Francis Berger

It Is A Sin To Renounce One's Own Salvation For The Sake Of Another's

9/20/2020

Loving one's neighbor as one loves oneself is one of the cornerstones of Christian love. Salvation - saving human beings from sin and its consequences, which stem from a separation from God - is the major component of this cornerstone. In other words, a Christian loves his neighbor - an actual concrete being who represents humanity through the depths of his or her own individual spiritual depth of personality - he is interested primarily in certain valuable spiritual acts that may spread salvation. The chief aim of these acts would be to help keep the neighbor aligned with God or to help to bring the neighbor into alignment with God.

The love of God underpins all acts and movements of neighborly love. Thus, neighborly love is motivated foremost by a Christian's love of God. This love of God includes the love of the divine within oneself; that is, the love of one's own ideal spiritual self. Love of the neighbor emanates from the core of this divine self and "loves" the ideal spiritual self or what is divine in the neighbor. In this sense, Christian love aims for an expansion of love and salvation that is both concrete and personal.

Love of one's neighbor can only work if it is supported by self love - by the love of what is divine within oneself. This love of what is divine within oneself can only work if it is supported by the love of God. If any of these links are removed, the alignment required to practice proper neighborly love ceases to exist. Conversely, love of one's neighbor cannot include anything that sacrifices one's own salvation. Put another way, any act done for the sake of a neighbor's salvation that includes sacrifice of one's own salvation is not only counterproductive, but sinful.

When a Christian is willing to renounce his own salvation for the sake of another, he is in a state of sin. He is in a state of sin because he has essentially declared that he has separated himself from God; that he has turned his back on his own ideal spiritual self; on his own divine self. Though such a declaration may appear noble on the surface, it is actually a massive performative contradiction. True love of one's neighbor is supported by purely positive qualities. Any "love" of the neighbor that includes the surrender of one's own salvation nullifies these positive qualities and turns the act into one of pure negation. Put in simpler terms, Christians cannot hope to turn their neighbors toward God if they themselves have turned away from God. Any thought or action that entertains such hopes are not only misguided, but also sinful.

Here's something to consider - Jesus was willing to sacrifice nearly everything to save others, but He did not and never would have considered renouncing His own salvation to ensure the salvation of his neighbors.

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Christian Love and The Love of Mankind: Two Entirely Different Worlds

9/19/2020

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Love is the foundation of Christianity. Put another way, love is the necessary base upon which the axioms attesting to Christian truth and reality stand. Without this foundation - without this base, the axioms that define and communicate what it means to “believe on” Jesus as the way, the truth, and life are weakened and degraded.

Nevertheless, the weakening and degradation of the axioms that attest to the truth and reality of Christianity are not indicative of any weakening or degradation of the truth and reality of Christian love. On the contrary, the weakening and degradation of the axioms attesting to the truth and reality of Christian love are indicative of a weakened and degraded consciousness – of a consciousness that has been rendered incapable of comprehending authentic Christian love as a worthy and proper force that is self-evidently true and requires no proof to support it.

We live in an era in which authentic Christian love has been fully eclipsed by altruism and the love of mankind. For all intents and purposes, the vast majority of modern people have become incapable of understanding – to say nothing of internalizing or adhering to – the fundamental truth and reality of Christian love. What we are experiencing today is the near-total abandonment of authentic Christian love in favor of a near-total devotion to humanitarian love.

Of course, many have claimed that this shift in “love consciousness” is a necessary revolutionary step; that this transformative movement of love is an ascending force representing the next stage in the evolution of “human global consciousness”.

Mainstream Christianity has certainly embraced this idea, and many mainstream churches have begun agitating for a new social contract to create a new human community, a tangible “civilization of love” based upon a heightened sense of humanitarianism and altruism fueled by “social and political love.” All of this is packaged and sold to Christians as the very same Christian love Jesus demonstrates and attests to in the Gospels.

And for all intents and purposes, most contemporary Christians have bought into this faux conception of Christian love, to the point that most now regard this indiscriminate and abstract “love of mankind” as the highest value to which all human beings, Christians foremost among them, can aspire.

As a result, the “love of mankind” has become not only become synonymous with Christian love in the minds of most Christians, but also forms the axioms attesting to Christian truth and reality, which, in the minds of most modern Christians begins and ends with the temporal expansion of general welfare; an expansion that must include every single member of the human race.

The argument that authentic Christian love and humanitarian love are not only synonymous and compatible, but actually one-in-the-same, is more than a mere misconception – it is carefully crafted and purposive falsehood, as Max Scheler notes in Ressentiment:

If we ignore the verbal similarity of the terms “Christian love” and “universal love of mankind” and concentrate on their respective significance and spiritual atmosphere, we feel that they represent entirely different worlds.

First of all, modern humanitarianism is in every respect a polemical and protesting concept. It protests against divine love, and consequently against the Christian unity and harmony of divine love, self-love, and love of one’s neighbor which is the “highest commandment” of the Gospel. Love is not to be directed at the “divine” essence in man, but only at man as such, outwardly recognizable as a member of his species, at him who “is a member of the human race.” This idea restricts love to the “human species,” detaching it from all higher forces and values as well as from all other living beings and the rest of the world. “Man” is isolated not only from the “kingdom of God,” but also from the non-human forms and forces of nature.

At the same time, the community of angels and souls is replaced by “Mankind” as it exists at the moment— mankind as a visible, limited, earthly natural being. The Christian community of souls also includes the dead, i.e., the whole of spiritually alive humanity, organized according to the aristocracy of its moral merits and personal values. Thus the real object of love extends into visible contemporary mankind insofar as divine spiritual life has germinated in it, but is much wider and greater and is always accessible in a living interchange of prayer, intercession, and veneration.

“Love of mankind” is also polemical against (and devoid of piety toward) the love and veneration of the dead, the men of the past, and the tradition of their spiritual values and volitions in every form. Its object undergoes yet another change: the “neighbor” and the “individual,” who alone represents humanity in its depth of personality, is replaced by “mankind” as a collective entity. All love for a part of mankind—nation, family, individual—now appears as an unjust deprivation of what we owe only to the totality.

It is characteristic that Christian terminology knows no “love of mankind.” Its prime concept is “love of one’s neighbor.” It is primarily directed at the person and at certain spiritually valuable acts—and at “man” only to the degree that he is a “person” and accomplishes these acts, i.e., to the degree to which he realizes the order of the “kingdom of God.” It is directed at the “neighbors,” the “nearest” visible beings who are alone capable of that deeper penetration into the layer of spiritual personality which is the highest form of love.

Modern humanitarian love, on the other hand, is only interested in the sum total of human individuals. Bentham’s principle that each individual should count for one, and none for more than one, is only a conscious formulation of the implicit tendency of modern “humanitarianism.” Therefore all love for a more restricted circle here appears a priori as a deprivation of the rights due to the wider circle—without any reference to such questions as value and “nearness to God.” Thus patriotism is supposed to deprive “mankind,” etc.

The difference between Christian love and modern humanitarianism lies not only in their objects, but also in the subjective side of the process of loving. Christian love is essentially a spiritual action and movement, as independent of our body and senses as the acts and laws of thinking. Humanitarian love is a feeling, and a passive one, which arises primarily by means of psychical contagion when we perceive the outward expression of pain and joy.

We suffer when we see pain and rejoice when we see pleasant sensations. In other words, we do not even suffer in sympathy with the other person’s suffering as such, but only with our sense perception of his pain. It is no coincidence that the philosophical and psychological theoreticians of the 17th and 18th centuries, who gradually elaborated the theoretical formulation of the new ethos, define the essence of love with reference to the phenomena of sympathy, compassion, and shared joy, which in turn they reduce to psychical contagion.

The term psychical contagion is a fitting one, though I would suggest our contemporary wholesale abandonment of Christian love is, in essence, spiritual contagion.

To avoid this spiritual contagion (or recover from it), contemporary Christians must trace their faith back to a proper understanding of authentic Christian love.

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Quite Possibly The Worst Cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" Ever Recorded

9/17/2020

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If there were an award for the worst ever cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, it would have to go to Bad News and their take on the song.

Not many outside the UK are familiar with Bad News, which is, well . . . too bad. A mock heavy band created for Channel 4's The Comic Strip Presents, Bad News appeared at roughly the same time as Rob Reiner's classic rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (and was likely overshadowed by the Spinal Tap phenomenon beyond the borders of Great Britain).

Anyway, what makes Bad News' version of Bohemian Rhapsody particularly ghastly and funny is the fact that it features two members of Queen: Guitarist Brian May produced the record while bassist John Deacon lent his talents to the track itself.

Enjoy (if you can)!

Note added: The song is taken from Bad News self-titled debut album, which contains hilarious audio clips of the band squabbling in the studio. (Warning, other clips from the album, available on You Tube, contain a great deal of foul language.)

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You Think Thinking Will Align You With God?

9/16/2020

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Think again.

Thinking searches for meaning. Thinking determines meaning. Thinking loves meaning. Thinking yearns to manifest the highest good.

But here's a thought - does meaning love thinking? Moreover, does the highest good yearn to manifest thinking?

The highest good is love. There is nothing higher than the act and movement of love. The act and movement of love underpins Creation, but the true value of love is not defined by Creation, which is the result and achievement of love, but rather by love itself.

The value of love is love itself - its act and movement. No rational principle, no law, no justice is higher than this value. This value ascends as it descends. It only becomes perfect when it lowers itself to the imperfect. This is the highest good. This is the highest meaning.

The act and movement of love springs from an energetic feeling of abundance, security, strength, and inner salvation - a feeling of overflowing fullness and invincibility of one's own life and existence.

This act and movement of love inspires one to love life more than the meaning of life.

Love grows in action, not in thinking.

It is through the act and movement of love that one becomes aligned with God.

Note added: The above was inspired by and largely lifted from a recent re-reading of some portions of Max Scheler's Ressentiment and Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov.

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The Hungarian Mona Lisa

9/14/2020

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Not only is Pál Szinyei Merse (1845 -1920) Hungary's most iconic painter, but he also ranks among the most popular, especially among common Hungarians. Though I like Merse, I don't understand the Hungarian fascination with his 1874 painting Lady in a Violent dress, which is often informally referred to as The Hungarian Mona Lisa.

The image is ubiquitous over here; to the point that I would wager every fifth household in Hungary has a copy or reproduction of this simple portrait hanging on a wall. For example, my paternal grandmother had a copy, as did my paternal great aunt. I'm fairly certain my maternal grandparents also owned one. I have spotted the seated figure in many of neighbors houses and have even come across her at the university campus where I work.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine painting, but I just can't wrap my head around its popularity, which lingers on to this day.

Is it the simplicity of the composition? The violet color of the dress? The humble elegance the lady projects? The faraway gaze? The ambiguous expression? The uncomplicated landscape in the background?

Note added: I personally believe nostalgia fuels the painting's popularity, but this is just a hunch.

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It Is A Sin To Renounce One's Own Salvation For The Sake Of Another's

Christian Love and The Love of Mankind: Two Entirely Different Worlds

Quite Possibly The Worst Cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" Ever Recorded

You Think Thinking Will Align You With God?

The Hungarian Mona Lisa

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