Objective-Consciousness

Self-consciousness is above waking sleep. Above self-consciousness is objective-consciousness. What is the material of objective-consciousness? I say (and this goes back to my Work approach of "What is practical?" and "What is on-the-mark?") if objective-consciousness is going to be what it sounds like (like something ultimate and real and mature and serious) then it has to have to do with our Creator's plan of redemption and with discernment that comes from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Biblical doctrine. The deep history of the heavens and the earth. Biblical anthropology and all the 'loci' of systematic theology.

But what it comes down to is this: those deep, or foundational, insights that have appeared here and there over time, such as how the four states of man show how fallen man gets confused and assumes one state while missing the actual state he is in. Like, the universal thing where people naively think man is innocent (i.e. they assume man is still in the Garden, before the Fall) and not in a state of sin. That type of foundational insight is part of objective-consciousness.

Another is this: the fact that without a Mediator (and the one and only Mediator Jesus Christ) life is cruel and barren. Lands become wastelands, peoples and cultures become hellish.

Another is this: the fact that the sense of anarchic evil all around and how there is no protection from birth to death, i.e. that this feeling can overwhelm...before one realizes that there IS protection...in God. I.e. protection is possible. To the most vulnerable infant and on up.

These aren't great examples because objective-consciousness really is best seen as 'vision'. When you are able to 'see' the deep history of Revelation, or the effect of the Fall, or spiritual warfare, or the deep patterns and events of politics in the world (the fact of 'pilgrim politics' is an example of 'seeing' a deep reality that is happening, and it explains - gives understanding - of what is happening).

To become 'mighty in the Word' is a phrase that touches on objective-consciousness.

Step back from the money-making and the family responsibilities for a moment and see what is potential for developing real understanding.

There is the big area of developing understanding in self-consciousness. Then there is the big area of developing understanding in objective-consciousness.

Objective-consciousness also plays out in more immediate, personal, ways. Interactions with people, events, etc. On a foundation of self-consciousness. Using the necessary higher center energy.

What I crave after reading a classic novel

As I read these classic novels I find that I actually *crave* an underlying structure that is found in the hero journey or quest.

In Anna Karenina it was buried deeply in the development of the Anna character which is perhaps why I was frustrated reading it.

But after finishing AK I was actually looking for something like Quest of the Holy Grail, or even finishing my current Iliad reading and then the Odyssey again.

The Bible from this angle can be seen, ironically, from good systematic theology. When I read of justification and adoption and glorification and so on that is part of that ultimate hero quest. The reality of it.

I just realized something too with Berkhof. I had read him wrong many years back. I thought in his Systematic Theology he had said he disagreed with the republication of the Covenant of Works, but he wrote the re-*establishment*, and now I recognize that difference. I know that is technical stuff, but basically I'm saying that Berkhof guy is very on-the-mark.

Seeing this underlying quest structure or parts of it in novels is kind of the same as trying to see it in Shakespeare. Identifying it. Shakespeare may have written a single play on one aspect, one deep psychological aspect, of that ultimate, overall quest. Novels and plays as literary forms can only hit it like that.

For imaginative literature (including sacred literature) the Bible, Homer (including Greek myth in general), Shakespeare, and Grail Romance seem to be the basic influences. A little bit in pure folktale too, like Grimm's.

These are works you *just read.* You just read them to get the language. The higher language.

In different ways great classical music communicates the same as well. Not by itself, but certainly in its own powerful, unspeakable way. When you engage it in a cosmos sense. Each work a cosmos. Not just background sounds. Hear it. Get it in to memory.

Great, foundational subjects like war, wealth, government as well. von Clausewitz, Adam Smith, Montesquieu...perhaps the Republic...

The Work sources - Ouspensky - as the school knowledge.

History - great history, classical historians, world histories - seems to play a role of preparing one in a 'good householder' sense to get the ultimate from the other influences mentioned. History ideally gets you above the world in understanding. Out of the maze and opaque confusion and illusion. Seeing the nature of power and the nature of human nature and the ways of the world in a clear light and having it become real understanding so that you are able to exit, or transcend, that miasma of the vain splutterings and intellectual and emotional bondage of the world.

A little journal I've started (not cyber)

Tonight I bought three little notebooks that each have 40 sheets or pages. A good number.

In one I've started a journal, or really just a record, of 40 Books Read Complete. Each page will have a book listed on it and the date I began and finished it.

I've started with with a few books I've read recently since 2005.

Thus far I have:

1. Vanity Fair - Thackeray
2. Holy Bible, AV1611 (5th complete reading)
3. Manual of Christian Doctrine - Berkhof
4. Pearl of Christian Comfort - Dathenus
5. Tom Jones - Fielding
6. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
7. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy

After Anna Karenina [update: Anna Karenina has been finished] 33 more. I've written at the front of the notebook 'great or interesting books.' But a defining thing is: to be read *complete.*

Here is what I wrote at the front of the notebook:

"Not a list of *all* books read from 2005 to the last entry, but the main ones read complete. An effort to reconnect with great books to keep the mind alive. A simple effort to start and *finish* 40 great or interesting books in this current time of my life."

I also plan on including some great books I've already read complete as part of the 40. That way, as the little effort commences I can rebuild, so to speak, the foundation, and also choose books for a balanced selection of categories. With a concrete number - 40 - and the amount of time involved that it will take this kind of approach can develop into something meaningful.

6th complete Bible reading

'08 GOAL (now '09)


6th complete reading of the pure and whole received Word of God (AV1611):

Genesis 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Exodus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Leviticus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Deuteronomy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Joshua 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Judges 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Ruth 1 2 3 4 1 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 2 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Ezra 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Nehemiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Esther 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Psalms 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Proverbs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Ecclesiastes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Song of Solomon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Isaiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 Jeremiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Lamentations 1 2 3 4 5 Ezekiel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Daniel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Hosea 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Joel 1 2 3 Amos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Obadiah 1 Jonah 1 2 3 4 Micah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nahum 1 2 3 Habakkuk 1 2 3 Zephaniah 1 2 3 Haggai 1 2 Zechariah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Malachi 1 2 3 4 Matthew 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Mark 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Luke 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 John 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Acts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Romans 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 2 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Galatians 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ephesians 1 2 3 4 5 6 Philippians 1 2 3 4 Colossians 1 2 3 4 1 Thessalonians 1 2 3 4 5 2 Thessalonians 1 2 3 1 Timothy 1 2 3 4 5 6 2 Timothy 1 2 3 4 Titus 1 2 3 Philemon 1 Hebrews 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 James 1 2 3 4 5 1 Peter 1 2 3 4 5 2 Peter 1 2 3 1 John 1 2 3 4 5 2 John 1 3 John 1 Jude 1 Revelation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Finished Oct. 8, 2009

Ten great Russian novels

I was reading a book of literary criticism (Tolstoy or Dostoevsky - George Steiner), and the writer said casually that these ten novels are the great Russian novels of the golden era of the 19th century (golden era for Russian novels):

Dead Souls - Gogol
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Oblomov - Goncharov
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Resurrection - Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Possessed - Dostoevsky
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky

No surprises except perhaps Oblomov.

Practical Mysticism - Evelyn Underhill

[another email...many posts on this blog are originally emails...]

This book - Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill - seems to be newly uploaded over at Christian Classic Ethereal Library.

Usual material. The meditation and recollection chapter gets at self-remembering somewhat, but missing it of course. (Remember always that practical self-remembering can be seen for what it is by seeing sleep itself. Make an aim to self-remember, inevitably fall back into waking sleep, then when you do wake up see the difference. Keep this in mind and you won't begin to no longer value self-remembering.)

But the 10th chapter of the book seems interesting. It's an apologia for the whole process of inner development which leads to only finding yourself still in the world and ho hum. I didn't read the whole chapter, but I skimmed it.

Living Time, perspective, development

> On a work tack. I don't think I should care. It will
> happen as it happens.
> The Work is not about building nation states but simply
> finding the
> conditions for work. And as we know, that requires some
> dissemination of
> work ideas - and hence, individually, time to study the
> ideas to gather the
> knowledge but crucially the opportunity to study those
> ideas in the cauldron
> of being through work efforts. Relatively speaking we
> probably need 25% time
> to study the ideas and 75% time to practise work efforts to
> maintain some
> balance on the understanding/being front or else it tips
> quickly towards
> more knowledge. What the world does, the motions it goes
> through. That's all
> there, ever changing. We work in the world.

Interesting when you think of your time, your stretch of living time, and how you judge it by what used to be (prior to your birth), and worries about what will be, even beyond how long you could even live. I think everybody's stretch of living time is full of a noxious mix of race wars and 'things falling apart' and predictions of disaster, no matter what era the stretch of living time exists in. And all our childhoods are more ideal because we don't know any better and don't have all the mechanical impressions connected to everything. Our mother takes us swimming at some public pool. We aren't thinking "You can catch disease from some baby's diaper in these pools, and who are those people over there, are they going to start trouble?, and..." No, we are experiencing the sunshine and water and seeing our mother sitting in the grass as we run up to her out of the pool, feeling the grass under our feet, then run back, then have sandwiches, then get tired on the drive back to home, then take a nap. It's all ideal. Everybody's childhood, except in a Pol Pot hell or something, is similar.

No matter the era, there's always too many people, or there's always too much desolation and too little to do, there's always the impossibility to make ends meet, or there's the decadence of having everything on a silver spoon, and it's always beyond the golden age for them.

Higher perspective shows this. Your time, from birth to death, is your living time. Time doesn't exist for you beyond your death. There is fifth-dimensional eternity you enter, but right back to the same fourth-dimensional living time. Until you escape. And you do that NOW, if you do it. When you develop vertically, and not horizontally, which is merely change, you are doing it. Remember the time diagram: movement inward toward the axis (magnetic center) via the first conscious shock is movement in the fifth dimension; then movement upwards via the second conscious shock is movement in the 6th dimension, even as you are still moving around the edge of the circle which is the 4th dimension of time. It become a spiral upward. Consolidate that development and you escape. If you value escaping. Some dogs don't want to be humans, they are happy to still be dogs. Some no longer want to be dogs.

Practical teaching of mystical union with Christ

Somewhere... .. here.

Keltoí

I'll never leave Jesus Christ. Murray made a statement in that video on 1 Cor. I mentioned in an email where God takes care of his own. If someone messes with one of His He deals with it in time. I've experienced that. I've experienced how prayer can be effective relative to different things. I am in the Kingdom. Jesus Christ is my King. I also understand and hold to orthodox doctrine as the apostolic and Reformation times - schools - taught it. I see it and value it.

What the trap is once you get all that is to get caught in the level of the obvious sleeping, village of morality fools of the churches. Not to put them down. We are all where we are. They are a general law force though.

These other influences are for real Christians. These other influences we speak of.

Music at its highest levels, getting understanding of it, hearing it all, this trains one to not be lured by it when sirens use it or something similar. The music isn't bad, how its used can be. In the spiritual realms if you've already heard all great music and you have exhausted it and you know its limit you are armoured against that particular weapon that can be used against you.

Just a twist on that activity with all the higher music.

An example of new thinking, seeing new things, seeing into the higher world.

The hidden ones. The Keltoí. A universal term. Tall and blond, or short and dark. Hidden from the apprehension of the world.

Seeing the spiritual realms, using different languages, higher visual language, higher centers, it's all something that is snuffed out by the church level. They have their names: "Gnostic!" They police pretty heavily. You can get tainted with their policing pretty easily, even not realizing it.

Even when an orthodox theologian veers into such realms, instead of writing that theologian off they just pretend he didn't write the 'off the ranch' parts. Calvin, Kline, Jonathan Edwards are three that get treated like this. You know what I mean.

To sum things up, for where we are, humans, gods, goddesses of old, nymphs, centaurs, all, spiritual warfare is it. If the dark forces are still about, and if the holy mountain is still being fought over, and if the gathering to it has not been completed, then you are in a state of battle. Quest. Pilgrimage. Stranger. On the Way. In this world, not of this world.

Something on de Sade

When I include de Sade in a book list I often get negative responses.

P. of England recently responded to my latest post below with:

I recall this discussion a long way back... I objected to de Sade and I again find myself saying No de Sade! The world is fallen, it surrounds us, we don't need Sade. We have television. We have the internet. De Sade is a dumb idea. A real time waster. There is enough hideousness without him. If you haven't read de Sade before you encounter the Work I can see no use thereafter. Faith Hope Charity Love.

So then S. of Australia responded to P. of England with:

I have to disagree - I read desade, and as an influence it transmits something powerful. It captures the depth of whats possible in terms of evil and depravity, yet at the same time it communicates the HOLLOWNESS of it all.

Once you've read De Sade, you see internet porn in a different light. Its not shocking, its just DUMB and empty. The thing with De Sades work is that he actually takes it as far as it can possibly go until its becomes ridiculous, and even laughable. You can see that there is a bottom to depravity, the pointlessness of it all.

Then I wrote:

I agree with Simon (and Dostoevsky and other greats had the same experience with de Sade). I'll just add that my list is based on one being in the middle of the 1800s, and imagine not having porn or other media to see the vanity - and just the existence - of the 'non-public' activities and the depths of fallen man's behaviour, then a de Sade would be very valuable. Disturbing no doubt, but valuable. Of course, one in one hundred (or whatever) people encountering such an influence becomes a serial murderer I suppose, but... I imagine it would be a hard book to acquire back then. You'd be left to looking at the domesticated animals doing their thing. But ideally, if you could have all those influences, then it is a necessary one.

A shallow Christian would say: "Maybe get married? Duh?" No, shallow church Christian, this is about understanding. It's not about married sex. And it's about not getting trapped into the pit of the world prior to getting understanding of it all, then not getting trapped at all. A Christian has to have understanding. A shallow Christian is nigh worthless other than to breed other Christians, which is not a useless thing, but it's not the faith, and it doesn't get one understanding.

I'm talking about a de Sade regarding its potential value to 'get you over' being *captured* or *entranced* by sex and violence and such things. With real understanding you transcend such things. Which is rare. If you don't confront it it is still in you though in darkness. Confront it, get understanding of it, get above it. If you don't have control of it, it will have control of you. (If you are a potential serial murderer then go read books that one can find in the average Christian bookstore.)

And to reiterate: in our era one hardly has to pick up de Sade. Just turn on your computer. But when an influence gets you understanding of something don't pretend that you had it all along. You needed the influence. Just as a Dostoevsky, living in the 1800s, or a Nietzsche, needed a de Sade. (Although, regarding S. of Australia's point above, de Sade *still does* have a unique standing among all influences that show our fallen nature at its worst.)

Christians and Christian so-called 'leaders' are shallow. That is a fact. The faith calls for us to develop understanding. Real understanding. The call is all through the Bible.

One note: de Sade's 'philosophy' he strews all through his porn and violence is not what is being discussed. That is maybe just a complimentary intellectual baseness to accompany the base activities. Now, who reads de Sade? (Other than S. of Australia...ha ha, just kidding, S.) If I was growing up in the middle of nowhere in the 1800s I'd value it. Then burn it. No. Yeah, what would you do with it once you've gotten out of it all one can? Eh, leave it on the bookshelf, as if you don't know what it is or where it came from... Some other developing soul will stumble upon it...

Having said all the above: DON'T READ DE SADE! IT'S STUPID AND UNNECESSARY! And if you do skim through some, don't admit it, and don't recommend it. Leave that to me. I have no worldly standing and village of morality honor to protect...

Influences, books

I drew up this list last night:

King James Bible
Homer
Shakespeare
Democracy in America
Gibbon
On War
Wealth of Nations
Reformed Systematic Theology
Ouspensky
Thucydides
Plutarch
History of the World
de Sade (porn, violence, fallen nature)
Austen

I know it looks familiar. I was trying to imagine myself alive in the middle of the 1800s and thinking what list of books would make a complete foundation (not including science and art, you know, just what you get from literature).

There are fourteen works (22 if you break them down further). Not my usual ten or twelve list. Seven times two, perfection doubled? 22, the number of letters in the Hebrews alphabet. Anyway, I needed fourteen spots.

The interesting one for me is Austen. Instead of listing seven great novels, or whatever, I see the novel as a particularly feminine form. At best it tunes you into the intricacies of society and human interactions. Human nature and the ways of the world. Austen in limited in her canvass, but you get war and diplomacy and all that from history too. But for me I just recall I had to read Pride and Prejudice in high school and it was opaque to me. I needed to awaken and develop and be able to see human nature at work and subtleties of interaction. That is what the novel gives you. Or, maybe better put, the novel gives you something to gauge your development and ability to see such things. So I put Austen in the list to represent that.

Democracy in America is a French work, remember. To me it is one of those works that is just deeply on-the-mark regarding its subject. It has that common-sense, competent, tuned-in, expressed-completely-well, foundational elements of understanding. Works like that tend to be also prophetic. They describe a time or thing so well that it also describes the future.

One could, of course, instead of writing just Thucydides, put in Greek Historians, which traditionally refer to Herodotus and Thucydides.

I want to put in a word for Ouspensky's New Model of the Universe. Going over those essays again is profitable. I can see that I picked up a lot of the cosmological elements and understanding of the Work from that book. Remember he rewrote the book in the late '20's to incorporate his Work understanding.

A while back when I said I'd forgotten that you need Work material to go along with self-remembering effort, what I didn't see then was I wasn't missing the psychological half of the Work, but I was far away from the cosmological part of the Work. Which not only gives insight into time and such things but provides metaphor to see the psychological part more deeply and in new ways.

From decadence to new new birth

I've gotten a little decadent in my thinking vis-a-vis learning and developing.

The doctrine of not wanting to go over old ground has contributed to it. It's a real thing, but it can be a stumblingblock too, because you can learn more and re-learn what you used to know; you can reinforce past learning and development; and when you come to old influences with new level of being - in a new stage - you see more.

I mean, I read Wealth of Nations once. Probably a second reading would be worthwhile. Any great influence. Fill in the blank.

I've written things like this before, but it feels different now. I've recently retrieved all my Work books. I noticed New Model of the Universe. I recall when I first encountered it how I was saying: "This guy actually comes through." I.e. Ouspensky was actually saying new things to me. I was jaded with what other literature (all levels) could deliver then I was seeing something 'new' in Ouspensky. Same with POMPE first of all.

Recurrence is the idea that has pulled me back to the sources. I keep realizing how strange it was that my dad discoursed on recurrence at his death bed talk. He was between worlds, beyond the veil half-way. And he is talking about time that validates recurrence. Knowing my dad, his interests, the fact that such things would not be naturally in him or coming out of him made it all the more striking. My dumb siblings kept changing the subject, even as I tried to engage him on the subject, as he was lying there, very animated to speak to us all. They mocked me as usual.

Yes my dad knew, and I knew.

Also there is a simplicity in going over the influences you have already identified as valuable and complete. Plutarch, Work, Homer, Bible.

Which reminds me. Along with all this line of thought: I need to go through the Bible *away* from doctrinal works to 'trim' off what is not needed. The doctrine I know is biblical, don't get me wrong, but I want to see it now in the Bible more clearly. More purely.

For instance: I want to read the Bible as if new and see just what it is communicating to me along the lines of doctrine. I know it intellectually, just as the great theologians who say what the Bible says knew it, but to know it in that higher, more complete sense you have to get it from the Bible. It will stand out now that I've read the Bible so many times complete and have learned hardcore orthodox biblical doctrine.

So I can go through my seven book list without the waste of 'going over old ground.'

If you're not picked up in a fiery chariot (something I don't discount as a possibility) you have to hold your ground and keep developing.

Work practice too will be both old and new. The same thing, though now with more understanding and being. I've been doing that since December, yet not as complete as prior to the internet. I'll do that going forward now.

This email I will remember. I'll make it prominent. Copy it, put it at the front of my journal.

* * * * * * *

>"For instance: I want to read the Bible as if new and see just what it is communicating to me along the lines of doctrine. I know it intellectually, just as the great theologians who say what the Bible says knew it, but to know it in that higher, more complete sense you have to get it from the Bible. It will stand out now that I've read the Bible so many times complete and have learn hardcore orthodox biblical doctrine."

The above paragraph from my previous email made me think of something. I've probably grasped practically the faith most in the arena and events of spiritual warfare. Really, I can't think of other areas. Maybe I should also include the fact of regeneration and how that changes you. You can see it in hindsight. (I should also add the experience of increasingly understanding the Bible and biblical doctrine. That is real and practical experience.) But all other ways Christians tend to experience their faith is not experience I tend to share. I can start to 'see' the spiritual world when in direct conflict with it in spiritual warfare. I can then see practically how connection to Jesus Christ means something. The Mediator, or High Priest, between God and man. How the Bible as language gives you something practical. How covenants and kingdoms and sacrifice and so on is real. How original sin and evil is real. Etc. I once noted (when challenged by atheists) that I know the faith is true because I can tangibly see the Kingdom of Satan all around me. I mean, that is at least something you can witness. Something the Bible talks of that you can see. Also your own fallen nature.

I'm listening to Scarlatti right now. I've been drowned in lower influences without realizing it. Talk radio, pop music radio, television, websites. It's striking when you put a Scarlatti on and begin listening when you havn't been near classical music for months (or years now in my case).

I've also remembered the necessity to do a full, or complete body, workout when you do a workout. Even if it's very light it makes all the difference in the world.

Necessarily, freely, or contingently (not boring!)

Look at this, how is Calvinism (God being sovereign in all that comes about) not fatalism like Islamic belief? Well, because God is the *first cause* and all that He decrees comes about immutably and infallibly. Yet, he so orders their coming about to be by *secondary causes.*

From the Westminster Confession of Faith:
"Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without his providence; yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently."

Secondary causes are either *necessary*, *free*, or *contingent.*

Following? (It's like Theory of Relativity, just a little less confusing.)

"The three terms "necessarily, freely, or contingently" are describing how events relate to one another. As relates to God, all events are exhaustively determined.

If some act *necessarily* follows, then the second-causation is defined by a strict deterministic relation--it MUST come. (I.e. if God sends the Holy Spirit into your heart you WILL be regenerated.)

If some act *freely* follows, then the second-causation is defined by a not-necessary relation, entirely relying on the WILL. (I.e. *somebody* will cause it to come about. That is why effort means something in God's plan.)

If some act *contingently* follows, then the second-causation is defined according to a dependent relation, but not without other independent variables affecting the result." (I.e. prayer is effective.)

I stole that from the PuritanBoard (except for the parts in parenthesis, which are from me). From someone who thinks about it much more than me. But I understand it.

Fatalism - what Muslims believe about God and providence and such - makes people say: "Why do anything? God's will will be done no matter what we do. Just sit in the sand and smoke hashish or whatever."

Obviously time is a wild card here too. What God decrees will get done, as He intends it to from the beginning, but because He acts through secondary causes, particularly 'free' and 'contingent' causes, it may take more time than it would otherwise have taken if everybody was on the ball and making real efforts. *Sometimes God has to step in and shake things up.* Or, the fulness of time takes it's course (and God has a time appointed for fulfillment no matter what), but God's elect are called on to do the moving and shaking basically.

So God's sovereignty in creation, *providence*, and grace makes our individual efforts MORE meaningful in the carrying out of His Plan.

The Book of Job

Behemoth in the Book of Job is obviously a reference to what science calls dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and man lived together at one time. Wherefore where else would our words "Run like hell!" come from? Etymologically alone the proof is there.

I find Job to be a penetrating book. There is alot in the words of God alone at the end that you can draw things from.

But regarding Arnold Murray refusing to teach from this book because he thought it was all nonsense up to the last chapters where God finally appears and speaks, I can see his problem. It's not a book you want to draw truth from verse by verse like other inspired books of the Bible. You have to see each part of Job in the context of the bookended situation. Why God has afflicted Job (Satan's meeting with God at the beginning and all that). I.e. the meaning and cause of Job's affliction is something he can't know. It's above him. His is to suffer and not question God. Then you can comment on each part from this higher perspective and you don't have to take every utterance of Bildad as Scriptural truth, which is what Murray seems to think his bind is when he teaches that book on the air.

Really what you get overall that is Scriptural truth from the Book of Job is doctrine. It really does teach Calvinist doctrine, which is to say it teaches things like the sovereignty of God, man's inability to save himself, etc., etc. The hard truths that make one God centered rather than man centered.

Physical labor and moving center and imagination/thoughts/words

The physical labor aspect of Work described by G. and O. had a practical effect of slowing down the negative work of moving center regarding imagination and thoughts. By tiring out moving center you get the benefit of stalling out the unique work of moving center involving uncontrolled imagination and thoughts and talking.

The physical labor stuff (shovel work, etc.) is usually taken as a method to make people snippy with each other, or to bring them down to their real limits for what they can put up with in the behavior of other human beings. Provoke limits.

But from a practical angle regarding self-remembering tiring out the moving center enables one to enter a state of presence unmolested by a hyper influx of thoughts and imagination.

(And come to think of it O. described the same method in a context of a simple marathon walk in difficult conditions. So working a shovel, walking a long distance, whatever. The practical tactic and result is the same.)

Ideally one wants to be in control of moving center without having to tire it out physically, but on the other hand getting into a true state of self-remembering requires we do it by getting control of all centers, and what it takes to get control is what it takes.

Insight on idol worship

I saw an insight on idol worship on a blog just now. It is this: you become like the idol that you worship. This is seen in Psalm 115:4-8 -

Psa 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Psa 115:5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
Psa 115:6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
Psa 115:7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
Psa 115:8 They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.


Then read Isaiah 6 and the language is more understandable:

Isa 6:9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Isa 6:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Read the short blog post: http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/worshiping-idols/

Excerpt: "If we worship idols, then our spiritual perception becomes just as useless as the idol’s eyes and ears, which cannot see or hear. If we worship God in Spirit and in truth, we become more and more like Him."

Excerpt: "However, we are treated to a trip through the Bible, showing where this theme pops out at us. It is quite surprising, really, how many places in the Bible where this theme comes out."

Theological works

One thing too about theological works (that occurs to me, as an afterthought on the previous emails) is, as C. S. Lewis observed, they are very devotional type influences, unintentionally. Even the most technical of them are devotional because of their very subject matter. And it's not a negative thing to say about devotional writings that they can be overdosed on easily. It is just their nature. Theological works pack a lot of knowledge (knowledge about ultimate things) in each chapter and paragraph. We can take in so much. I think this is part of why it is difficult to engage theological works in anything but a reference book type way.

Still we have to get the whole to see the parts in relation to the whole.

This is also why I like so much the concise works like Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine and Packer's Concise Theology. Berkhof's give a true whole, including knowledge on the three covenants and so on. - C.

ps- I guess I *have* read a theological book complete: Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine... I also saw it as complete, and worthy of unique status. In other words, if it was all you had, along with the Bible, you could draw everything - the 'whole' - from both. Then if you had the Work sources you'd have enough to get the real complete whole...

pps- This brings up another thing I was thinking about recently: we need to not get too 'outside our school.' Once we discern our school influences (and have found the list that represents the whole) we need to zero in on them and not continually flirt with influences from perhaps other schools, as worthy as they may be in their own world and context. It's a cosmos issue. School is a cosmos and needs to have perimeters and boundaries.

The power of biblical doctrine

Having said what I said [in an email, talking about how whole works of theology are not necessarily the best way to get biblical doctrine, i.e. you get it from a thousand different sources], there is real power in apostolic biblical doctrine, and in theologians who express it in an on-the-mark way.

Take sola Scriptura. That is the biblical teaching to fear God and not man. Fear/revere God alone, not the word or opinions or authority of man. That is foundational and powerful.

Sola fide. Justification by faith alone. That means don't rely on your own works to save yourself. That is vain. Don't self-justify yourself. In the big sense as well as in the all the little acts we engage in self-justification.

Christ alone. One Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. This keeps us out of the bondage to the General Law, the system of the Beast.

Grace alone. Sola gratia. This has to do with seeing God's will vs. self-will. Real will vs. self-will. When we realize we have nothing and could not have awakened to truth except via God's grace alone we start to see our own so-called 'freedom' for what it is: bondage to the Kingdom of Death. Vanity, worldly pride, rebellious self-will. False personality. Imaginary 'I'.

To the glory of God alone. This is a deep realization. We're created in the image of God, but everything in the plan of God is to glorify God. Since God is infinitely good (and everything else) and infinitely higher than us (I'm rambling on this one I admit) it means when we use the glory of God as our goal and our focus it draws everything upward in a way that makes everything to be in harmony and to be right.

Those are the five solas, and they are the heart of the biblical message.

The five points of Calvinism are called the doctrines of grace, and I describe those as the sort of 'chains' of redemption that when accepted it reorientates us internally from being man-centered to being God-centered.

Then classical Covenant - Federal - Theology is the overall arching Plan of Redemption from eternity to eternity.

All this is powerful and when in understanding is the armor of God itself.

You get it all from classic sources, when you do get it. And it is necessary. Along with the complete reading of the Bible itself. Over and over. With aim.

On making your book reading public

I've been discussing in email some of the problems that can come up when you make public records and vows to read certain books. Then I remembered something...

I used to have a saying: 'You should read books, but you should never admit it.'

Where has the old me gone?!?

But that saying involved part of this subject: when you keep your cards close to your vest you are free to engage any and all influences and take what is worthwhile from each and leave what is not worthwhile, and you don't have to deal with all the opinions and misapprehensions of the world about what you are involved in.

ps- I should distinguish what lately I've been doing is not really in the above category. Saying I will read the Bible seven times is a different thing. Also, knowing certain influences that you should engage (Work books, Homer, certain works of theology) is different, because they are the ones you just have to gear up and read complete no matter what. But you don't want to constrain yourself by not having space to follow some new thread that may appear and all that...

Beryl Pogson quote

I don't want to pick on Beryl Pogson, not having read her books to a sufficient degree, but a quote by her is at the front of the Eureka Editions 'Simple Explanation of Work Ideas' by Maurice Nicoll which is very new age (shallow):

"The Teaching is to prepare people for the Aquarian Age where all religions can be united - united by the fundamental truths contained in every religion." - 'More Work Talks 1966' pg. 93, Beryl Pogson

This way of thinking can put other religions at the same level of Christianity when Jesus is merely seen as a teacher or great Master, and not as Saviour and Lord. To see the latter you need to see things like original sin, your situation under the curse of the law, your inability to save yourself, etc... - C.

An email on Work knowledge and its relation to Work practice

Just to remind you all, I have written some good reminders and insightful things lately. Especially the realization that Work effort without taking in Work knowledge is surprisingly not kosher. I mean, one might think Work practices are universal and can be done by themselves just fine, but you find that they really are married to the Work knowledge in a real structural way that effects development of being itself. This forces one, if one sees this, to value the Work knowledge even higher.

(A note: a practical reason Work knowledge must accompany Work practice is to keep one on the straight and narrow with it.)

I do think though that the Bible can take the place of the Work for knowledge, but considering the Work is a language of the Holy Spirit given on top of the foundation of the Word of God then it is more proper to see Work knowledge itself as needed in the Knowledge + Being = Understanding equation.

On book reading goals

I think what can hamstring book reading goals for a new year is being too limited in how you go about it. For instance, I have a list a seven books I'd like to read complete (complete readings is the subject here, we all read a thousand books a year in other ways, for other purposes than a complete download), but I always tend to put the most important up first, even if I'm not currently moved to read it first.

I think once I have my seven, then I should realize I'll read them all *at some time* during the upcoming year, so just hit the one I'm most eager to hit first and get through it.

Create momentum for them *all*, including the more difficult ones (the ones that require more effort of attention, i.e. they don't draw you as easily, even though you have interest in them).

You do have to finish what you start, though.

Recurrence insight

Here's an insight regarding Recurrence. When you see it non-linearly (i.e. not as a line, birth to death, or beyond that as a circle) then the interval that is death/birth has to be seen non-linearly as well.

I see that interval as defining the entire breadth of your living time. If you are in Hades in that interval that means you are in Hades in all your living time. In biblical language: dead in sin. In the devil's kingdom.

Yet when you begin to awaken and leave Hades your entire living time is effected. You experience unique friction. The general law - which is the manifestation of the spiritual reality of what is happening in that interval - notices you and works on you. It is a mechanical force, of course, and needed for development (unbeknownst to itself, but the devil is the same, he plays a needed role, unbeknownst to himself -- or maybe he knows, but he can't do anything else, being under the sovereignty of God).

So, Recurrence as 'fulness of time', or, as a sphere in which develops the fulness of time (individuals and history develop 'in the fulness of time'), again, Recurrence as 'fulness of time' is our living time in a sphere, and the inside of that sphere is colored by that interval of death/birth.

Notice also that birth and death are 'shocks' in the process. Mechanical shocks on a larger scale than food intake and air intake. We transcend them with conscious shocks. The two conscious shocks and all they entail regarding awakening and development and connection with what is higher (Jesus, Triune God, conscious influence) effect the two shocks of birth and death and lift us out of Hades and all that follows can be seen in that context.

The others in Hades, mechanical presences, don't like seeing any one else leaving...

When you truly connect with what is higher you of course leave your time and are in the Kingdom of God.

I'm re-learning basic Work teachings

I've said I'm in a major effort for 2009 (started in Dec. '08) regarding self-remembering, non-identifying effort. I've just today realized, or re-remembered, something. My effort has been strangely 'strange' making me think I was maybe in some new state, or new territory, or something. I still may be (I am regarding my limits), but what is strange is I havn't been giving myself the knowledge 'substance' you need when you make such efforts.

Knowledge + Being = Understanding

Being (or effort to awaken) alone is not enough. You need Work knowledge for 'substance' (I call it that intentionally because understanding becomes your higher bodies, and substance is needed for that understanding, and Work language is that substance. It is a lively language, and probably only the Bible could take its place, but I havn't been reading the Bible much either.)

It came to me today when I was pondering Recurrence and came to an insight regarding the interval between death and birth. I might write about that later, but just the fact of pondering the Work reminded me that I was lacking the 'Knowledge' part of the great equation:

Knowledge + Being = Understanding...

Observe these 7 things when in an active theater

When in an active theater in life (i.e. where you are on the battlefield, in an event, etc.) observe these 7 things:

1. Yourself
2. The person(s), place, thing(s), event your attention is on
3. Place, or surroundings
4. Your aim and conscious role
5. The different points-of-view, intents, self-interests and motivations of others around you
6. The unspoken and spoken communications and the web of relationships between others and with others around you; and forces and laws in effect
7. Active reasoning, conscious labor, and intentional suffering

Conscious labor, intentional suffering

I heard this guy arguing with his girlfriend over the phone (long-distance relationship of some sort). I wouldn't try to reason with him, but if I did (he's a Christian who goes to a church) I'd say it's silly, isn't it? Give it up. "Give her up?" Why not. At least the fighting and nonsense. (She screws around with him long distance.)

Then he thinks, but if I give it up, what do I have left? What takes its place?

Answer: suffering.

G.'s brilliantly foundational formula (more foundational than self-remembering/non-identifying, though that is the means) is: conscious labor, intentional suffering.

Non-identifying is at its base intentional suffering (easy to forget or not see). To build our spiritual body we have to be awake and to suffer. If we avoid that then we don't value the goal to begin with.

But it's good to know that when you come down to philosophical hard pan intentional suffering is there as an answer.

I'm in the world, not of the world, so what do I do? You intentionally suffer.

Conscious labor, intentional suffering.

Active reasoning

Look at how this theologian gets at the Work practice of active reasoning:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you . . ."

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: "Why art thou cast down" -– what business have you to be disquieted?

You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: "Hope thou in God" -– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: "I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.” - Martin Lloyd Jones, Spiritual Depression

Apostolic doctrine taken to visionary heights

I've been saying there's no book I can learn from now, but I've just re-noticed the Kline books (God, Heaven and Har Magedon and Kingdom Prologue). If you already understand Federal Theology, these books are 'step beyond' while still being orthodox. They are like #5 Man level in the realm of Reformation era biblical doctrine.

It is revolutionary for instance to realize the presence of heaven all around you, invisible. To get that frame of reference all the time your thoughts, words, and deeds change.

Kline also sparks higher emotional insights and understanding. And it's foundationally biblical.

One is this: his explication of 'pilgrim politics' (a section from his GHHM) makes you see what is going on today in the world. The people of God are called on to exercise pilgrim politics with the people of the devil surrounding us. The devil and the people he influences *know this* hence their rhetoric and demands. If they sense a Bush, for instance, is going over the line, in the context of the 'rules' laid down by God in His plan of redemption, they scream bloody murder and accuse and accuse and stamp their feet. But it's all ridiculous because Bush could incinerate them all if he - we - wanted to. It's all drama. And they lose in the end, but sin is irrational to the core.

So the sign: "Hands off Saddam!!" being carried in a protest in San Francisco is part of this Devil-inspired demand to stay within the rules. "Iraq is the devil's domain!! It's against the rules of the game for you to mess with it!!"

The Israelites were in the same 'pilgrim politics' phase in Canaan. They were called on to deal with the people of darkness surrounding them with diplomacy, etc. This example needs more context (read the book!).

But this is a higher-emotion type thing to 'see.' To be able to see the spiritual reality behind phenomena going on around you. To have the ultimate big context that is the plan of redemption from one pole of eternity to the other is what you get from Kline's book, which is apostolic doctrine taken to visionary heights.

I repeat, though, that the foundation is Classical Covenant - Federal - Theology. The Bible itself.

A good line on prayer

I like the succinctness of this statement:

>God answers prayers in one of two ways: "Yes," or "I have something better."

Don't know who said it. It was on a person's signature on a forum without a reference to author. It's deeper than it may look at first.

On an atheist forum I gave an example of how a prayer can be answered but in a way a person didn't expect: a woman is treated badly by her husband, she asks in prayer to God for it to be better; so God answers the prayer by opening up the possibility for the woman to move out and away from her abusive husband. Not what the woman expected when she said her prayer.

An atheist responded: "Or the husband beats her to death. This prayer stuff is just way too arbitrary. Good luck with it though." In so many words.

Well, in that case the woman would be getting something arguably better: she would be going to heaven. Not something you ask for (the death part), but a good result nevertheless.

Status report

I'm in a different stage with higher energy now.

When I started this latest serious round of effort I started it in a new stage of development. It's not at all like the past. I can feel the energy inside me, but I don't lose it. Not even in the less dramatic ways. You know, like laughing at your own thoughts for six hours.

I can also see when I'm walking around in this new environment, more cut loose from a base, that it's a higher environment even though it is experienced as mundane as usual.

There is a group of people around me experiencing God knows what due to it. They havn't turned on me (and I won't even say 'yet' because I'm too good at controlling myself and environment now). If one of them does make a step in that direction I give them zero oxygen for their flickering flame.

I'll have to be led into something, but I also feel I could die too. Like, if there is no more reason to be here. I had a half-sleeping dream where I keeled over and died (went black, though I was conscious of 'going black') then awoke (saying prayers, believe me).

Well, there's always the crown level (Man #7) to reach. My current stage of efforts calls for much more intensive awakeness as I go on.

Could be death in the offing...

Parzival blog

Some good comments over here.

On still reading Homer

I'm still reading Homer complete. Though I'm still just in the midst of Book 11 of the Iliad. Still, it is a book that I don't get the feeling I am wasting my time, as in thinking I should be reading something else. The Bible can be a pull no matter what, though, especially when you see a context for it like the Proverbs being knowledge you need for the spiritual journey after death. That sort of makes it of the utmost importance to read NOW. Yet even so Homer still stands up (because it too gives a language for that afterworld journey, as does the Work).

Proverbs and the quest in the spiritual realms

I was also thinking about xxxx's mentioning of Proverbs. It seems that proverbs as a genre are supposed to be in memory. And of course they are easier to memorize than other types or genres of Scripture. I think - I know - all Scripture can be put into memory my steady reading of it, but Proverbs can be used for that unique attempt to memorize actual verses and being able to repeat them from memory.

I was also thinking about how I see the proverbs themselves. They are basic, primary, simple. That is because when we die and are in essence we need such simple, primary truth as our foundation and as our means to navigate that world.

Like if we are confronted by demons and we think maybe lying and saying we aren't what we are (thinking the demons would be mollified if we did this), but then we remember proverbs about how it is better to tell the truth than to lie, and so we boldly say the truth that we are heirs of the King of all creation, and that act makes the demons give way. Simple things like that.

Of course we're in that spiritual world now too. - C.

ps- I think there is truth in seeing the fantasy type quest as happening when one physically dies and is able to stand and be awake to some degree. You're making your way to the Kingdom of God, and in between there is Satan and his demons (the Prince of the power of the air), and obstacles, and so on. And you draw on your knowledge of the Word of God (your sword), your faith (your shield) and your ability to be awake and to fear only God and to recognize the Way and the destination.

Regarding the feeling we get reading old blog posts

Regarding the feeling we get reading old blog posts. That mixture of feeling of time having gone by perhaps unprofitably, or without as much profit as could have been gained from it; and of thoughts, sometimes deep and foundational thoughts and insights, going by the wayside, not amounting to much in the long run. All that type of feeling. To confront that and do battle with it you just have to set real aims to step into real Work and make real, consistent efforts over time. This regains all that is lost and builds what wasn't yet there.

Here is a wonderful name for the Old and New Testaments

In the midst of the parable of the sower there is a wonderful name for the Old and New Testaments:

Mat 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

The Word of the Kingdom

...

One day we're going to die then ability to be awake in the moment, in difficult situations, developed being will manifest, in a strange wonderland.

Note on the Calvin posts

I don't know why I wrote two long posts on John Calvin. It's not like I'm a groupie. It's really just because the chain of doctrine that is the armor of God and that changes you internally is 'Federal' theology. It has the individual level and the level that is the great arc and mechanics of the plan of redemption. It's like the 'mechanics of mysticism.' Of course it is the Work in biblical doctrinal language. And Calvin is like the prophet on the mountain elucidating it, or teaching others who presented it...

Logos

Exchanging comments with an atheist I was reminded of this light that exists between us all that enables us to communicate. The irony of the atheist saying what is 'God' and blah, blah, blah. The Bible says Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, sustains this entire Creation. He is the light, the Logos, that which we recognize the presence of, and come into the presence of, to some degree or another, when we come into an "I am here" presence. When we stop chasing the creation - in identification - and come into presence of Him by whom all things were created and by whom all things consist. That Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit we accumulate and we provoke our limits and grieve that Spirit, and perhaps also extend our limits by degree as well.

My sense of Calvin

[Response to an email correspondent...]

Here's my sense of Calvin. He was separate pretty much from the revolutionary Christian world going on around him, basically he was content to be a scholar, he was very much into classical literature, his father put him on track to be in the church, then something happened with his father's relationship to the church and he put him on track to be a lawyer, then his father died, so Calvin followed his real interest to be a classical scholar. All during that time Lutheranism was an influence in his university environment. He also lived with a Waldensian, a wealthy merchant who later was burned at the stake. He wrote a book on Seneca. Then something happened. He barely alludes to it, but he was regenerated by the Word and the Spirit, strongly, quietly, then he found that people were coming to him for the 'pure teaching' despite himself. He became known. He had to leave Paris when some religious scandal broke out involving people associated with him. He wanted still to go somewhere and lead the quiet life of a scholar. At some point he wrote the first edition of the Institutes (much smaller than the final edition). It became a bible of the Protestant cause. He became famous, though he was using about six different fake names in his wanderings. Then he was accosted by a firy guy name Farel and told to come to Geneva and be a leader there or experience the wrath of God.

All through it he seemed to be passive. He seemed to be quietly resigned to not have, or own, his own life. But he was quite strange in his ability to learn the Bible and apostolic doctrine and to elucidate it so young. Jacob Arminius (the father of Arminianism, kind of the opposite of Calvinism) had this to say about Calvin:

"I recommend that the Commentaries of Calvin be read…. For I affirm that in the interpretation of the Scriptures Calvin is incomparable, and that his Commentaries are more to be valued than anything that is handed to us in the writings of the Fathers -- so much so that I concede to him a certain spirit of prophecy in which he stands distinguished above others, above most, indeed, above all."

Another thing I discern in Calvin is he intentionally didn't mix the language of the faith with anything else. This is why you don't see him saying anything positive about Homer, et al, other than something like you find in his Institutes in Book 1, chapter 10, paragraph 3. In that passage he subtly separates the Homeric pantheon from the usual false idols that were worshiped. Yet still, condemns the whole lot. Zwingli was more open about his classical learning and valuation for it, but I can tell Calvin is doing the "when I learned the truth I put childish things away" thing. Plus, he carried the gravitas of the Reformation on his shoulders and couldn't be wishy washy to any degree. This includes politically. This is also why he didn't write about himself much at all. It was all seriousness in time of war when everything was at stake, and he was the central figure others looked to for guidance.

You rightly discern in the post-Calvin Reformed theological universe (really once out of the 1500s, except maybe in the Netherlands) a less deep understanding, even though the intellectual level is extremely high. I can still get things from those guys, but we know more and can navigate it all for the wheat and not stumble upon the chaff.

An intense intellectual scholasticism entered the picture, but it happened for a reason. When truth - apostolic truth - is so blatantly brought into the light it gets attacked and attacked and attacked and every kind of attempt from every conceivable angle to defile it is made. Not only from without the camp, but from within the camp as well. So the intense definitions and so forth, and the confessionalism (the composing of so many confessions an catechisms and writing of the systematic theologies, by whatever name or form they took in the early decades and onward) were necessary. Because there really are 'hinges' in doctrine upon which falls to one side or the other internal states, and it is those hinges that get attacked and false teachers try to present them dishonestly and so on and so forth. Hinges such as justification by faith alone. Or sola Scriptura. All of the five solas.

And the practical matter is this: when a person is converting (they've already been quickened by the Word and the Spirit, but now when they are converting) they need to come into contact with clear, on-the-mark doctrinal teaching. So as a practical matter it is effective for the forces of darkness to engage in the endless sophistry and defiling of the truth, as well as the controlling of what is published and taught and so on, because it keeps the truth away from God's elect and it buys them time, which is really the only thing the devil's side has. A continual hold-everything-up strategy. Because they can't win. But they can delay the proceedings. At least it seems that way. But it's a real conflict with real demands and payment and so on.

Gurdjieff was right about Roman Catholicism. You really have to know the history of Christianity at a sophisticated level to see the Reformation and everything else clearly. The Church prior to the Reformation was many things, geography alone dictating alot, distance from Rome dictating alot, it's not monolithic. But the real Beast/anti-Christ stuff began to emerge (and if I knew more I could give an exact date, but) around probably when the Inquisition started to take off. 1100s? I need to read Schaff, but it's 8 volumes. The corruption had really set in by the time Luther hammered the 95 theses on that church door.

One last note: Calvin and Zwingli both were forced to be more conservative publicly and in their main writings because of the Anabaptists to their left. The radicals of the Reformation were as demonic as the Romanist side, in their own way, and as off-the-mark. For instance Zwingli was forced to officially adopt infant baptism - the Romanist practice - after initially being against ritualism and all that because he was in a battle with extremists on his left who threatened everybody because bad doctrine was an invitation for Rome and the secular powers they influenced to attack (ironically, but good doctrine is the armor of God), so the on-the-mark doctrine (which is why Calvin wrote his Institutes, to be a document presenting on-the-mark Protestant doctrine, which is how it was received as well, and was extremely effective as that) was a real weapon in that war. So mostly concessions were made by Zwingli and Calvin in this context in the realm of ecclesiology and sacramentology. The less important, really, areas of doctrine in question; and you really see the schisms and arguing among the post-Calvin Protestants in these two areas too, though that is a simplification. - C.

ps- The Puritans are always 'suspect' by the mainstream Reformed/Calvinists of our day and in the post-Reformation eras generally. It's because the Puritans are seen as 'pietists', which to Puritans just means having and doing the practical level of the faith, and to their critics it means being weird and 'mystical' and so on. Modern day Calvinism is really 'academic theology'. Those types are Man #3 types, but the reformers were Men #4 types.

Some quick thoughts to a correspondent on John Calvin, Fourth Way, Renaissance, etc.

I may be
> less set in theological
> terms than yourself. I think I'm quietly questioning
> the rationale of post
> reformers - intellectual feasts - because I feel an
> affinity with a more
> medieval mind set where there was a greater unity and less
> schism between
> the Christian and pagan - though I don't feel pagan -
> and that edges me
> perhaps to give greater consideration to both the orthodox
> and catholic than
> I might have previously and obviously I see the work spread
> through it all,
> the pagan too. Anyway, I'll circle round a while yet
> mulling on these
> things. I'm fascinated by the idea Homer and the
> classics had a significant
> influence on Calvin. I never came across it in his
> writings. Homer may be my
> next big read.

[This is long, but I've tried to throw down some distilled things on this subject. It's not just me talking...]

Yes, Calvin is accused by modern day Calvinists of being too medieval himself. Too mystical. Bernard of Clairviox (sp?) is referenced as much as Augustine in his Institutes.

What you see in the post reformers is scholasticism (categorization, ultra-fine definition, etc). It takes over after the organic school emerges. The Medieval time had its scholasticism too. (How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?)

Zwingli and Calvin were the two primary guys (Luther was a force - same age as Zwingli - but a different animal, which is why Lutheranism is what it is, and Calvinism founded empires.)

Calvin wrote a book on Seneca, was a humanist scholar, etc., etc., then experienced regeneration by the Word and Spirit and converted and set foot out of Paris not knowing where he was going. Zwingli died young in battle (Zwingli is associated with reform in Zurich as Calvin is associated with Geneva.)

You have to read all these guys adeptly. They all operated in the midst of a furious and intensely violent war. Calvin was forced to be a political leader including in his writings. For instance, in the Institutes you'll read him giving very Romanist-like eXoteric explanations of the sacrament of baptism. Then in his less public Sermons on Ephesians he - like Zwingli - said baptism is a ritual for stupid people. People who need the visual. Also, when Calvin came into direct contact with a Romanist like Cardinal Sadoleto he sounds like an anabaptist. For example Calvin says to Sadoleto that one doesn't need a church building and physical trappings and all that. That is the true Calvin. But as a political leader and leader in the war of the times he had a responsibility to be more accommodating to the theology of the day because he could get an entire population killed. (This is why Servetus was put to death as well. If Geneva hadn't it would have put the entire city at risk of invasion and death. You have to see everything regarding the Reformation and the reformers in the context of the times.)

But the chain of TULIP is the mystical chain the Bible teaches. When seen and accepted it effects the internal reorientation from being man-centered to being God-centered. It goes against Old Man logic and demands. It is not only new thinking but it is accepting that there is something higher than you. Five solas as well.

You don't have to think in terms of going 'Catholic' or 'Orthodox' just 'apostolic.' The school is there in all those periods of history. The reformers went 'back to the source' as did the Renaissance. What you will see in Orthodox writings that you like you'll find was actually written by a Celtic Christian from the 4th century, for instance. Arminian Baptists accuse Calvin of being Romanist because the true school can be found in medieval sources here and there which Calvin learned from and cites.

The document that is two letters, one by Cardinal Sadoleto and one by John Calvin, is must reading to know Calvin. Calvin had just been kicked out of Geneva by the political leaders and Sadoleto saw an opportunity to turn the populace of Geneva back to Rome, so he wrote a public letter to Geneva. Calvin, in exile, but feeling a responsibility to defend Geneva, wrote a public letter that answered Sadoleto point-by-point, but it is unique in that it is Calvin the warriour going up against anti-Christ. It's published with titles like 'A Reformation Debate, Calvin vs. Sadoleto' and similar titles.

Main thing is find the true school of it all. Calvin has power because he represented the true school in the most foundational and literary and on-the-mark way. (This is why his writings immediately were translated by the dynamic, poetic, action-oriented Elizabethan culture that knew real school.) He brought his Renaissance background to elucidating it. You just have to see where people go off-the-mark and not let that paint everything. It's usually in ecclesiology and sacramentology where humanity gets 'inside' and brings the usual 'group' crap and brings things down to a worldly - and worse - level. But there is a true ecclesiology (cosmos of school, C Influence, teachers, the Word of God) and a true sacramentology (the two conscious shocks, for instance, or prayer and fasting, etc.).

I've said it before but the three main branches of the faith - Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant, correlate to the three basic centers of Man #1,2,3. But it is the intellectual part, the Protestant, that keeps you honest and gives you understanding. The emotional part, the Roman Catholic, is where the devil sets up camp. That is not to say it - the emotional part - is all bad, but just that the devil plants himself 'there' because that is where - intellectual division of the emotional center - magnetic center is developed, i.e. the gateway to real understanding. The Orthodox is best summed up by practice, and the Work is mostly seen in the Orthodox division. But you can't avoid the Protestant - true Protestant - intellectual part. Once you have it you are a different animal.