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Write posts about how I yearn for the death of the current pope so that the church can get a better pope and then rationalize that yearning by emphasizing the ultimacy of Christ’s church and underscoring that I am praying for the ailing pontiff’s soul and the execution of God’s Will, which, apparently, makes everything spiritually spic and span.
Sounds virtuous to me. H/T Dr. Charlton's post on Schadenfreude.
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I cannot believe in a God who cannot create more gods.
I cannot believe in a God for whom such an endeavor is a logical and metaphysical impossibility. Wait, let me refine that a little. I cannot believe in a God who cannot help to create more divinity—help because divinity-creation is ultimately a co-creative effort. I assume the expansion of divinity to be the overarching goal of Creation, with Jesus serving as the most personal and relatable example of divine co-creation. Creation makes little sense to me if God is not actively seeking his divine other or does not yearn for the manifestation of divine others. Jesus’s offer of Heaven makes little sense to me if it does not offer the possibility of divinity expansion. And the overall point of mortal life makes little sense to me if one rejects that offer. Classical theology's greatest achievement?
Liberating men from freedom. Note added: I'm making a line of t-shirts and coffee mugs emblazoned with the catchy phrase, "Classical theism, freeing men from freedom since 200 AD!" These will be among the first items for sale on my soon to be launched Romantic Christianity merch e-store. I'm also planning to take Romantic Christianity into the crypto-world by issuing a block-chain currency called Discern Coin. Whatever it takes. I just wanna cash in, baby! Stay tuned! I recently encountered a blog post that (correctly) warned Christians against eagerly forming alliances with secular right-wing/alt-right types (sorry, I can’t recall where I read the post).
I am of the same view; however, the post in question then promoted the cultivation of Christian alliances to attain the same sort of this-worldly social/political aims the secular right/alt-right types pine for. I couldn’t help but shake my head upon reading that. The mere notion of allying with Christians who marinate their expressed aims in the same sort of grand, civilizational-level, this-worldly concerns as the secular right is anathema to me. They are choosing the wrong way, a way Berdyaev describes in the following manner: There are two ways: one is that of the love of man, which wants to make men happy, to calm and organize them, to build comfortable housing for their neighbors where they will forget their irrational and tragic freedom, will renounce their right to absolute, supra-mundane truth. This is the way of the Grand Inquisitor. It leads to the ant hill where there will be neither freedom nor personality. For the sake of brevity, I will forgo wading into the laughable delusions fueling noble pipedreams of a resurrected future Christendom forged by sturdy Christian alliances determined to alter the social and political landscape in God’s name and focus instead on what Christian alliances ought to be and should focus on in this time and place. To get the ball rolling, I turn, once again, to Berdyaev: The other is the way of the love of God that wants to liberate men and puts truth and super-human values above prosperity and the ordering of life. This is the way of Him who came with words of boundless freedom and was a reminder that God and freedom and truth are above the well-being and tranquility of men. And we must choose either the philanthropic way of well-being or the God-loving way of freedom.... The only Christian alliances that interest me in this time and place are those that place the spiritual aspects of following Jesus well above human tranquility and the ordering of this-worldly life. Such alliances are inevitably personal and compact. As such, they do perceptibly little to alter the course of world history. Still, I am convinced that the workings within such intimate, spiritually focused affiliations and collaborations ultimately achieve a higher level of good in this world (and the next) than any grand coalition of contemporary Christian churches and monarchies ever could. Traditional/conventional Christianity envisages man as a creature existing within God’s being. Existing outside of, beyond, or sans God’s being—inside Creation or sans Creation—is a metaphysical impossibility because nothing can exist outside of, beyond, or sans the omni-God. As a creature created from nothing, man’s only state of being is the one omni-God provides via Creation. No alternative is possible because omni-God is not merely a Being but being itself, as Bishop Robert Barron--that impeccable master of discernment and defender of the essentialness of Mass—explains in the clip below: God is certainly not an object in the world, but proclaiming God to be prior thought, prior to being, and that upon which the categorical realm depends is, at best, a partial truth, one that has obscured and obstructed the intrinsic direction of divine Creation since the beginnings of “official” Christianity.
We are not creatures within God’s being. We are Beings within God’s Creation. In this sense, God is prior to thought and being within Creation but not prior to thought and being before or sans Creation. Put another way, man is a Being within Creation, yet man was also a being prior to Creation. The same applies to every other Being in Creation. The purpose, motive, and direction of Creation is not the provision of being. "Creatures” possessed being before Creation. Creation allows Beings to work toward a greater mode or form of “being” in terms of expanded freedom, love, and creativity. Seen from this perspective, evil could be defined as the direct, willful, and prolonged opposition to the purpose, motive, and direction of Creation, not a direct, willful, and prolonged opposition to being itself, which can only be conceptualized as God’s being since no other mode of being is either accessible or possible. As beings within God’s Creation, we can choose to oppose Creation, but we cannot oppose being because, in some form or other, we, as Beings, will always “be.” Being opposed to Creation is not only possible; it is also rational. That is not to say that such opposition is optimal, admirable, or meaningful, but it remains rational. Beings can oppose Creation and, ultimately, reject Creation and, subsequently, Jesus’ Second Creation. Such Beings will then continue to exist outwith God’s creative motives and purposes, likely in the same manner or mode they existed before Creation. Beings can oppose Creation but not being itself, not because God is being but because being is being itself. God is prior to Creation but it is metaphysically impossible for God to be prior to being. The conception of the Absolute is the extreme limit of objectivizing of abstract thought.
In the Absolute there are no signs whatever of existence, no signs of life. The Absolute belongs not so much to religious revelation as to religious philosophy and theology. It is a product of thought. The abstract Absolute shares the fate of abstract being which is in no way distinguished from non-being. You cannot pray to the Absolute. No dramatic meeting with is possible. We call that the Absolute which has no relation to an other and has no need of an other. The Absolute is not a being nor a personality, which always presupposes a going out from itself and a meeting with an other. The God of revelation, the God of the Bible is not the Absolute. In Him there is dramatic life and movement, there is a relation to an other, to man, and the world. By the precepts of Aristotelean philosophy, they have changed the God of the Bible into pure act and excluded from Him all inward motion and every tragic principle. The Absolute cannot issue from itself and create the world. Movement and change cannot be attributed to it . . . God is not the Absolute. God is relative to Creation, to the world, and to man, and with Him takes place the drama of freedom and love. N. Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom Are people truly aware of the vast and ever-widening chasm between the financial economy and the real economy?
On the one side, we have veritable tidal waves of “money” sloshing all about the world driving markets to or close to all-time highs and inflating asset bubbles of every flavor and variety. On the other side, we have wage stagnation, loss of purchasing power, rising prices on the staples of life, and crushing household debt burdens, all of which are leading to perceptible declines in the overall standard of living for most “common” people. Yet the same “common” people appear more optimistic about their current situations and prospects than they have in years. I don't know about you, but I find that strange. Perhaps it has something to do with the perceptibility of our current, ongoing crash. I came across a video the other day in which the presenter argued for the potential for what he described as a “reverse crash.” Instead of 1929 and its subsequent Great Depression, think more along the lines of everything continuing to appear rosy and functional, only you will not be able to participate in the bulk of it in the long run because you will no longer be able to afford to. I don’t know how likely that scenario is, but we seem to be heading in that direction. Either way, one thing is certain. A crash of sorts is happening now and has been happening for some time. It's strange how so few seem to notice. Regular readers may recall how I got three chicks in one day in August last year. Sadly, one of those chicks perished within days, but the other two have grown into strapping young roosters. Yes, roosters.
I now have to deal with three cocks instead of one. Richie Ricardo, the original patriarch of the run, still rules the roost; however, his reign is currently being challenged by one of the most powerful motivating forces in Creation—adolescent hormones. Richie’s two male offspring—Junior, a.k.a “Little Richard,” a spitting image of his father, and Desiderio, a.k.a, “Desi,” a big beefcake of regal feathery whiteness—have both developed and are now consumed by seemingly unsatisfiable sex drives. This veritable explosion and expansion of erotic desire within the chicken coop has created considerable consternation for Richie and his 26 hens, who must now continuously contend with the concupiscence of the two young, randy roosters. Junior is the master of the sneak attack, while Desi prefers diversionary tactics to achieve his aims. Either way, Richie has his work cut out for him. He now spends his days chasing his impassioned progenies all over the run and yard to keep them from consummating their—ahem—carnal cupidity. Richie’s doggedness keeps the two lustful lads in check for most of the day; however, things change as evening approaches. Shortly after sunset, Richie calls his ladies to the coop before retiring for the night. Most of the hens heed the call and head inside with him, but as modernity would have it, a few independently-minded feminist types ignore the call and haughtily remain in the run for a few more minutes. With Richie out of the picture, these strong, independent hens put themselves at the mercy of Junior and Desi, who immediately recognize the increased opportunity to satiate their salacious desires and jump at the chance to exploit it. Luckily, the hens are strong and independent enough to ward off most of the teenagers’ advances; however, they are not strong nor independent enough push Junior and Desi away from the coop entrance, which the two young roosters purposely obstruct to increase their chances with the ladies. And this is where I come in. With a broom or shovel in hand, I shoo Junior and Desi away from the coop entrance, keep them at bay, and prevent them from mounting the strong, independent hens as they withdraw into the henhouse for the night. Once the hens are secure, Junior and Desi gaze up at me in frustration and dejection before sullenly retiring to their own resting place, separated from the main coop. I haven't found much time to dedicate to blogging lately. In light of this, I'm going to take a short break to reorganize my priorities. I should be back in a few days' time.
. . . that just makes you smile.  |
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