Obsessing About Evil When Things Come to a Point is Not the Point of the Point

8/4/2022

The recognition that things essentially came to a point in 2020 is no justification for obsessing over the evil that brought things to a point.

Evil must be acknowledged in order to be resisted and overcome, but if evil becomes an "object" of obsession, it can be neither authentically resisted nor overcome.

Things coming to a point dissolves the gray areas and makes choices between good and evil clearer and sharper, but these choices involve more than crude rejection.

A strong disavowal of discerned evil is only meaningful if it is supported by a much stronger avowal of Good. Likewise, a strong avowal of Good is only meaningful if it inspires an even stronger avowal of Good.

Thus, affirming that one is "against" evil is but the tip of the iceberg. The affirmation is only meaningful if it is supported by a a larger and stronger desire "for" Good.

Without this mass, this bulk of Good, the tip of the iceberg has no basis or foundation. Icebergs are identified but not much is done about them, at least not at the spiritual level. After a while, the iceberg tips become too numerous to avoid. They jut out of the water everywhere like menacing fangs and eventually cause a collision.

Discovering and confirming the Good that one is "for" must form the mass of all "things coming to a point" choices. From a spiritual perspective, that mass -- that positive "for" for Good cannot remain submerged beneath the water but must instead "roll over" and emerge to the surface, thereby superseding the affirmation of evil.

At the same time, attempting to discover, affirm, and navigate Good while remaining in a state of intentional or unintentional oblivion to the reality of obvious and clearly discernible evil renders one blind to the dangers present in the water. Ultimately, collisions ensue.

Unfortunately, "point"-blind navigators rarely, if ever, understand what they hit or what hit them. Quite often, they don't even register the collision! In worst-case situations, they deny the reality of the collision altogether!

Things coming to a point is not about balance; it is about the discernment of evil followed by a powerful upsurge of being for Good that eclipses the discernment.

8 Comments

bruce charlton

8/4/2022 09:10:34

Agreed - the point of the point is that it makes discernment of evil easy; and therefore we can know (and perhaps potentially do) good.

Rui Artur

8/4/2022 12:28:24

I was recently reading Schuon and he has a very on point quote that I think underlines this very important point:

«if a particular phenomenon of evil seems incomprehensible to us, it is not so much because of our understanding has limits as it is for the simple reason that there is nothing to understand, except in an abstract manner. Which is to say that we understand perfectly that evil is either a privation or an excess and that it is necessary for such and such metaphysical reasons; we understand evil as such, but we do not understand such and such an evil. The concrete understanding of the absurd is a contradiction in terms, the absurd being precisely that which offers nothing to our understanding, except for its simple possibility and its evident falseness. If our ultimate refuge is God, intellectually as well as morally, it is because He alone is absolutely intelligible, whether we understand this a priori or not»

Nayra

8/16/2022 06:06:37

@Rui Artur I was recently reading the book "Meditations on the Tarot" and this quote points out to the same direction:
"[…] One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.
Unfortunately many authors—occultist and non-occultist—have dealt without rhyme or reason with the profound things of both good and evil. They believed they should “do their best” with respect to depth and penetration in their treatment of the subject of the mysteries of good and, equally, that of the secrets of evil. It is thus that Dostoyevsky released into the world certain profound truths of Christianity, and, at the same time, certain secret practical methods of evil. This is above all the case in his novel The Possessed.
Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil—and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil—is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. […] Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them—which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative élan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative élan! [...]
One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative élan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology.

johnson j

8/4/2022 18:32:24

Trying to understand evil is what led cuckservatives to bekng desensitized to it and conserving its advances. Its because they lack faith in God, that is genuine religious faith, and only have a psychological faith. This is also why evil people are always described by them as "crazy" rather than evil. They say God but they mean Freud. Their religion is psychology not any traditional religion despite what they say.

Francis Berger

8/4/2022 21:08:12

@ johnson j - I am inclined to agree about Freud. You could argue that Freud and Marx inflicted more spiritual damage in the twentieth century than the two world wars combined.

JMSmith link

8/5/2022 13:16:11

Are you saying that "things coming to a point" is something like the straw that breaks the camel's back? Is it the final indignity that makes one see, resent, and wish to roll back all the preceding indignities. I already see that my phrasing sounds more negative than yours, but it seems we don't love goodness as well as we should until we perceive that it's gone.

8/5/2022 19:51:15

@ JM - @ JM - No, we've been using things coming to a point (from CS Lewis's "That Hideous Strength") mostly to describe perception, recognition, and discernment.

The gray area between good and evil grows narrower until it eventually disappears. Distinctions between good and evil become sharper and more obvious -- to "the point" that they are difficult to deny, rationalize, or explain away honestly.

Things coming to a point forces choices. You either resist the obvious evil and embrace the good, or you go in the opposite direction. Failing to see these sharper distinctions, being apathetic to them, or continuing to rationalize them into oblivion also count as choices.

For example, when I hear someone say the church closures that affected all denominations across the globe was not an "earth-shattering" event or that the draconian birdemic measures were "necessary" or "not that big of a deal", I take that as evidence of someone who is a) inexplicably oblivious to glaring evil or b) recognized the evil but refuses to accept it as such.

To deny the enormous spiritual significance of such events is to reveal a state of utter despiritualization or a wrong choice. There are no other explanations for it.

8/5/2022 20:52:05

@ JM - Concerning churches (virtually all churches, not just the Church) post-2020, I am of the view that they are net on the side of global totalitarian evil. This doesn't mean that the denominations don't house pockets of good or that all churchgoers actively support their wayward leaderships, but it also doesn't dispel the fact that most forms of organized Christianity have been very visibly on the wrong side since 2020.

So, yes, there is a straw-camel element there. This doesn't mean people must stop attending church or abandon their churches, but they must not allow themselves to be lulled into complacency about where their churches are spiritually.

They don't necessarily need to externally resist the evil they sense within their churches, but they should definitely resist, reject, and repent internally -- in their hearts and in their prayers. Unfortunately, many are all too happy to simply slip into Trad-bot mode and explain away the grossest evils via shallow rationalizations and "gates of hell" assurances.

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Obsessing About Evil When Things Come to a Point is Not the Point of the Point

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