Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

The developmental evolution of consciousness through human history has made modern Man more of a free agent than was ever before possible (at least for the mass of Men) in history. We can observe that this freedom has mostly been abused to reject God and the spiritual; and embrace an ideology of meaninglessness, purposelessness and ultimate isolation and spiritual death. Yet that is not the whole story. 
Some people of a New Age cast of mind, make a great deal of the positive benefits of the change in consciousness; and indeed it is potentially positive - being the consequence of divine destiny, part of the plan of creation. Yet higher consciousness only has a higher outcome when Good choices are made; otherwise freedom amplifies evil. When a Being of higher consciousness chooses evil, this has been more-fully his own choice; less influenced by heredity, upbringing and environment. His responsibility for affiliating with the powers of evil is therefore greater - his chances of repentance are therefore less. 
And it is important to recognize that the development of consciousness is associated with loss as well as gain. There is a precise analogy with the development of a child through adolescence to adulthood. modern Man has become an adolescent - and who could deny that there is great loss from the transition between childhood and adolescence; although adolescence is necessary en route to adulthood. Yet it is also undeniable that the adolescent is more free than the child, in the sense of being free to reject the influence, and even the love, of his parents. He is free to make his own life a misery; free even to choose suicide and eternal death. But spiritually, modern Man has (mostly) chosen to use his freedom to reject the love of Jesus Christ; and to make his life a misery and embrace eternal death. He has refused to complete his development as a spiritual Man; has (in other words) chosen to remain an alienated, disaffected, permanently-rebellious adolescent.
As modern Man developed; his freedom was attained by the loss of the ability, indeed the intrinsic necessity, to perceive spontaneous meaning in the world, to perceive the spirit world, to know the reality of the divine. Ancient Man could not be evil in the way that modern Man is evil -  he could not; because he was immersed in the natural world, was substantially passively driven by this environment; did not even regard himself as fully separate from the world and other Men. He was not alienated because he could not be alienated (much as a young child even today cannot be alienated.) 
Our freedom was attained at a cost - apparently a truly enormous cost (assuming hell is the outcome of freedom). And, unlike biological development, this cost was chosen. how can we make sense of this? What could possibly justify proving a freedom that seems (nowadays, anyway) mostly to be misused with a terrible outcome. Surely no freedom would be better than freedom and then (mostly) hell? Yet we are among those pre-mortal spirits who wanted to attempt this transition; who chose or consented to be incarnated as mortal on this earth (and at this time). If indeed very few people in the modern world seem successfully to make the transition through spiritual adolescence and out the other side; if most choose to reject God and Heaven - then I think the explanation may be that this is a consequence of the nature of their pre-mortal souls.  
Apparently, some of God's children quickly chose the side of evil. That is; they chose to oppose God and his creation even in the pre-mortal spirit realm - their number includes Satan and all the other demons, who were thereby cast-out of Heaven (cast themselves out, indeed; since the condition of eternal commitment to that loving creation which is Heaven, is precisely what they reject). Other pre-mortal souls were (I assume) mostly inclined to evil, but maybe less committed in their rejection of God. Perhaps they (we?) wanted more time, in mortal-earthly conditions, before making a final choice between resurrected life everlasting in Heaven - or to reject that?After all, to live in Heaven as a resurrected eternal Man is only possible to those who have been through death. So incarnation as a mortal is necessary. Yet; that minimum can be attained by a life that did not continue as far as birth, or as far as adolescence - or in more ancient societies where the rejection of Jesus's offer of Heaven was much less common. Yet these times of our world may be well-suited to the needs of some evil-inclined but undecided souls; souls such as, perhaps, you and me? 
Here-and-now we can see an unprecedentedly clear and sharp discrimination between the nature and implications of evil... and of the Good (in alignment with creation and God's will - which are always known, and always a present possibility). We tend to assume it is easier to choose evil in a deeply corrupted - evil dominated - society such as we live in now. Yet the opposite may be the case, when it comes to undecided souls. Modern life shows us very clearly the implications of evil; surely more explicitly and extremely than ever before. We celebrate meaninglessness, purposelessness, death as total-annihilation, the death of God, and the inversion of natural law. Nobody could say we have not been 'warned'!Anyone who chooses evil nowadays has a very thorough understanding of what that evil means; and has made the choice from a very detached, independent state of free agency. Surely then; only those who really want evil, and have knowingly accepted the consequences, will choose evil in the world as it is today?