Bruce Charlton's Notions

*
There is snare in what I might call dogmatic primary monotheism. That is, the assumption of 'strict' philosophical monotheism - with monotheism regarded as a rational necessity and a transparent and absolute requirement of Christianity.

For many Christian theologians, it is assumed we know what monotheism is better than we know what Christianity is; and therefore the definition of Christianity must be fitted to this prior understanding of the definition of monotheism.

This is a big problem for mainstream Christian theology, and has been for nearly 2000 years; because when monotheism is combined with an abstract definition of God as necessarily omnipotent, this creates intractable problems for understanding Christianity as it may be understood from a common-sense reading of the Gospels in particular, but also the Bible as a whole.

*

For example, if there is strict monotheism and an omnipotent God, there is no necessity for Christ. One God who has absolute power would not need the assistance of Christ.

Yet, Biblical revelation is clear that Christ is necessary for Man's salvation - this (it seems to me) is absolutely fundamental to Christianity: a Christian must believe that Christ is necessary to eternal life. And if Christ is necessary to salvation/ eternal life, then God is either not one, or not omnipotent. Something must yield precedence.

This ought not to be a problem for Christians, since it would seem obvious that philosophical conceptualisations such as a particular understanding of monotheism and the abstract and absolute definition of omnipotence are not (not straightforwardly) supported by scripture, while the necessity of Christ has multiple support from scripture.

But historically it certainly has been a problem; because strict monotheism and strict omnipotence have in practise been regarded as primary and non-negotiable. Mainstream theologians have been more willing to fudge, complexify (with apparent contradiction) and in general mis-explain the necessity of Christ; than to challenge, drop or nuance their philosophical attachment to monotheistic omnipotence.

*

Yet polytheism of the pagan Hindu, Buddhist or other type is clearly not an answer either. In the first place, scripture is clear that (in some fairly plain sense) there is One God whose power is (in some obvious way) primary.

But also that a straightforwardly polytheistic universe is one without focus, unity and overall meaning or purpose: a polytheistic universe just is. It doesn't mean anything, it isn't going anywhere in particular; there are no real objective relationships between the gods, between gods and men, or between men.

In polytheism 'stuff happens' - and our job (each of us, as individuals) is merely to cope with this as best we may.

*

But for Christianity God rules the world and there is One God; and it is the one-ness of God that makes possible the objective metaphysical (ie. structuring) cohesion of God, gods and Man - but God needs Christ.

There is One God, but Christ cannot be identical with God.

Thus God is significantly constrained in His primary work, and is not absolutely and abstractly 'omnipotent'.

*

For Christians (and this may be hard to grasp or acknowledge) the world could have been meaningless and purposeless - so God is not a logical necessity to existence. It is God that makes the universe meaningful and purposeful; and it is God that makes relationships real  - and these positive attributes arise from God being a person.

God is a person; and persons are constrained, discrete, bounded, concrete - no matter how large in power, God is not an abstraction, not a force nor a logically-derived construct.

*

Our God is a real, living and loving person, and He is our Father; this we know, and this is primary - whatever else He may be  - which matters are up-for definition, discussion, modification.

As such, it follows that God needs help if He is to achieve some purposes; and indeed, as a person He wants, appreciates, loves help from other persons - primarily and necessarily Christ.

In order to save Man, God needed Christ; who is His son, and we also are His sons and daughters.

Exactly the need for Christ, the mechanism by which Christ saved Man, the similarities and differences between Christ being God's son and me and everyone else being God's children  - these matters are not crystal clear; and explaining these constitute some of those matters up-for definition, discussion and modification.

But whatever our explanation of these matters, we will need to set-aside the classical, philosophical and traditional metaphysical assumptions that we know and understand that One God means strict monotheism; and that omnipotence means that God can do anything do-able.

These assumptions cannot be true, if the primary revelations of Christianity really are regarded as primary: since God needed Christ - God is not monotheistically-omnipotent.

*

Note added: Another, quite different, reason to suggest that God needed Christ is to compare Christianity with "pure" monotheisms - Christianity promises a far happier and higher life beyond death: a life of divinisation. If we assume that religions are (broadly) honest about what they offer (which I believe to be the case) then this suggests that One God without Christ cannot offer as much as God with Christ. Therefore, if there had been no Christ, then Man's future would have been much less than it is. 

We can analyse paganism, monotheism and Christianity from the perspective of the implied relationship between Man and the divine (and an understanding of the nature of divine). 

Paganism is hugely varied, each tribe and locality having its own version, and most are fluid and loosely defined - with no real attempt to hold it constant. The gods (the many little 'g'-gods) are more powerful than, but not qualitatively different from, Men. The gods are subject to the same virtues and sins as Men; have the same kind of strengths and weaknesses - therefore the religion is one of divination and propitiation - of Men discerning the will of the gods, and attempting to influence the gods by flattery, sacrifice etc
 
Monotheistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) have a creator deity - a capital-G God; and the practice is underpinned by obedience to that God (obedience to laws/ rules/ rituals as revealed by prophets who are merely mouthpieces of the divine). The relationship between Man and God is one of the infinitely-lesser submitting to the incomprehensibly-greater - and how people feel about this is pretty irrelevant. The religion is therefore one of practice, not belief; and the ethic one of strict adherence to the rules of practice.

(There is no divination or sacrifice in monotheism, as such - since God is so infinitely removed and great; that it would be impossible to understand, predict or influence such a God.)

What of Christianity? Well, although self-identified Christianity is often corrupted by Monotheistic or Pagan elements - the intrinsic nature of Christianity is different from either.

Christianity focuses on Jesus - and on the one hand Jesus was not 'a god' (as he might be in paganism - e.g. a god in human form) - because, for Christians, Jesus lived in a reality where there was a unified creator deity - a prime God who was not Jesus.

But Jesus was divine, and brought the teaching that all Men could (by following him) also become divine (via death and resurrection).

In what sense was Jesus, the Man, also divine? Because by some means - such as the divine spirit impregnating Jesus's Mother, or the divine spirit descending upon Jesus at baptism - Jesus the Man was made god. But not just made-into 'a' god; but made a god-creator who could, and does, work-with God the prime creator.

Therefore Jesus became 'fully divine'; that is, he eventually joined-with the divine creator in the work of creation, while remaining a Man; and Jesus made it possible for other Men to do the same.

So, Christianity takes the understanding of God as the single, original prime creator from monotheism; and takes the continuity between gods and Man (the possibility of a man becoming a god) from paganism, and made a new category of god-creator - the two being brought-together in and by the centrality of Jesus Christ.

(Of course, I am assuming here that Christianity is Obviously Not a type of monotheism; which many theologians have always asserted it is - fudging the issue by Trinitarian incoherence. Evidence for the wrongness of the idea of Christian monotheism is that when Christianity has been so regarded, it takes on the qualities of monotheism - becomes essentially like Judaism and/ or Islam; that is a religion of obedience, law, ritual, submission - as contrasted with being distinctively 'Christian', as Jesus was and taught.)

It is an old question - revived for me by listening to an audiobook CS Lewis essay on the topic, where he makes a rational argument for the necessity of monotheism.

On the face of it, Christianity is not a monotheistic religion because of Jesus Christ; who is God - but not the only God, not the same God as the already-existing God of the Ancient Jews to whom Jesus frequently refers, defers and prays.

But for some reason earlyish (probably the second century of the religion) many of the most intellectually sophisticated Christian theologians began to regard it as absolutely necessary that Christianity should be monotheistic as well as having at least two Gods.

The question is, why did they feel that way? I infer that it was because the philosopher-theologians were also (and already) embarked on a philosophical quest to explain the coherence of reality and the necessity of God; they wanted to unite all reality in a single unity that was also deity.  They were engaged in a conflation of Christian theology with philosophy, because they simply took the absolute necessity of their philosophy for granted.

(And they ended by shoe-horning Christian theology into classical philosophy; while also modifying that philosophy somewhat in the process.)

It seems to me that many philosophical Christians simply assume that this is necessary to the religion - i.e. that for Christians God must be ultimately necessary to be the source of everything and all order, and also that for reality to hang together requires that God be not only one, but indivisibly one. Hence monotheism.

I don't accept this line of argument, because - like all lines of argument - it has assumptions; points at which we must assert It Just Is - but these assumptions are not intrinsic to Christianity and instead come from outside it.

And there are other assumptions which work just as well as Christian explanations, are simpler, more comprehensible and have better implications.

So we can drop the necessity for monotheism and suggest that the coherence of reality comes from other sources - especially that there is one creation (not creation by one, but one creation) in which we dwell. This creation (and its creator/s) is, of course, not logically entailed; but a thing which happened-to-have-happened.

We then understand the one-ness of God as described in scripture to be the one-ness of a King, a reference to primacy not unity of identity - and we find that this fits comfortably with the Old Testament culture, language and descriptions.

And Christians are to understand the cohesion of reality to be due to Love - in some sense of Love (and I tried to describe my own understanding in a post yesterday); which is a inter-personal thing, which means that the universe of reality is personal from top (from God) to bottom ('non-living' matter): an alive and conscious universe of manifold entities, cohering by love. 

So we end with a very different world picture from classical theology. And this world picture is not monotheistic - but instead explains monotheism as a consequence of philosophical (not Christian) compulsioins.

But, as an explanation non-monotheism works at-least-equally well: indeed I would assert that it works better for Christians.

 

*

No, they are not - certainly they are not; at least, Christians are not monotheists in any way which could be explained to an unsympathetic/ hostile non-Christian, e.g. someone who was a straightforward (non-Trinitarian) monotheist.

*

(Because, if you suppose that hostile critics would be convinced by the one-in-three, three-in-one Athanasian Creed type explanations of why Father Son +/- Holy Ghost are not two or three Gods... then you are mistaken.)

(Since such explanations do not make rational sense, then how and why should anybody who is not already a Christian (of a particularly philosophical mind-set) be convinced by them?)

*

But then there is no scriptural reason why Christians should be monotheists, since the Bible is full of gods, and silent on the subject of monotheism.

Why then the zealous and punitive obsession with proving (by demanding public assent to statements that - even if they were true - are logically self-contradicting and/ or incomprehensible) that Christians are monotheists?

*

The reasons for aggressively asserting the monotheism of Christianity are not scriptural, but (presumably) philosophical - and derive from reading scripture through the lens of fixed prior philosophical assumptions: by insisting that God be fitted-into a preshaped monotheistic mould derived from philosophy, rather than by fitting philosophy around what revelation as transmitted by scripture teaches us concerning the nature of God.

**


Note: I say two or three gods, because I have a hunch that most Trinitarian mainstream Christians do not, in practice, regard the Holy Ghost as a full aspect of the Trinity, that is a personage on a par with God the Father and God the Son - but instead regard Him as the means or mechanism by which the Father and/or Son effect changes among men and on Earth: i.e. more like a physical force than a person. This is promoted by the fact that we do not pray to or on behalf of the Holy Ghost, but ask that the Holy Ghost be sent for our aid and comfort.

*

Further note added 24 July 2013: The point I wish to emphasize is that the way to deal with the question about whether Christians are monotheists is that it does not matter - not in any fundamental sense.

(Or rather it should not matter and if it does, we are in serious trouble).

Christians are what they are - and what they are should be derived from the proper sources: who cares whether what Christians are does, or does not, fit into some definition or other of monotheist?

Christianity fits some definitions of monotheism, it does not fit other definitions - so what? It is not the job of Christianity to fit definitions of monotheism, or any other philosophical category - this debate is not just irrelevant, but actively harmful to the proper understanding of Christian doctrine.

The primary reality of Christianity is personal and narrative - not conceptual. 

The main point of creation is to make gods, as many as possible; living as a loving Heavenly family, and sharing the end-less work of creation.

The lesson of Christ's incarnation is that we Men are gods in our nature (albeit immature and flawed gods), and that God (the Father: prime creator) is a Man. So there is a continuum between mortal Men on the one hand; and creator gods such as the Father (who was the one prime creator) and the Son (Jesus Christ).

The Father is unique as prime creator, including being Father-creator of Men (including Jesus); and Jesus is the creator of this world (but not of the Men in it - as told and implied in the opening of the Fourth Gospel) - so creation is not restricted to the Father; creation has been done by both to Father and Son (at least).

Jesus tells us (clearly, explicitly, repeatedly in the Fourth Gospel) that if we know Jesus, then we know the Father; they are not the same person (else why would Jesus pray to the Father, defer to the Father, distinguish between himself and the father); but they are the same in nature: they are 'one' in love and motivation. And Jesus is a Man in his nature, therefore so is the Father.

Jesus is the Son of God, and tells us that we too can be Sons of God - we can be of the same kind as Jesus, and Jesus is of the same kind as God.

All this is perfectly clear and explicit in scripture; but it is obscured by the false (and wrongly-motivated) mania that Christianity 'must be' a monotheism. Yet it's a terrible and destructive error to try and argue that Christianity is a monotheism; because in a vital sense Christianity is an ultimate form of polytheism - maximum polytheism; (to repeat) that is the main point and purpose of Christianity.

Few, very few, errors have damaged Christianity as much as the attempt to insist that it is a monotheism: this was and is a primary error with often lethal and unavoidable consequences. It blocks understanding of the main purpose of mortal life. It puts an evasion at the heart of Christian theology. It institutionalises incoherence.

We need to be clear: the Father hopes for as many as possible of us Men to become gods and creators, like Jesus. That is what creation is for. There is only one God (capital g), one prime creator (albeit God may actually, factually, be - as I believe - a dyad of primary Father and Mother); but the plan is for there to be many gods (small g), many creators.

That's the main point of it-all.

*
One distinctive feature of Mormons is the belief that there were Christians before the incarnation of Christ - this is documented (in two different groups) in the Americas in the Book of Mormon.

These were Christians who knew by personal revelation and prophecy that a savour and redeemer, Christ, would come - and that his atonement would potentially cover everybody - before, during and after His incarnation - and who therefore practised a Christ-centred religion even before Jesus was born or resurrected.

I believe in the truth of the BoM; but even for a Christian who did not, there is a real possibility that what it describes specifically may have happened in one or more places.

*

How might Christians have existed before Christ?

My hunch is that a Saviour is something that would make sense only to those who were, in some sense, monotheists - those who believed in One God.

(Not necessarily a belief in a one-and-only God but a supreme, authoritative and ruling personal God who had a care for Men - individually and collectively.)

It is not that a Saviour is unnecessary in a polytheistic system, but rather that there is (apparently) a considerable muddle and imprecision about polytheism, such that its philosophical implications(including deficiencies) are unclear, and undiscussed.

*

How might Christians before Christ know about Christ?  Here are three possible lines of evidence.

1. Revelation - personal revelations to individuals, and to acknowledged prophets, may have been made by God to communicate the need for a Saviour, and the promise of a Saviour.

(God might make such revelations open to all Men and all societies; but they may not be looked for, or may be ignored or rejected.)

2. Reason may have worked-out the need for a Saviour; individuals may have understood that pure monotheism was philosophically-inadequate (even in principle) to provide and account for the combination of factors which characterised the human condition in relation to the divine.

(This argument is based on the fact that Christianity offers, or promises, more than any other religion - as was recognized by Blaise Pascal; in other words, other religions have more gaps and deficiencies.)

3. Psychology - people may have felt the need for a Saviour; may have recognized that they could not save themselves, and that for them to be saved required some kind of mediator between God the Father and man.

And they may have felt that because they personally needed a Saviour, then a loving God of power would 'provide' a Saviour.

(This is another place where it seems that monotheism is required to understand the necessity of Christ - those who believe in a polytheistic pantheon do not regard them as responsive to human needs.)

*

So, it is possible that early men may, for a variety of reasons, have concluded that Man required a Saviour; and that what Man needed God would somehow give.

Also that because a Saviour is once-and-for-all, it did not much matter whether He had not yet come: life should still be lived with that awareness.

And so some early men may have practised de facto Christianity.

*

Candidates?

My favourite is the Neolithic inhabitants of England who built the Avebury, Silbury, Stonehenge and the other linked outdoor temples, stone monuments, pathways and spaces across southern England.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-neolithic-high-civilization-of.html

I like to speculate, to imagine, that these people were monotheists - with their supreme sky God-the-Father associated with the sun - and that they were awaiting some intermediary Saviour who was Son to the Father God.

This is compatible with what little is known of these societies; but there is no positive evidence that I know of - indeed I do not know what might count as positive evidence of a proto-Christian religion among the kind of things that survive to be noted by archaeologists.

Only if some kind of writing is found from this era, and is deciphered, could we perhaps really know. But if archaeologists aren't even looking for proto-Christianity or rule-it-out a priori (because, as typical secular modern people, the idea strikes them as absurd) then of course they never will find it.

*

If man wishes to build for himself a world conception, he rightly strives toward harmonizing the individual parts...

One who approaches the world with the expectation that everything must explain itself without contradiction, as if it arose from an undivided foundation of the world, will experience many disappointments when he faces the world and its experiences in an unprejudiced way. It is traditional for the human being to treat all that he perceives in the world according to a pastoral world conception, in which everything is led back to the undivided, divine, primordial foundation; everything stems from God and therefore must be understandable as a unity.

This is not the case now, however. What surrounds us in the world as experience does not stem from the undivided primordial foundation. Rather it stems from spiritual individualities different from one another. Different individualities work together in all that surrounds us in the world as experience. This is how it is above all...

Various individualities work together in influencing these events that are relatively independent of each other. If you do not take this into consideration, if you assume everywhere an undivided foundation of the world, you will never understand these events. Only when you take into consideration what is to a certain degree the ebb and flow of events, the varied individualities who work with or against one another, only then will you understand these things in the right way.

This matter is indeed connected with the deepest mysteries of human evolution. Only the monotheistic feeling has veiled this fact for centuries or millennia, but one must consider it.

If one wishes to progress today, therefore, with questions of a world conception, above all one must not confuse logic with an abstract lack of contradiction. An abstract lack of contradiction cannot exist in a world in which individualities are working together independently of one another. 

A striving for conformity will therefore always lead to an impoverishment of concepts; the concepts will no longer be able to encompass the full reality. Only when these concepts are able to take hold of this world full of contradictions, which is the true reality, will they be able to encompass the full reality.

From Individual Spirit Beings and the Undivided Foundation of the World: Part 2 by Rudolf Steiner.

This particular section of a lecture by Rodolf Steiner jumped out at me; because he shares my own understanding that monotheism is an understandable but misguided urge; one that can only be achieved by an 'impoverishment of concepts', an ignoring of primary and intuitively-known realities, that - in the end, and especially at present - plays into sustaining this age of secular materialism.

In other words, a highly abstract monotheism, one that primarily asserts the unity of the world, is hostile to our intuitive knowledge of the multiplicity of agent Beings in reality. This world is Not merely 'aspects' of a primordial unity; it is a Society of Beings.


And this is why, for Christians, Love is the primary necessity; because it is Love which harmonises, and aligns the purposes of Beings into a participation in creation - Beings whose wills otherwise would be chaotically at war.

Christians are One in Love and Purpose - not in monotheistic Being. 

There is a qualitative distinction between the false monotheistic harmony of unity, and the true Christian harmony of Love.

This is why it is important for Christians to acknowledge that in deepest truth they are not monotheists, nor are they 'Trinitarian' monotheists - but that Christianity implicitly acknowledges and works-with the genuine autonomy of many, many Beings.

*
What I call Platonism is often impilict and may even be denied by its believers - but I think it is a religion, and it does affects people's lives and behaviours, albeit in an individualistic manner (since there is no church of Platonism).

*

By Platonism, I mean the belief that behind the everyday, up-front and obvious world of differences and changes and incomprehensible complexity; there is a world of simpler, eternal and unchanging 'forms' - and this world of forms is more real than the everyday world because we can have genuine knowledge of it (whereas the everyday world of change lacks pattern, and is unknowable).

By such a definition, Platonism has been the implicit religion of many of the greatest mathematicians and scientists, of many artists and scholars - and in general many of those who inhabit the world of the mind.

*

Platonism may be Christian, or non-Christian - in fact, Platonism has been the basic world view of the majority of Christian intellectuals since at least the middle second century AD (although there is very little evidence it in the Old or New Testament - and none of that evidence is clear or explicit).

But Platonism has been,  in fact, the secret religion of the majority of intellectuals full stop.

Whether this has anything to do with the specific lineage of Plato, or whether Platonism is a basic archetypal pattern of thinking into-which intellectuals tend to fall (a 'strong attractor' as it were) - I am not sure.

And although Platonism has been probably dominant religion of serious intellectuals, it is not necessary nor inevitable as the religion of real intellectuals - there are other equally coherent and motivating alternatives; such as Aristotelianism (a significant modification of Platonism - focused on the primacy of universal forms, rather than a separate world of forms).

*

But Platonism is dominant among serious intellectuals, probably because if a serious intellectual is not a Platonist, the philosophy will probably not be strong enough to work as a real religion. So an Aristotelian must be primarily a Christian (or some other type of monotheist) if he is to stay honest and true.

And the same would apply to a pragmatist pluralist such as myself - we could only stay honest if our pragmatism is underpinned by strong, binding, personal monotheism. I think it is too easy for non-Platonists to become corrupted by worldly-things unless they (we) are underpinned by monotheism.

In this sense, Platonism is the strongest of all philosophies

Platonism is the only philosophy which can serve as a way of life, as the bottom-line for living. 

*

Even nowadays, and even among those rare and few real scientists who self-describe as non-religious, Platonism is a strong, bottom line, metaphysical religion - as is most obvious when top-notch mathematicians (such as Roger Penrose^) discuss their basic stance and the meaning of their work.

This basic conviction about the nature of reality is - for such people - an important motivation and source of strength and honesty; because it enables then to resist the usually- irresistible worldly considerations of money, career, awards, peer status etc: the Platonist intellectuals regard themselves as working for eternity - their 'reward' for unworldly disinterestedness will be in Platonic Heaven, and will endure long after the expediencies and corruptions of everyday life have been swept away in this world of constant change.

And what is Platonic Heaven? The emphasis is impersonal; the Platonic God is not, primarily, a personal God with whom one has a personal relationship; he is an abstract God of abstract properties such as reality itself and the self-contemplation of reality; so Platonic Heaven is not a relationship but a state of being - some kind of bliss-full absorption in pure knowledge.

The Heavenly reward of the faithful Platonist is eternally to participate-in pure conscious awareness of exactly that eternal and unchanging reality which he has revered, and which he has served.

This is the hope which makes him brave, steadfast and honest in his dealings.

*

Yes, Platonism is a real religion, although rarer now in The West than at any time in the past 2000 years: Platonism is a real religion because Platonism makes a real difference.
*


^Here is a modern Platonist - perhaps the greatest living mathematical physicist - being explicit about his beliefs, convictions and motivations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Q6SWcTA9w
*


*

The Christology and Trinitarian disputes of the early Christian Church came from the clash of two irreconcilable desires of early church intellectuals, the theologians, who had been trained in pagan (Greek and Roman) metaphysical philosophy.

First, they wanted to be able to state that there was one God - because they had a prior commitment to philosophical arguments that led to the inference of one God as the basis of unity and coherence in reality; and secondly, they wanted to be able to state that Jesus was God.

Jesus was God, so there were at least two gods; but there could only be one God - for philosophical reasons, based on pre-Christian assumptions.

In simple logic, one of these two sides ought to give-way - and for a Christian the obvious side that needed to give way was that there was only one god. Christ implies polytheism. But for a convinced Classical philosopher, this could not be true...

This is the Christian dilemma.



In other words, Christians actually are, and ought to be, regarded as poly-theists - as Jews and Muslims have always correctly asserted! Christian polytheism was the position reached by Mormonism some 1800 years later.

Mormon theology is simple, clear, coherent, and honest (and beautiful) - and it is Christian: Christ-centred and based on the divinity of Christ.

Thus, Mormons (eventually...) solved the Christian dilemma by holding-fast to the divinity of Christ, and chucking-out monotheism.

In doing so, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith created the first explicitly pluralistic metaphysical philosophy - a couple of generations before it was set down academically by his fellow American William James.


But the early Christian intellectuals were, apparently, as much psychologically-wedded to the truth of philosophical monotheism as they were committed to belief in the divinity of Christ. They demanded to fit the divinity of Christ into the pre-existing pagan philosophical scheme. Yet this cannot be made to make sense...

So these early theologians eventually devised a none-sensical mish-mash of words, to assert that there was only one God and that Jesus was God.

Both-together and ignoring-contradictions.


In such wise they 'solved' the Christian dilemma by denying that there was a contradiction. The dilemma was 'solved' by (complexly, not simply) denying there ever had been a dilemma...

They devised a 'mantra' - a form of words (the Athanasian Creed), and then insisted that all Christians would assert this form-of-words (or, later and elsewhere, something analogous) as the core truth of the faith. To the extent that many/ most Christians describe themselves primarily as Trinitarians!

The mantra was strictly nonsense; but the nonsense was relabelled mystery, or a higher truth beyond common sense and logic - and that has been the situation in mainstream Christianity ever since.


Well this is what happened - but did it work?

It 'worked' within the Christian churchs, mostly; by sociologically-solving the particularly vicious Christological disputes among the intellectual leadership within the Christian churches. Those who remained, agreed-to-agree on the validity of the mantra.

But what of the wider world? Did the Trinitarian mantra convince ordinary people, non-intellectuals, those without a stake in the hierarchy? If Mormons eventually took the simple-coherent polytheist-path to solve the Christian dilemma; what about the the simple-coherent monotheist path? Did anybody reject the Trinitarian mantra and take the monotheist path?

Well, it seems that nobody knows the exact historical details - but my assumption is that Islam was the actual monotheist solution to the problem of the Christian dilemma. In Islam the oneness of God was retained, at the cost of the divinity of Christ; who instead became regarded as a great prophet.

Simple, clear, coherent, and honest.

But, obviously, not Christian.


The rapid and permanent rise of Islam seems to show the deep and intractable failure of the Trinitarian mantra - and how vital it is that the basic explanation at the core of a religion makes straightforward common-sense.

There is no more powerful a critique against the fundamental error in building Christianity on meaningless metaphysics and evasive theology than the rise and success of Islam. Islam is the failure of the Trinitarian mantra: Islam is the consequence of trying to evade the Christian dilemma.


The above analysis is one (but not the only) reason why I am a believer in Mormon Christian metaphysics and theology.

*

This seems very obvious to me - although I cannot really think how to prove it; and indeed it is not the kind of thing that can be proved.

It simply seems that no secular materialist perspective provides the social coherence and individual solidity necessary to hold the line on anything.

Whenever I think of any secular materialist perspective it is obviously socially destructive.

But what of non-monotheist religions? Types of paganism? Religions without a deity? Non-scriptural monotheisms such as The God of The Philosophers, of the perennial philosophy, or generic spirituality?

They seem too weak, incoherent, subjective, fluid and yielding to beat secular Leftism; and even after secular Leftism self-destructs then they would - I think - give way before any Scriptural monotheism which remained.

*

*

Natural Law is the inbuilt, universal human understanding of the good - the true, beautiful and virtuous.

Modern people violate this, the modern state propagandises the violation of Natural Law, the violation of Natural Law is taught explicitly, and inculcated covertly, by the 'arts' and entertainment and news.

(I mean that personal experience and observation are meaningless or intrinsically mistaken, that lies are truth, and truth is hate; that beauty is kitsch and deliberately-contrived-ugliness is true beauty, and the reversed/ inverted sexual morality which forms the focus of so much modern public and personal life where what was bad becomes a subsidised and coerced good, while what was good is labelled an agent of cruelty.)

*

It is not because of stupidity. Everybody already knows (by its definition) Natural Law. But under Leftism people know it only to violate it. And this is evil - intentional, purposive, deliberate evil.

To put it another way, the main problem is that people are not even not-even-trying to be good; they are actually trying to be bad, because they believe (because they are told, 24/7, and punished if they disagree) that bad is good.

(But 'people' are not innocent victims of this evil propaganda - they contribute to it and profit by it and try to exploit it for their own ends; they are culpable, they are blame-worthy - they will be held to account not for that which was coerced upon them, but for their self-interested propagation of the ideology which rationalizes this coercion.)

*

This is why there is no atheist solution to the current problems, it is why the secular Right is of no use; and why paganism is no use - why (ultimately) only traditional devout monotheism can and will defeat Leftism.

Nothing else than monotheism has the solid transcendental core to withstand the multifaceted worldly materialism of Leftism.

*

In the past, before the triumph of the Left, human society would 'naturally' be regulated by Natural Law.

But we are now in a situation in which Natural Law is regarded as evil.

(Evil because a universal tyrant, an inescapable and exclusive code of behaviour, a strangling constraint on freedom of self-development; because NL makes some people suffer - suffer either absolutely, or relatively compared with what they ideally-might experience... and so on.)

Therefore reminding people of universal values is worthless, or even harmful - because modern Leftism is precisely about violating and inverting Natural Law ('subverting' is their favourite term).

*

Argument is useless - the Left knows the arguments anyway (since they are common sense and based on universal knowledge and experience); but they will not argue.

The Left know that their own arguments are incoherent but have chosen to embrace incoherence as a sign of their own depth of moral conviction.

In fact incoherence is a sign of enthrallment to purposive evil, reflecting that evil is incoherent (because negative, destructive by its nature - the anti-Good does not need to be coherent).

*

Is primary, first, reality single, a unity, undivided - yet containing everything: abstract, static, unchanging, no time nor movement; a bit like nothing, a circle, a universal sphere (one God - monotheism, without body, parts or passions)...


Or is reality two-fold, interactive, generative, dyadic, and dynamic; happening in-Time - two forces, a polarity; and abstract: like the yin-yang... 



Or is the primary reality two-fold like the above (interactive, generative, dyadic, and dynamic); but personal, Beings - a man and a woman (Heavenly Parents)...


This is metaphysics, one of the very first assumptions about reality: is ultimate truth one, or more-than-one; is it impersonal-abstract or personal?

Each metaphysical assumption sets-up a different reality, a different starting-point; with different problems and strengths, and tendencies.

Deciding which is a very important decision; and one that each person should make - explicitly.

*

It is easy to become a theist (a believer in the reality of 'god' - not specifically nor necessarily the Christian God). Indeed, to be a theist is the only coherent system of belief - as has been clear since ancient Greek times. 

1. Recognize the reality of transcendental values - any one from the list of truth, beauty and virtue. Recognize that these are not only a matter of opinion. 

2. Recognize that there must be a god/s, or else transcendental values could not be real and we could not know about them.

3. You are now a theist.

4.  Recognize that there must logically be one god above all gods.

*

To become a Christian involves another set of steps:

1. You need to make a decision about revelation.

You need to decide if it is possible that god communicate with humans (divine revelation) or not. This is something to do with whether god is a 'personal god' - who is concerned with humans in general, and in particular.

If revelation is impossible, then knowledge of god must be inferred from the world using reason and instinct - this is the pagan position, natural religion, spontaneous religion in its various specific manifestations.

2. If you regard revelation as possible then presumably it has happened, and you need to evaluate human history on the basis of sorting-out which of the claimed revelations of god are real; and how accurate are these reported revelations.

3. There are not many, three or a few more, major religions based on monotheism and revelation - how to choose?

Find out about Christianity - which is not easy because of the vast amount of disinformation, misunderstanding, and corruption. Then decide whether Christian revelation is supported by, is consistent with, the evidence - prophecies and their fulfillment, miracles etc. 

4. If you find that you want to be a Christian, then you should decisively acknowledge this fact to yourself (and others whom you trust) - don't conceal it, don't lie about it.  

At this point you have crossed the line.

By clearly acknowledging that you want to be a Christian (that you are a 'seeker') then you essentially are a Christian.

(Because of the promise that he who seeks will find: will find. A promise from God will absolutely certainly come true - because nothing can stop it.)

5. What follows is a lifelong search to understand and know and practice Christianity.

People naturally focus on this final step, step 5 - with all its worldliness, its inter-denominational struggles, failures and compromises and corruptions; but really it is step 4 that is crucial to salvation.

*

If you sincerely want to be a Christian, you should regard yourself (in private and in public) as a Christian: because in fact you are a Christian.

* 

*

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/03/arthurian-torso-cs-lewis-on-charles.html

*

There is one God who created this reality. That is the proper meaning of 'one' God - despite that I believe the one God consisted of the dyad of Heavenly Father and Mother. 

Beyond this, and apparently since shortly after the death of Jesus Christ, Christians often feel a need to argue monotheism - that there can only be one God, that the oneness of God is entailed, that God is an indivisible unity.

However, my metaphysical understanding is that the oneness of God is a simple matter of fact. The fact that one God created this reality within which we dwell. 

There is one God because there is one God. 

What about Jesus Christ? There was one Jesus Christ who - again as a matter of fact - was the person who made possible our resurrection and ascension to Heaven. 

Before Jesus, resurrection was not possible; after Jesus it was possible (including for those who lived and died before Jesus). 

But did The Christ have to be Jesus - or could it have been someone else? 

What 'qualified' the pre-mortal individual spirit called Jesus to become incarnated and become The Christ? 

My understanding is that Jesus was the first and only pre-mortal spirit who could become The Christ, who could do the job. God always knew there was this job to be done, presumably this was known among the pre-mortal spirits; and it was some time before any of the pre-mortal spirits were ready and capable of doing the job. 

Jesus was the first and (at the time) only pre-mortal spirit to be fully-aligned with God's plan of creation - to be willing to do the job in full accordance with the plan. 

So Jesus was - as a matter of fact, but not a matter of necessity - the saviour. 

But... if that particular personage of Jesus had not been the Christ, then presumably - later on - somebody else, some other pre-mortal spirit - might have been able to do the job. 

I regard it as a deep philosophical error that so many Christian, for so long, have felt the need to argue that the oneness of God and the oneness of Jesus are necessary in some kind of ultimate philosophical-metaphysical sense; rather than as matters of fact. 

This error apparently came into Christianity quite soon after the death of Jesus - but after the writing of the Fourth Gospel; which is our only written source of what Jesus did and said written by an eye-witness, and one of the closest disciples. 

I presume (but don't know) that what became the Fourth Gospel was not known by Paul or the authors of Matthew and Luke - who provided the philosophical basis of later theologians (plus their carry-over of fundamental assumptions from Judaism and/or Greek-Roman pagan philosophy).  

By my understanding, the explanations of God and Jesus ought to be much simpler and more common-sensical than they have since become. There is one God because one God made this creation and we dwell in a creation made by one God. And there is one Jesus Christ because he was the first pre-mortal spirit who could do the job and wated to do the job - and now the job has-been-done, so there will never be "another Christ": jesus was the one and only. 

*

There is a Triad of deficits that are killing the West - Incompetence, Ignorance, and Not Even Trying - each of which would individually be enough to lead to incremental decline and extinction, but together they are synergistic, hence will be rapidly lethal (how rapidly will depend on the strength of competition).

*

1. Incompetence is caused by decline in intelligence, which seems to go back about 200 years and is related to factors such as the 'dysgenic' pattern of fertility by which the most intelligence groups have the fewest children; plus the fact that under modernity almost all children born will survive to reproduce, hence there is a relaxation of selection and accumulation of deleterious hereditary factors.

The effect I have termed the 'over-promoted society' - we have inherited a very complex societal system taht requires a higher intelligence than we now possess, wit the result that almost everybody is incompetent in the fullness of their their social function (even if they can, just about, do their 'job' - so long as nothing goes wrong).

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html

These changes in fertility are underpinned by the decline of traditional, orthodox Christianity - since devout monotheism is the only known antidote to fertility collapse under conditions of prosperity. 

*

2. Ignorance.

On top of people being insufficiently intelligent fully to perform their social function, there is the problem that people are ignorant - that is , they lack the knowledge and experience to perform their social function (even if they were intelligent enough to do it).

This is due to the massive expansion of 'management' which is a product of bureaucracy, which is a product of Leftism, which is a product of atheism and Christian (also Jewish) apostasy.

So that modern Western societies are now controlled in all their major social function by ignorant managers working in branches of one single, vast and interlinked Leftist bureaucracy. As individuals, these people are uneducated, inexperienced and structurally incapable of understanding that which they are tasked to do.

http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/cancer-of-bureaucracy.html

*

3. Not even trying

Related to the massive Christian (and Jewish) apostasy among the ruling elites, there has been a collapse of belief in the reality of transcendental values: truth, beauty and virtue (in unity).

Consequently, careerism has almost universally replaced vocation. Over time, core, tasked social functions have become unclear, neglected then denied: so educators no longer even try to educate, scientists do not seek or speak truth, artists do not try to make beautiful things, moralists do not try to encourage virtue... and so on.

Indeed, since the mainstream stance is a nihilistic denial of the reality of reality - there has been a (demonic) inversion of the transcendental values: so that not only are people 'not even trying' to do what they ought to do; they are trying to do the opposite: scientists become advertisers of lies; artists subvert beauty and make ugly and disgusting things; church leaders engage in active propaganda for evil. 

And, lacking transcendental underpinning for their lives, the mass of people have become almost infinitely plastic in terms of what they will believe and how they will behave - wide-open to having their minds colonized by the Mass Media, which is intrinsically hostile to traditional orthodox religion and necessarily propagates the secular Leftist mindset.

http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.co.uk/

*

It can be seen that Incompetence, Ignorance and Not Even Trying are all, in different ways, rooted in the cumulative and several centuries long Christians Apostasy: first the weakening of traditional, orthodox Christianity; then abandoning it; then subverting, inverting and relentlessly trying to seek-out-and-destroy it.

*

Thus, the ultimate cause of the Triad of Incompetence, Ignorance and Not Even Trying is Christian apostasy.

And Incompetence, Ignorance and Not Even Trying cannot be cured (or adapted to) without Christian renewal - effective response is necessarily on the other side of a Great Awakening.

*

But any effective cure for the disasters of Incompetence, Ignorance and Not Even Trying will be long-term; and men of goodwill must therefore necessarily be patient, very patient indeed - on a generational timescale.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/living-patiently-prepared-for-old.html


*

For - although living in a time when the visible collapse of the edifice of Western civilization is only beginning, the causes of collapse are long-established and the foundations are extensively undermined.

We are engaged, therefore, neither in repair, nor in replacement; but in rebuilding: starting with new foundations.

*


NOTE: Christian apostasy is only a partial explanation of incompetence due to dysgenic fertility and/or accumulation of deleterious heritable material. It has certainly made these kind of processes more rapid, and extreme; but the explanation should include aspects of why general intelligence evolved to be high in Europe throughout the Middle Ages high in the context of an established Christian society. Furthermore, the argument here neglects the special aspects of creative Genius. It was the abundance of Genius that made modernity, Genius is about more than high intelligence, and abundant Genius is probably an unstable blip in evolutionary history - not a sustainable state of affairs.

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/

* 

*

I cannot be too grateful to CS Lewis for his role in my conversion to Christianity - which was substantial and decisive. Indeed, my own trajectory into Christianity was broadly similar - in that it was 'philosophical' and went from theism, to monotheism, to Christianity; and proceeded mostly by logical argument with myself.

However, Lewis's Christianity remained highly philosophical - and indeed Lewis's Christianity is actually based upon the acceptance of some abstract philosophical principles - in particular the Platonic/ Neoplatonic (Boethian) concept of eternity as outside time - which is required in order to make sense of reconciling free will and omniscience.

That this was foundational to Lewis can be seen throughout all his writings; and even in the Narnian books for children - when The Last Battle ends with a very detailed description of the philosophical basis of Christianity - and a story-analogy for the relationship between Heaven and the mortal world: Plato is even name-checked by The Professor.

So, there is no doubt in my mind that Lewis was not only a philosophical convert, but continued to base his Christianity on philosophical concepts which are abstract and eternal and unchanging.

*

That is no longer the case with me - my Christianity is now based-upon relational concepts and a narrative understanding of history - I see God as primarily a Father, our Father - our relative in some sense; and therefore a person with a certain disposition, motivation and intentions; rather than a metaphysical/ physical entity with certain properties.

I now understand God's love for me and for Man as essentially like love as I know it; rather than love being an ultimate force or structuring principle.

And I feel no need to have my Christianity underpinned by explicit and abstract philosophical assumptions - for example concerning time. My metaphysical assumptions (that is, my basic assumptions which structure the understanding of reality) are now not philosophical. Philosophy and logic are still there but not as foundations, but further down the line as properties.

*

So, I would now distinguish apologetic and evangelical tactics from strategy; Lewis's tactics for explaining Christianity and winning converts are clearly effective for some people in some situations - indeed among intellectuals he seems to have been the most effective individual writer of the twentieth century.

But this approach is limited, and not necessary - indeed far more converts have been made by evangelical Protestants and Mormons, whose method is (to summarize crudely, in order to conflate the two rather distinct systems) based upon establishing a felt personal relationship with Jesus Christ, as validated 'emotionally' rather than rationally.

*

So Lewis was my original Christian mentor, but I no longer regard him as the major influence - and indeed feel Lewis 'got stuck' in that primarily philosophical mode which happened to be the way that he became a Christian - but which is not necessarily or usually the best way for other people to become Christians and even less is it necessarily the best way to remain a Christian and embark on a path of spiritual progression or theosis.

(Of course Lewis never would have claimed exclusivity - he was just doing what he could, as best he could; and he did it better than anyone else).

However, I think Lewis was led to the error of believing that some Platonic philosophical assumptions (such as out-of-time eternity) were indeed foundational to Christianity as such - since he included them in his Mere Christianity broadcasts and books.

In this I think Lewis was simply mistaken - since he did not know - or to the extent that he knew, did not appreciate - that Christianity has been, is, and can be non-philosophical - underpinned and built upon other things than 'philosophical'' principles.

*

Indeed, philosophy never ever needs to be mentioned in Christian discourse! - unless people ask about it, or our troubled by it. 

Platonism is not Mere to Christians!

And this is something to be grateful for!

*

NOTE - It must be understood that I love CS Lewis the man and his writings, perhaps second only to his friend JRR Tolkien; I have read pretty much everything Lewis wrote - much of it more than once and some of it many times; I have also read a large swathe of biographical and critical material. So there is no need to defend Lewis against attack by me: I am not attacking him!

Why should we be obedient to God?

Answer: because we are his children, and he is our loving Father.

We therefore know that God has our personal best interests at heart. It is God's love for us that is the reason why we should obey him.

In other words, obedience not the bottom-line, but God's Love is - obedience is justified in terms of love.

The other major monotheism is not based on God understood as a loving Father, but on an almighty God. The reason for obedience is God's absolute power - for them, obedience is the bottom-line. Obedience is justified in terms of supreme authority.

It is the difference between obedience to your own loving Father, and obedience to your Emperor.

I regard theocracy as the only truly coherent (and best) form of government - by which I mean that all the various officially-approved aspects of national life ought (ideally) to be unified by the religion.

But Christianity is an opt-in kind of religion - and belief cannot be coerced  - so in practice there are always a sizable proportion of the population who will not or cannot or are not eligible to opt-into any specific Christian church. So how should a theocracy treat them, given that all public affairs will be run in accordance with the ruling religion?

This thought-experiment can be examined using a wealth of historical experience - and I think the best solution is that the ruling Christian church (or denomination) ought to regard themselves as an elite and privileged group; but not as a universal church - because even when theoretically the church is open to 'anyone' in practice there will always be (and there must always be provision for) those who for various reasons cannot or do not want to join that church - or whom the ruling church will not have as members (perhaps because they fail to reach minimal standards of observance or obedience).

No matter how minimal is the compliance required by the ruling church - there must be rules, and these rules must be enforced - so there will always be those who do not wish to opt-in, or who are excluded.

Clearly, there must be some arrangement by which the ruling church is maintained and not allowed to be subverted or corrupted - so there is no possibility of treating all religions (and no religion) equally - and indeed this has never happened anywhere (except where religion is abolished, in which situation some secular ideology - typically Communism - has replaced religion; and religious people are treated as the non-compliers).

Too many Christian theocracies have treated non-church members with an appalling (and un-Christian) harshness based on hatred rather than love. These were, I think, those churches which implicitly (and usually explicitly) regarded themselves as universal; and therefore anyone who did not join them was assumed to be hostile, evilly motivated - and therefore deserving of harsh suppression.

This was applied even to 'heresies' so microscopic and (in practice, as history showed) theologically-insignificant, that even thoughtful and informed people of that era could not understand the difference between the labelled and persecuted heresy and approved orthodoxy - as with the supposed Monophysite heresy of the Fifth century, which was persecuted by the Christian Byzantine Empire with such unrelenting viciousness that the Oriental Orthodox welcomed the advent of a particular type of non-Christian monotheism as a blessed relief. There are many analogous and equally appalling examples from Christian history - Western and Eastern Catholic, Protestant and Anglican.

So what is the answer?

That denominations should regard themselves as in-practice an elite rather than realistically-universal. The ruling denomination can then be strong in its demands on believers; without being vicious towards non-aggressive unbelievers.

I emphasize non-aggressive - no nation can for long tolerate deliberate, organized subversion of its ruling order without opening the door to collapse. Non-believers must therefore submit to the ruling order - and must refrain from intervention to subvert or attack the ruling order in the public sphere - including refraining from generalized evangelism outwith their own group.

But it follows that non-believers must, in practice be treated as in some significant respects second class citizens - because the positions of leadership and authority must (as a matter of basic order and cohesion) be reserved for those in good standing with the ruling church.

Conversely, those who do not or cannot join the ruling church must accept that they are indeed second class citizens, who will inevitably (at least under normal circumstances) be excluded from power; as the price of not being persecuted for their discordant beliefs and their freedom from established church authority.

An example of what I am talking about was the theocratic Mormon state under Brigham Young (which I regard as having been potentially-sustainable - although in practice suppressed by the USA).

Of course, this situation is not optimal for everybody - because being a second class citizen excluded from significant privileges is not ideal for those people. On the other hand, being a constrained and second class citizen it is better than being coerced into conformity with the sanction of unbridled persecution for refusing - which has been the usual situation for most societies for most of history; and remains so.

(Ask the Copts of Egypt, or the millions of other Christians in the Middle East who have, in the past couple of decades, gone from being second class citizens able to practice their religion under constraints for more than 1000 years; to almost-all being forcibly converted, perpetually tormented and tortured, dead or expelled.)

A religious/ ideological free-for-all is not sustainable - so need not be considered as realistic.

One implication of this is that - in my opinion - Christian denominations should in practice (even when not in theory) regard themselves as an elite of the most devout of the potentially-saved, rather than themselves as the only path to salvation and everyone else as actively evil hence necessarily-damned.

*
The modern question of 'whether God exists, or not' is a fake problem, a pseudo-problem.

We know that God exists.

(We all know this by revelation and experience; built-into us before we were born into this mortal life: We are born knowing it - and there never was any significant dispute about this obvious fact until very recently in human history.)

The proper question is what we do about it.

*

God exists - but there is a choice concerning what we, personally, are going to do about the fact.

We do not have to be grateful to God for what He has done for us, nor do we have to love God. We can choose to blame God for what He has done for us, or not done; we can choose to hate God.

In other words, we can choose what side to be on: God's side; or not-God's side.

*

We know that God exists, and we can only claim not to know God exists by also claiming ignorance of all the profoundest, deepest matters.

Modern Man has taken this route: modern Man has tried to escape the dichotomy of being either/or for/ against God by pretending not to know about God.

Having done so, modern Man finds that he is forced to deny knowledge of all Good.

Thus modern Man (who falsely claims 'not to know' whether or not God exists) is forced to be a 'relativist', indeed a nihilist; modern Man is forced to claim that truth, beauty and virtue are equally uncertain, as equally unreal, as he pretends God to be.

In denying the reality of God, modern Man denies even the possibility of meaning and purpose.

*

(Because if we cannot know the reality of God, we cannot - by exactly the same arguments - know the reality of Good. If God is merely an evidence-free subjective assertion, then so is Good.)

*

The fake assertion that he 'does not know' whether or not God is real is the condition that stuns, dismays, paralyses modern Man - which makes him hate himself, his life, his civilisation - which drives him into self-distraction and self-delusion.

Behind this pretence-piled-upon-pretence; we all know that God exists: that is not the problem.

The true questions relate not to existence but to matters such as the nature of God, his motivations, his relation to us, our responsibilities and destiny; and the implications of the answers for our own un-evadable choice: pro or contra.

*

Note: I use the singular God as a short-hand which implicitly includes 'gods'.  This is an argument for deity, not for monotheism.