JR26: Materialism, Pauline Thought, and the Kingdom

A: For the last couple of days, ever since you introduced the idea that Pauline Christianity has always been in some ways a Materialist religion, my head has been spinning, and I've been trying to figure out exactly what you mean. I can feel that it's right in the part of my self that's intuitive, but the rest of my head hasn't caught up to my intuition yet. So can we take it from the top?

"They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming?He replied: It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying,’Look, it’s over here’ or ‘Look, it’s over there.’ Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it” (Gospel of Thomas 113). Each autumn, this walnut tree yields its harvest to those among God’s creatures who need it most. They receive these gifts without any reliance on human prayers or covenants. There’s wonderful freedom in trusting God to do what God does best when you don’t take on the burden of believing you’re somehow responsible for maintaining the laws of Creation. Photo credit JAT 2014.

J: No problem.

A: How 'bout we start with some definitions? And by the way, I'd just like to comment once again on the fact that you're a true philosophy geek, you know that? Your face lights up like a Christmas tree every time you get to talk about a juicy philosophical dilemma. I can sure see how you ended up being a radical theologian in your time.

J: I was a much more successful philosopher than I was a carpenter. Honest to God, although I had to work as a tradesman to pay for my room and board, I'm pretty sure some of my handiwork could have ended up on "Galilean DIY Disaster."

A: Measure once, cut twice?

J: I'm not a natural when it comes to tools. I think like a designer, not like an engineer. I would flunk out of civil engineering, I'm sure of it. But redesigning the layout of a home so it supports a person's soul needs -- that I can do.

A: My father, the retired engineer and all-round handyman, would think you're a wuss. But you're so much like most of the other male physicians I know -- great with healing, great with academic study, not so good with the toolkit. (For the record, my ex is a physician, and we socialized with other people who were in medicine. So I know -- or rather, knew -- a lot of the male physicians around here.) Anyway, back to the philosophizing.

J: Okay. Well, the philosophy of Materialism is based on the theory that matter -- by that I mean baryonic matter -- is the only thing that exists. It's a WYSIWYG understanding of reality -- what you see is what you get. What you see is atoms and molecules and measurable substances and Newtonian laws. Therefore, according to this theory, all things in Nature -- including mind, thought, consciousness, even love -- can be explained solely by looking at the small little parts that make up the whole. It's the idea that macroscopic reality -- the daily reality that human beings live and work and breathe in -- is just a bigger version of the microscopic reality of atoms and molecules and gravitational forces, etc. Of course, as researchers in various scientific disciplines now know, there are huge gaps between the "macro" theories and the "micro" theories. At the subatomic or quantum level, the universe is a weird, weird place. At the other end of the scale -- the cosmological or grand universal scale -- the universe is also a weird, weird place. Only at the immediate level of reality, if I can call it that -- the level where human beings happen to live a fairly safe and predictable Newtonian kind of life -- only here is a Materialist philosophy even remotely justified.

A: How does Materialism understand God?

J: A person who embraces Materialist belief in the natural laws of "cause and effect" may or may not believe in the existence of God. Many, if not most, Materialists are atheists. Atheists, of course, believe that existence can be explained entirely on the basis of scientific research. No God is required. However, it's entirely possible to be a religious Materialist, a Materialist who believes in God. Deism is a good example of this.

A: Deism is a belief system that says there's a God, one God who created the universe, but that this God later stepped away from his Creation and doesn't participate in an active way in our lives or our suffering. God is the Great Clockmaker who made a perfect timepiece and now lets it run without interference. However, there's still an acceptance of the idea that God will reward virtue and punish vice in the afterlife. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were all Deists . . . Tell me again why Deism isn't the same as Pauline Christianity and Platonism?

J: It is Pauline/Platonic Christianity. Deism is what you get when you strip away later church doctrines about ritual and sacraments and prayer to saints (intercession) and belief in Marianism and belief in holy relics and belief in holy Crusade and belief in papal infallibility. Deism is Pauline thought in its purest form -- a belief in the inviolability and perfection of Divine Law. Divine Law that governs "cause and effect" in the material world.

A: But Paul goes on and on in Romans about the inherent peril of "the law," how knowledge of the law led him into sin.

J: Paul isn't attacking all Law. He's attacking the laws he no longer agrees with. Paul spends all his time in his letters talking about the "new and improved" Law -- the Law that he himself is teaching. The New Covenant. It's easy to forget that Covenant is Law -- nomos in the Greek. Nomos was a complex idea that included both human authority and divine authority. When Paul talks about the "new covenant," he's talking about a new version of Divine Law. A new version of the Law of Cause and Effect. "If you do this (believe in Christ), then according to the inviolable Law of Creation, you must receive this (salvation plus a reserved parking spot in Heaven)." It's a reductionist philosophy. Just as Materialism is a reductionist philosophy. Everything is reduced to a simple "cause and effect" formula.

A: Just as Wisdom teachings in the Ancient Near East were a "cause and effect" formula: if you obey the instructions on the "virtue lists" and disavow the behaviours on the "vice lists," God is required to reward you because the Law says so.

J: Paul, clever manipulator that he was, observed that there was a "niche market" of people who'd become disillusioned with the certainty of Wisdom teachings. Obviously there was something missing from the formula if slaves were still slaves and women were still being punished for being women. The Hellenistic cities of the Roman Empire were filled to bursting with resentful slaves and restless, intelligent women. Who better to target if you're planning to launch a new religious movement? Slaves with money and women with money. You don't need to slog through the trenches and carry out years and years of missionary work -- you just need to get yourself some patrons with deep pockets. Paul doesn't even deny his reliance on patrons.

A: One staggering fact that jumps out in the Gospel of Mark is the fact that you have no patron. Nor do you seem to want one. This would have shocked readers in 1st century CE Roman-held regions.

J: Part of my objective was to refuse to "play by the rules."

A: In the end, so many of these religious debates and religious conflicts boil down to "the rules" -- the law, the covenant, the nomos. But all these rules . . . they're external. They come from outside the inner self. They pretend to be objective. They pretend to be based on observable realities from nature. Yet enforcement of them relies on brute force, on rote memory, and on loyalty to patrons or other important religious/political leaders . . . at least I think that's right. Is that right?

J: Yes. The one thing Paul doesn't want is for people to know how to tap into their own inner wisdom, their own inner guidance. He doesn't want them to know how to hear God's quiet voice in the still, clear night. He doesn't want his "community of fellowship" to find actual freedom. He only wants them to believe they have freedom (exousia) through the proper use of conscience (suneidesis). He wants them to be willing slaves. Slaves who won't rock the boat of authority.

A: This is really sick, you know that?

J: Of course it is. There's a reason these teachings have spontaneously led to generation after generation of abuses -- abuses against the poor, the environment, against other Christians, not to mention countless non-Christians. Also abuses against God. These abuses are the "weeds" that have grown from the "seeds" that Paul intentionally planted.

A: Is this why Paul never mentions healing miracles in the letters he himself wrote?

J: Yes. Paul can't afford to have his community of hagiasmos and koinonia (holiness and fellowship) distracted by the idea that God is deeply committed to ongoing healing, communication, and relationship with all people through the Kingdom within. The Kingdom within, of course, is the core self -- the soul. The good soul. That's how God connects with all God's children -- through the good soul that everybody is. God can and does communicate by other means, too, but the one connection that can never be taken away is the soul connection. You can cut out somebody's eyes so they can't see any more signs (and, unfortunately, this has been done). You can cut out somebody's ears so they can't hear any more external messages. You can cut out somebody's tongue so they can no longer speak the prayers they long to sing aloud. All these abuses have been perpetrated "in the name of God" at one time or another. But nobody can cut out the connection to the soul. You'd have to carve out the entire brain and central nervous system of a person in order to fully quench the soul connection, the body-soul nexus. Obviously this would lead to death.

A: Hey! It's another thing to add to the Jesus' Seminar's pot for the question of "Why Jesus Pissed People Off So Much That He Got Himself Crucified."

J: Paul works very hard to ensure that his followers believe in a Kingdom that's on the outside -- "out there" in the Materialist world of cause and effect. "Out there" where they have no control over any of it themselves. Even more brilliant, Paul insists the Kingdom of God isn't here yet. It belongs to some maybe-not-so-distant Day of Judgment. So not only is the Kingdom a materialistic reality outside the self, but it hasn't even "arrived" yet [1 Corinthians 15]. This prompts regular people to be thinking about the future instead of the present. This encourages them to shift their focus, their attention, and even their relationships to the future. To the future "effects" of today's "causes." People are so busy worrying about the future that they can't hear God's voice today.

A: Therefore they can't hear the guidance they long for.

J: The guidance they want and need.

A: I like your version of the Kingdom teachings much better.

JR22: Why You Need To Know Yourself (Mystical Commentary on Saying 67)

A: Can you please explain as simply as possible WHY it matters that each person has a unique soul blueprint and WHY it's important for each person on a spiritual journey to uncover the specific details of his or her own unique blueprint?
 
J: Let's use an imaginary person as an example to make this simpler. I'm going to call this imaginary person Jane Tamaguchi.
 
A: Okay.
 
J: Like all human beings, Jane is a soul. She doesn't have a soul. She is a soul. She's an angel -- a child of God. Like all angels, she was born as a soul long before she decided to incarnate as a human being. Soul energy isn't visible in the third dimension -- the dimension that human beings live in during their temporary lives as incarnated souls -- but soul energy can be felt in the third dimension.
 
A: Can you give some examples of "feelable" soul energy? (I think I just invented a new word.)

J: Yes. When you feel a deep sense of connection with another person, that's soul energy. When you feel empathy for other creatures, that's soul energy. When you feel committed, romantic, monogamous love, that's soul energy. When you give or receive forgiveness, that's soul energy. When you're willing to trust in a loving and compassionate God, that's soul energy.
 
A: Those are all emotions. Positive emotions. Uplifting emotions.

Thomas 67: “One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.” (Translation by Stevan Davies.Photo credit JAT 2015.)

J: Yes. All souls are intensely emotional in a positive, uplifting, creative, intuitive, loving way.
 
A: So much for Christian angelology, which says angels have no emotions of their own and are simply instruments of God's work and God's will.
 
J: Yes. That's another Christian doctrine that should go the way of the 8-track recording system.
 
A: But angels also have minds, as you've said previously. They have minds plus emotional hearts.
 
J: Yes. Christians have long believed -- based largely on theories of the soul put forward by Plato, Aristotle, Tertullian, Augustine, and others -- that the soul itself consists of a single indivisible substance. Arguments raged as to the exact nature of this substance. But the basic idea was that the soul was made of just one thing because -- as the theory went -- the soul couldn't really be a soul if it could be "divided" into two or more substances. It should go without saying that this is a ridiculous supposition. There are no analogies anywhere in nature or in the quantum world for a complex lifeform made of a single element such as pure hydrogen or pure gold. All lifeforms, whether they exist in the third dimension or in higher dimensions, are extremely complex. A soul is a quantum being whose "biology" is far more complex than that of any 3D creature -- which is pretty much what you'd expect for children of God who were born in the fourth dimension, and who will spend most of their eternal existence in parts of the "implicate order" that can't be seen or measured by human beings in the third dimension.
 
A: So people just have to take it on trust? On blind faith?
 
J: I wouldn't say that. Individuals who want to take the time to do intensive research into quantum physics and quantum biology will soon discover that the universe being studied by today's scientists is extremely complex. This isn't the cosmology of Plato or Thomas Aquinas. It's breathtakingly complicated and interconnected. There's plenty of room in there for a modern doctrine of the soul that doesn't in any way violate the laws of quantum biology.
 
A: Okay. So tell me about Jane. Who is she as a soul?
 
J: Jane is a female angel, and for the purposes of this discussion she's heterosexual.
 
A: I know what this means for human beings. But what does this mean for angels?
 
J: It means exactly what it sounds like. All angels are one of two sexes: male or female. Just as with human beings. There are no "in-between" sexes or alien sexes. All angels are either male (the same sex as God the Father) or female (the same sex as God the Mother). This is pretty much what you'd expect by looking at life on Planet Earth.
 
A: Some creatures on Earth are able to reproduce without a sexual partner. Komodo Dragons, for instance.
 
J: There are different modes of reproduction for creatures that live on Planet Earth. Reproduction is part of the 3D biological package. It isn't part of the 4D soul package. We'll come back to that at a later time.
 
A: But sexual orientation is part of the 4D soul package. Why is sexual orientation necessary for angels?
 
J: Because each angel has a soulmate. One true eternal love partner. A divine spouse. The one partner in all of Creation who's a perfect match in every way, including intimate, private ways. Each angel in God's Creation is paired with his or her perfect eternal partner. For many angelic couples, the perfect partner is of the same sex. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
 
A: So God the Father and God the Mother are not a same-sex couple themselves, but it's okay with God if their children choose a same-sex partner to share eternity with.
 
J: Yes. God's children are not carbon copies of their divine parents. God's children come in every size and shape and colour imaginable. Yet every soul couple is blissfully happy, blissfully complete. This is what God the Mother and God the Father want for their children -- bliss. Everybody's different. Yet everybody's happy. It's the perfect divine family when you think about it.
 
A: So Jane has a specific sex -- female -- and a specific sexual orientation -- heterosexual. What else does she have?
 
J: She has a soul body. Her soul body has a unique size and shape that's perfect for her. Her soul body probably doesn't look too much like her current human body, but that's okay. She's very happy with the soul body she has.
 
A: What else?
 
J: She has a soul mind. As a soul, she's pure consciousness -- by that I mean she has full awareness at all times of her own thoughts and her own feelings and her own choices and her own needs and wishes. Part of her unique mind lies in the way she thinks, the way she learns, the way she remembers, the way she expresses herself. These attributes lie within the soul mind. Jane doesn't "know" everything. Nor does she want to. She has certain interests that are hard-wired at the very core of her consciousness, and these are the things she learns fastest and remembers best.
 
A: Can you give an example of what Jane might be interested in as a soul, as an angel?
 
J: Okay. Let's say for argument's sake that Jane is a gifted musician.
 
A: There are some angels who are more musically gifted than other angels?
 
J: All angels enjoy music to some extent. But not all angels want to spend most of the day in classes devoted to advanced musical performance and interpretation skills. As with all things in Creation, it's a continuum. All angels appreciate music. But some angels want to devote most of their time to it. Which means they can't be devoting their time to other interests, other skills. There's only so much time in a day, even for an angel.
 
A: What other interests does our imaginary Jane possess as a soul?
 
J: Jane likes to be around a lot of other angels. She gets very lonely if she can't hear other angels singing. She's happiest when she's with a big group of noisy, laughing angels.
 
A: Are there any angels who are more quiet in temperament, who wouldn't feel comfortable in large groups?
 
J: Yes, lots. And that's okay, too. These angels are quiet, but not in any way unfriendly or unloving. They just need more quiet than other angels do. Nothing wrong with that.
 
A: Let's give Jane a third unique attribute. What would you suggest.
 
J: She doesn't like the colour red.
 
A: Huh? 
 
J: All angels appreciate the fact that everything in Creation is beautiful and deserving of respect. So Jane respects the colour red, and she's happy for her friends who love all things red. But angels have their own taste, their own "likes" and "dislikes." And Jane herself is under no divine obligation to like red. It happens that she doesn't. God the Mother and God the Father respect the fact that Jane just doesn't happen to like red. On the other hand, she can't get enough black. She's crazy for black.
 
A (grinning): I know a certain male angel who happens to love black! And a particular shade of charcoal grey.
 
J: Yeah, I do like those colours. Can't deny it.
 
A: Okay. So we have our angel Jane, who's passionate about music, loves to be around large groups of people, isn't fond of the colour red, but likes black. Jane decided a while back to incarnate as a human being on Planet Earth (her choice), and right now she's 35 years old, is working as a nurse, is taking night school courses so she can apply to law school, and lives with a female partner who has painted the bedroom red. Tell me about Jane's current brain health.
 
J: All the things we talked about -- Jane's true soul interests -- are hardwired into her human DNA. That's the junk DNA that geneticists are puzzled by. Her soul's blueprint is hardwired into her brain and central nervous system. Her brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, thalamus, basal ganglia, and glial cells contain coding that's unique to her, unique to her true soul personality. If Jane were to make conscious choices that "matched" or "lined up with" her core blueprint, her biological brain would function smoothly. It would function the way it's supposed to. Her mood would remain stable. Her thinking would be logical and coherent. Her memory would be pretty good, especially around music and musical interpretation! She would have excellent social functioning. All in all, she'd be pretty happy, healthy, and well adjusted.
 
A: Okay. But right now Jane isn't making conscious choices that "line up with" her own soul's core identity. She's working as a nurse, not as a musician. She's around lots of people, which is good, but the people aren't singing. She's in a lesbian love relationship. And every night she has to go to sleep in a room that isn't healing or calming for her as a soul. What's happening inside her brain at this point?
 
J: There's a software conflict. On the one hand, the so-called "primitive" parts of Jane's brain are saying "I want to craft music, I want to find a loving male partner, I want to be around the colour black." Meanwhile, Jane's forcing the outer cortical layers of her brain to make different choices -- choices that seem logical to her peers or to her family, perhaps, but which make no sense to her core self.
 
A: So how's Jane doing?
 
J: Her brain is pretty messed up. There are competing signals from the different regions of her brain and central nervous system. The signals contradict each other. By now she's feeling confused and upset with her life, and she doesn't why. Things seem okay on the outside. But on the inside she's not happy. She may be having trouble with headaches or poor sleep or depression or one of the many other signs of imbalance that can emerge via human biology.
 
A: A lot of these medical issues would begin to clear up if Jane were to seek professional counselling and appropriate medical care to help her uncover the choices she's making that aren't working for her.
 
J: Yes. Jane has been making choices based on other people's priorities rather than her own core priorities -- the priorities of her soul. Over the long term, her poor choices have begun to affect her health and her happiness.
 
A: Can she force herself to "be" a nurse and "be" a lawyer if her soul isn't wired for healing or for case analysis?
 
J: No. This is what I meant when I said the soul isn't malleable in the way that clay is malleable. Jane can only be who she is. If she tries to be somebody she's not -- if she tries to be a lesbian nurse-lawyer who wears red power suits -- her biological brain will begin to sustain serious damage from the continuous push-and-pull of her internal "software conflict." She'll literally fry her own brain from the inside out.
 
A: Okay. That's pretty clear. Be yourself -- be the person God knows you to be -- so your brain and body will function the way God intended.
 
J: Simple in fact. Simple in reality. But not always easy to implement.
 
A: At least it gives people a starting place on the journey. At least it helps them understand where they're going and WHY. It helps so much to understand WHY.
 
J: Insight is one hell of an amazing miracle.

JR1: Grab a Coffee, Sit Down, and Join Us

A*: Jesus, since I've promised this blog will be a real-time discussion with you, what do you think of the idea of getting started right away? 

J*: It's 7:00 o'clock in the morning. You've only had one cup of coffee. You sure you want to begin this discussion right now? 

Jesus as the author sees him.

A: I'm a morning person. I'm good. Besides, if I know you, we're going to be continuing this discussion for a long time.  

J: I'm a bit rusty. We haven't done this whole "I talk, you type" thing in a while.  

A: I'm more worried about the typos. I always miss some typos when I'm first typing.  

J: Well, think on the bright side. You have fingers to type with. Me, not so much.  

A: Okay. Let's talk about that. That's a good place to start. Can you put into words for readers exactly where you are right now? Where are you actually located?  

J: Hmmm. That's a hard one to explain. You sure aren't starting with the easy questions!  

A: Let's try a biblical metaphor, then. Are you seated at the right hand of God? 

J (much chuckling): No! I'm not at God's right hand. Not now. Not ever. God doesn't really have a right hand. Not literally, not metaphorically. You have to remember that God's essence isn't made in humankind's image. So there's no old guy with a white beard sitting on a throne. There's an old guy, all right -- that's our beloved father, God the Father. But there's also an old gal -- God the Mother. They're our divine parents. Their essence is intertwined in and around all Creation. They were here long, long before any of the rest of us. You could say they're the Alpha and Beta of everything.  

A: Rather than the Alpha and Omega.  

J: Right. They're the first two letters of Creation's alphabet, and everything else that exists has been made possible by their love and commitment. But they're not the only beings in Creation. They're literally our parents. So there are many souls, many angels, many children in God's family. The Divine Family started with Two -- our blessed Mother and Father -- but the family has been growing and growing and growing. I don't think there's going to be an "Omega" in Creation -- a final, definitive end to things. I think the alphabet is just going to keep growing.  

A: So you're saying you're one of God's children, a child of God, not God himself, as in "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."  

J: That's what I'm saying. I'm not God the Father, and I'm not God the Mother. I'm me -- an angel who goes by the name of Jesus. I'm one of bajillions of sons in God's loving family. I'm not the only son.  

A: And there are also bajillions of daughters? 

J (smiling): Yes, bajillions of daughers, too.  

A: So where are all these bajillions of angelic sons and daughters? Where are they? Where are you? Why can't we see you?  

J: Well, to answer that question, I'll have to turn to science. The question can't be answered without the latest thinking in science. Not Newtonian science, of course. Quantum theory can help, but even quantum theory is in its infancy. Scientists have only begun to scratch the surface of the scientific realities that hold together all Creation. And within the vast universe we all live in, only a tiny fraction of all matter and all energy is visible to the human eye. So, without trying to be mean, I would have to say in all honesty that one of the least reliable measures for judging what's real and what's not real is the human eye. 

A: That makes me think of Plato and his rejection of the human senses as a valid way to know God.  

J: Plato rejected the human senses because he didn't want his followers to see for themselves that God the Mother and God the Father are visible everywhere in the material, practical, earthly world that human beings are living in. I'm saying the opposite of what Plato said. I'm saying that the human senses are good, but limited. Once you understand and respect those limitations, you're less troubled about the fact that some things just aren't visible within the narrow detection range of the human eye. The EMF frequencies that power wireless phones aren't less real because you can't see them. Same with the microwaves that cook your frozen dinners. Real, though not visible to the human eye.  

A: Okay. So angels are real, then, but we can't see them with the human eye because angels have an energy signature that falls outside the range of the human eye?  

J: Sort of. But it's more that angels exist as matter in the fourth dimension, whereas the human eye only draws information from matter that exists in the third dimension. But even most physicists agree the universe has more than three dimensions. That's not science fiction. That's science fact.  

A: In other words, there's nothing within our current understanding of quantum theory that absolutely prohibits the idea of angels existing "where we can't see them." 

J: That's what I'm saying. It's a darned big universe out there, and one of the biggest mistakes people can make is to insist that "what you see if what you get." Creation isn't founded on the WISIWYG principle -- as anyone born without sight will tell you.

Nature provides us with many examples of a single creature going through stages of transformation that so radically change the outer form we wouldn’t believe, without the help of science, that they’re still the same creature on the inside. The process of incarnating as a human being involves a similar repackaging of a soul’s imaginal discs into a temporary physical form. We go from butterfly form (angel) to caterpillar form (human) then back to butterfly form (angel) when we die. If you want to learn more about the imaginal discs involved in a biological caterpillar’s transformation into a gorgeous butterfly, you can check out this 2012 Scientific American post by Ferris Jabr (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/)

 

 

 

 * A=Author (Jennifer Thomas) and J=Jesus