Francis Berger

Love and Worldly Power Go Hand in Hand

7/12/2025

The Romantic Christians stress the importance of family and love. But on the other hand, they negate all parental instincts to protect and secure worldly happiness for children. And then they claim God is a parent. Seems incoherent to me.

Love and worldly power go hand in hand.

The above is a comment from Christianity is Finished If It Does Not Reassert Itself as a Worldly Power, a post I wrote a couple of years ago. The post was an argument against the postulation that Christianity must reassert itself as a worldly power if it is to survive.

The comment above criticized the apparent incoherence of the Romantic Christian position in this regard. I did not respond to the comment at the time because I knew I could not offer the commenter any explanation that he would “get.”

Honestly, what can you say to Christians who doggedly believe that love and worldly power go hand in hand? If this truly is the case, then what do such Christians make of Jesus’s time on earth?

In any case, let us take a closer look at the apparent incoherence of the Romantic Christian position.

The Romantic Christians stress the importance of family and love.

Jesus stressed the importance of family and love; that is, personal relationships with concrete people nurtured and sustained by love.

But on the other hand, they negate all parental instincts to protect and secure worldly happiness for children.

Jesus did not refer to himself as a father, but he did call himself a shepherd. Yet in the end, he negated his pastoral duties to protect and secure worldly happiness for his flock.

Nevertheless, Jesus did refer to God as a parent—a loving one at that. Yet God, his father, negated his parental instincts to protect and secure worldly happiness for his son, so much so that he allowed his son to suffer public execution in one of the most excruciating and humiliating ways imaginable.

And then they (Romantic Christians) claim God is a parent.

Jesus referred to God as a parent.

Love and worldly power go hand in hand.

If this were true, then God, as a loving parent, would have prioritized securing worldly power and happiness for his son, who in turn would have exercised that worldly power to demonstrate his love for his father.

However, none of that happened, entailing that the only incoherence in the comment above lies in the commenter's insistence that love and worldly power go hand in hand.

It is well past time that Christians begin to think seriously and deeply about such matters, but that would require deep, serious Christians.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be many of those around these days.

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No Describing How Evil Masking Was

7/8/2025

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I had planned to spend the bulk of today removing fiberglass insulation from the attic, but I couldn’t find my N95 respirator. Not wanting to run out to the store to buy a new one, I decided to don an old birdemic cloth mask I happened to stumble upon in my workshed.

The N95 respirator is marketed as effective for filtering out particles when working with fiberglass; however, my past experiences with it revealed it to be only partly effective. The mask gets soggy after an hour or two, and the dust and particles eventually find a way to penetrate. Having experienced this, I knew the cloth mask would be far less effective. Still, I figured it was better than nothing.

Well, I was coughing and wheezing within five minutes, and I only lasted about an hour in the unventilated attic. When I took the cloth mask off, I noticed black and brown smudges on the interior. It was worse than completely useless. It effectively trapped dust and fiberglass particles within the mask, yet during the birdemic, it was touted as a safe and effective way to stop the dreaded birdemic virus. I chuckled after I came down from the attic.

Don’t get me wrong. I never believed any of the masking claims during the birdemic; however, reexperiencing how patently absurd and utterly ineffective masking is reminded me of just how unfathomably evil those in power were (and still are).

Anyway, just in case anyone still cares, System apparatchiks are still doing their darndest to convince us that masking during the birdemic was effective, safe, and scientifically sound (edited slightly and bold added):

A comprehensive new review published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews provides strong evidence that masks and respirators are effective in reducing the transmission of respiratory infections like BIRDEMIC-19. The review, conducted by an international team of 13 researchers, analysed over 400 studies from multiple disciplines, including epidemiology, public health, engineering, and social sciences.

'Our review confirms that masks work, with a clear dose-response effect,' said lead author Professor Trisha Greenhalgh from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. 'The more consistently and correctly you wear a mask, the better protected you are. Respirators, when worn continuously, provide even greater protection than ordinary masks.'

Masks, including cloth face coverings and disposable medical masks, help reduce the spread of respiratory droplets and aerosols. Respirators, such as N95 and FFP2 devices, are designed to filter out smaller airborne particles and fit more tightly to the face, providing a higher level of protection.

Cool.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing the birdemic virus isn’t made of fiberglass or dust.

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The Sweet, Silent Darkness of No Self

7/6/2025

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Zdzisław Beksiński - Untitled (often referred to as one of his cruciform paintings).

Once someone has absorbed the assumptions of mainstream modern materialism, he cannot believe in Heaven - and, much worse, he does not even want it to be true!

The above comes from a recent post by Dr. Charlton. I have been ruminating over the idea it contains for weeks, particularly the bit about not wanting heaven to be true.

An expressed inability to believe in Heaven is one thing; not wanting Heaven to be true is another thing altogether.

I often wonder what people who dismiss Jesus’s offer eternal life as untrue think about when confronted with the idea of Heaven. Do they reject it as a fairy tale? A delusion? A carefully crafted method of sociological and political control?

Whatever the case, at the core, they must all steadfastly believe in the ultimacy of death. After all, if one cannot believe in Heaven, then death has the final say.

Materials believe in the recycling of their “material” in the material world—of their forms dissolving and assuming other forms, but this does not diminish the dominance of death because it annihilates the self in the process.

Materialists may kick it up a notch and entertain certain kinds of life after death via reincarnation or such phenomenon. Yet if they can bring themselves to believe in a part of them continuing after death, why is it so difficult to believe in “the self” continuing in Heaven?

I posit that it comes down to a lack of awareness about “the self.” Either that, or an acute awareness that mortifies to the core.

Either way, the self is disavowed. It cannot; it must not go on. To think otherwise is unbearable.

The self must not continue. It must be obliterated. Or fade away. Or get gently snuffed out like a candle.

There is nothing on the other side of crucifix.

Only darkness. Sweet, silent, self-less darkness.

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Christian Truth is Not About Conforming with Being

7/3/2025

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Maybe it's like this...

If someone becomes convinced by the usual-mainstream-modern assumption that truth is objectively located in the external world ("truth is out-there"), and our job is just to perceive and recognize this external truth...

Then such a person never has to convince himself of truth.

He feels more confident of some proposition only secondarily, not inwardly; e.g. by re-reading and reciting it, by propagating and defending it in public discourse.

This way of thinking may explain how arguments that cannot really convince, become perpetuated over centuries.
It happens because, when truth is out-there, reasoning does not even need to convince.

Indeed, nobody ever needs personally to be convinced!

So, we get a world (and this is our actual world, and the world of historical past) where everybody claims/ argues and acts-like they believe some-thing... some-thing that - inwardly - literally nobody believes!

The above is Bruce Charlton’s response to a comment I had left on his recent Word Spells post. It reminded me of some of Nikolai Berdyaev’s thoughts on the subject of truth from his Truth and Revelation.

Truth is not something given objectively, but rather a creative achievement. It is creative discovery, rather than the reflected knowledge of an object or of being. Truth ... is the creative transfiguration of reality.

Like Dr. Charlton, Berdyaev objects to the idea of truth as something that is “given objectively.” He aslo rejects the notion that our main task is recognizing and knowing this “truth out there.” For Berdyaev, truth was an internal, inward experience flowing from the spirit.

Truth is not objective, ordinary reality, reflected in the knower and entering into him from outside, but rather the enlightenment, the transfiguration of reality: it is the introduction into the world's data of a quality, which was not there before truth was revealed and known.

Introducing into the world’s data a quality which was not there before the truth was revealed is both creative and participative, underscoring how truth is intricately related to co-creation.

Truth is not conformity with what we call being, but rather the kindling of a light within being. I am in darkness and seek the light; I do not yet know truth but I seek it. By this very fact I affirm the existence of Truth and light, existence in another sense than the existence of the world's realities. My seeking is already the dawning light, and truth is already beginning to reveal itself.

I have known many Christians who more or less defined Christianity as “conformity with being,” yet as Berdyaev (and Dr. Charlton) point out, conformity with being very rarely leads to actual belief, let alone faith.

Instead of conforming with being, Christians should seek to kindle a light within being.

Maybe then we could start really believing in truth rather than simply believing out truth.

Instead of conforming to reality, we should begin thinking about transfiguring it . . .

Starting with ourselves, from within.

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Eternal Means Everlasting, Not Unchanging

7/1/2025

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Eternal does not and cannot mean "unchanging" because nothing in existence, not even God, has ever been unchanging.

I don't care how anyone explains it to me otherwise, a quick look around at the universe is all it takes to demonstrate that it is a place of endless change.

Nothing in existence is static. Placing God onto his own timeless, changeless level of existence alters nothing except increase unbelievability.

So, yes. God is eternal, but not unchanging. The same applies to us and all other Beings.

Eternal, but not unchanging.

Eternal, in the sense of everlasting and ever-changing.

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Conformity or Transformation?

6/29/2025

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Christianity is, or should be, a transformative religion, in the late 14th-century sense of the word, transformen—that is, to alter or change the form of supernaturally. The Latin root trans signifies across or beyond, while formare remains innately comprehensible in the modern use form.

What Jesus offers is definitely across or beyond mortal life, and it has everything to do with changing form in that beyond. Those who choose to follow Jesus may experience some transformative effects in mortal life, but the bulk of the transformation occurs in the beyond, after death.

Unfortunately, Christianity has become a religion of seeking transformation in mortal life—of disregarding the beyond or across in favor of some alteration in the here and now.

Somewhere in Christianity’s history, the aim of supernatural, next-worldly change gave way to desiring natural changes and improvements in this world in the form of better lives, improved societies, the conquest of social ills, altruism, good citizenship, and all the rest. Changing forms in the beyond quickly became somewhat of an afterthought.

Christianity also quickly became a religion of conformity. At first, this conformity centered on obedience to God and complying with his Will; however, as the churches rose in temporal and political power, they demanded adherence to doctrines and laws that aimed to make Christians compliant and tractable in this world. The churches taught that the supernatural change in form Jesus offers in the beyond depended exclusively on this-worldly conformity to churches.

The power and influence that Christianity and its churches enjoyed in this world faded long ago. Contemporary worldly power and politics not only reject transformation in the supernatural, next-worldly sense, but they are positively antagonist toward it. And the churches? Well, the churches now conform almost entirely to that antagonistic worldly power.

So, what do Christians conform to when they willingly conform to churches?

Christianity is, or should be, a transformative religion rather than a conformative religion.

Anyone who argues otherwise is focusing on the wrong form.

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Daily Blogging Resumes Tomorrow

6/28/2025

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I haven't felt all that motivated to post consistently over the past two months, but the winds have changed.

Daily (or close to daily) blogging resumes tomorrow.

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Midsummer Eve

6/21/2025

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Midsummer Eve - Edward Robert Hughes - 1908

I still don't fully understand my fascination with solstices and equinoxes, but today is the summer solstice or Midsummer Day or Litha or whatever you wish to call the longest day (or close to the longest day) in the northern hemisphere.

For reasons I can't explain, I've always associated solstices and equinoxes with spirits, elves, and fairies. Probably Shakespeare's influence; however, I sense something deeper. Whatever the case, the painting above is a good representation of the sort of "feeling" I get every summer solstice.

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A New Anthropodicy is Needed

6/21/2025

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The first bits are from a comment exchange with Dr. Charlton from this post:

Bruce: By my understanding, creation of everything from nothing means that actual human beings are of negligible significance - since we are all merely contingent aspects of the one creator; because there is nothing else we can be.

This seems to me a mere variant on the idea that our mortal reality is illusory - and since it is futile, it is an evil illusion.

The whole underlying tendency of Christianity is thereby denied.
For my mind, unless beings, including human beings, are primary realities, they cannot be the focus of creation.

Me: The sad thing is most human beings do not want to be primary realities or foci of creation. For many, it's far too burdensome to contemplate. Better to be of negligible significance. After all, contingency is far more comforting and palatable than freedom.

Bruce: Seemingly not - and neither do most religions encourage them in the slightest. Even so great a creative, and creation encouraging, Christian as Tolkien, got himself (and readers) terrible confused about the nature and importance of human creating, because of the ex nihilo assumption he accepted from the RCC. No matter how many words JRRT expended on praising creation - the bottom line would always be that none of this was necessary, and none of it made any ultimate difference - since creation had already been wholly accomplished and was wholly God's.

The comment exchange reminded me of Berdyaev's “anthropodicy”—his justification of man. Berdyaev posits that human beings are not just creations of God, but also co-creators in God's ongoing work of creation. He highlights the creative act as the crux of human existence.

For Berdyaev, the creative act is not limited to conventional forms of creativity via the arts but a vivid expression of freedom and spiritual striving in which human beings are able realize their potential and contribute to the divine purpose.

This justification of man is rooted in Berdyaev’s insistence on the fundamental significance of every human being, emphasizing the unique and unrepeatable value and dignity of each human person as a spiritual being.

I think Berdyaev was looking in the right direction with his anthropodicy; however, his metaphysics could not properly flesh out the significance of man, and all beings, as primary realities.

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Implications and Entailments Are Secondary-Thinking Entanglements

6/19/2025

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In yesterday’s post, I suggested that the continuous deterioration of secondary thinking is most evident in the apparent increase in the need to question what symbolic communication in the form of language, writing, and images actually refers to or means.

The most blatant examples of this occur when people begin arguments with statements like, “Well, it depends on what you mean by X.” Case in point, is the short clip below featuring the Jordan Peterson of theology, William Lane Craig.

When asked if Genesis 1:1 teaches creatio ex nihilo, Craig immediately resorts to the following line to preface his line of thinking: “A lot depends on what you mean by the word teach.” Sounds eerily similar to Peterson’s cautious bafflegab when asked if he believes in God. What do you mean “do?” What do you mean by “you?” And so forth.

Like Peterson, Craig could have simply answered the question posed to him with a yes or no, but he chooses the old “a lot depends on” evasion to frame the argument he eventually lands on—Genesis 1:1 does not explicitly assert creation ex nihilo, but it does imply it because it is a logical entailment.

A logical entailment of what exactly? For the sake of brevity, let’s just say a logical entailment of assumptions that exclude the possibility of creation from something. Thus, Craig concludes that creatio ex nihilo is an entailment of Genesis 1:1 and argues that if you take the teaching of scripture to include not only what it explicitly asserts but also what it entails, then yes, Genesis 1:1 does teach creatio ex nihilo even if it doesn’t explicitly assert it. He then alludes to several other passages in the Bible that confirm the validity of this entailment.

No explicit assertion but plenty of implication and entailment, which is interesting if one considers the etymology of imply and entail.

Imply is from Latin and was used in Old French to mean “to entangle, to enfold, and enwrap”. Craig’s assertion that Genesis 1:1 implies creatio ex nihilo suggests that creation from nothing is somehow folded up in the passage and that the right sort of reading or awareness will disentangle the implicit and make it explicit. In other words, even though the passage does not explicitly affirm creatio ex nihilo, it leads to that conclusion via the process of implication.

Entailment is a bit trickier. Entail originates from the 14th century and refers to feudum talliatium, an old legal practice of converting an estate into “fee tail” or a legal limitation ruling that decided property ownership matters in inheritance and prevented property from being sold off until the ownership question was settled. From the 19th century onwards, it was used most often to refer to an inseparable connection. In philosophy and logic, entailment refers to a relationship between statements where the truth of one statement (the antecedent) confirms the truth of another (the consequent).

In a nutshell, Craig’s argument can be boiled down to the following: God created the heavens and the earth, which is true. God's creating the heavens and the earth implies that nothing else existed before that act of Creation. Since nothing else existed, God must have created ex nihilo.

That’s it.

Now, how difficult would it be to form similar types of implications and entailments against creatio ex nihilo? Not hard at all. In fact, many have put forth coherent arguments in favor of creation from something; however, at the end of the day, such arguments all play the same sort of games Craig and others like him engage in. Implications and entailments through and through.

In the end, approaching assumptions like creatio ex nihilo requires direct knowing and primary thinking—the disentanglement of thinking from all the implications and entailments of secondary thinking.

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