Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

Luke 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.(See also Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–34.)
 I am struck by how exactly the 'two great commandments' - first to love God and then your neighbour - fit with my metaphysical understanding of reality; and how they are said to suffice to enable us to enter Heaven. (Because, in the above passage, when Jesus is quoted as saying "This do, and thou shalt live"; the 'live' refers to resurrected eternal life in Heaven.)
My understanding of God's overall intention is that he wishes to enable Men to develop spiritually, to rise-up to become fully Sons and Daughters of God. This means to become fully divine; which means to dwell together in Heaven as a family (or rather many families, interlinked). And what do Men do in Heaven forever? My answer is To Create. Specifically we shall be participating in God's divine work of creation - including the pro-creation of new Men to begin the process of development.  (This derives from my understanding that God is essentially 'the creator' - and that to become 'more divine' is to become more fully a participant in the ongoing creative development of God's already-existing divine creation. And my experience and intuition tell me that creation is the only activity which never palls, is always motivating and gratifying. Creation is also open-ended. Anything other than a Heaven of creation would both be dull, and would run-out and cease - on a timescale of eternity.)  And God's purpose is understood in the context of my belief (metaphysical assumption) that Men are and always have been unique and different individuals. So, God's purpose entails getting this diversity of Men and enabling a situation in which these many and different Men can work together with the same purpose and harmoniously - forever. Because the many and diverse do not spontaneously have the same purpose, nor do they spontaneously get-along. The necessary purpose and harmony come from Love - which is why Love is the primary requirement of a Christian (and that those who reject Love, or are genuinely incapable of Love, neither want the life of Heaven - nor would be allowed to enter it.) 
 The first great commandment - to love God - is about purpose. For Heaven to be possible, its participants all need to share the same purpose, be pointing in the same direction, have the same ultimate goals. To 'love' God means to love God's purpose; to accept God's purpose as my purpose. This enables us to have 'faith' in God, to trust him.  Therefore, the first qualification to enter heaven, and dwell in Heaven for eternity, is that we share God's purpose. That is why is commandment comes first. 
The second great commandment is what enables the inhabitants of Heaven to work together, to create harmoniously - to coordinate a multitude of individual creativity into a great symphony. To do this requires, as well as shared purpose - as well as everybody pointing in the same direction; attention and loving care towards other people engaged in the same work. Love of neighbour means that we harmonise our creative endeavour with the others in our Heavenly Family, primarily; and secondarily with all in heaven. I see this harmony as a developmental thing: individuals love the same ultimate purpose, and also a love of neighbour - therefore individuals will create, and monitor the consequences of their creativity, informed and shaped by these two loves. In the first place, an individual would not create any-thing he knew to be hostile to purpose, or neighbours. In the second place, when an individual dis, inadvertently, create something that turned-out to be working against purpose, or interfering with the harmony between individual creations, then he would work to compensate for this disharmony, to mend the problem, to restore purpose and loving harmony. God's creation is therefore a work-in-progress; and as God recruits more and more resurrected Men to join this work of creation, it is essential that this work-in-progress be maintained.  I see the first commandment as being a vertical arrow, pointing up to all Heavenly residents sustaining a commonly-agreed future, keeping creation moving in the correct direction; and the second commandment as several or many sideways arrows that tend always to maintain harmony in this upward pursuit; by mutual observation and adjustments.  And this is why someone who is prepared permanently and irreversibly to endorse the two great commandments has everything that is both necessary and sufficient to enter Heaven and receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus brought.  (Note: Jesus's role in this, is that he made it possible. After we die, and if we endorse the two great commandments; then we 'merely' have to follow Jesus to Heaven.)