Blog Archives

Blogging Suspended -- Perhaps Indefinitely

3/11/2023

I'm suspending my blogging to focus on other pursuits and responsibilities.

I'm not sure when or even if I will return to blogging.

Time will tell.

As of now, I anticipate at least a three-to-six month break.

Best,
Francis

Note added: The message above is quite cryptic. For the sake of clarity, I just want to reassure everyone that I am not in any sort of crisis. My decision to withdraw from the blog is based in something positive.

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Freedom is Prior to Being

3/11/2023

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My metaphysical assumptions begin here – Which came first, being or freedom?

Practically all of what constitutes metaphysics and philosophy posits the primacy of being over freedom.

The problem with this approach is it immediately, irreversibly, and inevitably slips into determinism.

If freedom is truly “free,” it cannot emanate purely from being. Neither can it be solely an effect of a being. That would imply that beings create freedom; that without beings there would be no freedom.

However, if beings create freedom – if beings are the source of freedom – then beings determine and cause freedom; and being-determined, being-caused freedom cannot be “real” freedom. The most it can be is the determining of “determining” beings, or the cause of “causing” beings.

At best, I believe beings can “shape” freedom. Ideally, I believe beings create in freedom.

Metaphysics that places the primacy of being over freedom is the essence of “in the beginning was the Logos” metaphysics. Yes, but in the beginning, there was also freedom.

More precisely, before the beginning there was freedom. The beginning happened in freedom; emerged from freedom. The Logos was a free act in freedom.

The Logos was in freedom and freedom was in the Logos.

The Logos is not external to freedom. However, there is an aspect of freedom external to the Logos.

If freedom does not retain this external aspect, it is not free. If it is not free, it cannot clash with the Logos.

And freedom does indeed clash with the Logos.

If Freedom is not free and does not possess aspects external to the Logos, the Logos cannot create. If the Logos could not create, the Logos would not be.

In plainer form – God creates in freedom but does not create freedom. If God does not create freedom, then God must contend with this freedom, as must man.

If both God and man must contend with uncreated freedom, then the purpose and meaning of life reside in how men contend with uncreated freedom and whether or not they choose to align this “contending” with God’s “contending.”

Of course, you can only contend with things you accept to be real and true, and as far as I can tell, barely anyone accepts uncreated freedom as real and true.

Note added: This will be my last post on this blog for a while. It may even be my last post on this blog. Full stop. See the next post for (some) details.

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Narrowing Into Expansion

3/8/2023

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If I had to use a single phrase to describe the overall course of my life over the past three or four years, I would say that it has been narrowing into expansion.

On the one hand, many of the things I once found intriguing no longer pique my interest. Many of the things in which I once held at least a modicum of faith and hope have become distasteful and unsatisfying. Many of the things I used to think about have become unthinkable. The imaginable -- unimaginable.

On the other hand, many things I did not know existed now exist for me. Many of the things I could barely conceptualize now fill me with unfathomable faith and hope. I find I can now think about things I once believed to be unthinkable. My imagination overflows with the unimaginable.

Perceptions narrow; intuition expands.

Narrowing into expansion.

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On the Other Side of Truth-Correcting Nations and Civilizations

3/6/2023

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I've always considered Christian truth to be revolutionary and transfiguring; powerful enough to collapse nations and civilizations, albeit in a positive spiritual sense.

The revolutionary and transfiguring quality of Christian truth presents a spiritual challenge to all temporal nations and civilizations, which helps explain why nations and civilizations throughout history have resorted to "correcting" Christian truth to suit their temporal aims and purposes.

Nations and civilizations no longer concern themselves with "correcting" Christian truth. They have opted to collapse themselves in total opposition to Christian truth. The motivations driving the collapse are spiritually negative to the core.

Yet within this negative shines a positive. We no longer have to tremble over the prospect of Christian truth triggering the collapse of nations and civilizations. We are no longer held hostage by the "end of the world."

We are now free to concentrate solely on "uncorrected" Christian truth and the spiritual positives on the other side of "truth-correcting" nations and civilizations.

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The Benefit of Combining One's Passions

3/4/2023

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My son has been passionate about Lego for as long as I can remember, but his passion for history is a more recent development.

Over the past six months, he has shown increasing interest in Ancient Greece and Rome and spends hours a week reading about the Greco-Roman world. He has also discovered a neat way to combine his love of Lego with his newfound fascination for the classical period via the LCM Brick Show YouTube channel, which features hundreds of Lego stop-motion renditions of famous historical battles and wars. The one below -- which my son brought to my attention earlier this evening -- chronicles the origins of the Cimbrian Wars in 113 BC.

I tip my hat to the people behind these animations. Each one must take ages to make, but the effort is well worth it. Be forewarned, as far as YouTube channels go, LCM Brick Show definitely falls into the "potentially addictive" category.

Note added: LCM Brick Show is just one of many Lego stop-motion channels. All are equally "potentially addictive." Proceed with caution.

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Being a Christian Today Means Having Faith in the Faith Jesus Has in Us

3/3/2023

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Slightly edited from a response to a thought-provoking comment JM Smith left on this post.

Well-meaning Christians are quick to point out that Romantic Christianity sets the bar too high for most people to follow.

Whenever I hear something along those lines, I am immediately reminded of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor who accuses Jesus of overestimating human nature and setting the bar too high for most people to follow. The Grand Inquisitor spends the bulk of the story explaining why and how he and his church have set about "correcting" Jesus's "mistake".

What was Christ's mistake? ". . . a kind of promise of freedom which they in their simplicity and inborn turpitude are unable even to comprehend, which they go in fear and awe of—for nothing has ever been more unendurable to man and human society than freedom!"

The Grand Inquisitor then goes on to accuse Christ of cruelty for expecting so much of people. Why didn't He simply give into the temptations in the desert and provide the people what they really wanted?

Mystery. Miracle. Authority.

Had Christ provided that, He would have unburdened people of their freedom, and they would have followed Him slavishly without question because -- as the Grand Inquisitor points out -- nothing is more unbearable for man than freedom.

But Christ did not give into the temptations. He refused to relieve people of their "burden" of freedom. On the contrary, He sought to increase freedom. And this, according to the Grand Inquisitor, reveals Christ's cruelty in setting the bar too high.

I could go on, but I think the point is clear. If the bar for Romantic Christianity is too high, then it is too high in the same sense that Jesus's offer of freedom is "too high" in the Grand Inquisitor story.

At its core, The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is about faith. It reveals the undeniable fact that Jesus has immense faith in us. The Grand Inquisitor considers this to be a mistake on Jesus's part.

I don't.

I believe Jesus's faith in us reveals a foundation upon which we can co-create something truly divine.

The Grand Inquisitor story reveals that Jesus had faith in us. Sadly, it also reveals our lack of faith in ourselves and others. More significantly, it reveals our lack of faith in Jesus. More precisely, our lack of faith in His faith in us.

Christians have a choice before them. Do they start finally living up to Christ's faith in them or do they continue to regard Christ's faith in them to be a mistake that needs perpetual correcting a lá some Grand Inquisitor or other?

Simply put - it is spiritually impossible for Christians to have faith in Jesus if they reject the faith Jesus has in them.

It is spiritually impossible for Christians to have faith in Jesus if they believe that He set the bar too high.

For me, a big part of Romantic Christianity involves having faith in Jesus's faith in us. It involves recognizing that the bar He set is not "too high."

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The Wounded Angel

3/2/2023

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The Wounded Angel - Hugo Simberg - 1903

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Reverting to Christendom Consciousness Works Against God

3/2/2023

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A slightly edited response to Anti-Gnostic's comments on this post:

I believe Imperium Christianity or Christendom or centralized organized Christianity served a valuable and necessary purpose, but it also served a particular form of human consciousness, which I will refer to here as heteronomy - the spiritual and material condition of strong traditional norms and values supported by stern and rigid external demands upon the individual, freedom, and self-determination.

Within this framework, loyalty and obedience are the highest virtues, while freedom is a lesser virtue that is quickly sacrificed for tradition, God, or the greater good. This form of consciousness slowly began to fade in the West around the time of the Renaissance and has been fading ever since.

I interpret this to mean that God desires that we abandon this form of consciousness and move toward greater freedom, personality, subjectivity and creativity. Moreover, I believe he desires for us to begin understanding Him on these terms.

People in the West have been moving in this direction for centuries, but it has been mostly a movement of "free from" God rather than "free for" God.

Without God, the shift toward greater freedom, personality, and creativity has collapsed back into a form of godless heteronomy, complete with its own inverted value system and external rigid demands.

Nevertheless, exchanging our current demonic, anti-Christian totalitarianism for a return to some form of Christian totalitarianism would do more spiritual and, potentially, worldly harm than good.

I don't believe God's ultimate plan for humanity is to revert to some kind of universalized worship of Him under the yolk of heteronomy complete with all of its rigid external forms and demands.

I believe God's ultimate plan for humanity involves humans becoming divinized co-creators with God, but the success of this plan is not up to God alone -- man has a say in it as well.

In this sense, I think Romantic Christianity has far more to offer man in this time and place than any revived Christendom ever could.

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