal rhetoric; presumably in an attempt at avoiding self-awareness of the sheer flimsiness, feebleness and radical incoherence of one's own motivations.

This has been going-on for more than three decades even in science, and for more than sixty years in general culture; and so most people know nothing different. They apparently imagine that such spiteful scapegoating and schoolboy scrapping always has been the underlying nature of discourse on ideas, morality and the purpose of life. 

In such a world; a serious Christian who engages in public discourse will be corrupted by the process - one way or another: either by its becoming a demonstration of ritualized submission of Christianity to leftism; or else by him being dragged into the melee of name-calling, face-scratching and hair-pulling enacted as spectacle in front of a contrived media-cheerleading audience and its dopey addicts. 

Luckily for Christians, none of this is necessary. The powers of evil are very concerned to distract Christians from, or to deny, the spiritual power and effectiveness of the single soul. Very concerned to corral and corrupt the single soul, by insisting Christianity is only valid when engaged in group or corporate activity.  

Yet, on the contrary; any individual who achieves clarity in his thinking, clarifies thinking for Mankind. Any Man who is well-motivated, even for ten minutes!, creates a positive spiritual template for others. Someone that seeks and attains guidance from his real-divine self or from the Holy Ghost, makes it easier for this to be repeated by himself and others. 

All true thinking makes possibilities and alters the balance of powers. 

Why? Because although our experience is one of alienated consciousness and solitude, the fact is that all Men are spiritually 'linked' in vital respects - or, more exactly, Men share in a condition of inhabiting a "spiritual thought-world" - a world of mutual knowing and interactions.

Ancient tribal Men knew this innately - and lived by it; and we each personally spontaneously used-to know this as young children - we knew that some of our thoughts could be known by others, and that we could know the thinking of others; that we were never alone, that our dreams and thoughts potentially affected the world for better, or worse. 

CG Jung got it partly-right but distorted, with the Collective Unconscious - his basic point that we inhabit a kind of spiritual underworld was correct; and that this accounts for the very possibility of communication and knowledge.  

The personal is political; but not by material means (as leftists suppose) but because 'the spiritual' is public - potentially.  

In 'making the world a better place', or indeed in helping a neighbour; it is not just that we don't need to use the material mechanisms of human society - but that these mechanisms thwart betterment, and twist it to evil ends. 

The only proper reason for public discourse (like this!) is insofar as it contributes towards personal clarity and strengthens positive motivations. 

That work is done by the spiritual act of composition; as the benefit of thinking is done by the spiritual act of having right-thoughts. The achievement is at that point - and not by the later possibility of its physical spread and 'influence' of words, images, concepts...

We really do not need to worry about access to media or the levers of power; about accuracy or misrepresentation; about communication, about persuasion, about winning (fake) arguments! 

(Indeed we must not worry about such things - because such things work precisely by the corrosive effect of such worry. Worry about the material manifestation of communications is therefore a sin, that requires to be recognized and repented. Writers and other public discoursers need to be aware of this, or else the spiritual good of their activity will be undone, and they will be corrupted by their activities: as is so often evident.) 

We 'only' need to take care of our side of things! 

Anything we say that is right and Good will (insofar as it is helpful) be taken-up and woven into ongoing-creation by God. 

Anything we think right; any needful discernment, any repentance or other decision to reject an evil, will have its positive effect on the spiritual world. 

Since Modern man is blind and insensible; Our first and most important job is to become aware: to understand, become conscious, make the right choices and clarify our desire to follow Jesus Christ, for resurrection into Heaven, to live eternally and Sons and Daughter of God. 

Nothing is more important than this, nothing is more effective.

Everything we require for the job is supplied us; nothing else is needed that what we have and can get; and nothing external can stop us from doing the job. 

Creativity means bringing original (i.e. originating is us) thinking from one's own self to problems -- not, therefore, merely mix-and-matching among what (we suppose) others to have said on the problem. 

And the big problem for Christians, in the past couple of centuries, has been the problem of suffering. 

It is a real eye-opener to realize just how Big a problem suffering has been. I've been re-reading Robert Frost's poems and biographies lately, and he was yet-another Christian of recent engagement (Philip K Dick was another) who expended decades of serious effort (trying-out this and that scheme or suggestion) in trying to understand the problem of suffering in this mortal life on earth; and without ever attaining a satisfactory or satisfying solution. Or even one an answer that was clear and comprehensible, and avoided confusion and contradiction. 

This strikes me as a pretty damning failure - at least for Christianity as it has been conceptualized whether traditionally, or in more 'modern' way -- and it applies too, to 'Old Testament'-dominated Christians (like Frost) - who end-up with a God who barely resembles that described and exemplified by Jesus Christ; but instead an incomprehensible tyrant who (in practice) inverts the truth that God is Love, to the opposite of "Love is God" (that is, the un-Christian assertion that whatever 'God' does is Love by definition - and without regard to Man's understanding and experiences of Love). 

When intelligent and creative people grapple for many years with a problem they fail to solve and yet - by its nature - is one that needs to be solved by every Christian*; this, for me, is prima facie evidence that they are clinging to at least one false fundamental-assumption that is blocking what would otherwise be a straightforward solution.  

(*I'd have thought it was obvious that every Christian needs to be able to understand why a wholly-Good God who is the creator; permits suffering, including (apparent) extreme suffering and early deaths innocents such as young children, in this world. This is not trivial, and it needs a solution that is clear and satisfying - or else, loss of faith in such a God is logical, perhaps entailed.) 

My answer is that these creative and intelligent people have applied their intelligence but not their creativity to the problem! 

In other words, they have accepted the problem as defined by their predecessors, instead of evaluating the formulation of the problem. 

A wrongly-formulated problem is insoluble, no matter what intelligence and resources are applied to it; while a well-formulated problem is always soluble when that solution is necessary to salvation (because that's the way that a Good creator God will naturally set-up his universe).

I have been through this trajectory myself. When I became a Christian I was determined that the truth was already known (revealed) and stated, by some or other church - or at least some individual within a church; and my job was to find it, understand it, believe it, and obey it. 

I therefore made a pretty determined effort to switch-off my creativity when it came to Christianity: my effort was to discern for sure, maybe to select (albeit as little as possible); but not to change anything, and certainly not to add anything! 

It was only after I found that crucial problems were not soluble, never had been solved satisfactorily and clearly, and that no amount of selection and recombination - at least, not when ruled by established principles) would work; that I was compelled to get creative about Christianity. 

(Either that or knowingly to accept swirlingly-abstract fudges, or known pseudo-answers). 

As I have often described, I discovered a couple or more false assumptions that trapped Christianity, and prevented a solution to the problem of suffering. 

One of the first and worst was the very common assumption that God was omnipotent and omniscient so that creation was entirely a product of God's positive will; and another assumption was that Jesus Christ's teaching and efforts were directed at "making a better world" - at improving this mortal life - perhaps even perfecting this mortal life at some point. 

Once I realized that God instead was (no matter how vastly powerful in creation) engaged in a creative war of Good against evil in reality; and that Jesus's primary achievement was to make-possible eternal resurrected life; did I realize that the problem of  suffering was a wrongly-formulated question.

Jesus did not promise a better mortal world - nor a world of less suffering: certainly not a mortal world of perfection! 

Nor did he wish to set up a church as an essential intermediary between individual Men and the divine; and make his followers obey a church primarily - instead, he sent the Holy Ghost for our essential and always-wise guidance. 

Jesus did not promise even an improvement of this mortal life. Instead; Jesus's promises of happiness were directed at post-mortal life, and not at flaw-less-perfection, but at our becoming Sons and Daughters of God - divine creative-Beings like Jesus himself. 

God did not create suffering, which has always-been wherever there was free-agency (until Jesus enabled Heaven). God's creation is directed against primordial suffering and conflict between Beings; but God did not promise to remove suffering, which is impossible in this mortal world. Suffering is only overcome (via Jesus's teaching and work) in the post-mortal, resurrected life-everlasting, world of Heaven. 

Suffering in this mortal world is therefore inevitable, because of the nature of this world and the Beings who inhabit it; and therefore God uses this world to prepare us for the resurrected world of Heaven which those who desire it may choose - and where there is positive love, joy, creativity, energy, satisfaction (instead of the mere negation of suffering). 

Thus we arrive at some simple and comprehensible understandings of these vital matters - but only by applying our creativity, as well as our intelligence. 

There is a school of though that says our fundamental assumptions cannot consciously be chosen - or, more accurately, that if they are thus chosen then they will be feeble. The idea is that only those fundamental beliefs which we have without choice are genuinely motivating. 

Robert Frost indignantly denounced college teaching that 'frisks Freshmen of their principles'. At Bread Loaf in 1925 he declared that a boy with all his beliefs drawn out of him is in no condition to learn. Or even to live. Everybody needs some beliefs as unquestionable as the axioms of geometry*. No postulates deliberately adopted could ever have the force. We had to have unarguable, undemonstrable, unmistakeable axioms, just three or four. And if we didn't abuse our minds we should surely have them. One such is genuineness is better than pretense. Another is that meanness is intolerable in oneself. And another is that death is better than being untrustworthy. 

From A Swinger of Birches: a portrait of Robert Frost, by Sidney Cox (1957)  

There is something valid in this argument, that requires response, because our fundamental assumptions are not arbitrary. 

We surely cannot just stick a pin in a list and choose anything that comes-up as our baseline beliefs, and then expect to be motivated strongly enough to resist being derailed by the many temptations of life and infirmities of our own nature. 

On the other hand, it seems obvious that - on the one hand - peoples fundamental assumptions are being inculcated-into-them by deliberate and socio-political propaganda, in ways that harm the people. So, if we just accept our assumptions as something 'given', we are in fact merely blinding ourselves to our own exploitative psychological enslavement.  

Furthermore; modern motivations are actually very feeble, by comparison with the past; as can be seen by the collapse of personal courage and individuality of character - which has been very obvious and evident over recent decades. The docility, homogeneity, and automatic-obedience of Western Man is now astonishing to behold; when compared with the middle twentieth century. 

So, it seems that there is no valuable alternative but to become aware of our own deepest values, assumptions, metaphysical beliefs; and to evaluate them; and then to choose between possibilities. 

It is this choosing upon which all depends: because what we choose must not only be something we regard as right, true, correct; but it must also be something that provides us with a strong motivation - such that we can avoid being deflected off-course by the first problem, the first contrary expediency, we encounter... 

So that we may have the courage of our convictions... Because - without courage, convictions are worthless.  

People often talk as if 'will power', determination is the answer; but the strength of will-power itself derives from fundamental convictions. It is our assumptions that provide the power of will. So our will cannot overcome feeble and false assumptions. Again we are returned to the need to choose assumptions; but to choose the right assumptions. 

Choosing our assumptions is (and should be) more like a quest, or a path of discovery; than it is like an arbitrary coin-flip. 

It is a matter of finding our most fundamental values. We each need to find-out what things we most value, deep down, through time. 

These profound values may be very different from, may indeed oppose or contradict, the values we have expressed, or implemented in previous living. Our fundamental values may be a kind of secret knowing: and, at first, secret even from our conscious-selves.

It may also be the case that these fundamental values turn out to be inconsistent among themselves, that they clash - and therefore tend to cancel-out: this may be another cause of feeble motivation and cowardice of conviction.   

So the choosing of deep assumptions is also, potentially, a choosing-between. 

What is the it that does the exploring, questing, discovering, choosing? That's another matter - I am talking about the real self or true self - which is also the divine self. 

Only when it is the divine self who is doing the choosing can we expect a Good outcome. 

If, instead, the above process was merely done by our 'personality self', that 'self' constructed by societal inculcation, a mere selfish-self, and pleasure-seeking self, or any other kind of evil-motivated self... Then clearly the end result is going to be bad (i.e. bad in a Christian sense). 

It would then merely be a choice made by that which is propagandized, passive, controlled... Thus no real 'choice' at all... 

Therefore, as always, there are (at least) two changes that must be made, two processes that must simultaneously be implemented. 

...This is nearly always true. When only one obstacle is before us, when only one kind of change is needed for our betterment; it will usually be overcome sooner or later, spontaneously, without need for profound change.

What separates us from awakening, from betterment, from initiation of a positive transformative process; is the requirement for (at least) two simultaneous efforts: in this case 1. the need to find and work-with our real/ divine self, in 2. the project searching-for and choosing our fundamental assumptions.  

In conclusion: Yes! fundamental assumptions really can be known, evaluated, and chosen; but for this to be valuable and effective entails that we discover something about our deepest values, and also that this 'discovery' is accomplished by that which is divine within us. 

*Note. The fact that there is more-than-one axiomatic system of geometry, more than one set of postulates - and that the best choice between axioms depends on the function to which the geometry is being-put - undercuts Frosts analogy in an ultimate sense; although it still retains rhetorical validity.