Constant

 

 

Update on morning of 8/27/2023

 

I had some thoughts come to me in my sleep last night above the ontological inconsistency inherent that God is all-good and unchanging, and yet moderation, change (especially change as self-teleologically directed as self-improvement, reifying oneself as a biological entelechy) and becoming seem like moral and spiritual ideals that I seek to reconcile. I think that there is still some mystery and inconsistency and puzzlement here that just are, and that cannot be explained away explicitly but I have some additional suggestions that mediates these dilemmas a bit.

 

For example, if the Divine Couple are good and good is mixed or moderate, could not the Divine Couple have some evil or imperfection in them, which they, of their own free will and conscious, willful effort, converted whatever was residually or originally evil, immoderate, or imperfect (however minor these trace traits were as part of their basic makeup)? This is a possible answer.

 

Or are benevolent deities just unborn, naturally, and supernaturally perfect, flawless, pure morally and spiritually good divinities? That is the traditional theology, and it may well be the case.

 

Jesus, whose father was perhaps the Holy Spirit sent by the Father to impregnate Mary, is half-divinity and half-human. For Jesus, being half-human indicates that he was born fallen, so he, of his own free will, at some point made the decision to transform the flawed part of his nature into a spiritually and morally good will that was almost or totally spiritually and morally good by the time he is in his early twenties.

 

I go back to Tolkien and Lord of the Rings to serve as a moral metaphor for explaining human frailty and wholesomeness. It seems to me that Elves are perfect, pure goodness. Yet them seem to have free will and think creatively. Free will means to me that the moral agent thinks sentiently and uses language and concepts to plan and justify his actions and existence. He cannot be free unless he can sin as a choice, and he cannot sin as a choice unless at least part of his nature is naturally rotten, so that the urge to sin really tempts him to select it as a way to act.

 

If the Elves were minor Divinities or Good Spirits that were pure goodness, then they will is not free: they cannot grow morally or spiritually as a matter of choice, only as a matter of preconditioned necessity for them. They are not praiseworthy for the good that they perform and exemplify because that is just who they are, not as they chose to be.

 

 It could be that Elves like Morgoth or Saurorn the wizard was born purely good and being like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge like did Adam and Eve, they became awake, perhaps mortal and knew the knowledge of good and evil, as evil entered the world, and now they had free will to choose to be good or bad, and they not only chose to be bad but like Lucifer, to try oppose, and overthrow the kingdom of heaven.

 

The Orcs, goblins, trolls, and bad spiders in Tolkien are pure evil, not of their own free will, but because their natures and environment made them what they were. They are not but pure badness, so though their evilness is blameworthy, they cannot be blamed—though they must be opposed and defeated, if possible, by earthlings—for what they cannot help being or doing.

 

With wizards, humans, dwarves, and hobbits, we have human races that are born evil, but can do good if they use their free will and train their consciences and self-control to will to be good and do good most of the time. Their goodness is free willed, so their actions are praiseworthy though the pure goodness of the elves is not praiseworthy (though desirable). When humans sin and do evil, their actions, freely chosen are, blameworthy, whereas the actions of orcs is not blameworthy (though undesirable) because they are evil robots.

 

These musings do no resolve the issues of the good divinities being all perfect, all good and unchanging, and yet the law of moderation implies that knowledge of imperfection in oneself makes ones freely willed moral victories something that is praiseworthy, a superior kind of moral goodness, merited and worthy, and can help one enjoy the reward of heaven and escape the torment of hell. If one is born imperfect, as humans are, and yet one wills to self-realize and to grow in knowledge love wisdom innovation, reason, competence, ill and creativity, then one is changing and becoming, and that is good.

 

From my 8/16/23 The Cavalier Chronicle newspaper I have Revised Common Lectionary religious column to share and then comment on. It is entitled Never A “Re-do”

 

“The Bible says God is unchanging. God’s nature does not change. God’s word stays constant. God’s promises do not change. How rare is consistency when we’ve experienced so much change over our lifetimes! Hear God’s unchanging Word in church this week . . . for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Romans 11;12A, 29-32.”

 

My response: Because of my interest in the spiritual/ontological/biological/ethical primacy of the moderate way, it is hard for me to reconcile that with God that is wholly perfect or nearly wholly perfect with being unchanging.

 

Because I see humans as in need of actualizing their potential, they only improve morally, spiritually, intellectually, and creatively by growing and changing. Yet I regard the benevolent deities as individualists, individuators and creator of cosmos out of primordial nothing or chaos, so how can they be unchanging and yet evolving or becoming, while we are evolving if we wish to serve them well by adding cosmos to the world?

 

Now, we need something to hang onto in this confusing changing, transitory, passing world, and life is short so the Biblical message above about God’s unchanging constancy seems comforting and realistic, and yet I have concerns that to be good and getting better is to be becoming.

 

Is this all a true contradiction or just a mystery that I must accept on faith? I do not have answers to these smart, difficult questions.

 

I will just assume that God is immortal, perfect, perfected, and unchanging on one hand, while knowing that God is part mortal, part evil, part imperfect and part changing (very small aspects of any of these fewer desirable characteristics., but I do not know how to sort this out.

 

An atheist would accuse me of talking gibberish, senseless, contradictory, false nonsense, I am sorry. I must call it as I see it, even when my version of what is true runs afoul of the law of contradiction.