Worrying about evil is, quite frankly, small potatoes in comparison to a much greater human condition that plagues the vast majority of mankind; the absence of any consciousness of the spirit.
We pursue a path of consciousness that solely imbues our intellect and passions as the arbiters of our existence, and in extension, that of God’s existence. We actually believe that what we cannot rationalize, at this moment, therefore does not exist, and man’s history has consistently demonstrated this demoralizing condition.
Let’s look at the Bible for a moment. There is an argument – a position on God’s existence – that takes on the rationalization that if the Bible is errant in its assertions or circumstances, then God must not exist. I have to ask the question, “Why?”. Critics, for purposes of convenience and certain lack of awareness of spiritual matters, equate what they can see with their eyes and then perceive from paper pages with ink imprints, as somehow possessing some form of power that dictates over God and not under God.
Man believes his intellect and passions should be the sole arbiters of truth. My simple argument against that is man’s history. Such a consideration is obviously not true given the results, and to assert that it is our intellect and our passions that has at least gotten us this far, well that I would agree with you. We have obviously put performance aside.
This is all done with the permission of a lack of any consideration that there might be some things unknown that carry more weight than one’s own perceptions and reactions. This reminds me of the panic that strangers might have on a rapidly sinking ship; clawing at anything – buoy or anvil – that might retain their lives but for a moment longer. Little is the consideration that God might be a tad more omnipotent than paper pages and ink, and practically no one seems to accept the idea that God exceeds all understanding by the human intellect on all levels. We just continually want to place boundaries; limits to God’s overall presence, and control over, the metatheory of all metaphysics. We have to, because without such a rational, the average person would go insane for lack of the only real way to understanding God and His creation; through the spirit. This is The Way that Jesus does talk about, and we so aptly ignore.
The problem of the spirit lies in the fact that what is right there within us physically, and entwined in our consciousness and conscience, is an immaterial presence capable of providing all of the answers to good and to evil, to being and non-being. That spirit within each one of us is that singular essence that cannot be altered, but it can be diluted. It is right there and we have continual access to it. The problem is that we do not recognize it for what it is. The manner in which our spirit works is seen by us as but a set of behaviors, and as such, we dispense with it as simple human choice; free will. Our spirit is there with the answer, yet we see it as a choice. In so doing, any real, continuing benefit our spirit might provide us is lost in the milieu of other decisions or lack thereof. It is only in our passions that we want to reach out to the spirit for relief, and so we associate the expression of our passions as being of the spirit. Wrong, and so deadly to so many.
St. Paul once wrote:
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ – whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
I applaud Paul for recognizing that, while it would be a fatal blow to Christians if the Christ has not been raised from the dead, it held no logic that God therefore does not exist, but this is exactly how so many of us see the argument. And since one might not comprehend what would clearly be a miracle to a physical human – reanimation of flesh, intellect, and passion – the extraction from such thinking is that what might cause a miracle could not exist either. Tell me, is not the existence of anything a miracle? Just because we can dissect it, does that somehow reduce it miraculous nature? Just because we can awake each morning to it, and it is still there for us, that we should take it for granted and thus less than miraculous? Do you really think everything is that pitiful, that paltry, that meaningless, and that useless? Is that the summation on your tombstone, on earth’s, on the universe’s? Paul was a Jew first, then a Christian. He was lucky.
I noted earlier that our spirit is entwined within our consciousness and conscience. I want to say a little more on that matter. I said that our spirit can be diluted. What I mean is that when we intellectualize – use reason to excess – and when we rapture ourselves in our passions to excess, we diminish the light that the Christ references. We dilute its efficacy; leaving us to reason that it is indeed our intellect and our passions that will see us through life’s path. We literally fear too great our loneliness – one solely brought about by rejecting the spirit within – and thus bargain our existence with the real devil – our intellect and passions – rather than with God. This is the “fallen” man.
God Bless – Reese
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