Bruce Charlton's Notions

I have often discussed the evil dichotomy of Order versus Chaos (or Ahrimanic versus Sorathic). 

This derives from a false but popular and influential analysis that regards order and chaos as extremes, and goodness as a middle way in between them; so that the cure for too much order is a bit of chaos, and excessive chaos needs to be tempered by a moderate degree of order. 

There is a prevalent notion that 'the good' lies between these extreme; and another that creativity is a middle path - ordered-chaos, or chaotic-order (the edge of chaos...).

 

Such is the basis on which the current global totalitarians are running things: they impose crushing levels of coercive control that lead to chaotic resistance; they encourage (i.e. fund, organize, facilitate) chaotic outbursts which lead to demands for the authorities to re-impose order; and these two false options of order and chaos oscillate back and forth.

Such cycles of 'oppression' and 'liberation' amount to a vortex of evermore destructive evil. 

In truth both order and chaos are evil, neither is good; and neither mixture nor average of the two is good. 

Therefore sequential oscillations, or dynamic compromises between order and chaos are destructive of good: which is also destructive of creation. 

(...Which is to take work on the side directed against God.) 

I feel that more people need to notice this; and to attain the insight that the good (truth, beauty and virtue) come only from those who are motivated towards good. 

In other words: good cannot (therefore will not) come from any possible alternation or combination of evils; but only grow from actual good.

Tearing-down or blowing-up an evil system in order to produce more chaos (aka 'freedom) does not lead to good; any more than does 'clamping down' on chaotic violence and short-termist and selfish dysfunctionality by imposing a New (World) Order. 

And God works-with any and all good motivations; amplifies and weaves them into sequences (behind the scenes, as 'providence') that advance the divine agenda.  

All that is good, all that is creative, has its roots in the divine: in God's primary creation and love for Men; and in Man's innate divine nature including the choice to be a son or daughter of God. 

We need to be aware that merely negative resistance to specific evils fuels the enemy's strategy by powering the vortex of order and chaos. 

Yet when resistance is positively-motivated and on the side of God, the Good, and Divine Creation; every thought and act (no matter how small) will become of eternal value.  

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There is an alternative morality - or anti-morality - that I have come across; and which seems to reflect a genuine modern alternative to the traditional morality of good and evil; this is the idea of a Balance of Things.

The idea is that there is no good and evil - or rather than good is one-sided, and in order for society and a person to be in a proper state, there needs to be a mixture of what-used-to-be called-good with what-used-to-be-called-evil. Both sides (good and evil - light & dark) need to be represented.

I think the idea may have come from Nietzsche, and it was prominent in Jung's ideas about the  light and shadow aspects of a person, the crown of his tree needing support from the roots; the need to know your 'shadow'. acknowledge it, give it its due...

The notion is that personal development, integration or growth, may entail doing things that are 'traditionally' discouraged or forbidden - in the name of Balance.

*

But the most influential version of this is that there ought to be a balance - both in society and in persons - between order and disorder; between Law and Chaos.

This has become a staple of much modern 'alternative' literature and narrative - I first came across it explicitly in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius Quartet (published from the nineteen sixties counter culture) and related books - which have a pervasive anti-moral-morality in which nothing is forbidden and anything may be good or necessary, according the the contextual need for 'balance'.

However, although The Balance is supposed to be the goal, in practice chaos is the most positively regarded - presumably because the baseline is seen as the crushing tyranny of Law (The Establishment, The Bourgeoisie).

The same basic idea seems to have received much wider circulation and approval from the Dungeons and Dragons alignments Lawful versus Chaotic , with the implication that a balance of the two is necessary in the desirable society - and again there is a pervasive preference for chaos.

The idea here is that a good character can be either chaotic or lawful (or neutral); and so can an evil character. As such this does not challenge the polarity of good and evil, but in practice the effect has been to popularize the 'chaotic' character whose behaviour, and morality, is unpredictable, may be selfish and short-termist, is unpredictable, unfaithful and random - yet who may nonethless be 'good' in the sense of morally-approved.

*

The matter of balance was memorably, albeit indirectly, dissected by Mencius Moldbug (the old pseudonym of Curtis Yarvin) when he concluded that there was in reality no such thing as 'chaotic good', and that this idea was subversive of good - especially subversive of the possibility of a good society.

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/what-if-theres-no-such-thing-as-chaotic.html

But Moldbug was writing from a secular perspective, and the Law and Order versus Chaos polarity comes from a necessarily secular perspective - in particular it comes from the perspective which sees Law as merely man-made, expedient at best, and often arbitrary and corrupt.

*

To break Law when Law is considered to be an arbitrary (and to some degree corrupt) system of man-made rules; and to behave in a chaotic fashion can be seen as a necessity - and indeed a matter of freedom.

Even sheer destruction is justifiable, when that which is destroyed has no intrinsic validity, but is just one among many possible and 'equally valid' alternatives.

From such a perspective; Law and order are stasis, and intrinsically totalitarian; The Balance requires destruction in order to achieve dynamism, energy, and to create hope. 'Evil' is a necessary part of 'good'.

At root it is a matter of psychology - Law and Order are seen as merely Weber's Iron Cage of bureaucracy, The System, The Establishment -- rule by the rich and powerful and successfully selfish - in such a context, random acts of defiance, rebellion, destruction - even sheer selfishness, sexuality and greed - become 'desirable'; especially from non-establishment people.

*

It is as if since there is no intrinsically-good Lawful-order, but only exploitation of one set of humans by another; then 'at least' the 'balance' of perpetual disorder (chaos) gives as many people as possible a chance to take a turn at being the exploiters.

And, this is 'at least' more interesting that a static society of docile rule-followers trudging through futile and meaningless observances that merely serve to justify the status quo.

When order is man-made and for men's purposes, it cannot be more than merely expedient.

*

As I say, these inferences come from a secular perspective; a world where God is dead, and where psychological satisfactions are the bottom line.

Mencius Moldbug's argument for the superiority of Law over Chaos is utilitarian; that Law is to be preferred over Chaos because a Lawful society allows more people to have more pleasure and to suffer less - especially the latter: Law minimizes human suffering - that is Moldbug's primary argument and assertion.

This perspective has become the basis of the Neo-reactionary movement - the assertion that Order is necessary and Law is good - and the focus is on developing a system which maximizes Law and Order; with society regarded as a problem of engineering (esp. computer engineering), and the task being to engineer an optimal system; (to reiterate) 'optimal' being defined in terms primarily of minimizing human suffering, then secondarily of enabling human fulfillment.

*

What this or any other secular perspective does not tell us is why the suffering of 'other people', most of whom we do not know or know only via the mass media, ought-to concern us.

(And if it does concern us, why it is not easier to treat that concern rather than treating its cause. So if I am feeling bad because of other people's suffering, maybe I ought to be more selfish and could train myself to be so; or maybe I could take a tranquillizer - then I will no longer feel concerned about other people. Problem solved!)

When social law and order are seen as merely expedients, means to an end, for producing states of mind; why should anybody care about the well-being of 'society' - which is long term, remote and may never happen - when it conflicts with our own happiness (or pleasure, or avoidance of some degree of suffering) immediately and in the short term.

Indeed, it seems to be impossible to operationalize utilitarianism in any objectively valid - or even merely publicly agreed - way, because there is insufficient consensus about measuring and summating the degree of suffering or happiness of other people.

In practice, the ruling elite merely make assertions concerning whose suffering is to be regarded as the most significant and severe; and whose suffering is to be disregarded, minimized or mocked.

These assertions are then coercively-imposed on the population - enforced by laws (such as hate crime legislation), regulations and rules (such as those about equality and diversity), backed by propaganda from the mass media and officialdom.

*

There is, of course, no secular reason why anybody should care about anything other than their own current state of mind. Life necessarily becomes expediency.

At bottom, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky were correct when they simply observed that in modernity God is Dead, and without God Anything is Permitted. The thesis can be elaborated to any degree desired, but that is the plain fact of the matter.

*

So the Law versus Chaos distinction should be seen as a false antithesis deriving from secularism. Properly, Law is a means, not an end - and when Law is treated as an end it leads to the demand for Chaos - and the false ethic of goodness as a matter of Balance between Law and Chaos.

*

Clearly, although Chaos would indeed be evil from a religious perspective, Law would only be good if it was consistent with God's Law. For a Christian, Law and Order that operates (on average, net) to subvert, destroy or invert Christianity - is evil Law and Order. It would be crazy for Christians to support a system of anti-Christian laws merely because they are Laws!

For a Christian, a well-ordered and obedient society which adhered to evil laws would itself be evil. Not wholly evil, of course, because order is a good - but Law is only a partial good, not good-in-itself; but such a society would be mainly evil; and if its Laws were mostly aimed at destruction of good (i.e. destruction of truth/ promotion of untruth; destruction of beauty/ promotion of ugliness; destruction of virtue/ promotion of sin) - then the society would be systematically evil.

This is already, and increasingly, the case.

*

In sum, religion trumps law; and if this is properly understood, it is not a matter of preference, but a matter of logic.  Law without a basis in religion, Man's Law that is not God's Law, Law as an end-in-iteself is merely arbitrary and expedient - and not necessarily nor always preferable to more-chaos.

(More chaos may lead to a better situation when Law is evil.)

When secular Law becomes oppressive, or itself destructive by subversion and inversion (i.e. the current situation), and a human mind feels crushed and demotivated, then there is compelling reason from the secular perspective not to want 'a bit of chaos', to 'liven things up' and 'give other people - especially, ahem, 'myself ' (i.e. the subjective individual) - a chance'

*

In sum, the whole Law/ Order versus Chaos/ Revolution analysis is flawed, because secular - and because secular, purposeless. Secularism offers no basis for Law concerning which state of affairs is preferable, or what a desirable 'balance' might be, except for assertions concerning optimal psychological states; and in practice these will be enforced top-down elite preferences concerning the significance of these imputed states of mind, and decisions on whose (supposed) states of mind are primary and whose may be ignored.

**

The history of philosophy from the Ancient Greeks until now has mostly been an oscillation between - or attempt to find a middle-way, a compromise, between - two extremes; which have various labels but any choice of these two extremes always runs into the same problems. 

One is that this is (or was) a single and unified reality (monism); which has either apparently split into a multiplicity - or else people have the illusion that it has split. Unity is ultimate, variety is merely temporary, or an illusion. One God created everything from nothing, The principle of the universe is order - chaos is contained within order, order will prevail. We Men are pieces of God, seeds, droplets from a divine ocean - but everything we are is Of God. Everything In Total is Good - and evil is temporary, a transitory kind of imbalance. God is omniscient and omnipotent. This mortal life is - by comparison with divine unity - utterly insignificant, and cannot affect anything that is eternal. 

The other extreme is that which supposedly derives from Heraclitus: everything flows, everything changes, order and stasis are temporary and illusory; ultimately chaos rules. All 'understanding' is temporary, contingent, or merely delusional. There is no purpose or meaning to reality - it Just Is. There is no God. This apparent mortal life is everything - but it is nothing, really... a succession of subjective impressions merely. The are no real values: no truth, beauty or virtue - neither good nor evil.  

By my understanding, neither of the above traditional extremes offer any meaning or purpose for this mortal life; nor do they provide a solid basis for our individual freedom or creativity, nor for the reality of both good and evil.

I regard Christianity as having become trapped by the metaphysical assumptions of monism, in opposition to the chaos which it regards as the only alternative. As a result, Christianity - as taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ, and described especially in the Fourth Gospel - has been distorted into a pre-existing monist framework which really does not make sense. Although by complexification and mystification - and by the false dichotomy with chaos (regarded as the only alternative) - an illusion of sense can be made and sustained by diktat, threats and authority.  

Yet there is at least one metaphysical alternative to the above two, and that is the metaphysics to which I have adhered for about the last decade. This begins with the existence of beings in the midst of chaos, and has God as the creator, and creation as the making of a world of harmony between beings, aiming at greater freedom, hence greater consciousness; and always increasing creativity.  

This harmony of beings is love - analogous to the love within an ideal family; and it can be understood as shared creative purposes and the mutual accommodation and help which is the consequence of love. 

Therefore is the two classic and traditional views are monism and chaos; then this third view is rooted in creation. We began with chaos as a background, but with innumerable beings already existing. Creation began with God, and it was God who made possible the cooperation (harmony) between beings that began to change the universe. 

Reality is neither and ultimate order, nor is it disorganized randomness; but reality changes, evolves, develops through time - and towards increasing love, harmony, purpose, meaning. This changes happens by the development of beings, under the influence of God. Initially being can passively be raised towards greater consciousness, by adding to their equipment  

The advantages I find, up-front, are that it explains the origins of evil in chaos, the nature of evil in opposition to the Good; the nature of Good in God's creation - and the movement through time from evil towards Good: as God began with a chaotic universe and then made Heaven, and (since the work of Jesus Christ) began to people heaven with those beings who chose to subscribe to the project of Good. Thus it also explains the work of Jesus Christ, and accounts for his essential role in the divine project.

It accounts for the reality of freedom in our independent eternal origin as beings; the spiritual war whereby beings (such as ourselves) choose either the side of God and divine creation; or else to oppose that. It makes sense of the possibility of beings such as ourselves becoming genuine co-creators (ie, bringing something new, additional to God) in the creation that God began. 

It provides a model for the meaning and purpose of this mortal life - its meaning in love which is working with the divine harmony, and acts of co-creation (even in this mortal life, but more so in resurrected eternal life); and as a time for learning and preparation for immortality to come.  

So far, this metaphysics of creation has proved itself absolutely solid in response to the tests and critiques of my interrogations and life-experiences. 

But this third metaphysics seems not to be understood by the adherents of Christian monism, or chaos; and the reasons is that they do not follow the implications of their metaphysics to their conclusions; but instead introduce 'unprincipled exceptions' or 'auxiliary hypotheses' so as to provide a pseudo-rationalization for (in particular) the meaning of mortal life and the reality of freedom. 

These incoherent elements serve to take away the demand for something different; yet they fail to solve the incoherences that have been evidence for thousands of years, and are so obvious to adherents of the opposite views. I mean, the incoherence of traditional Christian metaphysics is obvious to evil-atheist-'materialists', and vice-versa. 

The metaphysics of creation is only seldom held explicitly and consciously; yet I regard it as essentially the simple, instinctive, innate metaphysics of childhood (and, probably, ancestral hunter gatherers) that has been raised to a higher level of conscious awareness.  

It is the metaphysics of the Fourth Gospel ('John') - and implicitly what Jesus lived and taught - and completed by his opening of Heaven to Men. 

Some years ago; David Icke insightfully described a behaviour and policy patterning that was repeatedly deployed by the leadership class, which he called Problem-Reaction-Solution- "PRS". 

The PRS idea was that the rulers would (repeatedly) create a problem, and this elicited a reaction from many "people" (i.e. in practice the mass media) and demands for something-to-be-done - and resulting action always turned-out to be a pre-decided pseudo-solution - a "solution" that was not really designed to prevent or cure the problem, but was something the leadership had wanted to do anyway. 

The "solution" was, indeed, always a further incremental step on the road to tyranny, intended to increase societal totalitarian surveillance and control. 

In other terminology: Problem Reaction Solution was, in a specific sense, a policy of Ahrimanic evil - which aims at the reduction of all thinking to materialism, and then control of this reduced thinking with the aim of pursuing the demonic agenda of evil. 

 

But I had not previously noticed that while PRS was usually tactically effective in enhancing top-down control of some specific domain of social living (e.g. increased control of the police, doctors, lawyers, or some type of corporation)... While PRS led reliably to the goal of  extending and deepening bureaucratic systems... At the same time, and inevitably; this local increase of "order" is attained at the cost of increasing overall and long-term dis-order/ chaos. 

Short-term and local increase in order is "bought" at the price of increased long-term and overall dis-order. 

This happens because the "problem" entails some kind of increase in chaos, some kind of break-down in functioning. 

And each time a problem is deliberately induced, every cycle of PRS - by deliberate design; the "solution" does Not solve the problem. (i.e. Because the "solution" was not intended to solve the problem, but instead to increase surveillance and control.) 

Therefore, every time PRS is deployed there is an unsolved problem, which means an increase in the problem; which means there is a long-term and a cumulative increase in social dysfunction and disorder. 

In sum; it can be seen that Problem Reaction Solution sequence can be deployed by the agents of Sorathic Evil to promote chaos and destruction under the guise of enhancing control. 

That is: repeated use of the PBS tactic actually promotes a net-destructive strategy. 

If we assume that the highest level of global leadership is Sorathic in motivation - that is, motivated to destroy, rather than to control - then it can be seen that PRS is a way of manipulating mid-system-level leaders, managers and bureaucrats. 

(Thus manipulating the middle-managers of totalitarianism as well as simultaneously manipulating the gullible masses.)  

The middle-management level of The System is therefore encouraged repeatedly to induce Problems: Problem after Problem! - to harm economies and trade (e.g. by sanctions); to provoke and promote wars; to organize and enforce mass migration into The West; to attack marriage and the family; to encourages hatred and resentment between races, sexes, classes... etc.

The Middle Managers believe that a PRS policy will enhance their control of society and the world - and they see the actual incremental expansion of surveillance and control bureaucracies (and their own wealth and high status) as evidence of the success of this strategy...

But meanwhile, the underlying reality is of civilizations, nations - and the world itself - collapsing into chaos.   

In other words: Problem Reaction Solution is a real strategy, at the mid-level of power structures; and superficially it seems to be "working"; in the sense that bureaucracy expands and expands to cover all aspects of life, and there are more and better paid jobs for the managerial class in administering The System - and indeed bureaucratic "power" continued to grow. 

But such bureaucratic power is only power within The System, and what The System recognizes. 

And the System recognizes only The System - all outwith The System is invisible to it, and treated as not real. 

The System does not, because it cannot, recognize chaos.

Therefore; when rulers deliberately engage in destruction, and the world consequently descends into chaos - the agents of Ahrimanic evil perceive only their own increase in System-control with an expanding System. 

Paradoxically; the overall-effect is that agents of total control are manipulated into implementing the agenda of total destruction! 

As the world collapses around them in consequence of their own purposive decisions and actions; the managerial-intellectual class (eg. of the UN, EU, WEF, Western national leadership, media Moghuls; financial and corporate executives and owners, academics, "scientists" and "artists") perceive only new chances for immediate personal enrichment, greater personal status, and opportunities to extend their bureaucratic empires. 

Note: This was triggered by a post from Francis Berger, and the response it elicited. 

I suspect that, in very general terms, the modern materialist mainstream person - whose attitudes are (unless they are very young) essentially adolescent - sees life as a choice (in practice always a compromise) between the possibilities of order and chaos. 

Order and chaos are given institutional form in bureaucracy versus the mass media; realism v idealism; ideology v instinct; optimal outcomes for society over the longer-term v "myself" in the short-term; or globalist totalitarianism versus sexual (and other) gratifications unrestrained.

There is some basis of 'truth' - and indeed Good - in both of these extremes; which is why they have appeal and sufficient surface plausibility to be a Life Goal. 

Yet, as goals; both extremes are alike impossible to implement; and lead to misery when attempted; while any compromise, while more sustainable, is doubly unsatisfying - unsatisfying on both sides - in both directions.    

I would have thought it obvious that neither of these options, nor any combination or middle way between them, is actually a Good Life; but the problem is that these are implicitly regarded as the only possible options - which is why the "order v chaos" dichotomy appears in so many guises, and so many places, in modern society.

Clearly we must have a Third Way, which is hierarchically above both order and chaos (or their manifestations) - and this Third Way is the path following Jesus Christ and leading into resurrected eternal life in Heaven. It is a path by which love and creativity in mortal life is carried forward to divine life in a divine society.

The Third Way is what enables someone to look above and beyond the merely temporary satisfactions and compromises of this mortal life; but which also enables the utmost value to derive from the choices and actions (including thoughts) of this mortal life. 

However the existence of this Third Way is outside the allowed-realities of materialism - the Third is, in short, a spiritual way, and therefore excluded by assumption from all the discourses of modernity. 

This means that it is very difficult, and in the short term often impossible, to describe and offer the Third option as a realistic, here-and-now-and-forever path to a typically materialist adolescent-minded modern person. 

Modern people simple won't believe the Third Way is possible, and cannot therefore get into a position of choosing it. 

I suppose that this is why the modern world is what it is, and going where it is going. Having refused even to acknowledged the possibility and reality of the Third Way; The West is following-out the consequences of this rejection to its bitter end.

Those who choose order and totalitarianism are seeing their plans sabotaged by those whose allegiance is to chaos and hedonism; while, in order to survive and have power, the hedonists are required to sustain a miserable and anti-life system of totalitarianism - while the would-be moderates are buffeted to-and-fro, and their lives wrecked by the oscillations and clashes of the extremes*.

Having rejected outright the chance to learn-from and choose-between Life experiences of mortality; our civilization has chosen, and is getting, some very tough, very harsh lessons regarding the inevitable misery and meaninglessness of a life of materialism.

Both as individuals, and perhaps collectively, Modern Men are being confronted by the fact that a life without purpose or meaning is a mere existence - and for most people, most of the time, such an existence is intolerable to contemplate - and can be dealt with only by refusing to contemplate it - by self-impairment with distraction, drugs, or whatever effectively prevents thought. 

*Note. The characteristic mainstream modern intellectual is (whatever his supposed function) "some kind of manager" - and the characteristic mindset of such persons is precisely to oscillate between a rigidly bureaucratic, servile-to-superiors/ arrogant-to-subordinates, anti-individual, anti-human professional life; and an ideology of extreme leftist-radicalism rooted in a kind of deification of some individuals (who 'represent' and are conceptualized in terms of oppressed groups). The oscillation is often manifested as an individual - with a persona of obedient officialdom at work; but with transgressive sex, alcohol and drug intoxication outside of work. Another oscillation is when there are unprincipled exceptions to bureaucratic rules and laws granted to favoured persons; alternating with progressively ever-increasing surveillance and control of individuals and subordination of 'private' behaviours to bureaucratic imperatives.   

I regard it as a fundamental error (although often genuinely well-intentioned) to argue theologically that Christianity, the Christian world view, is a non-optional reality. Christianity is, of course, true - and in that limited sense non-optional - but there is a tendency for apologists and theologians to assume that outside Christianity is only nonsense and evil.

But Christianity is, and always has been, an opt-in kind of thing. Someone can only become a Christian by choice, by faith - and choice cannot be compelled (or else it would not be choice) - so for Christians there is no such thing as a 'forced conversion'; it is an oxymoron - or a delusion.


But some of the wrong ideas are driven by fear of Hell, and the mistaken belief that there are only two options - Heaven or Hell - and that outside Christianity is only Hell (I mean Hell in the New Testament sense of a place of post-mortal everlasting torment).

The background assumption, which I regard as false, is that Hell is everything outside-of Christianity, and always has been. The idea that Christianity is and always has been the only escape from Hell.

This is, I think, a consequence of that philosophical view which sees reality as out-of-time - and everything existing then, now and always. So by this view, God's creation is once for all, from nothing.


(All this leads to the problem of omnipotence - I mean the nonsensical, incoherent consequences of assuming the omnipotence of God, when omnipotence is assumed to be absolute and mathematical, rather than quantitative. The greatness of God becomes regarded as infinite; and for Christians God is wholly Good - so when everything has been created from nothing by an omnipotent and wholly-Good God, then this implies that everything must be seen as wholly Good - past, present and future; here and everywhere and in all things must be wholly Good. There is no place for sin... yet Christianity is about redemption from sin, Christ came to save sinners - so where does sin come from? Free will is required to 'explain' sin. But free will can, in this scheme, only be a gift from God - when God is said to be omnipotent and to have created everything. So free will does not solve the problem of where evil comes from, in a universe created from nothing by an infinite omnipoent and wholly-good God. This, then, is the problem of omnipotence, as defined by Classical theology - the problem that it renders Christianity incoherent.) 


But if instead we take the (Mormon) view that God's creation is not a matter of making everything from nothing; but a matter of shaping, ordering, organizing primal chaos, a continuing process - then God's creation is more like an expanding island of order and meaning in a primordial chaos.

So the original condition of reality before creation was not evil, but chaotic; not evil in intent but lacking in intent.

And creation remains partial, albeit growing.

And Good is a property of God's creation. 


The domain of evil is the domain of the intention to destroy Good (evil is the purposive destruction of Good) - so evil came after creation.

Hell came after Heaven - and in a sense Hell came after Christ, because only after Christ was God's plan known such that it could intentionally be opposed.

(In the Old Testament - there is no torment of Hell but rather the loss of selfhood of Sheol - which is essentially conceptualized as being the same as Hades - viz an unorganized underworld of chaos.)


Evil therefore exists within God's domain, within God's creation - and not outside of it. (Because outwith God's domain is not evil, but chaos.) So, evil dwells entirely within God's domain and tries to destroy it.

The evilness of Evil is that of inflicting misery, taking joy in misery - a state of misery that want others to become like itself. Thus, evil is not irrational - but a choice.

Evil is not even incoherent - except in the limited sense of preferring incoherence to order.

The motivation for evil creatures is a desire to destroy Good because Good is not wholly themselves, but comes from God - this is pride. Or, even beyond this, a purely negative hatred of order, good, happiness - not a love of chaos (that makes no sense, because with chaos there is nothing remaining that is capable of love) - but a desire for universal extinction, for loss of awareness not just personal but imposed on all, loss of self-hood from the universe.

(A desire for personal extinction - that is, for oneself to return to chaos - is not evil; it is merely a choice - the personal choice not to participate in God's plan. But to preach the desirability of universal destruction, for destruction of others and everything - that is evil: to preach the goodness of extinction/ destruction of order, meaning, purpose, relations as a universal goal - that is evil.)


(The ultimate defeat of evil by Good is therefore not a consequence of God's supposed omnipotence; but a consequence of the self-weakening effect of evil enacted as a universal project for destruction of order. When evil is directed against the self it can succeed. But the more universal evil becomes, the more thoroughly evil succeeds, the more it weakens itself. Even a tiny last residue of purposeful self-growing order will be stronger than a vast sea of incoherent disorder.)


God is therefore responsible for evil - in the limited sense that there can only be evil after there is Good; and there can only be Good in the domain of God's creation.

Evil is the purposive un-doing of God's creation.

Back to choice. Christianity is chosen; and evil is the choice to oppose, to destroy, God's creation. Hell is the fate of those who, from reasons of Pride, choose actively to destroy Good - the conscious wreckers of created order.

Hell is therefore chosen, always chosen (not a 'judgement' in the modern sense of a judge sentencing a prisoner without regard for the prisoner's wishes) - because everybody knows Good - everybody being part of Good; and it is always a choice to oppose and destroy Good.

I have had considerable difficulty in conceptualising Love - but I keep trying because it is at the heart of Christianity, and because false conceptions cause trouble; especially in a society like ours, where The Good is under continual attack; and all Good things are subject to subversion, corruption, inversion.

Obviously (to a serious Christian) Love isn't a feeling-just; and obviously also it isn't a justification for sex - it must be a metaphysical (structural) reality of creation. But if one makes a serious formulation of Love along the lines of its being 'cohesion' (as I have previously done) then Love comes-out as being something like the imposition and preservation of 'order'...

And if order is achieved then love will stop, because everything will be frozen, static. Most Christian metaphysical understandings of Love do exactly this, and therefore end up trying to assert that something which is unchanging and eternal - all knowing, omniscient - is also-somehow dynamic, generative, and the primary motivation.

Yet, to conceptualise Love as expanding, always changing - open-endedly and forever - is to fall into something akin to the sexual revolution (as approximated by a free love commune or 'bath house' culture); a continuously-expanding appetite for variety, intensity and transgression.

*

In fact, Love turns-out to be the best example of polarity (or polar logic) as described and proposed by Coleridge as the fundamental metaphysical reality. Once this is grasped, we can see that the usual way of dividing up the world into alternatives - as, for example, the division used above that Love is either static or dynamic - when what we actually get is alternatives neither of which is true.

The idea of polarity asserts that at the very heart of things is a principle (or are principle) that have the character of being indivisible; so Love must be envisaged as containing stasis in terms of its poles of cohesion and expansion - but the things itself is living, dynamic and continually re-creating itself; re-creating its differentiations (into cohesion and expansion) and recreating the tendencies (of cohesion and expansion).

(I picture this polarity, metaphorically, as a swirling, dyadic, bipolar 'star'; in which each different star that constitutes the system orbits the other, and the orbit oscillates in diameter - now larger, now smaller - but growing over time, in which energies are continually generated and continually thrown-off. The stars are complementary - each differs from the other and needs the other. The two-fold and orbiting nature of the system is perpetuated forever, but/ and the other features of the system may change open-endedly by expansion, contraction, combination etc. It's only a metaphor and breaks down it pushed, but it helps me.)

If we can suppose that the heart of reality is a polarity of love-as-cohesion ad love-as-expansion, then we can understand how Love may be perpetual - because creative. Love as a polarity is the kind-of-thing which might make the universe, the kind of thing which might keep it alive even while holding it together.

And creativity itself has to be understood as polar - because it includes preservation as well as novelty. And Life, likewise.

*

This is a profoundly different way of understanding reality than we are used to - it requires a fundamental change in assumptions. And one reason that polarity has never become normal (although the idea has been knocking-around since Heraclitus) is that - taken seriously - it destroys the established way of understanding things, including mainstream-established Christian theology.

And like any metaphysical change, polarity doesn't make sense when considered in the light of a different and habitual metaphysical system, such as we deploy in public discourse.

Plus there are distorted and misleading versions of failed-polarity knocking around; such as the idea that the ideal is some kind of balanced-mixture of opposing forces - for example the common modern trope that Order and Chaos ought to be in balance. Yet the Order versus Chaos idea is typically one in which the opposition is between static-states, not between forces or tendencies; and is often poisoned by the dishonest attempt to destroy order and allow something otherwise forbidden (sex, drugs, unconstrained pleasure-seeking etc). Order-Chaos might be conceptualised as a true polarity, but in fact it very seldom is.

(It is always possible to reject metaphysical discussion as too theoretical, but it seems to me that in an age such as this one (an age of questioning) wrong metaphysics will sabotage the Good, even when the attacks on it are incoherent.)

A further problem with polarity and Christianity is that most Christians attempt to be monotheists, and are very concerned to assert the one-ness of God. Whether they are successful (given the full deity of Christ) is moot. Non-Christian monotheists such as Jews and Muslims (and common sense analysts) would say that Christianity is polytheistic - but Christian philosophers have regarded it as metaphysically crucial that God should ultimately be one, However, if God is ultimately one then polarity is not profound - only superficial.

Therefore a metaphysics of polarity implies that deity be polar - and Coleridge argued this using the Holy Trinity as polar components - although I find that I cannot follow his argument. Nonetheless, for a mainstream Christian to believe in polarity as primary, it seems necessary the Holy Trinity somehow be understood as a polarity. 

For those, like myself, who believe that Mormon theology is correct, the answer is obvious - that God is a polarity of masculine and feminine, that the ultimate basis of polarity is God conceptualised as a complementary dyad of Heavenly Father and Mother; and this primary polarity creates all others.

This idea of polarity at the root of everything fits with the Mormon understanding of reality as evolving, because evolution is also a polarity of continuity and newness. Evolution is a transformation, a changing of form in a retained entity, not the substitution of one entity for another different one. Evolution is about eternal lineage as well as here-and-now difference. 

*

It is not easy to grasp; but I have found that the idea of polarity as the fundamental metaphysical reality is one of great clarity, strength and power; and I recommend it.


(Further reading on polarity is What Coleridge Thought by Owen Barfield, 1971.)

Things began with chaos, among-which were Beings. Beings are self-sustaining - from Beings come the energies that shape chaos into creation. 

As soon as creation had begun, there was entropy - which is the tendency for the created to revert back to chaos. 

In this current stage of creation (which we also inhabit) creation must always be-overcoming entropy; by the self-sustaining energies of Beings. 

The reversion of creation to entropy releases 'energy'.

Therefore evil Beings, those who hate God and creation, encourage the reversion of creation to chaos. They do this partly in order to destroy creation, and partly to use the released 'energy' for their own purposes. 

Luciferic-evil Beings reduce creation intending to feed-upon the released energies. 

Luciferic evil is thus parasitic in nature - a Luciferically evil Being will feed-upon the energies of creation, as he destroys it.

 

Ahrimanic-evil Beings destroy creation by opposing chaos with 'order'. 

Creation becomes confined within The Global Bureaucracy, The System, The Matrix: the Black Iron Prison (BIP). 

Dynamic self-sustaining creation is held in stasis - thus the energies of creative life are squeezed out from the imprisoned Beings. 

After taking a tithe for vampiric (Luciferic) self-reward; these energies are used to maintain, extend and reinforce the prison: to extend the BIP globally, to include all Men; and to eliminate all perception and awareness of any-thing at all beyond the prison.

(Actually not all Men; because Ahrimanic evil entails a sharp distinction between prison inmates and warders; between the Beings who are-processed and the Beings who-do-the-processing - between Us and Them.) 

The death-factory is constructed and fueled by the energies released from its destruction of life. Ahrimanic evil is thus an entropy-factory, a processing plant; it takes living creation and reduces it to dead matter: creation to chaos. 

Ultimately, Ahrimanic evil turns creation against itself; uses life to crush life. 

Sorathic Beings are saboteurs - they were supposed to be warders sustaining the BIP, but they have begun smashing the buildings, wrecking the machines, and torturing the inmates. 

Sorathaic Beings are defectors from the Ahrimanic plan - because they have come to regard the Ahriminic factory as too slow, too dull, too unrewarding, too conjectural in effect. They want to destroy creation Now, directly, indiscriminately. 

Sorathic Beings perceive the contradiction of creating a Black Iron Prison as a means to destroy creation - when the base motivation of evil is to destroy all of creation (including BIPs). Pure evil cannot postpone universal destruction when it can be started already. 

Thus, Sorathic Beings will burn the death factory, along with its inmates and the warders; will return every-thing to chaos without attempting to harness or use the energies for any purpose. 

The motivation is not pleasure (like the Luciferics), nor mass effectiveness (like the Ahrimanic) - but a spite-driven, burning-zeal for pure destruction of all - here and now. 

Sorathic evil is born of a distrust of complex, long-term plans and schemes, a revulsion against the hypocrisy and pretense of the Ahrimanic strategy; which poses as 'good' and continues to create, albeit justified in order to destroy.

Sorathic evil emerges and waxes when the Ahrimanic scheme is nearing completion - when it comes to be believed that There is Only the BIP - there is only a whole world of evil, inescapable, with no alternative. 

Then evil has only evil as a target - so the greater evil turns-against and consumes the lesser.

 

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.  

*

From Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works by Hieromonk Damascene - pp 696-8.

"Today (in 1982), some New Age circles speak of "The Plan" for a "New World Order," which would include a uni­versal credit system, a universal tax, a global police force, and an inter­national authority that would control the world's food supply and transportation systems. In this Utopian scheme, wars, disease, hunger, pollution, and poverty will end. All forms of discrimination will cease, and people's allegiance to tribe or nation will be replaced by a planetary consciousness." (...)

"Never has there been more talk of “peace and security” than today. One of the chief organs of the U.N. is the Security Council, and organizations for “world peace” are everywhere. It men do achieve finally a semblance of “peace and security,” it would seem to contemporary man to be a state like heaven on earth – a millennium. The practical way to do this is to unite all governments under one. For the first time in history such a ideal becomes a possible goal of practical politics – a world ruler is conceivable now. For the first time, the Antichrist becomes an historical possibility." (...)

"With the establishment of the European Union, the creation of the Euro currency, the control of former Eastern-bloc countries by Western financial interests, the advances towards a cashless society, the formation of an international criminal tribunal by the United Nations and NATO, we see what appear to be the forerunners of such a one-world system. Some of these developments are not necessarily evil by themselves. Taken together, however, they help to set up a global apparatus which can make way for the rising religion of the future."

***

The Western elites have long since embraced the idea of a New World Order, global government, dissolution of national boundaries and so on.

The rationale is hedonic: prosperity and peace..

And if not prosperity, then at least peace...

And if not peace, then at least pacifism.

*

Political correctness is the 'religion' of such folk - or rather the spirituality, or if not that then the perspective on life and the human condition.

PC is (presumably) supposed to synergize with global government - the ethical system of multiculturalism and diversity combining with a mixed word without border - all under the 'benign' leadership of democratically elected... and so on.

*

When Fr Seraphim Rose died in 1982 it certainly looked as if world government was the trend - and since then there has certainly been an expansion of global bureaucracies.

Yet the reality is that governments - both national and international - have lost control.

Stripped of the means of effective government by political correctness; national and international governments are mostly Brezhnev-style corrupt bureaucracies - engaged in a propaganda of denying reality (by means of replacing experience with virtual reality via the mass media) and simply relabelling what happens as desirable - re-interpreting trends asif they were beneficial to the cause of global peace and prosperity.

*

So the real trends are now running against global governance by the Western elites, and the proponents of a New World Order are reduced to aspirational statements and cheer-leading chaos (in order to justify their salaries and status).

Instead of an actual world government, we have a bunch of grafting charlatans pretending to be a world government.

*

What went wrong for them? What happened to their dreams of power?

Political correctness: that's what happened.

*

PC is the Achilles Heel of the would-be international Leftist dictatorship.

*

Even as PC justifies the global elite in their takeover of all and everything, at the same time all and everything is being ever-more-rapidly subverted by the chaos caused by PC - perhaps above all the truly massive demographic transformation and population movement which the world is experiencing.

Vast population growth in undeveloped countries, decline in developed countries and international migrations of populations - such as we are experiencing are 1. approved of by PC, 2. uncontrollable by PC-approved mechanisms, and 3. utterly destructive of governance.

PC can do nothing about all this (except prevent the subject being mentioned, the problem being analyzed, or action being taken) and responds by approving-of, pointing out the potential benefits of ... whatever happens.

*

(What - you haven't heard about the impending and unstoppable demographic cataclysm? I am not surprised. It is no accident. Rest assured that the ruling elite have no plans to do anything about it.)

*

So rather than world government, we have a world bureaucracy and a world mass media engaging in depicting in virtual reality what they want to happen, rather than what is happening; and - when this fails to convince - in the creative re-labeling of 'apparent' chaos, violence and impoverishment as actually nascent order, peace and prosperity.

Merely broken eggs en route to a vast and delicious global omelet.

*

When Fr Seraphim Rose died in 1982, who would have thought it!

International dictatorship sabotaged by its own scruples!

Maybe PC is not such a bad thing after all - insofar as chaos is preferable to totalitarianism.

*

From the Classical-Medieval era of human consciousness, we have inherited an habitual way of planning life according to a blueprint. We make a picture of how ideally we want things to be; and - obediently to the blueprint - work-towards making it, realizing it; often by making rules and following stepwise plans. 

This has been common in traditional religions. There was a more-or-less explicit model for how Men ought to be, for the trajectory of their lives, for the kind of society and how it should function. This mode of living was inherited and adapted by the early secular ideologists such as communists, nationalists, fascists - they worked towards some ideal blueprint by means of encouraging obedience to stepwise plans. 

It is still the usual way of proceeding for the rulers of this-world; and indeed over the past few decades it has been extended down to even medium sized human institutions, via mandatory (law- and regulation-driven) bureaucratic requirements for 'transparent' auditable structures - from 'mission statements' at the top; all the way down to micro-monitored, micro-managed functionality of all personnel.

But Man's consciousness has developed such that this way of proceeding has become first ineffective, then actively destructive. This applies to the ideals and procedures of traditionalist churches, as well as to corporations and government - these do not work as they used to work, nor as intended.

The means defeat the ends. 

The ultimate reason for this failure is that in the 'Medieval' consciousness era, Men did not (and could not) distinguish between spirit and matter. Material manipulations were therefore effective at shaping (including improving) Men's spirituality toward ideal blueprints exactly because the material manipulations arose-from Men's spirituality. 

For instance; until recent centuries Men did not (could not) distinguish between the consecrated host and the body of Christ; only around the reformation did Men begin to separate the spiritual and material aspects of the host, and ask what was the relationship, and 'how it worked' when the host was consecrated. 

Modern Man is much further down that path, and does not spontaneously experience that the material is a 'subset' of the spiritual; and so the link between what we Do and our Spirit, has become 'problematic'. The answer decided is not the point; but instead the fact that there is experienced a question to be answered. 

Now we can-not (because we do not) take-for-granted what used to be known unconsciously and spontaneously.

Yet, for most serious Christians, there seems to be no alternative to the traditional ways of creating a blueprint and striving to realize it. It seems to be the choice between that - or else a surrender to the evils of mainstream-materialist-atheism. 

This is experienced as the contrast between order and chaos - God's order versus the devil's chaos. 

Such a framework envisages human life as a static conformity to order - our proper life is allocated to each, and Goodness is to obey that allocation, and to behave as set-out by the ideal situation; and how to get there is a function of laws and practices - which it is each Man's job to follow. 

For traditional religion; the aim is the blueprint: each Man's job is to conform to that blueprint*.

It may be helpful instead to consider the ideal of living in Harmony with Divine Purposes. 

This sees the opposite of demonic chaos as being creation, rather than order. 

The principle of life is creation - not order; in other words we are intended to join-with and add-to God's ongoing work of creation - which is a matter of continually-repeatedly bringing our own selves and resources into harmony with God's purposes (instead of fulfilling a pre-decided role). 

In principle (as an aim) all of life can be conduced on that basis. Whenever we need to decide; we might do so on the basis of how our choices fit with our knowledge of divine purposes - and aiming to remain always in harmony with God's existing creation. 

('In harmony', that is, with creation - not with 'this world' - because 'this world' includes much evil intent, corruption and chaos - as well as creation.)

 

Such a life-ideal depends on each Man being able and willing to discern divine purposes, and the presence or absence of harmony between our choices and ongoing-creation. We each need to be able to know (or to learn) the relationship between our choices - and that harmony-purpose.

This is possible because we are each and all Children of God: that is, we have divinity in us, and therefore innerly partake of God's purposes; also because outer guidance from the Holy Ghost is available to all who wish to follow Christ to resurrected eternal life.

Yet it is also essential to be aware that this ideal of living in harmony with divine purposes is a guiding ideal - and not actually attainable; because this mortal life is ultimately for learning, not to be perfect. 

In mortal life on this earth we are learning for Heaven. 

Thus, we Modern Men are intended to learn from our failures (and successes) in living in creative harmony with God's purposes. This is in contrast to the traditional framework, where we were intended to learn from our failures (and successes) in conforming to an ideal blueprint of life. 

Now we are meant individually to be creative in our stance; whereas in the past we were (to some partial but significant extent) operating from the situation of being immersed-in God's creativity: the challenge was to conform to it. 

We can only add to God's creativity (as we are called to do) when we are no longer immersed in it. And creating in-harmony only becomes a problem (only something to strive-for) when we are Not already and spontaneously a part of God's creativity.   

Living in harmony with divine purposes requires faith; because the inner and outer guidance concerning what is divine purpose and harmony, is a direct experience relevant to exactly that specific situation in which we currently find ourselves. 

...And not, therefore, a consequence of either external instruction from some blueprint, nor a consequence of reason working upon evidence.  

This means that we may need to conduct our lives, make our decisions, in ways that violate both the blueprint and the dictates of reason-applied-to-evidence. 

Hence the need for faith.

*NOTE added: 

Traditional Heaven could be characterized as having No purpose, but only harmony. 

In other words (and deriving, probably, from Plato's conception of the realm of ideas) Heaven is not going-anywhere. 

Traditional Heaven Just Is. Because Heaven is perfection, there is nowhere for it to go. 

This contrasts with the idea of Heaven proposed here; which is that Heaven is the situation in which Men have become fully-divine and therefore fully in harmony with God's creative purposes; and thus Men participate (each to to the limit of his or her capacity) to the unending work of creation.

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.

Re-reading the final pages of Brandon Sanderson's marvellous 'Mistborn' fantasy-fiction trilogy; I realised that the author was describing an example of Polarity.

(No spoilers follow - except in the most indirect and abstract, non-narrative sense.)

From the primary forces of Preservation/ Order and Ruin/ Chaos there can be no real creativity - not from either individually (Preservation leading to crystalline stasis; Ruin to a Brownian motion of homogeneous disorder).

But while Preservation and Ruin are indeed distinguishable polar opposites of Creativity; it can be seen that Creativity is more than any possible combination or alternation of Preservation and Ruin. Creation uses both Order and Chaos to create.

But Creation is itself something more than can be captured by Order and Chaos - creation is an uncaused cause, a primary purpose.

Creation (as it were) stands-behind Preservation and Ruin, directing them in the process of creating towards the goals of creation.

*

There is an analogy (and a fundamental identity) with the limited explanatory power of the process of evolution by Natural Selection. Natural Selection can Preserve, and it can Destroy, but not Create.

Natural Selection operates by Preservation of functionality - sieving-out the deleterious consequences of undirected genetic change (Destruction) - i.e. mutation-selection balance, or balancing selection. And it produces adaptations by Preservation of the rare reproductively advantageous mutations thrown-up (un-intentionally) by forces leading-to mutation/ Destruction.

But this is not Creation - it takes for granted that Creation has already-happened.

*

A further example is in the Natural Selection based models of Creativity itself - such as those of HJ Eysenck or Dean Simonton in their discussions of genius. They regard the creative process as an undirected ('random') generation of ideas (perhaps produced, as in Eysenck, by partial brain/ mind pathology - by loose associations characteristic of psychotic/ dreamlike thinking)...

So Destruction/ 'free association' (supposedly) produces multiple ideas, from-which a process of Preservation (such as the analytic and rational processes of high general intelligence, or practical implementation and observation of consequences) then selects the minority of ideas that are useful/ 'true'.

But, a closer metaphysical examination of these assumptions reveals that this is not a genuine creative process (unless we have already decided, as an assumption, that it is the only possible explanation) because it rules-out the purposive nature of creation, which is intrinsic to the concept.

(Modern Biology indeed rules-out 'teleology' as a basic assumption.)

In particular, to explain genius creativity with only natural selection makes it an undirected, 'random', motiveless, inhuman procedure - and it also makes the evaluation of genius into an analogously 'random' process.

Since the selection process is necessarily imprecise, and indeed merely selects the best-reproducing idea in particular circumstances over a finite timescale; there is no valid means of knowing which concepts are right and which are wrong - a different answer will emerge in each different situation; and an answer that seemed correct for hundreds of years (Aristotelian Physics, Newtonian Physics) is always liable to revision or rejection (Einsteinian Physics/ quantum theory).

In the end, creativity and genius has been re-conceptualised away - it is just absorbed into the account of ongoing Natural Selection of everything, all the time.

*

To conclude; the reality is Creation, and Preservation/ Order and Destruction/ Chaos are merely some of its components. To quite Owen Barfield, they can be distinguished but not divided; and if they are divided - if they are treated as separable - this will be false.

(Unless we have a priori made the metaphysical assumption that it must be true; whatever the consequences.)