Bruce Charlton's Notions

I sometimes think that this question (or something like it) is the root of philosophy. 

We must die in order to be remade - to be resurrected. 

This is salvation. 

Damnation is the other choice: to reject salvation. 

We must be resurrected to enter that state called Heaven*; because for Heaven to be 'heavenly' - all within it must have-been remade, wholly-good - without disposition to evil. 

Or, to enter Heaven, we must make a permanent commitment to repent and repudiate all sin - all evil, all that opposes divine harmony - and the way that this permanent commitment is made is by resurrection -- in which all that is Good (God-harmonious) in us is retained; while all that is not is left-behind and discarded.

Such a permanent commitment is made from love; and therefore must freely be chosen - cannot be compelled; and can only be made by those capable of love who choose to make love their eternal foundational principle. 

(Only thus can Heaven be a place that is wholly Good (a place without any evil-motivation) and also wholly-free - inhabited by beings with divine powers of creation; who will always and spontaneously use their godly-powers harmoniously with God and other Heavenly beings.)  

The need for death is true for men and women - and for all other beings. 

Which is why this incarnated mortal life on earth is dominated by entropy: because every-"thing" must die, if there is to be a possibility of resurrection. 

In other words: If every being on earth is to have a chance of attaining and choosing Heaven - they all must die, sooner or later. 

Pre-mortal spirit life, although wholly-good, is very imperfect - especially in terms of freedom, of agency. 

The harmony and goodness of pre-mortal life is dependent on the passivity and obedience of spirits; because pre-mortal beings are not innately wholly good (in the way that God is wholly-good, or resurrected beings are wholly good). 

Because pre-mortal spirits are not-wholly-good, the harmony of goodness in pre-mortal life is attained top-down, by the direction and control of God. 

In effect, so far as pre-mortal spirit life goes; God is the wholly-good parents of a mixed bunch of children - some mostly-good, some mostly-evil - none wholly good. It is only by the obedience of these children that goodness prevails. 

But pre-mortal spirits mature, they grow-up, they change... Sooner or later, they get to a point where they must throw-off the passive goodness of obedience to parental authority and control. 

Then these pre-mortal spirits have a choice...

Either the spirits can incarnate on earth - some time afterwards to die, and make the choice of resurrection, or not. 

(This is God's plan - because God wishes to make and inhabit Heaven with resurrected (incarnated everlasting) beings, who have have by their choice of resurrection made an eternal commitment to live in harmony with divine creation.)

Or else those pre-mortal spirits who do not want to die and be resurrected; or who simply do not want to die - and those who reject the divine plan for an harmonious Heaven of free-beings who have chosen to be remade without evil... 

These spirits can escape their previous state of obedience to divine goodness, and enter the sphere of earth while still spirits - and therefore immortal. 

These are the demons. 

(This explains why demons are spirits - not embodied; and why they are immortal. They are spirits because they have refused temporary mortal incarnation, and are immortal because they are spirits, and unaffected by 'entropy'.)

If the pre-mortal spirits choose mortal life on earth, they must choose temporary incarnation and death (as necessary pre-requisites for resurrection); but if they reject this package, then such spirits have rejected even the possibility of Heaven.

This is why all demons are evil, and why demons are worse than incarnated Men - because demons, by their rejection of mortal incarnation, have all chosen to reject the possibility of that death which makes salvation possible. 

(If demons changed their minds and repented, and wished to prepare for the choice of Heaven; they would need first to incarnate and die. Whether this this is possible or ever actually happens I do not know.) 

So - demons have rejected the passive ('secondhand') good of pre-mortal spirit life under the parental influence of God; and they have also rejected that mortal life on earth which is a necessary stage to prepare for remaking-by-resurrection, and Heaven.   

The ruling principle of creation (that which makes creation cohere) is love; and love is the reason why the dead choose resurrection and heaven.  

The essential reason why demons have rejected mortal incarnation, and why some dead mortal Men reject the offer of resurrection into Heaven and instead choose damnation; is that demons and the damned are either incapable of love, or have rejected love as the basis of life and chosen... something else.    

Differently phrased: Demons are those never-incarnated beings who have rejected living under the domination of entropy (i.e. mortal earthly life); and by doing so rejected God's plan of salvation. 

The damned are those who chose to live and die as mortal incarnate Men on earth, and have become dis-carnated beings (i.e. souls severed from their bodies); and who die and then reject resurrection and Heaven; instead choosing some other fate.

*Note: Why our final God-destined state-of-being is embodied, incarnate - rather than spirits - is a topic I have considered elsewhere.   

It seems a pretty general claim of many religions, and is confirmed by the intuition of many individuals; that this is in some sense a 'fallen world'. 

By which I mean that there is a conviction that - compared with conditions in mortal life on earth - in some way there was a past era of innocent, blissful happiness. Some 'Garden of Eden' for instance. 

I agree that this is broadly the case, but my understanding of how and why this world is 'fallen' is probably unique. 

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try and set-out clearly and concisely how I understand this business. 

 

I regard life much as do Mormons; divided into 

1. Pre-mortal spirit life - when we were innocent and childlike spirits, living under the direct influence of God. 

To become mortal Men is to opt-out of pre-mortal spirit life. 

2. The first great transformation is birth into mortal incarnate life (a world of 'entropy' - of change, degeneration and death) - which we chose to experience, as the necessary pathway to fuller divinity. 

3. The second great transformation - for those who choose to follow Jesus Christ - is death and resurrection to immortal and incarnate life; to dwell in a Heaven peopled by God, Jesus Christ, Lazarus (the first resurrected Man) and all the people who have gone before us. 

To become a resurrected Man is to opt-in to Heaven. 

 

The 'move from pre-mortal spirit life into this earthly word was either involuntary or voluntary. 

Satan and the demons were spirits who were involuntarily expelled from pre-mortal bliss (because of their prideful, resentful, opposition to that state); and who are now bound to the fate of this world (unless they instead choose utter isolation): the demonic spirits cannot move on to Heaven, cannot be resurrected. 

In addition this earthly world is peopled by mortal incarnates such as you and me; who chose to get temporary bodies with the possibility of gaining an eternal body; and who experience situations of this earth with the possibility of learning and developing from them. We can die, leave the world, and move-on to Heaven.

 

So this earthly world we inhabit is a mixed world; inhabited by both mortal incarnates and demonic spirits. Our dwelling here is indeed a fall for incarnate Men, in the sense that we are no longer innocent, and are beset by evil. 

Whereas our pre-mortal life was blissful in the same kind of way that we can imagine the happiest possible young childhood in the best possible family - but our current life is not. 

We have gone from a life in which simply to be alive was a joy, but where we were unfree and going nowhere; to a life where we may be agents free to choose or reject Heaven; and whose primary purpose in living is to learn from our experiences (which may be various mixtures of happy and miserable, according to need). 

This mixed mortal life is indeed well-designed for its core purpose of providing learning-experiences for Men - especially because God tailors each individual's lived experiences to that individual's greatest needs. 

Therefore, 'fall' does not wholly capture the transition into this world - because this world is the best place for doing that which this world is set-up to do. 

 

So there has indeed been a fall, in terms both of lesser happiness, and also the pervasive and unavoidable presence of sin (which includes all forms of entropic change). 

But at the same time incarnation brings potentially (if we so choose) an increase in freedom. As we become bounded by bodies so we are less influenced by the divine and reach a point when our affiliation (with, or against, God) must be chosen - much as an adolescent faces the choice whether to re-affiliate-with - or reject - family.

Yet, on the other hand, this mortal life is a necessary 'upward' step if we wish to become more fully divine; with divinity being defined in terms of becoming able - consciously and by choice - to participate in God's ongoing creation. 

 

So yes, this is a fallen world - less happy than pre-mortality, and permeated by evil in ourselves and others. This is a life of inevitable entropic change - hence 'pain' is inevitable. And we can be finally rescued from evil and pain only by death and resurrection.

But this life is not necessarily miserable and evil all of the time (this would be extremely rare); rather, this mortal life is not about every-body being-continuously-happy and sinless. 

Instead this life is in essence a time of transition, learning and choices: that is what this life is for. 

And, the exact purpose of this mortal life also differs for each individual Man - since all Men differ innately. 

 

This mixed mortal life is for the Heavenly life to come... Which doesn't at-all mean this life is un-important in its own right. On the contrary this mortal life is vital. But the importance of mortal life derives from its being underpinned by the possibility of eternity. 

 

This mortal life is a high-stakes gamble because we live in an entropic world - a world dominated by the tendency for destructive change, disease, decay, corruption and eventual death. 

This is the world that our loving-parent God has created for us; and we must therefore assume that it is the best kind of world for His creative purposes and for our own individual ultimate benefit. 

In the first place we need to understand that this mortal world is for our learning - our life is a kind of spiritual school. But why should this school be entropic?  

The potential hazards of life in this mortal world are obvious - pain and misery in the short term, and damnation in the long term. 

This means that the potential benefits of our lives must be even larger, great enough to outweigh the hazards (because the creator loves us, individually). 

What is the advantage of entropy? 

Entropy is the innate tendency towards destruction - and, in a broad sense; one advantage of this mortal life is that of discarding what is evil in us. 

This is a conceptualization of repentance. By repenting sin, we 'leave it behind' when we are resurrected to eternal life. 

Thus, our eternal selves will be free from sin, and fitted to live in Heaven while being free agents. Because our free choices will then always be Good: always aligned with God's will. 

And this, in turn, means that we can be trusted with divine powers of creation, can our-selves become Sons of God and co-creators with God - adding to already-existing creation from our own unique (and sin-purged) selves. 

Anyone can enter Heaven who - by repentance - consents to having his sins purged, stripped-away; but the more sins, the more will be stripped away. 

Therefore, one of the hazards of mortal life is that we will become so sinful that, when it comes to resurrection, there will not be much left of us that is Good, and fit for Heaven. 

This does not bar anyone from Heaven - because the power of repentance is unbounded, and anyone who follows Jesus Christ can be resurrected; but the Man who has led a deeply evil life before final repentance will be a lesser Man after resurrection than would otherwise have been the case. 

This leads to one of the aims of the Devil. 

His primary aim is that Men should choose damnation and reject Heaven; but even among the saved, the Devil (and his demonic and evil-human henchmen) gets secondary satisfaction from corrupting Men: that is, from encouraging sins that will reduce and impair the resurrected Man; and thereby diminish what might-have-been as resurrected Men enter Heaven.

(This corruption of individual Men does not make Heaven less-good - because Heaven is wholly Good, nothing evil is there. But it does diminish the stature of those resurrected Men who enter Heaven.) 

So, this is a way of conceptualizing theosis - the process of becoming more divine in human life - because (to put it crudely) the more divine and less sinful we are in mortal life, the more of us there will be to resurrect and live eternally.  

So, the plus-side of this entropic mortal world is that we can leave-behind sin; and this is necessary to salvation. The negative-side is that we may fall so far into sin that we either reject salvation (are damned); or by the end of our lives have very little left that is Good, so that even if we accept salvation - we will need to repent so many and bad sins, that we start-out as lesser Men when we resurrect. 

So what of Heaven, which is a world of creation and without entropy? 

In Heaven all is retained, life is cumulative. 

Whereas in earthly life we change (partly) by leaving-behind; in Heaven we change by adding-to. 

In mortal and entropic life; Men may transform radically, by deletions; in Heaven resurrected Men transform only by additions.  

This scheme may help explain why this mortal life is entropic in its nature; and how such a hazardous life is nonetheless necessary and potentially useful, as a transitional experience between pre- and post-mortal existence, before a soul proceeds to the creative world of Heaven. 

It also helps us to understand our own role in this life; and how our choices during mortality make a permanent difference to our potential after resurrection.  

In this earthly mortal life; the deep problem is not change but loss; not that things are always changing, but that this change is so often a matter of degeneration, disease and death. In brief, this is a world ruled by entropy. 

But if we choose that Heavenly eternal life beyond the transformation that is death; we inhabit a world ruled by creation rather than entropy. It is a changing world; but a world where change preserves that which is good, where change is a building rather than destroying, where instead of death there is eternal life.  

In Heaven - instead of degeneration; there is increasing ability, functionality and knowledge. This is theosis, or deification - becoming more god-like.  

In essence there is a transformation from a world dominated by chaos to a world dominated by creation. The difference is love - since creation comes from love, and is made possible by love. 

Mortal life comes between the first transformation of incarnation, when our spirits become embodied; and the second transformation of death, when we may choose the permanent embodied life of resurrection. All people experience these potential transformations - what varies is the gap between them - the gap of mortal-life. 

Our mortal life is often very short (e.g. the time between incarnation and death still in the womb, or at birth, or infancy - these account for most human lives in history); but may be many decades long. 

The first transformation of being incarnated is what enables creativity.

(Pre-mortal angelic spirits are not creative; but live passively and unconsciously, automatically-obedient). 

And it is the second transformation of death that enables creativity to be permanent and thus divine. 

(This happens in consequence of the resurrected Man having made a permanent commitment to live by love. Insofar as this state may temporarily be attained in mortal life - permanent creation may be achieved, but the ability of people to know this creation, remains subject to entropic change.) 

Note: Why cannot demons create? That demons cannot create is a frequent insight. Assuming (as I do) that it is correct, it is a consequence of demons being incapable of love; either of being incapable love or of having made a permanent commitment to reject love. Demons can only, therefore, simulate a fake creativity - by mechanisms such as extrapolation, interpolation, novel combinations, inversions etc. - i.e. exactly like the typical fake-creative (often evil-motivated) products of fashion, journalism and advertising. It also explains why demons are keen to enlist semi-corrupt humans to their causes, since they remain capable of creativity. Creation comes from love, and cannot be wholly-evil - even when creative individuals (including geniuses, such as Picasso or Freud) are net-evil-motivated.  

Further Note: What is the purpose of mortal life on earth - given that everything comes-to-nothing, sooner-or-later? Given that every-thing perishes, in the end? The purpose of life of earth is not given nor automatic, but needs to be chosen consciously; and what must be chosen for life to have purpose, is to value love intrinsically and for itself.  A child may do this unconsciously and passively; but an adult needs to make a conscious choice of love - and needs (because of entropy) to keep choosing. 

WmJas Tychonievich recently published some interesting discussion of the business of thanking God. In particular the question of what exactly we are thanking God for. 

Here is my take on the question. 

I believe in a pluralist universe of Beings existing in an original state of disorder, or 'chaos'. This was the primordial beginning, until God began his work of creation; since which time, God's creation has been growing; and Men have become 'created-Beings' in relationship, a part of divine creation: 'Sons of God'.

So, in an ultimate sense, it is always right for those who regard divine creation as A Good Thing to thank God for creation - and therefore to thank God for everything meaningful which is possible because of creation. 

This is true regardless of the proximate cause of an event - of who are what caused it - so long as something of divine creation was involved in it.

However, God is not responsible for every-thing that happens everywhere, in the sense that primordial chaos continues to exist; and in this mortal and material world, chaos/ entropy dominates and has the last word. 

God's creation can be imagined as an expanding domain within chaos - with two stages. 

I envisage two coexisting kinds of divine creation: first this mortal world, which must continually be created in order to continually overcome the tendency to revert to chaos. And secondly Heaven, which is the domain of those Beings who have made an eternal commitment to live by love - and who thereby overcome chaos/ entropy wholly and everlastingly.  

It is the work of Jesus Christ to enable Men to make the choice of eternal love, hence eternal life in Heaven.     

(Mortal life and Heaven coexist, because mortal life is where Beings are enabled to make the positive choice for heaven; but Heaven was first created - initially as the domain of God only. The core purpose of creation is to 'people' Heaven with Beings who have chosen to live by love, eternally.) 

In God's creation are two types of Being: Good and evil. Good are defined as those who (sooner or later) endorse divine creation and choose to join-with it (in Heaven). Evil are those who do not endorse divine creation; who reject creation - and reject Heaven. 

Those who reject divine creation ally themselves with primordial chaos (because that is the only alternative to divine creation); and endorse the destruction of creation - of any-thing created. 

Therefore, this desired destruction includes (eventually) willing the destruction of their own status as Sons of God. This is entailed by desiring to delete creation and return to chaos - to the situation where each Being except God subsists in total isolation and minimal consciousness - which is the nearest to annihilation that can actually happen.

Those who oppose creation cannot affect Heaven - Heaven is eternally immune to chaos, has completely excluded it because all Beings in Heaven live by love. Those who oppose creation can only operate outwith Heaven; for instance in this mortal life on earth.

My first conclusion is that only those who endorse divine creation and who wish to dwell in Heaven are in a position from-which they would rationally thank God at all. 

By contrast; those who do not believe in creation, do not believe-in or support the will of God, those who intend to refuse the offer of Jesus Christ to enable us to enter Heaven... all such would Not want to thank God. 

But is it rational for those who endorse divine creation to thank God for everything? The apparent problem arises because in this earthly mortal life there is a class of causes deriving from entropy, hence tending to chaos, and working-against creation. Such causes are not of divine origin. 

It might be supposed that it therefore makes no sense to thank God for events that have not-creation, indeed anti-creation, causes? 

Yet even such events are a part of creation; because all knowledge entails creation. We could not 'thank' at all, were we not created-Beings - parts of divine creation; because uncreated Beings cannot give thanks. 

We could not identify any 'event' for which we might choose to give thanks, were we not already created Beings - because there is no knowledge in chaos, and chaos does not know 'events'. 

My overall conclusion is therefore that it is never wrong for a Christian to give thanks to God, because ultimately all depends on God's creation; but a Christian may err in ascribing some specific event to God's will - since there is evil in this mortal world, and many events come from the creation-destroying will of evil Beings.  

Therefore it must often happen (in this earthly mortal life) that Christians thank God for some-thing which was (in fact, were we able to discern) caused by chaos or by the Beings which reject God. In other words; a Christian may thank God for some evil. 

...Indeed, if public prayers in church are any guide; this happens all-the-time: self-identified Christians thank God for evil - by regarding that evil as Good. 

Whether this matters spiritually or not will depend on the situation and on the consequences. If a Christian ascribed some evil to God, and thanked God for this evil - this would presumably be a sin that needed to be repented. 

God would then ensure that the individual would later be given the experiences and chance to learn that their thanking God for this particular evil had actually been a sin. 

But whether or not that chance of repentance was taken would depend on the individual's discernment and choice - would depend upon his true underlying motivation. If his motivation is for God, creation and the Good - there would be no problem: he would repent his sin. 

But if he doubled-down on the sin of ascribing evil to God, if he refused to learn and repent; then he would have taken the side of the Enemy, against God; and being against God he would presumably, after death, reject salvation and choose damnation.  

If entropy is a real thing on this earth; then it is not caused by God but represents the continued reality of primordial chaos. 

This means that not everything that happens is caused by, nor intended by, God. 

Yet this world is a created world, God is continually-create-ing this world. 

I see this world as continually being-created by God; as it is continually being-dismantled by the tendency to revert to primal (meaningless, purposeless) chaos. 

I imagine this to be a matter of God's creative 'energies' always-shaping that which is always-dissipating.

The consequence is that all of this mortal life has a divine meaning and purpose despite that not-everything is caused or intended by God. 

The activities of evil Beings are included in this basic schema. Evil Beings (e.g. demons, sinning humans) are continually doing evil things for evil reasons; and these are continually (in a sense instantly) being-shaped by God in accordance with divine destiny. 

No matter how much evil is at work and being-done; God is always (instantly!) shaping it to situations from-which individual Men may obtain Good: that is, to situations from-which Men may learn that which they most need to learn (would benefit from-learning) for their resurrected life in heaven. 

Therefore, although entropy rules this material, mortally-incarnated world, in the sense that entropy is never absent; divine creation dominates entropy. 

This explains how our life is always (potentially) meaningful and purposive; and why 'there are no accidents' - no luck, chance or randomness.   

Note: It seems to be a necessary consequence of the Christian understanding that Life (this mortal life) does Not have meaning or purpose for those who reject the post-mortal future of resurrected life in Heaven. This world, this Life, was-designed and is continually being-shaped to advance the learning of those who follow Jesus. 

The created world will also be shaped to create situations in which those who do Not follow Jesus can come (repeatedly) to understand what Jesus offers, and the clarity of mind and heart to decide whether or not they want it for themselves. 

But those who have rejected what Jesus offers are doomed to a life without meaning or purpose; because they have rejected the purpose of creation and the purpose of this earth. They have instead decided to inhabit a entropy; a world of inevitable degeneration, disease and death with nothing to follow but annihilation. 

It is always a positive choice to follow Jesus; and every Being, every Man, is free to reject that choice. But - in a created world, shaped by God for God's purposes - that rejection carries the consequence that ultimately Life has nothing lasting to offer but death. 

*
Did God make entropy a law of the known universe, or is entropy prior to God and God constrained by entropy?

Could God have made a world without entropy, could He have made this world without entropy - a world that was not tending to corruption and chaos - and if so why didn't he?

*

For the medieval 'scholastic' theologians, the mortal sub-lunar world was the place of entropy - of decay, death and sin - and the Heavenly world was a place of eternal and perfect harmony. Entropy was therefore pretty much a product of Satan and his demons (all entropy is evil, but not all evil is entropy).

But it is hard to make such a world picture coherent, and hard to understand how two such different worlds can have any meaningful relationship (i.e. an always-corrupting and death-filled world of entropy, versus an eternal and changeless world of perfection).

*

Although entropy is destructive of life, we moderns find it hard to imagine life without entropy; in the sense that any active process would seem liable to accumulate damage.

Or, to put it the other way around, if something is static, eternal and perfect - and therefore invulnerable to entropy - we find it hard to suppose that it is actually alive.

So the medieval view of divinity and Heaven seems to secure invulnerability to entropy only at the cost of something that sounds very much like death!

*

I think that a Christian requires that a life, a specific life, must have a distinctive and personal essence which is eternal and indestructible - despite entropy.

Rather than zero-entropy stasis; what I think this implies is an eternal, active, energy using-and energy-generating process acting to purge entropy from each eternally-living entity.

In a nutshell, this is the process of making form, structure, organization - as a fundamental principle.

*

So, anything alive is alive because of the form-generating principle; and also tends to lose form and die due to entropy - the end-result depends on the relative strength of these processes of form versus entropy.

On this earth, it seems entropy is stronger than form (death is stronger than life) - so all living forms will sooner or later be overwhelmed by entropy, and will die.

Eternal life requires the opposite predominance - of form over entropy, life over death - so that although (presumably) entropy continues to occur, it is continually purged and structure continues... forever.

The possible implication is that we inhabit this high entropy world for a reason to do with the domination of the process and tendency of change - corruption, ageing and sin. But also that this mortal life is temporary and will necessarily end in death. The domination of entropy will end.

And that our habitation of this entropically-dominant kind of world is not an accident, but in some way a part of God's plan for us.

*

As I have previous said, from reading the Fourth Gospel as well as the core sense of Christianity, I do not believe that Jesus Christ promised a Second Coming. On the contrary, I believe Jesus fully achieved everything he incarnated to achieve in a cosmological sense - in terms of changing reality; and that since ascension His role is to guide all who ask for His help, by the Holy Ghost. 

But a familiar worldly-Messianic project of redemption of this sinful and suffering mortal life, of Jesus returning to take-up kingship of a New and Purified this-world, seems to have been introduced into Christianity at an early stage - and continues. 

For such redemption to happen, this-world would need to be remade, in such a way that all that is evil and of-sin - including death - would be removed, purified, transformed; and only Good remain. 

This might be envisaged to happen all-at-once at the second coming; but there have always (I think) been some who saw this happening gradually, incrementally, a bit at a time. 

I first understood this in listening to lectures by Stanley Messenger in which he expounded the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. In this explanation, the spilled blood of the crucified Christ entered the substance of the Being that is planet earth; and initiated a process of transformation that could be explained in terms of alchemy and homoeopathy; and would lead eventually to the total redemption of earth and everything the dwells here. In the end (as I understand it) there would be a complete integration of all, into full accord with divine purposes. 

I have also come across what seems to me a variation of this basic idea in Philip K Dick's Exegesis; where he is discussing Jacob Bohme and AN Whitehead. PKD's version is that this reality began as dominated by chaos and continues as entropy. God began creation in this context; and there has since been a process by which creation gradually overtook chaos; in which negentropy incrementally overwhelms entropy... Until either at or by the Second Coming, the process is completed and all that is evil, destructive - all suffering and pain - is transformed into Goodness and Happiness. 

My above summaries are themselves of secondary sources, thus unreliable as to detail - but I offer them as the kind of thing that would need to happen if this mortal world were to be saved, redeemed, made into Heaven on Earth. In other worlds, all that is evil, all destructive change, all death - would need to be transformed into harmony with divine creation. 

And this transformation is regarded as something that will happen. It is not a matter of choice, but of processes acting-irresistibly-upon Beings. Evil and Sin are eliminated by being made good. 

Now - I regard this as both impossible - because evil cannot be made Good; and undesirable to Christians - because salvation must be chosen.  

More fundamentally; I do not believe that this is what will happen! I think it is a mistake to suppose that Jesus said he would make Heaven on earth, or by processes incrementally to transform mortal to immortal life. 

The real situation is much simpler; which is that evil and sin will not because cannot be eliminated in this world and mortal life; which is why we must die and be resurrected to enter the state of only-Goodness: we must be born again.  

Those, and only those, who choose resurrection (and allow/ embrace the necessary transformative changes to themselves) will be added to Heaven, will join Heavenly life - leaving-behind their sins and all evil; and from thence, living only by love. 

This mortal realm with its sins and evil will be left-behind; as a place for those who choose to hold to their sins and evil, and those who choose not to live wholly by love. 

Such must happen; in order that Heaven be possible; and it must happen because eternal Beings must dwell somewhere.

And if Beings do not want to dwell in Heaven, then they will remain in some part or variant of the mixed-world of this-world of mortality - where entropy and creation contend. 

The religion of the Ancient Egyptians - which is massively documented - provides a detailed picture of how the world of God's creation was before the work of Jesus Christ. 

Creation was made by the pushing aside of chaos; civilization was like a clearing in the wild forest; and the chaotic forest was always trying to take back the world of religion, agriculture and the domain of the creating Gods. 

Most of the Gods were Good, but the representatives of chaotic evil remained - such as Set (or Seth) who dwelt in the deserts around the fertile and civilized state of Egypt; and Apophis the primal world-serpant who, every night, attacked the ship of the sun, to try and prevent dawn. 

Thus light/ life/ goodness/ order was engaged in a continual and eternal battle to hold-back the chaos/ evil that surrounded on all sides; and which would otherwise return the world to its primal disorder. 

 

This may be taken broadly to represent the situation of divine creation on earth before the work of Jesus. And Jesus's work can be seen as the additional creation of Heaven, as a New Place to be inhabited by resurrected Men who have first been temporarily incarnated onto earth as mortals. The mortal state is that from-which each Man must choose Heaven - or Not.

 

By this understanding, Heaven is - and for the first time - a place that free men can inhabit where evil has been excluded - permanently.

By 'free men; I mean Men who are agents; operating-from their own distinctive divine selves; generating their own thoughts - mini-gods. In other words: In Heaven Men are secondary creators (operating within God's primary creation) - who can fully participate with God on the continuing creation of God's ongoing, expanding world. 

 

Jesus gave Men the possibility of resurrection to eternal life. Resurrection means eternal bodies; and bodies can only be eternal in an eternal environment - which is Heaven. In other words, Heaven in a world without death.

By contrast; this mortal life we know, here on earth, is ruled by chaos (or 'entropy', dis-order). All changes and decays, nothing lasts unchanged; there degeneration and disease are everywhere and death is the inevitable terminus. This mortal world - taken in isolation - is therefore the same as that described by the Ancient Egyptians.

However, since Jesus Christ; we have the chance to opt-into Heaven; which is an everlasting world without evil - without chaos or entropy.  

And at the same time, when resurrected into Heaven, we remain our-selves; indeed we become even more our-selves and able to participate in the ongoing work of God's creation. 

So, our mortal lives on this earth give us all lived experiences of chaos, entropy and evil; and the opportunity to learn from these experiences in order to make a final, irreversible commitment in favour of Good. 

In other words; mortal life on earth is what enables us to understand what is being offered by Jesus: eternal resurrected life in Heaven. And knowing (by contrast and implication) both sides, both possibilities... our free choice may be informed.   

 

My understanding of this new possibility of heaven; is that it is due to the possibility of each Man making a permanent commitment to Goodness, to creation, to the work of God. Because Heaven is composed only of Beings that have made this permanent commitment - then Heaven is a place without evil. 

All the inhabitants of Heaven (Men and others) are on the side of God and creation; and everything they (we) do in Heaven is in-harmony-with God and creation. Thus, In Heaven there is no tendency towards chaos, entropy, evil...

In another description; Heaven is based on the principle of love. The harmonious working of many free agents is possible by their mutual love. It is therefore love which is the principle of cohesion in creation - which 'organises' the work of many free individuals into a coherent, ongoing, creativity. 

 

The 'process' by which any mortal Man from earth was made able to be resurrected-into Heaven was made possible by Jesus Christ; and the 'method' made simple and accessible. Since Jesus; anyone who wants Heaven merely has to 'follow' Jesus, who will lead us through resurrection and into Heaven (a path which he himself has taken) as The Good Shepherd. 

It seems that (here on earth, in this mrtal life) not everyone knows-about Heaven, not everybody wants Heaven; and among those who do want to go onto Heaven, there are some who do not want to follow Jesus, or do not believe Jesus can or will lead us to Heaven. 

But we can trust that God the creator will ensure that everybody will have the fullest chance to know such things sooner or later; and before each needs to choose between a commitment to Heaven - or Not.

Why is Heaven postponed? Why should we be made to wait? Why can't we have Heaven now - whether here on earth, or elsewhere? Why are we compelled to go through all this mucking about in mortal life? 

This is, and perhaps always has been, the most powerful question for those who believe in a Good God. And it is a killer question for those who believe in an Omni-God. If God really is all powerful and also really is Good - then why must we wait, when we could have it now? 

Self-identified Christians are afflicted as strongly as anyone else. In the time of Jesus it seems that most people Did not Want what He offered. They instead wanted Jesus to be the Messiah. 

In other words they wanted a better mortal life now, more than they wanted resurrected everlasting life. 

Or else they did not really believe Jesus's promise of eternal joy beyond death. 

Or maybe they demanded both: paradise on earth now (or ASAP), and after death then eternal resurrected life in Heaven? 

The killer question for Christianity is: Why can't people have what they most want? 

The official compromise answer was that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, but Heaven on Earth must wait until after his second coming... 

But this compromise doesn't work at all well. The killer question still stands: Why must we wait, if Jesus is God, and God is omnipotent? 

Why - if He really is omnipotent - didn't Jesus finish his work in the first coming? 

Why - if He is really Good - does Jesus allow, indeed actually cause (because as Omni-God He is omnipotent, and created absolutely everything) even the very worst the sufferings of mortal life? Why do this when (apparently) He could give us Heaven Now? 

And if a wholly-Good God allows/ actively-causes all the nasty stuff He does in this mortal life; then is this really a definition of a Good God that we would really want for ourselves? 

How could we have faith in and trust and love such a God; a God with such incomprehensible and apparently evil understandings of Good? 

It has the same for most Christians for the past two thousand years and continuing; what these "Christians" really want is a better world now, rather than Heaven later. 

For example; they want their church to become powerful enough to impose a better world now; indeed many Christians believe that one-or-another Christian church did indeed impose a better world in some times and places - and regard this as a primary justification for Christianity.

But if then, why not now?   

Or, such church-Christians believe that Christians are better people now, than not-Christians. (Or - at least - they believe their affiliated church's kind of Christians are better people.) 

They believe this despite that better-people-now wasn't what Jesus promised - any more than he promised a better-world-now. 

Because of its implicit determination to put this world first, in a context of asserting an Omni-God; historical Christianity really has painted itself into a corner; and from here it is clear that messing around with incomprehensibly complex abstractions does not convince people anymore - if ever it really did convince, rather than compel obedience.

There are two answers. The first is to be clear that Jesus's Kingdom is, as he repeatedly said in many ways, Not Of This World. Jesus promised us eternal resurrected life after death in Heaven - and if that is not what you want above all; then maybe you aren't really a Christian? 

Secondly; we need to to explain why Heaven must be after death and resurrection, and cannot be Now - in this mortal earthly life. 

(This entails (inter alia) that the (un-Biblical) Omni-God assertion must be dropped; and God clearly conceptualized as The Prime Creator who worked and continues to work creation with already-existent Beings in an already-existing universe - a universe that already contained evil.)

To answer the question of why we must wait for Heaven, we need some such concept as the Second Creation (if not exactly that) to explain clearly and simply how it is that (as Jesus often explained - and as is obvious to observation!) this mortal life cannot become Heaven; and that is why God the Prime Creator was not sufficient; and that is why Jesus was necessary - and therefore why it is only on the other side of death that evil can be left-behind, and we can enter Heaven.  

(...Only after which can we understand the real purpose of this mortal life - which is, to learn spiritually in preparation for Heaven; and the constraints of evil and entropy within-which God's creative power operates on earth and in mortality.)

NOTE ADDED 23rd March 2024

For those unfamiliar with this blog, I should clarify my reiterated view that - in broad terms - I believe that people "get what they want" after death. In the sense that they will subjectively-experience (or be-aware-of) something like what they want and ask-for (or "believe in") in terms of reincarnation or paradise (of the various types), life as a kind of ghost (Sheol, Hades, ghosts on earth etc.), Nirvana, extinction. The exception is when people are affiliated to demons and desire things evil - in which case they are delivered to the demons with whom they have chosen to affiliate - but this is also "getting what they want", even though they will not like what they get.  

It is often said on Christian blogs that the demon-serving high-level globalist Establishment (Them) live in fear of death; because They know They are going to Hell. 

But I do not believe that They necessarily live in fear of death. Some do, no doubt - but not all, by any means; and that has been an important fact in the nature of global evil.

But this may be changing; and more and more of the most evil Men of this world may be becoming terrified of the own deaths; and behaving accordingly with their most evil natures...

What follows are my intuitively-guided speculations on this subject.  

Some of Them do not fear death, I think, because in some instances Hell (accurately understood as a personal fate, rather than a uniform destination) is exactly what They desire, and what They prefer to Heaven.

In other words; They have understood and rejected Christ's offer of salvation. They do not wish to affiliate to God's creative intentions, which entail making an eternal and unbreakable commitment to live in Love. They prefer, and choose, Hell (at least, as They understand Hell will be for Themselves). 

Their choice is, instead of Love; to live (after mortal life, as well as in it) especially in-accordance-with that sin to which each is personally most devoted: pride, resentment, fear, lust, sloth, or whatever. (This is well described in CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.)

The question then is: to what extent this choice is fulfilled in actuality? Can They actually get what They most want? 

In other instances, They do not fear death because They do not believe that they personally are going to die. Not fully: not in their essential nature.   

How They believe this continuation of consciousness is to be achieved is necessarily speculative, but I have written on this subject before.  

In a nutshell; I think They believe that They may continue to 'live' because what we might term Dark Magicians purport to conjure animate thought-forms by group activities that entail mental concentration and ritual. 

This is regarded - not as a spiritual activity; but instead as a quasi-science; a manipulation of the material world by means of channeled will. 

(This belief intersects with the most ideological forms of Transhumanism; when people hope for continued life in a 'downloaded', or perhaps transplanted, form of consciousness. This shows how a wholly materialistic/ atheistic perspective can lead to quasi-spiritual hopes and intentions.)

It is the group nature of such Dark Magical activities that lies behind the Ahrimanic, materialist quality of evil that has dominated the world in recent decades. 

In other words; Ahrimanic evil operates by organized, hierarchical, bureaucratic mechanisms - to create a unified global System that is a mechanism for damnation.  

I think it likely that Their oft-observed concern with symbolism, signaling, ritual, pain, sacrifice etc.; is part of a genuinely black-magic orientated group-concern. This is not just about somewhat extending mortal life (although that is part of it); but also, ultimately, (for perhaps the 'chosen few') with attaining a kind of immortality after mortal death in a material but ghostly, or spirit form, 

The personal goal is then to continue (self-gratifying) activities in this world, as an 'honorary demon'; that has been created (and, probably is sustained - because this state is subject to entropy, and therefore needs constant infusion of energy to remain viable) by Black Magical means.

But, having said all this; I also believe that there has been a change in human consciousness over recent generations, but particularly since the millennium; and that part of this change has been a sharp decline in the ability of group-activity to conjure thought-forms. 

This change in Men's consciousness has affected the 'good magic' of Christianity, as well as the black magic of the demonic Establishment. This development has been a part of the decline of church-based Christianity: the fact that it can no longer do for people as much as it used to do. 

Those Christian group practices that used to 'work' reliably and powerfully to sustain and enhance spirituality, are now diminished in effect, and still diminishing. Indeed, for many people in the West; these practices have altogether lost spiritual power; and church activities have declined to a wholly psycho-social and political role.  

However, this development of consciousness must - I think - also have affected the power of Ahrimanic evil - and this will probably be one of the major causes that the cooperation of evil consciousnesses, which sustains The System, is now breaking-down.

I am (again!) talking about the transition between Ahrimanic and Sorathic evil, about which I have written many times before. 

I mean the breakdown of long-termist and coordinated evil by the defection of individual evil Beings; into the chaotic state of many simultaneous personal agendas each characterized by short-termist and destructive spite.

This is something that can be observed in the world today. The globalist alliance that launched a successful (covert) coup in early 2020 has, this year, fractured geo-politically into Anglosphere/ Western European 'West' and its vassal states; versus the others. 

Furthermore, The West has fractured such that the dominant elements are beginning to destroy the vassal states by acts of sabotage - financial, economic, demographic - and recently actual physical sabotage. 

This must have a confidence-shattering effect on many Establishment members who, until recently, 'trusted' that They would be exempted from the planned mass destruction; and would be rewarded for Their cooperation by eternal 'life' - among other and more immediate gratifications. 

Whether the evil-Establishment were correct to trust in the integrity of the principalities of evil is, for Christians, a question that answers itself! Yet, such Faustian stupidity is a fact of human life. Many Men have believed that Their cooperation with The Plan would win personal rewards; believed that They had a contract with evil, an agreement that evil would "honour"... 

(Despite that the powers of evil cannot be trusted; and will lie and cheat as is expedient - or as provides Them with some kind of sadistic enjoyment.)

Anyway, the hope was that They could achieve a kind of eternal existence of self-gratifying worldly activity.

There must, I think, have been some such 'trust' between lower and higher evil-souls - however misguided - in order to enlist the cooperation of so many individuals in so many nations. 

Many of These are now realizing that They have-been, or soon will-be, betrayed.

They face a dawning awareness of the terror of bodily annihilation and eternal spiritual torment. 

Of course; this betrayal and disillusionment opens a window to repentance; to affiliate with God and accept the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

In this mortal life it is never too late to repent - although it gets harder and more painful, the further advanced in evil a soul has gone. 

But, when repentance is rejected, realization may lead instead to a kind of destructive frenzy of vengeance - the desire to inflict as much suffering on others as possible, before falling into the pit oneself. 

This very purely negative form of evil, a 'lashing-out' which takes 'pleasure' only in the doing of evil and not in rewards from so doing; is what I call Sorathic - and it seems to be gathering strength, perhaps especially in the Establishment of the dominant Western power: the USA. 

I would guess that the 'promised' reward of an eternal life of personal satisfaction was, at best - only ever, in practice, short-term. 

Sooner rather than later; the promised rewards are revoked, and the self-gratifications of eternal living are inverted into a state of eternal slavery; a continued existence only as objects of torment for the pleasure of other evil beings - who are Themselves destined for the same fate.  

As the cabal of organized evil breaks down; such betrayals will be happening, and be observed; more and more often; and no doubt some terrible conclusions will be drawn. 

If this interpretation is correct, and the Dark Magician cabal is increasingly breaking-down into mutual warring factions; factions that then themselves splinter break-down into each against all - then these times are both very dangerous and somewhat hopeful. 

Christians are no longer up-against a coordinated conspiracy - which is good. But those evil Beings (human, as well as demonic) that remain powerful in this world, will feel that - now that their chance at 'eternal life' is gone' - They have nothing to gain from long-termism or cooperation;: nothing to lose' by sheer spitefulness. 

They seem highly likely to behave in an increasingly reckless and frenziedly destructive manner - whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. 

Be Prepared (spiritually, I mean).

Some people perceive no need for Heaven. They either this this life in this world suffices; or else they want to give back to God their entrance ticket to mortal life - they desire to cease to exist as separate souls, and to become reabsorbed-into the the divine - into the totality. 

As soon as Man emerged from his original state of immersive participation; as soon as he became became capable of conscious independent thinking - which happened (so far as we know) in the time of the ancient Greeks; it was recognized that this earthly, mortal life cannot be everything. 

Cannot be everything - not that it 'should not' be everything; nor that we wish that there would be more - but that It Makes No Sense to assume that there is nothing other than this earthly, mortal life. 

Why? 

Well, in a sense this was so obvious to anyone capable of thinking and understanding that 'why' did not apply. 

But the reason was - in a nutshell - that this world is one of change; of degeneration, decay, disease and eventual death. This is a world dominated by entropy, as we might call it. And such a world as this could not bring itself about. 

To the ancient mind, and to the mind of pretty much all Men up to the past few hundred years - this was an insight of simple truth; and the only reason for someone Not to reach this understanding, was either mental incapacity or idleness: a brutish refusal to consider the nature of Man's life. 

But Modern Man has - for various reasons, not-unconnected-with brutish incapacity and idleness - developed a tremendous capacity for doubting the obvious, including obvious truth. 

There are explanations that explain 'why' it makes no sense to posit entropy without previous creation, to assume a tendency for destruction and death without a prior and more powerful tendency for making and life - but no such explanation can penetrate the idle, delirious, dishonest superficiality that characterizes modern discourse. 

Such is the ludicrous pride of almost all Men, now, that the grossest incapacity of insight, observation and reason are paraded as marks of superiority; just as the inability spontaneously to be appalled or disgusted by gross, calculated lying, pride, greed, even vice and sadism - are all regarded as evidence of a 'higher' more progressive morality!  

'Ancient' Man realized that this ephemeral and always-changing reality makes no sense unless there is another reality. 

All were agreed on that - but disagreed about the specific nature of that 'other and greater reality' - the reality which makes possible the illusions and changes of this reality.   

They disagreed about the nature of the other and Real reality for the simple reason that it was non-obvious; and impossible to articulate clearly, concisely and comprehensibly to all Men. Each attempted answer, each description of ultimate reality, was therefore partial and contextual - and there were many such answers. 

In other words, it was cognitively easy to know that this mortal earthly reality was only a part of a greater reality; but it was difficult to say exactly what was this greater and eternal reality. 

Modern Man is, however, incapable (has rendered-himself incapable) of recognizing that the difficulty of describing the wholeness of reality in a way that everybody can understand and agree-upon does Not invalidate the primary insight that there Must be such a reality. 

Instead, Modern Man has made the baseline assumption that this mortal earthly life dominated by entropy and inevitably terminated by death is every-thing there is; and that (somehow!) We Know this to be a solid fact! 

Based on this assumption of this-life being everything, nothing makes sense; all is incoherence. 

Because all is incoherence, Men have lost the capacity to reason. 

Because Men cannot reason, they cannot make sense of the world - it is just one thing after another - and Men cannot even discern motivated actions, nor discern evil in motivations. 

Because Modern Man can make no sense of life; life has neither meaning nor purpose, but only a cloudy and uncertain present that arises-from nothing-much, and soon disappears into nothing-much. 

Thus Modern Man is always afraid, and cannot be encouraged; his only antidote to spontaneous overwhelming despair is to not-think even harder than already. 

The condition of Man is now very, Very bad - far worse than is recognized even by vehement critics. 

A refusal to know that which is both obvious and deeply true, makes an extreme incapacity to think consecutively on any one subject - meaning that recognition of even the most blatant lying (and all other evils) is become impossible.  

Modern Man is therefore deep in trouble, and a measure of this depth is that his 'solution' is not to eliminate the problem; but instead to eliminate all trace of his own awareness of the problem. 

His answer is to keep digging at his own deficits until he has become completely unable to recognize anything beyond whatever is being fed-into his consciousness at this moment. 

Having written-himself-off as nothing more than an ephemeral accident of blind chance; Man has rendered himself incapable of motivated thought and action; and now (un-consciously, because he will not allow consciousness) seeks to become altogether passive and receptive; to eliminate awareness of even the fact of his own, self-defined-as-futile existence. 

The modern malaise goes very deep; consequently its ramifications are extremely wide. 

We can see that its roots lie in sin, in unacknowledged hence un-repented sin; and this is why it keeps getting worse and worse - because evil feeds-upon evil. 

In theory, the remedy is at-hand: (thanks to Jesus Christ) simply one turn of the mind distant. Graspable in a moment. 

But evil has its layers of defence; its clever-silly rationalizations that reject the obvious and therefore can impose belief in the false; its ingrained and socially-supported habits of distraction and fear-driven resentment. 

Only each Man himself can escape these toils; but he must first desire to escape... 

And therein lies the most intractable problem of all. 

Palliative medicine is the name for a speciality when, at the end of life ( a terminal illness) the focus moves from curing to helping the patient feel better. But ultimately all of medicine is palliative, because all "cures" are partial and temporary; and everybody degenerates and dies eventually...

 

Analogously; all secular ideologies (all politics, all social reform and radicalism) are palliative - even when imagined to be wholly effective - palliative, because they do not address the core problems of this life on earth; which are entropy and evil. 

(Entropy being the tendency of creation to fall back into chaos leading to degeneration and death; evil being the purposive opposition to God's plans of divine creation.)

But, assuming that all religions do indeed offer what they claim; only Christianity claims to cure the core problems of mortal life: only Heaven claims to be a complete and permanent cure for entropy and evil. 

All other religions are variously palliative - in their aspiration, in their promises. 

The difference between Christianity and all other options is firstly Resurrection of our-selves, so that we remain ourselves - but everlasting and without evil, but wholly and forever living by love of God and Fellow Men. 

And secondly; the Christian aim is Heaven - when is understood as a Second Creation, inhabited only by those Beings who have eternally committed to live by love only; and thereby left-behind "sin". That is they have left-behind both evil and entropy. 

Such that Heaven is wholly creative. 

Heavenly resurrected life does not solve all problems of existence, and is not intended to do so; because there is endless scope for love and creation. But Christian Heaven does claim to solve the problems of evil and entropy: solve them once and for all. Nobody else even claims that - every other option is palliative: at best. 

In this mortal world, 'evil' as a phenomenon, and evil-affiliated persons (human and angelic-demonic) cannot be finally-defeated - in the general sense that they are immortal beings that cannot be destroyed; and also that some of these evil immortal beings are committed (permanently) to evil.

But specifically, at the level of individual persons - evil is permanently defeated every time someone chooses to follow Jesus Christ through mortal death, to resurrection into eternal Heavenly life. 

And evil can be weakened, precisely because it inhabits these mortal realms that are dominated by 'entropy' - which means that evil being must 'consume' energies merely to remain as they are; and if starved of these energies they would weaken and weaken, down towards an irreducible state of mere passive existence. 

To rephrase the matter: An evil being (or evil considered en masse) must consume energies in order to maintain itself as it is - thus evil is by nature vampiric, or parasitic. 

The larger and stronger - more powerful - and evil being; the more it must consume; and all growth of power increases its 'appetite'. So long as evil is growing - its strength to feed itself with also increase. But without sufficient consumption; evil will weaken. As the strength of evil diminishes; so its ability to feed itself diminishes - leading to further shrinkage. 

In other words; evil works by positive feedback whereby change leads to further change of the same kind. growth leads to faster growth, weakening leads to faster shrinkage. 

Therefore; successful evil operates to pre-empt its own weakness - and will do so at any cost. An evil being cannot bear even short-term diminution of itself - because it will become self-perpetuating. Each evil being must avoid any diminution of its energy consumption, and will do anything to ensure this continued consumption here-and-now - even when short-term consumption will increase long-term shortage of energies. 

In sum: this is a metaphorical explanation of why Ahrimanic (bureaucratic, long-termist 'lawful') evil will always eventually devolve into Sorathic (spiteful, short-termist, 'chaotic') evil; insofar as it is successful into its goals.  

This is a picture of why evil is insatiable. 

Evil beings must (in some spiritual sense) each continue to consume the energies of damned souls - that is, souls who choose to reject salvation and embrace damnation. 

Evil waxes in strength and scope when (as now, and in recent generations) the supply of damned souls increases - but the greater the powers of evil, the more 'energies' that it needs to maintain itself; which is why there has been a kind of frenzy of evil building-up, on a perceptible timescale. 

(You might imagine the triumph of evil as akin to a 'bubble' phenomenon in economics, a Pyramid or a Ponzi scheme, or some other situation where continued success depends upon an ever increasing supply of victims. The more damned souls that are induced, the greater the energies to sustain growth in damned souls. The demand for damned souls is an exponential growth of demand for energies, but with a much slower growth (and eventually shrinking) in supply of victims - until the supply of victims is insufficient to keep the bubble growing - and the bubble bursts.) 

Thus evil has, overall, become rather like a malignant cancer whose growth consumes its host with increasing rapidity - and will reach a point when the host begins to die, the available energies are less and less adequate to maintain the size and strength of evil.

Then the evil beings (necessarily) begin to contest, and to consume each other - as if one part of a cancer was feeding upon another cancer. 

Of course this lethal trend cannot be described as any kind of 'victory for good'! 

But it does mean that individual souls of Men who look beyond survival in this mortal realm, become relatively stronger as the dominant evil of this world enters this frenzied terminal phase.  

And it means that saved souls do not only save them-selves, but also tend to diminish the strength and scope of evil generally. 

I am becoming ever more convinced that we are called to a creative role in this mortal life; and indeed that anything less than such a calling will be insufficient to motivate Modern Man in 2022 to remain a Christian - so strong, pervasive and accelerating are the pressures to join with the side of purposive evil against God. 

(At any rate, I observe that even among those Christians who did not fall victim to the birdemic-peck agenda up to February 2022 - have been apostatizing by believing/joining/ being-motivated-by the daily ideological propaganda of the Satanic-led Establishment on almost a daily basis, over the past fortnight.)

Salvation (choosing to follow Jesus Christ) is, of course, our first concern - and then theosis, which is the necessity to become more divine by learning from our mortal lives and making the right choices. 

But neither one nor both of these seem to be sufficient to motivate individuals in a world where real Christians have been abandoned by their churches; and where their self-identified Christian churches are continually siding with the evil-Establishment in their demonic policies and strategies - and thereby trying to lead their members towards affiliation with the Enemy.

We need, I think, a lively sense of daily purpose - of what positively we are living for - and this is 'creativity' considered as the activity of adding to God's creative providence through our own personal choices and effort. 

'Adding' is key - because it is not enough merely to recognize and affirm divine truth; since this is not something which gives our own lives any personal significance. 

To be motivated we need to have a 'project' that adds to ongoing divine creation yet that only we can do. That really is something worth living for.  

But this mortal life is not the same as resurrected Heavenly life; and we cannot create now in the same way as we shall then. Understanding this is perhaps helpful in appreciating the scope and limitation of that necessary creativity which seems to be demanded of us now. 

If it could be assumed, as an analogy, that creation requires something-like energy if a creative thought needs to be manifested (made-into) something material that will be effective in this world; then we can ask where creative energies might come from. 

The answer is God. True human creation is by definition in harmony with God's ongoing (and primary) creating; and I think it may be assumed that when God recognizes basic human creativity - i.e. in thought - as contributing to the divine scheme; then the necessary energies will be provided to make that thought into something objective, general and perhaps material. 

In other words, when our individual creativity of thinking is in-line-with divine providence; then (in a multitude of ways) God's creation will operate to include such human creativity as an addition to the divine. 

Therefore, our creativity in this mortal life (which is, I assume, a relatively rare and temporary phenomenon; even in the life of a major genius) is dependent on God's creating, and cannot work without it. 

And ultimately this is because we live in a world of entropy, where order succumbs to disorder, where usable-energy is finite and declining, where life sooner or later loses to chaos; where all that has been created will pass away.

In this mortal world; energy must be added from externally to make or sustain any-thing. 

By contrast, when we are resurrected we enter the realm of eternity; which may be interpreted to mean that we are self-renewing and intrinsically (as sons and daughters of God) posses innate and inexhaustible divine energy.  

Therefore, as resurrected Men, as divine children of God, we ourselves can manifest our own creative thinking! 

Thinking itself becomes 'objective' and manifest creation - without the need for God's 'input'. 

If the analogy holds, then our mortal creativity is real and important - but secondary to God's 'energetic' support; while Christians may look-forward to a condition where we have made an eternal commitment to God, and can thereafter become god-like in our own creativity. 

There is not just creation in this mortal world; but there is also chaos interwoven; around us, within us,  everywhere. 

Chaos is what undoes all creation on this earth - it is 'entropy' - the tendency to decay, disease, corruption, death... Every Being, entity, "thing" is always unravelling, dying. 

So, in this world, we are continually choosing either to affiliate with the divine creation, or with chaos. 

There is a divine energy behind creation. In affiliating we creation we (as children of God) give some of our own divine energies to the divine creation. But in affiliating with chaos we are reducing creation to chaos - and some of these creation-energies are released, and taken...

Thus creation is an active participation that enhances the whole; while to affiliate to chaos is to be a parasite (at best!) - destroying the wholeness of creation, and taking the energies of creation for oneself. 

We are here to choose. 

Which do we love? Creation? Do we want to join-with creation and draw-upon the the creative essence in our-selves to add to creation, harmoniously? 

Or, do we intend to use creation for our own goals; do we want to take and redirect the energies released as creation is destroyed? 

Or, do we want divine creation to be controlled, directed and shaped in accordance with our own (totalitarian, this-world, socio-political) ideology? 

Or, perhaps we simply hate creation, resent its very existence; and want to see it destroyed; will even use our own energies to see it destroyed (even whether or not we personally benefit from that destruction). 

But the core choice is binary: Are we for divine creation; or (in some way) against it. 

Because being against creation, one may change one's motivations, as corruption affects a person, as evil gets a grip and attains mastery over a soul.. 

The lust-full hedonist becomes a soul-less bureaucrat becomes one who loathes all that is Good simply because it is Good... 

Such is this mortal life of mine, of yours - woven from strands of creation and chaos. 

Life comes to us; in thought as well as action - like it or not. And we choose between the strands - again and again until the final choice. 

We experience both sides of life; we are intended to learn what these two possibilities entail and imply; we should learn to discern between them - to know them the one from the other. 

So, we live this life; we our-selves are both divine, and also we are always returning to chaos. We are compelled to choose where our affiliation lies... 

We may change sides for a while, but eventually we must pick sides: forever. 

Are we to become a co-creator in the divine work of creating (resurrected life in Heaven)? 

Or are we to become an exploiter-of creation; do we aspire to become a parasite, a tyrant or destroyer of creation? 

Such is our mortal life, such is this dual world of creation and entropy and our life of choosing, our life - ultimately - of making a commitment one way, or the other. To join-with and participate in creation... Or, else to reduce creation towards chaos for our own purposes - whether to vampirically feed-upon creation's energies, to control and direct creation, or reduce creation to chaos from sheer destructive spitefulness. 

Duh, yeah! Evil is stronger than Good if you are talking about the trends evident in this mortal life, here on earth; and if you are discerning from a Christian point of view. 

This is what it is like to live in a world where evil rules at the highest level and in all nations; and where every week brings new evil plans and policies, every day brings new evil news and evil interpretations. 

So, at least in the human world; evil is already strongest and evil is winning; especially because this is unrecognized. 

Quantitatively evil is triumphant; and few people seem even to want what Jesus Christ offers. 

Yet this material world is evanescent, subject to 'entropy', degeneration and death; thus each human life is temporary, our human civilization and society is temporary; the existence of the planet and even the sun is temporary. 

Evil, therefore, is triumphant - but in the material, earthly world; which is temporary. 

But the true earthly war is spiritual, not material; and spiritually; evil is damnation - which is at most only a delaying of death.  

Therefore, ultimately Good is still winning; for at least so long as there are any Men still being resurrected and going to enlarge Heaven. 

Only Good is everlasting. So, no matter how much evil may triumph in the short term, no matter how much evil destroys and how many souls choose evil - there already is eternal Good that cannot be destroyed and will endure forever. 

And this eternal good is being added to, and is growing; and itself has the property of creation so will continue to grow - eternally. 

In this sense Good has already won, and its victory can only get larger. 

Of course, evil is real, and its ill effects are real. Self-damned souls are committed to evil and are lost from what might have been a larger Heaven; what those unique souls would have brought to Heavenly life has been destroyed. This is why we fight evil in general - and the fact that these damned souls may include those we love, who also are lost to Heaven, is what makes the fight personal and urgent. 

But the basic shape of reality is that evil is (here, now) strongest on this earth, and this is a Bad Ting and needs to be resisted and fought-back against; but since Jesus Christ Good has irrevocably won in an eternal and ultimate sense.  

This earth is a world of entropy. We will all die, and death is a necessary preliminary to resurrection: hence death is (for a Christian) ultimately Good. 

The Big Question is whether you and I (and those we love) want to join-with and partake-of this everlasting Good - or reject it and choose spiritual death. 

Love is the major and ineradicable constraint on the Christian possibilities of this mortal life. 

By which I mean that it is the intrinsic limitations of our ability to love in this-life; that mean "Heaven on Earth" is not just difficult but impossible 

It is the limits of our ability to love that - to various degrees - constrain our ability to live a Christian life.

Our love - here on earth - is always and necessarily, due to the presence of evil and entropy - Personal and Partial. 

Our capability for love is incomplete, and often very incomplete; and the strength and endurance of our love is sometimes (or often) weak - so that the pressures and evils of this-world are capable of overcoming the strength of our love (sooner or later). 

And the partial nature of our love greatly limits the possibilities of goodness. For instance, love is needed for proper motivation; and our will-power and choices will be wrong if they are not motivated by love.  

Furthermore, some individuals are more loving than others, and some have more powerful love than others; so that some individual people are capable of only rather weak love of only a few persons or other Beings - perhaps loving just one single person, or animal. This does not prevent such a person from following Jesus to Heaven. 

(Only one who was incapable of love, or one who refused to love, would be unable - as well as unwilling - to attain salvation.) 

Furthermore love just-is, by its nature, personal - in the sense that real love is between particular Beings. This can be illustrated by the Fourth Gospel where, in every instance that it is mentioned, Jesus's love is personal and particular. 

This means that (in this mortal life on earth) our loving motivations are always particular; and (given the nature of our lives) this means that we are required to do many/most things for which we are not motivated by love at all. 

(And without love, there will not be Good. For instance, prayer or meditation not motivated by love, will do not Good - and may do harm.)

Indeed, we are all ineradicably prone to all kinds of un-loving attitudes against other people, animals, plants and "minerals"; from regarding them as un-alive and un-conscious, to desiring to manipulate and exploit them for selfish - or other - ends; to desiring to inflict harm from resentment and spite. 

Thus, real love is personal and during the earthly life it is partial; so that we cannot as mortals "live by love". 

Furthermore; this problem is not solved by reducing the actuality of real love to abstractions; e.g. by declaring that the "higher" love (the best, or really-real love) is Universal and Unconditional.

People try to evade the constraints of actual love in this mortal life, by declaring that love ought to be, and can be, Universal - so that we love everybody and every-thing; and that it should be Unconditional - coming from-us, all the time, in all situations, regardless of persons or motivations. 

UU-Love is just something else than real love - it  is neither Christian, nor Good. UU-Love is, indeed, associated with Oneness spirituality - which is not Christian but derives either from pagan sources (such as Pythagoras and Plato) and/or from "Eastern" religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. 

That which is universal and unconditional is not love, at least not for Christians; because real love is personal, between Beings; and not, therefore, the kind of thing that can be had by decision, declaration, or on-principle.

Heaven is a place or state in which love motivates all thought and deeds. That love is indomitable, permanent, and it remains personal in nature. But in Heaven, we love all the persons (all the Beings) in Heaven. 

That's what makes it Heaven - at resurrection, every Being has left-behind all that is not of-love  

(Loving not-equally, of course - e.g. the wholly-loving mortal Jesus loved some men and women more than others.)

As Christians we need not be ashamed-of, nor try to conceal, that our love in this mortal life on earth is PP-Love. 

Nor should we be tempted by that fake love which masquerades as Universal and Unconditional. 

After all; if a state of complete love of all were possible on earth; then the salvation offered by Jesus would not have required that we first die, then be resurrected to Heaven!