Discovering oneself – one’s true self, real self, divine self, call it what you will – is one of the underlying purposes of Creation. With that in mind, it is clear that this journey of self-discovery involves other Beings.
If it didn’t, God, as a Being, as the primary Creator, and as a loving parent, would probably have placed us in a creation comprised of isolated, self-contained, hermetically sealed, worlds-of-one deprived of all contact, communication, and relationships with other Beings. The sort of arrangement where we would have no one but ourselves to contend with. No one but ourselves to find and discover.
Creation is the polar opposite of that kind of arrangement, which reveals much about the limits of isolated and secluded forms of self-discovery. One of my deepest metaphysical assumptions involves the belief that we existed in self-containment, isolation, seclusion, and aloneness before our mortal lives; however, this condition of “perfect freedom” represented an extremely low form of consciousness that deadened awareness of ourselves as free beings.
We may have been dimly aware of our existence, but we were probably completely unaware of why we existed or what we could do with this existence. We may have had some murky grasp of self, but I suspect this understanding was at best tenuous and intermittent, blinking off as mysteriously and suddenly as it had blinked on, indicating that self-knowledge is unachievable through the self alone – it required other Beings.
One way to think about Creation is to see it as an arrangement in which the self is in continuous contact with other Beings or selves, who, as selves in their own right, are in constant contact with other Beings or selves. This arrangement inevitably depends upon relationships between Beings. It is through these relationships that individual Beings can work toward discovering their true selves.
Thus, an underlying purpose of Creation is to discover oneself through others, which is not the same as the modern altruistic impulse of denying the self for others.
I may never fully understand another Being in mortal life, but relationships with other Beings may help me to know myself. Likewise, another Being may never fully understand me as a self, but my “self” may help the other Being better understand its “self”.
Other Beings cannot help me to understand myself if they demand I dissolve my “self” into their “selves”, nor can I help other Beings if they subsume their selves under my “self”.
With this in mind, Christianity is a religion of discovering and fortifying the self, not for self-worship or self-annihilation, but for being or becoming the sort of self that aligns with God, participates in Creation through love, and, thereby, adds to and expands both love and creation.
We may not be able to achieve this fully in mortal life, but if we believe on Jesus . . .
If it didn’t, God, as a Being, as the primary Creator, and as a loving parent, would probably have placed us in a creation comprised of isolated, self-contained, hermetically sealed, worlds-of-one deprived of all contact, communication, and relationships with other Beings. The sort of arrangement where we would have no one but ourselves to contend with. No one but ourselves to find and discover.
Creation is the polar opposite of that kind of arrangement, which reveals much about the limits of isolated and secluded forms of self-discovery. One of my deepest metaphysical assumptions involves the belief that we existed in self-containment, isolation, seclusion, and aloneness before our mortal lives; however, this condition of “perfect freedom” represented an extremely low form of consciousness that deadened awareness of ourselves as free beings.
We may have been dimly aware of our existence, but we were probably completely unaware of why we existed or what we could do with this existence. We may have had some murky grasp of self, but I suspect this understanding was at best tenuous and intermittent, blinking off as mysteriously and suddenly as it had blinked on, indicating that self-knowledge is unachievable through the self alone – it required other Beings.
One way to think about Creation is to see it as an arrangement in which the self is in continuous contact with other Beings or selves, who, as selves in their own right, are in constant contact with other Beings or selves. This arrangement inevitably depends upon relationships between Beings. It is through these relationships that individual Beings can work toward discovering their true selves.
Thus, an underlying purpose of Creation is to discover oneself through others, which is not the same as the modern altruistic impulse of denying the self for others.
I may never fully understand another Being in mortal life, but relationships with other Beings may help me to know myself. Likewise, another Being may never fully understand me as a self, but my “self” may help the other Being better understand its “self”.
Other Beings cannot help me to understand myself if they demand I dissolve my “self” into their “selves”, nor can I help other Beings if they subsume their selves under my “self”.
With this in mind, Christianity is a religion of discovering and fortifying the self, not for self-worship or self-annihilation, but for being or becoming the sort of self that aligns with God, participates in Creation through love, and, thereby, adds to and expands both love and creation.
We may not be able to achieve this fully in mortal life, but if we believe on Jesus . . .
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