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Fixes/Enhancements for "Thinking Out Loud" series

Related webpages: [Home Page]   [Fixes' 2nd webpage]   [God's System] "Thinking Out Loud": | Part I | | Part II | | Part III | | Part IV | | Part V | |Appendix| |Spir.Pathology|

Introductory Note: What follows are windy raw critiquing notes of the Series which I don't have time to edit. Some of the material actually was snipped into the Series. Much, though, just remains here. Some issues here are important, and Christianity rarely audits Bible respecting them; the truly-tough questions are asked, so heavy reading is ahead! So maybe skim through the turquoise bullet headings, and stop to read where you're interested. The first four bullets are intricately related, and pretty important, because they show the underlying Divine Physics which Bible describes in down-to-earth terms. "Appendix" link above relies on this explanation for its "Utterly Divine Physics" (3) tables.

For ease in navigation, here are intra-page links to these four bullets:

  1. Divine Physics behind 2Cor5:21, John 3:16 and Titus3:5.
  2. Divine 'Expansion' of Infinity? How?
  3. Yes, due to Ironic Spiritual 'atomic structure' of Infinity
  4. Hence, Divine Derivatives, the Hypostatic Union of Christ's Nature.. and the negative counterparts, the spiritual atom bombs of sin.

    Don't be misled by the New-Agey sound of the vocabulary into thinking this is something unbiblical; it's religious vocabulary which covers up the Word, and translations of the REAL Bible, are generally of a fig-leaf nature. So I avoid religious vocabulary whenever possible. So as always, test with 1Jn1:9 breathed, and talk with God (etc) as you read anything. For spiritual truth is always reflected in the secular sciences, if you know how to read the reflection (theme of Romans 1, and passim in OT).

    So to use physics and math vocabulary, well -- God invented physics and math. We dumb humans are but learning what GOD invented since forever past! See, Bible verses are written like math formulas, very compact and deft. So one verse is worth many webpages. Like John concludes at the end of his Gospel, the extrapolation of the truth would fill more space than all the books ever written. Since this is a webpage and we're hampered by translations, its unfamiliarity may look like something 'heretical'.. until you think out the verses themselves. Which, before the Lord, you should do. For the spiritual life is about developing your soul for life with God, in God. Nothing else. YOUR soul. We are each privileged to have a forever-intimate life with God, hooray!

Two other bullets worth reading: search on text "unlimited crosses" for one; then, "why Satan rebelled", for the other. Not sure the other bullets are of value, since they are way too wordy for my taste.
Topics related to the Nature of God

  • Divine Physics? How Can Infinite God Unite With Finite Humanity? How can salvation actually work, since "salvation" results in us getting God's Own Attributes? "1 John outlines God's Script" section of Part I explained the Holy Spirit's regeneration Ministry at salvation (first act of faith-in-Christ-for-salvation), and how that means we 1) get a human spirit, 2) are imputed with Infinite Righteousness (+R) and 3) Eternal Life (+EL). Yet not explained in Part I (or elsewhere): how it is possible that +R and +EL can be imputed to us at salvation, since we are finite beings? So then it's a Divine Physics question, huh...

    Here, the judicial point is not questionned, but rather, the physics of it. Yet the series is about the Trial and the consequent progressive compacts of each dispensation's spiritual life, not about building block doctrines like this one. So, should I explain its physics anyway? Oooh, that would first require more explanation about Infinity as an Attribute. Oooh, that means I first have to knock out some barriers folks have about other issues, like number, Trinity, and Perfection. Ok, here begins the winding route to the answer about +R and +EL imputations: the Highest Truth is always the right starting point in any quest for knowing truth. And the Highest Truth is, God is.

    Everyone knows that "God" is Infinite; for, if not Infinite, then something/someone is greater, and "God" would instead be the name of that greater entity/person. So, "God" by definition must be Absolute (another way to state "Infinite"). Yet folks don't 'get' Infinity's property of no-mass-no-energy; so, they don't 'get' Trinity, and imagine Godness would be 'diminished' if there were more than One Person; so, even the Catholic Unicity concept suffers from a hydra-headed description; even more, all those councils. They don't realize that mass/energy is a separate 'thing'; that "Life" is itself a separate attribute (which should be obvious, given death!); that "number" itself is wholly irrelevant to Absoluteness (i.e., versus relative). "Number" has relevance in the answer to the question, "What is Perfect?", for one aspect of Perfection, is "number", but Perfect itself can be either relative, or absolute (finite or infinite).

    Every Jew, Muslim or Christian knows Adam was initially perfect, so why do we get so tangled up over "Absolute"? Perfection And Absoluteness/ Infinity Are Two Different Attributes, neither one of which requires solely "one" in number for completeness. Ahhh, but "number" is deemed indistinguishable from mass/energy. So, more than "one" divides. Because, more-than-one does 'diminish' a finite entity of limited mass/energy within a universe of mass/energy. So the idea that maybe mass and energy are mere properties attached to finite "life", goes unrecognized. So that the idea that "Life" is a separate attribute is likewise unrecognized. (No wonder folks can't understand the Hypostatic Union!) Unrecognized, yes; even though every Jew, Muslim and Christian knows that first Adam's body was formed separately from his Life: that "lives" (literal Hebrew) had to be breathed into him afterwards. Of course, the prolifers don't know, either: seeing, we all don't see what goes against our proclivities, unless and until 1Jn1:9 is used enough so that the HS can break through our blindness, and it takes a long time after salvation to learn to "see".

      PROOF OF OUR HELPLESSNESS KEY ==> being blind we don't know we are blind. It's TOTAL, and because it's total, we think we can see. Look how blindly Adam acts JUST after his fall (see Part II). He had seen God the Son every day for how many years! yet is suddenly afraid when the Lord comes again to visit, at the usual time of day? Even before that: what the heck had made Adam conclude that covering up his genitals with some leaves will solve the problem? This is what mentally ill people do! See all the bad feelings and goofy feelings which drive him? Every defense mechanism running through his brain in spades? Look at how he responds when the Lord questions him: Oh..he hid because he was naked? Does that make sense? But he'd been naked for who knows how long before! Oh..it's God's fault Adam ate, because the woman GAVE Adam the fruit, and God MADE the woman? Is this the reasoning of a sane brain? Or, of defense mechanisms like fear, guilt, anxiety, projection, etc. ad nauseam?!

      SIN RENDERED ADAM BLIND AND BLAMING, despite his long memory of fellowship with God the Son. It's as if Adam never knew Him at all. For, that one sin so trashed his soul's ability to function, he acts insane. We inherit blind insanity from Adam, genetically. That's why it 'feels good' to sin or 'disobey'. That's why feeling is soooo important. That's the body, not the soul, dictating what is 'good'. That's why it's soo hard to overcome feeling. That's why we irrationally conclude that if we get sick, we must be baaaaadd. Or ..it's someone else's fault. Like, God's. That's why we irrationally conclude we must DO good, and..that "good" HURTS. For, it must Feel bad to BE good. So if we feel bad while doing 'good', God will like it. See how God is cast sadistically? Yet, if anyone asked anyone else, "Is God a sadist?" he'd get the answer, "Of course not!"

      2nd PROOF OF OUR HELPLESSNESS KEY ==> Notice how our positive volition about God is isolated, in the previous sentence: we don't want to consider God a sadist. But our Energizer Bunny (sin nature from Adam) standards treat God as a sadist. See how helpless we are? We want God, but our desire for Him is easily trapped by worldly-idea stupidities which the Energizer Bunny gloms onto, thus redefining interest in God to functionally REVERSE. That's a Satanic tactic, which is why religion always lies. Trapping us, because it taps that trapped, isolated positive interest we have. God can reverse the reversal, but only He can. So, keep questionning what you believe, because that authorizes Him to free you! No need to be hung up about someone else's incorrect views.. or, one's own. We're all trapped! 'Galatians 5:1!

      Now you see why it's absolutely impossible for us to think correctly about God, because the brain to which our spiritual thinking must be deposited for interface with the body is completely wrecked. Because it's wrecked by insane urges, and blind, it not only doesn't know it is wrecked and blind, it will deny this, and say "I see". Because, it's a dissociative reflex which became a massive inferiority complex, born from that first sin of Adam. (More about the mental malady called "dissociation" follows below, in the SpirPath.htm, and in Part II of LordvSatan sites.)

      Here's a quick-and-easy way to prove how insanely blind we are. One thing we ALL know about "God" is Bigness. That's intimidating, for we know we are small. So we don't see that bigness means total intimacy, too. As in, touching everything, always being in contact, never never never divorcing; never never never separating; NO BARRIERS! LOVE!!!!!! So we don't SEE that it's only US who constantly put up the barriers, to protect our fragile, dissociative egos. Barriers like God being 'inscrutable' or 'distant' or 'holy' (used as an excuse); of works; of behavior, observances, or looks; of human distinctions like economic status or skin color; of offense; of guilt; of.. insanity. Because, we are blindly obsessed with our inferiority. And, of course, blind to being thus blind! That's the classic psychiatric symptom of defense mechanisms: defense mechanisms blind in order to 'protect' the brain from confrontation with something which in the past was deemed 'painful'. Which, have their genetic source in Adam's dissociation, as illustrated by the figleaves. In Satan's own fall, as demonstrated in his wildly-insane conclusion, "I will make myself like the Most High" (in Isa14 or Ez28).

      Therefore: it takes a lot of repeated intake of Bible Doctrine, day in and day out for some years to break through: for every single 'speck' of soul, and brain neurons, need to be entirely REconstructed and connected to the human spirit one gets at regeneration (first faith in Christ, aka "born again"). What an impossible task God accomplishes via 1Jn's Script! (btw: brain holds a copy of spiritual information, as well as soul information, for purposes of interfacing with the body. That's why you can will yourself to lift your leg; why Bible Doctrine gradually renders impotent the dissociative sin nature we genetically inherited from Adam; why we become able to see.)

      There's no need to be ashamed, therefore: we're talking about a congenital defect here which we all have at birth; which, sometime in childhood, we gave into, thus trashing our own at-birth-perfect (made by God!) souls. So: there IS need to keep wanting to check what one believes; for, since it takes so long to be reconstructed and reconnected after salvation, a whole lot of falsehoods will remain in brain and soul. For, that's the only way one can be rebuilt; the soul cannot be killed, and killing the body won't reconstruct the soul. So, side-by-side, wheat of Doctrine grows along with the tares of false thinking. If you persist in growing in Doctrine, eventually the tares will get removed. But it takes a long time. So don't feel bad about what you don't "get"..just keep on keeping on!

    So of course we also don't get the no-mass-no-energy property of "number", just like Aristotle's contemporaries. So, will glaze over, even though, if God could be 'diminished' by being more than One in number, then wouldn't He be more diminished the second He creates anyone!? For we know that because HE thinks, we exist. So what's the problem? 'TULIP idea that Sovereignty would somehow be 'diminished'/ threatened, if God insured free will despite sin? Most Jews, Christians, and Muslims see easily that man has free will; we are responsible for our own decisions because we have free will. Yet, that doesn't diminish Adonai, the Lord, Allah -- does it? So, clearly then, having more than one life around wouldn't diminish Infinity, either. So, clearly then, If there are Three who are Infinite God, that diminishes NONE of Them. And it is manifestly unjust for Infinite God to be the only One of His Kind. "Not good that man should be alone", He said. God's pairing is one of the most celebrated facts of Islam. Of Judaism. Of Christianity. So, then: why is it suddenly fair that God 'should be alone', especially since number, which has neither property of mass nor energy, obviously diminishes no one?

    Maybe we'd get 'number' better if we remembered that "Life" itself is non-mass-non-energy by nature. Biology and science and philosophy mistake the mass/energy properties as being life, when instead, life is "in" them: just as it stands written, "the life of the animal is IN his blood." So, then: if infinite life, that's a quality level which has no terminii, nor any other limitation. A quality level, not a number level, because (as will be explained below), Infinity is never quantitative. Only Finity is quantitative; so if it were true that number diminishes, only quantities can BE diminished.

    Yet even where finiteness, number has no impact on the Attribute of "life". For, what we "get" least of all, is ironically the most obvious fact: you are a living entity, I am one, a dog is one, a plant is one. So, then: when any entity lives, all that entity's properties are ITS properties; meaning, its properties are intrinsic to itself. My consciousness is not inside yours nor yours inside mine. My hands are not your hands; and so on. Thus, even though you and I are both human, my human attributes are no less mine because you exist, and vice versa; neither do my human attributes -- nor yours -- bleed into each other. Finally, if I die, "I" die. If a plant dies, IT dies. So, since that inviolable intrinsicness is true for lower beings, how much more, for God? So, again: there is no 'diminishment' if God is More than one Person. So no need to make Trinity hydra-headed to convey Same Essence. (I put a shorter version of this para in Part II's beginning.)

    So, then: we know that since number neither diminishes God's Life nor even our own, even were we plants, the imputation of +EL and +R at salvation doesn't diminish either God or us. "Life" obviously can be created or replicated, because He exists, and so do we. Since "Righteousness" is an Infinite property of God, and so also "Eternal Life", and God is undivided (which has nothing to do with how-many Gods there can be) -- then Infinite Righteousness can be replicated also. If you just have to understand the meaning of "replication" right this second! well.. click here, read that table (on fractals); then, return here. Else, keep on reading...

    [Wait! Where's the tape where Col. talks about how Infinity is a property of Eternal Life? See if in the "Breaking into Eternal Life" section of 92SD he references that again. Maybe, to lead into the properties of Infinity&EL, make the irony in Part V's "Paradox" table more explicit, earlier (rather than building to a crescendo there).]

  • The most important thing to "get" about God is that, since He is without limitation, creating limitations is what He chose to do to expand His Unlimitedness. But, how does Infinity 'Expand', Part II's beginning asked. Of course, the answer there (and in Part IV in the context of the Church), was that 'number' is an aspect (variable) of Perfection, because Perfection is an interpersonal as well as an intrapersonal issue. Not perfect, to be alone! Not perfect, to be too many!

      And why is this an issue among Perfect Gods? Well, think: Infinity is capable of infinite expression. Shall these expressions be limited to other infinite beings? If "yes", then Infinite God is restricted to expressions which only have infinite objects. Quite an irony, huh?

      Ok: so the creation of limited beings will 'remove' the restriction, so that Each Member of the Godhead can have UNlimited expressions in UNlimited combinations -- toward Each Other, and with Each Other toward each other created thing/person. Ahhhh.

    So, then: how to get those additional 'spheres'? Well, if Perfect 'Life', then it can be replicated. So, if +R, it can be replicated. The impossible thing is not the replication of Divine Attributes; instead, the impossible things are justifying the replication, building it, and the SIZE of the recipient who has free will; because, as Part III's "Third Reason" explained, the requisite pouring-in-of-God's-Attribute(s) process will kill either the recipient's free will, or the recipient himself!

    And why is this true? Because He's Infinite, Uncreated, Undivided. We are finite, created, and thus divided internally (e.g., immaterial soul, but material body; body made of corpuscles and neurons, etc). Oh, then how is this replication possible? Aha. Let's look at what God's Truth Attribute has to 'say' about this problem! Uh-oh. We can't hear what Truth has to 'say' until we first know what the Attribute of Truth, is.

    God's Truth Attribute is much more than a collection of facts, and more than the quality of being Truthful (Veracity), Faithful. Among the many functions-properties of this Attribute is one which delineates all relationships. Truth, like all of God's Attributes, is undivided, which means Each Attribute 'colors' each other Attribute. So, the 'content' of Truth will be structured in part as a 'result' of other attributes like Infinity, Righteousness, Justice, Love, Omniscience, Eternal Life etc. You can see this fact pretty readily: would truth be truth if it couldn't hang together? So, Truth must be colored, so to speak, with Righteousness, Justice, and Love in order to be stable; it would need to be 'colored' by Eternal Life, in order to be permanent. It would need to be Infinitely true, to be Absolute. Most of all, Sovereignty would have to CHOOSE a thing to be True, in order for it to actually BE. 'Because, The Highest Truth is, GOD IS. The staggering import of Sovereignty having to choose for a truth to exist is what demonstrates Love For Truth: for, if He doesn't love it, why should HE exist? See Hebrews 1:3&10, John 1:3&10, Col 1:16-18, with regard to the relationship between Sovereignty and Truth.

      The criterion for God's Sovereignty choosing Truth to BE necessarily depends on Four Qualities which Truth must have at all times, to warrant being Truth: it must be A) Atoning, B) Propitiating C) Reconciling, and D) Redeeming. This, so that Truth will be Love-able. For there is no point to living, if one doesn't love living: and one can't love living, if the truth of living doesn't 'do' these functions, for if even one jot or tittle in any one of these four functions is absent, Freedom-of-redress is curtailed, and Righteousness cannot authorize Love to Love; which would be anathema, since Love, like all God's Attributes, is Infinite. So there can be nothing 'outside' Love, just as there can be nothing 'outside' Truth. So, for Truth to be free, these four Qualities must be innate properties of Truth itself. You might have to think over this paragraph before continuing; much more will be said about these four Qualities, under the rubric of "the 4 Decisions" (my pastor's title for these four, which will be explained later in this webpage).

    So, then: just as DNA is the base for the structure of a body, so also an Attribute's 'DNA' would be. So, then: relationship Truths are due to God's Other Attributes. Moreover, part of Truth's contents would also be all of what could be true, would be true 'if', wouldn't be, wouldn't be true 'if', and most importantly, every kind of opposite. For, if God is Love, then not-love could be true, since Love is true. So the delineation of relationship truths would also include all opposites to both Divine Attributes and all compatible truths. This, because if "1" is true, then all other values are derivatives of "1": even, negatives. In short, one of the key relationship truths is, that the opposite of a Truth derives its power from that Truth. Thus, for example, the destructive power of sin derives its (caroming-off) power from the strength of Righteousness. Since Righteousness is Infinite, and sin, a rejection..there is no way whatsoever for the sinning entity to regain compatibility of its own power. In math and physics, I believe the name for this caroming-off power is derivative power; it's central to the mechanical physics of the atom bomb.

    If you know any math or math-based science (e.g., physics), or if you work through the principles of the preceding paragraph logically, you should be able to see that a whole slew of very specific relationship-truths MUST be true -- due to the nature of the Other Attributes. In short, Truth is not arbitrary, nor can it become arbitrary, and remain Truth. Because, God's attributes are undivided by nature.

    It's critical to understand that the contents of God's Truth exist in logical 'compartments', and in a hierarchy. So: there are 'boundaries' to a truth, beyond which it is no longer true. So: some truths are more important than others. So: because organized, flow of truth is unimpeded. So, because everything fits perfectly, synergy of truth is maximized. So, in differing characteristics or circumstances, what WAS less important or not-true becomes more important or true. Like math formulas, the truth of a thing, the 'law' of a thing, only 'fits' in a particular relationship to other variables, depending on a) what those variables are, and depending on b) how the relationship is to function. So, for example, 1+1 in base 10 equals "2", but no longer equals "2" in a different number base. In base 5, 1+1=1. Note that because God is UNdivided, Truth is likewise. So although there are formulaic or logical or Sovereign boundaries, there are no limitations, and innumerable permutations. For, God is also Omniscient and Omnipotent. Which He would have to be, for truth to be inviolable. So, we wouldn't know when something in relationship-truths would call for the sun to "stand still" (assuming that verse is to be taken literally). But we would know that truth "knows": again, because God is Omniscient.

    Being Omnipotent and Sovereign, God Himself can change how these otherwise-true relationships work. Let's assume that Truth's content had a subsection regarding what physical laws there could be. [It doesn't seem that Truth's relationship properties' principles would extend to natural laws, except to say that any natural laws must reflect the nature of the LawGiver; though atheists unknowingly demand Truth impose such laws in detail, as if God shouldn't create/ decide those relationships ex nihilo, and even ad hoc, for purposes of executing other more important fidelities to Truth; but, let's pretend the atheists' view, to make the following examples 'neutral'.] So, then: He could make the law of gravity work in reverse (assuming that the law of gravity can't work in reverse); or, 'the sky fuschia with purple dots, even if the chemistry of the constituent elements of the sky could only produce blue; or, He could make us all chirp away praise at Him, like happy little Stepford wives. But the 'minute' He goes against His Own Attribute's 'printout' of the relationship-properties, He's gerrymandered Truth -- and would cease to be God.

    In short, His Attribute of Truth indeed presents Unlimited options, but each one has its associated consequences. 'Which can be overridden, of course: but at the cost of Truth. Well, that's a true Cost God is never willing to pay. The Truth is too gorgeous to give up, even for a dot, even for a nanosecond.

      PERSONALITY OF GOD'S WILL KEY ==> (Each) God is only willing to be a slave to the Truth. He Loves it that much. God must be True to the Truth, for Truth to BE Truth. So, Loving the Truth is what makes it worthwhile to be True to the Truth; ergo, the Truth Must Be Infinitely Gorgeous, to warrant Infinite Love. Even, the bad truths. Hebrews 11:6 (in that verse, substitute "truth" or "Doctrine" for "faith" to get correct usage of Greek; also substitute "reality" for "evidence"); Ps138:2b, Ps89:14-15, (put in other Ps here and the "Faithful and True" verses) are all sample statements of His Adamancy here. So that's why only circulating Bible Doctrine pleases Him. You can do all the good deeds there are from now until eternity, but if you do them divorced from or absent the Son's Thinking in your own soul, all those deeds are sheer smelly skat (KJV's "dung", but in modern Greek). That's why everything Satan does seeks to divorce Truth from God, to divorce "good"; to use both for his own ends, divorced from the One Who Gives.

    But here's the Problem: Infinity is wall-less, dot-less. So, whole. Clear. Perspicious. No separation! The 'personality' of finity is, balance-by-divorce, since the very Act Of Creating is a type of divorce, separation. Birth=Divorce? Hateful word, divorce! Must have Unity! Rapport! What, shall Love be restricted? Hateful word! NO WORKS! NO BARRIERS OF ANY KIND! No 'inscrutable'! No impediments, no 'conditions', no disgusting contingencies like one can lose something God gives him (ugly, barrier-raising words! to Infinity), no separation, no no no no no no distance! Of any kind, not even for a logical nanosecond. But instead, LOVE! Intimacy! Inside! TOTAL! Forever!

      STONES-TOO-HEAVY INTERPRETATION KEY ==> The "impossible" thing is to Create Yet Have The Created Being Be Infinitely Good, for the 'relationship truth' between Infinity and any kind of finity is an unbridgeable chasm. Even if one dot 'less', for Infinity is Undivided: No separation, No barriers! never never divorce, not even in hell! (so to speak).

      So finity is the very opposite, and a dichotomy, even within itself: quantity-based quality, 'dots' (increments), and division everywhere; for 'competition' and barriers are needed to balance finity's all-too-fragile (separable! not acceptable!) attributes. Get this: it's finity which is 'inscrutable', not Infinity. For, finity is barrier-dependent. It's finity which has all those horrible high walls, needed to shore up, keep whole its oh so many itsy bitsy fragilities. For by nature, finity is inferior. And if souled, aware that it is inferior. In short, the mere state of being an aware, finite being.. is hellish. Even absent sin.

      Note how because created, finity is at once both "of" (like) its parent (God), and of separation, a going away, birthed, Heb preposition "min". Going in the opposite direction, hence of an opposite nature, and yet also of its parent. So Finity is naturally divided within its own nature, a hupostasis: one part, going away from God, and the other, naturally going TO Him. A true hybrid. Hupostasis. Yet, totally unable to of itself connect to God, to resolve the inherent dichotomy. So, hooked TO God, BY God. Which connection, can be rejected, disconnected. By sin. So IF sin, then the desire of this still-divided nature, will be all on the separtist side. Hence, suicidal. Hence, destructive. Hence, the natural negativity toward God is overwhelming. Despite Free Will.

      Hence, everything once perfect will be mutated toward anti-God ends. All horizontals will replace God, as Part II explained with reference to Adam's Fall. So the worst rejection of God, is emphasis on moralities: for, God is now a dog, who is supposed to fetch you a reward, for being moral. Morality is its own reward; obedience is its own reward. Our hybrid nature needs Communion with God, so obeying Him is innately fulfilling.

        Sin, of course, says the opposite: instead of concluding fulfillment due to being in a compatibility with God, the sin-nature concludes itself god -- "I am Good." As if the good one did had no value, except to make the self good. Because if it was deemed of innate value, no resultant reward would be needed; and definitely, not desired. Hence if it had no value except to make self good, then it isn't making self good, since it has no value of itself. So, sin is insane, as well as hostile to God. Using, morality to express its insanity, the most. See the horrible insanity against God, in all morality-deserves claims? No greater evil, than being 'good'.

      INTERPRETING ONESELF KEY ==> We need God, therefore. We need to be higher than we are. We need to worship Him for our own happiness. WE need to worship. It's not God who needs our worship! So, God doesn't really need us, and our shortfall is no problem to Him. But, like Jeremiah wrote, His Mercy is eternally renewed (so to speak) "every morning". He sees our need, knows the horrific tension seeing Him engenders in finity. And has mercy on us. As in, Mercy Seat! For God worships Truth, as well as Being The Uncreated Truth, Himself. Since He made us, we too need to worship: Him, the Uncreated. And He has mercy on our need, so provided a Savior we can worship forever.

      So, the created being's awareness of the differential between Infinity and our finiteness creates a tension-urge to be bigger, which the 'temptation' seems to more quickly resolve. It's a tension which sits right between our natural need for God, and our natural need to be something on our own. So, the Temptation: God's Way of resolving the tension, or.. our own way. Sin means one chose his own way, hence human good, morality, evil are all tools of sin henceforth. All, for the sake of making self higher (Satan's fall). Eating that fruit (same temptation motive in woman as in Satan; in Adam as in Satan). For, we either come to trust God to solve the problem, or we become iconoclastic, due to the pressure of self-seeing-self-as-inferior: competing LOVES.

      So now the drama in Romans 5-8 is more starkly visible. Two universes, themselves wholly at war with each other: the toward-God universe, and the toward-self universe. Sin only is compatible with the latter, but yet destroys the latter, the more it gets to 'play'. So here we are, apart from our consent, created. Perfect soul goes to sin body, at birth (first exhale of the fetus is when it becomes human, per Gen2:7). Right there an impossible dichotomy exists, so the desires of the body are antithetical to those of the soul; perfect picture of the antithetical nature of finity and Infinity; perfect picture of the dichotomy OF finity, within its own self, even absent sin. Two universes, then: infinite and finite. Sin only renders the finite so shattered that connection to Infinite cannot occur except in minute, gradual steps, via God's System.

      God's System, of course, is to deposit Truth in us, post-salvation. For, Truth is God's Attribute, and it's thought, relationships (like math), so can be replicated immaterially. Hence, soul connections can be made into which this Truth, which HS uses to make the connections, flows. Breaking down the barriers between God and the soul; breaking down barriers, even while barriers remain.

      Two universes. In the top universe, with God, barriers are being broken down. In the bottom universes, barriers seem to be put up (i.e., don't-do commandments); after sufficient growth, you don't need so many bottom barriers, because the top universe life with Him has been grown: so, you get tested. Even, a Cross, during which He was actually made, sin. Yet, Himself did not sin. Ultimate barriers-down, to be made the very thing all His Life which via Truth in Him, He put up barriers against. So, having BECOME the Truth, He can now be MADE sin; because, that function can only increase and complete the communion in the top universe, His Humanity sharing the very Knowledge of God with God.

      Salvation, as Romans 5-8 explains, changes our nature so that we now live on grace, not the sin's law. For, law only makes us aware of sin: shows the barriers, which is why it can't save anyone. So, God fills up our new nature in That Gift, Christ (Rom6), with Truth(Rom8). Meanwhile, the struggle is innately intense, for the two natures, live in antithetical universes, so to speak; hence, the body and the spiritual life are absolute opposites: and thus at war (Rom7-8). So, for every bit of spiritual truth you learn (Bible Doctrine, in God's System), your body will mutate its meaning, and tyrannize you with that mutated meaning: i-am-good, i-am-bad, always the same Energizer Bunny banging its mantra. Beating your eardrums to death.

        But your Spirit-filled soul will come to recognize the separation between the body's distortion of what you are learning, and the reality: you are being knitted together in His thinking. Which, the body can't abide. But, you abide in Him (1Jn, Jn15), so the impossible is happening, as you breathe: you are being made like the Most High, by the Spirit Who Made the Most High's Humanity, successful even at the Cross.

        For, only the growing Truth in us, resolves the problem, with the result that this life is a pregnancy (Rom8:11ff, Greek). The New Husband's wife (us) gets His Seed (His Thinking) in her, thus the soul becomes pregnant (Pleroma) with it, and bears kids: His Thinking on the Cross, replicated. Sterile us, bearing truth, causes childbearing. Just as was designed, per Isa 53:10-12 (LXX+BHS verses, no translation has them all).

    Now maybe you see the utterly gorgeous 'personality' of Infinity: how it 'colors' the character of Our Utterly Gorgeous Father; Our Utterly Gorgeous Lord; Our Utterly Gorgeous Holy Spirit. Thus, why it's impossible for +R to accept/ tolerate/ want /be attracted to anything less than Infinite Righteousness. So, shall God thus be limited, because the Truth is, any creation He makes is ipse so far less, as to be a Judicial compromise to +R? So, +R would not have a Judicial basis for replicating +R and +EL in a created being, as the "opportunity cost" Table in Part II explained? Heh -- no wonder God would want only stones too heavy to lift! LOL, that's all we could ever be!

    Note the dilemma, here, for what's Good for God, is good for us; what's bad for God, is bad for us. It's a Unity. And what is the dilemma? The Unbridgeable Gap Due To Freedom; the differential between what "A" is, and "B" is. If someone is a lot better than you, that creates relationship problems. Same, if someone is a lot worse. What's good about differentials (enjoying variety), is also what's bad about them, for any kind of differential means an increase in Oppositeness. For, Freedom means that things will not develop or retrogress equally. For, LIFE means that things will not develop or retrogress equally. So, divergences occur. And, widen. And, deepen. For, Freedom and Life mean that opposites are free to occur, too.

      In God, being Free is not a problem, because He's Infinite. So, Three Gods are all in harmony, because Infinite. Even though They Each differ in Their chosen modes of self-expression: One choosing to be "Father" (Head), One choosing to be "Son" (serving "Father", thus Creator and eventually Savior); and One choosing to be "Spirit" (Re-Creator/ Mentor role). We know then that free differentials ONLY work harmoniously if Essence is harmonious. As it is, in God.

      In creation, being free IS a problem, because that freedom can be used to reject God's Plan for replicating key Attributes of Essence into the creature (+R, +EL, Truth). Part I's "Integrity Properties" and II's "angels" subsections covered this topic, as did the "opportunity cost" table in Part II. Upshot: to replicate +R and +EL in a perfect creature can only be done if the creature perfectly and continually chooses to be built up in Truth. See, even if initially perfect, and even if knowledge of Truth is just binged! in the creature at his initial creation, the creature (now alive) must continually choose Truth, too. Same, obviously, for what is not known; in which case, one is choosing to know Truth. All this, in the face of Infinity, which the creature comes to desperately want to reach.. because, he comes to see Infinity is gorgeously superior. The resulting tension between where one is, and where one wants to be, is so great.. that one is tempted to get relief through a quick-fix 'solution'. Aka, "sin". [Part I's brown font is probably confirmed by this 'desperation' fact. Ergo, Satan must have advanced far in his version of the pre-salvation spiritual life, before he fell. He has never been indifferent to God. A person can have knowledge, and take it for granted, a sort of nodding interest, like Sunday Church Attendance. Surely some angels who fell were apathetic. But Satan wasn't. Hostility can only be the flipside of a strong-but-immature former Love. So he must have grown very far, before his obsession with being inferior finally broke into that sin of "I will make MYSELF the Most High."]

      Sin, of course, is a destruction. So, an inestimably bigger gap, which essentially requires that the creature be totally 'redone'. Ergo the dilemma: How To Redo Without Violating Freedom? That's why there has to be a Cross. That's why a person has to believe (which is a free assent) in Christ. That's why a believer has to choose to grow up via 1Jn's Script. For, the only way to create harmony and preserve freedom is if there is agreement to become harmonious. Absent that, relationship problems remain, because the oppositeness precludes rapport to the extent of the opposition. So, like Paul notes in Galatians, God is ONE party in the 'mediation'. But, where are we? Do we come to His Table and eat? Or do we substitute fake food (works, for example), and then demand He accept it? After salvation, it's the same issue, and for the same reason: freedom to agree or disagree, freedom to become harmonious..or, not.

        That's why Bible mentions two types of "Doors": first, Christ Himself is the Door (way-truth-life statement, in another metaphorical format). If you believe in Him, you're 'in' the door. So, the second door is the spiritual life. See, since you went through the first Door, you're IN Him; in His Kingdom, IN His House. Ok, but there are many rooms in His House; in His Kingdom, many homes. So, if after salvation you reject the spiritual life, you've shut YOUR door on Him. So, like it says in Rev 3, He stands at the door and knocks. He's outside. He wants to have fellowship with you (depicted in that nice homey way, eating dinner). You 'open' the door by using 1Jn1:9. Notice how both Doors are volitionally-operated. Due to Freedom. [Why teachers miss this second and different "door" in Rev3 I'll never understand. He's not a door, but is knocking at a different door! What, just because the word "door" is in two separate verses of Scripture, they have to be the same door? Or: does one door jump off its hinges and knock at another door? See how blind our totally-depraved genetics are?]

    Note the irony: like the unbridgeable chasm between Infinity and finity, Freedom is another constraint WITHIN Truth. For, if no freedom, then even Truth is not free to exist. So, it's an impossible situation, right? How is it that Freedom traps? [If ever Calvinism's (and like creeds') doctrine that man lost free will at the Fall made a lick of sense, it would be here: for theologians conclude that only God can be free. Furthermore, the "constrains" group key off this same irony, saying that God is not free to 'go against' Himself. What they mean is, that God couldn't stay God and do it. But that ends up meaning God's too weak to solve this problem. that, He absolutely is not. See? If man lost free will at the Fall, Omniscient God was either incompetant, or weak, for only God can create free will. Secondly, if God is "constrained", then He's not free, either! Well, then: in either case, truth stops being Truth, and God stops being God! 'Satan's arguments in the Trial, as you'll see if you keep reading: for Satan exploits this irony. Again, 'trying to be as smart as the Most High!]

    Ahhh. Now you see both reasons why God wants only too-heavy stones: Shall God 1) be limited in what He creates because it freely can never 'measure up' to +R, with the result that 2) God Himself is trapped by Freedom? Of course not! Now, maybe when you read those ironic verses like "It is for Freedom that Christ has set you free", and "lead captivity captive", and "shall live, even if he dies", and "oh Death, where is thy sting!" -- maybe now you'll appreciate the utter triumph over impossibility that the Cross represents. Maybe now you'll see that His Perspective in giving us this so-hard but so-valuable Spiritual Life, is to give us the Enjoyment Of A Glorious And Ironic Fight For Freedom: a fight against all the illusions(!) that awwww, God can't(!!) pour His Attributes into His own creation! Moreover, yet another fight, also against impossible odds: for, our situations relative to each other are the SAME, paradigmally, as the Creation Paradox. That is, how do WE manage to get along despite being so offended with each other? Intimidated with each other? Shall we too, be limited by our own differences, our own limitations? LOL, of course NOT! says God.."What, is My Arm too short????!" (NIV, hilarious Jewish expression! Num11:23, Isa50:2, 59:1)

    The personal 'cost' to God the Son cannot be overstated. As you'll learn in the next bullet, the only way to resolve the unbridgeable chasm is for Him to attach finity to Himself. This is somewhat like having a bizillion dollars and choosing to live instead as if destitute, and in feces. forever. For, He first has to add Humanity to Himself, and then pay for all the sins of the rational creation which can exist. No matter how good, how bad, no matter whether they ever even once believe in Him. No gerrymandering of who gets to be born, who gets saved, who grows up in the spiritual life. Only Infinite Love can account for His Astonishing Motive to attach Humanity to Himself. It staggers the mind, how great this Love must be...

    [The fact that He has to unify all finity within His Humanity, which many Bible passages attest in different ways, further warrants the conclusion advanced in Part I's brown font that Satan, at least, knew in advance the entire Plan. At least, as binged gnosis. I'm still not sure how much of this Plan would be perfect for Adam and the woman to know; then again, you don't see them asking the Lord why that Tree is there, nor do you see them asking what happens if they eat from the tree, but still want a relationship with Him. So, maybe the 'silence' on those two points reveals that they did know. Often 'silence' in Scripture is designed to communicate what the individuals and readers already knew as axiomatic. Also: where do I put all this? Part II? That's where the topic is explicit (Part I introduced it sotto voce), especially by Part II's end: talking about how the Lord's Hypostatic Union and Unique Spiritual Life was needed. Part III maybe could handle it? Or is that too late? No, better start the explicit weaving process back in Part I (or did I do that already in the December revisions)?]

  • The Irony Of God's Infinity is key to understanding everything. The spiritual 'atomic structure' of God's Nature is the key to understanding anything and everything else. Like, the Hypostatic Union. Like, the Cross. Like, our salvation.

    If you look at galaxies or hurricanes or even tornadoes from the aerial view, they have essentially the same structure. The center has an opposite nature to the periphery, and because of the oppositeness, the whole thing hang and moves together. Yet the periphery, is 'hostile' to the center, in that it is trying to move away. Yet cannot but serve the center. Yet the center is 'hostile' to the periphery, yet does not suck it all into itself. Like an atom bomb's physics, this oppositeness makes for great destructive power. But for great constructive power, too. Because, the Opposites Are United. All depends on how that power, is used.

    Mathematics, of course, like physics and all other types of human knowledge, is but partially and imperfectly perceived. What stumps people about math, are the symbols. But if you treat the symbols as acronyms (for, that's what they really are), it should be no harder to read "double-dot a" as signifying "the present value of a future lifetime income stream", than "PVFLIS", or, simply, "PV." Math is a language. So, the trick is to learn how to read it. Its symbols are word-pictures. So, learn the symbols, and you can 'reason' with math. That's how all those great mathematicians got so advanced: they learned how to read and write and think in mathematical 'words'.

    Like with logic accounting, the cool thing about math is that you can test it. I'm beginning to think that math is evidence of the Dynamics of the Nature of God. Problem is, we all don't know how to read it well enough. That's what Aristotle's contemporaries were trying to do: They knew "numbers" somehow revealed God; so, they were trying to use the principles of math to discern God. And, they were (not surprisingly), hung up on "One".

      [Sidenote: This is not a proof-God-exists argument. No such argument is ever necessary, because our genetic sin nature in Adam is dissociatively reacting to the knowledge that God exists, from our first breath. (That's why our instinctive reaction to anything we dislike is, the thing/God/someone else is to blame.) So, what's necessary is to think out How God Is, because we are born spiritually dead, and hence we are blind to both the dissociation, and its cause. Hence thinking out How God Is constitutes an act of assent to knowing Him; an act of positive volition toward the only One who can answer our questions: God Himself. Remember, though, that because we are spiritually dead, and hence blind, only so many 'dots' of an answer can be given at any one time, lest we be manipulated, influenced.. or even paralysed, by 'too much' of the answer being provided. Moreover, if you're looking for an answer which requires differential calculus to reply, but you don't yet know how to add 1+1, well..you first need to learn other things before the answer can be given.]

    Numbers themselves depict true infinity, again showing how neither mass nor energy are needed. Unfortunately, somewhere along in history someone decided to call infinitely recurring accretion, "infinity". That is, a thing just keeps growing and growing. It had a beginning, and it just keeps adding +1 (or whatever denomination base one uses). Yet Infinitely recurring accretion is more properly represented by the term "fractals".

    The nature of true infinity should be easily recognizable, especially to a mathematician. True infinity is the opposite of accretion. That's the first irony about God. The mathematical symbol itself illustrates what true infinity is: depicted as a sideways "8", true infinity is an equilibrium of homeostasis which has neither beginning nor end; outside of which, nothing exists nor can exist; out from (min, ek) which nothing can 'leave'. Granted, a sideways 8 implies mass, energy, even motion; but there wouldn't BE any motion in infinity, for all is filled, so to speak ("filled" being a spatial term, yikes). The most critical thing to note about infinity is that everything is joined, united, harmonized into one whole.

    Homeostasis cannot exist apart from balance, and balance cannot exist if destruction. In short, "bad" must exist, at least as a potential, in order for homeostasis to be truly stable. This, because there must be opposites for there to be balance. The problem is, "bad" by nature is destructive, so would always destabilize and of course, moves, etc. -- so, irony of ironies -- an Infinite God Can Know Bad, but must never Himself BE bad. Not even for a nanosecond. Else, the homeostasis, the balance, is lost. Once lost, can never be regained. [This is why all Hindu-like and animistic definitions of God having 'badness' attributes don't fly. If "Kali" is part (really, Hindus would say "expression" or "manifestation") of God, and Ganeesh is part of God, then God is not God. "..God cannot be divided against..." Matt12:25, Mark3:24-25]

    Since we're not God, we don't recognize the critical importance of bad's existence. We're always trying to rid ourselves of (what we call) 'bad'. But the Truth is, if bad doesn't exist, if it only remains a potential, then good isn't good, either. It's not just a question of appreciating good because the 'bad' helps form a frame of reference. The deeper truth is, if bad is disallowed to exist, then good is a sham. "Good" would then be a fantasy, for nothing was allowed to be against it. Being Infinite, God is Infinite Good. So, what must be the opposite, for Infinite Good, even though itself of intrinsic value (GK "agathos" has this meaning), becomes bad if such Good is tyrannical; which Good becomes, if even one iota of potentially-real bad is disallowed. Hence, all the bad that can be, must be allowed to be, without any gerrymandering by God. And God must never compromise even one iota of His Own Essence in so allowing! If He does, then HE becomes bad, and the homeostasis is permanently destroyed. All this irony is true, solely because God IS Infinite.

    Of course, the preceding paragraph has brought us back to the shall-God-be-limited-shall-God-be-trapped topic in the prior bullet. So, again, we see why God would never want anything BUT stones-too-heavy-to-lift. (Theologians stop at such ironies, concluding that God is helpless -- or something -- to go against Himself. But they stop too soon in their analysis. The Truth Is So Gorgeous: that's why God wants to be God, irrespective of whether He could violate His Own Nature and stay God. It has nothing whatsoever to do with God 'having' to do something, and everything to do with God wanting and Loving the Truth. The stunning Glory of the Cross will never be understood, so long as one stops his analysis of Divine Nature when he encounters the Irony of God. )

    So, watch the results! Since Infinite homeostasis/equilibrium cannot be preserved unless both bad exists, and is not destructive (but that's contrary to the nature of bad!) -- what must God 'do'? Unite Best To Worst, By Absorbing It All. Thus Convert Bad Into Greater Good. That's the Cross! Absorbing all sins, converting them to endless Crosses -- because, by nature, the Cross is Glory; you can also prove this is true, for to Omniscience, the Cross is always occurring. That's why Hebrews 12:2 is not hyperbole, but rather, understated: it really is pure, unalloyed happiness (true meaning of Greek "chara", badly translated "joy"). That's why endless crosses are exactly and precisely what God Loves, exults over, the most!

      Each of God's Attributes of course 'agrees' with this conclusion based on its own properties: Infinity is here displayed. But also, Love, for Love would Love to pour itself out no matter what the obstacle; Love would also want to solve the horrible suffering Omniscience sees creation have, no matter how made -- but especially, if made due to equilibrium. And especially, for the best of bests happiness creation would have if United. Truth, of course, would be interested in Truth fully coming to pass: Best truth, and even Worst Truth, because Truth. No conditions. Righteousness and Justice would 'agree' because only here is Righteousness fully Righteous, and Justice fully executed. Omnipotence would 'love' to fully exploit itself, too: this is the only way to do it. Same, for Omniscience. Omnipresence, which is an anthropopathic term for Infinity, of course 'wants' to BE in everything, everywhere, always. Sovereignty of course wills this to the uttermost, for also both the obstacles and the happinesses fully 'exercise' Sovereignty..and conquer all. In sum, all God's Attributes, including of course those not listed here, have their own 'motives' for agreement: Unite Best To Worst!

    Do you see? It makes creation necessary, this Truth about homeostasis. It also makes creation a glorious burden which one ardently Loves. Even though, creation is offensive (too small, and sins)! So, the irony of ironies is itself ironical, and what would be dead/ bad/ intolerable is instead alive/ Glory/ Loved!

    We humans are naturally bad, so this Love sounds like hell to us. But remember, we live in two universes, and the sin-nature universe is a Lady MacBeth, trying to rid itself of its damned spot. So will conclude "hell" based on ITS standards. Which are sin's standards. Not God's standards. So the Real Truth is, it's a Glory to have this burden.. but we can only even know that fact is a fact, from God telling us so. Then, it's a question of how much do you want that fact to be produced IN you. If you reach Pleroma stage of the spiritual life, you will still be as helpless as when newly-reborn spiritually: but you will want the burden more than anything else in life. God will literally take you through it, even as He alone takes us through the spiritual life He created in Christ.

    The Spiritual Atomic Structure Of The Universe


    It's the "4 Decisions" (The Lord's pre-Creation, Eternal decisions to atone propitiate reconcile redeem) that Unite Finity To Infinity, bridge the unbridgeable! See, we all think of the Cross as a pay thing, a me-bad thing, but that's not what it is. It's instead.. Tragedy Turned To Triumph! Tyranny Turned To Freedom! For the tyranny was, for the tragedy was, that to make creation was a stone too heavy to lift! But the Freedom became, but the Triumph became, that the Stone was lifted! So we can be Lifted to Eternal Life! with HIM! Free! It's not some sit-on-cloud garbage, for crying out loud. Sin Was Never The Issue. Sin was just part of the Impossibility. Part of it. Nailed, now. GONE! Romans 8:1: "So now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus!" (Greek has no verb, so Paul is shouting).

      Romans 8 is on this entire topic; Romans 4-7 set it up. Ok: 'gotta explain some things about Greek plays. The so-called 'classic' (Attic, Homerian, etc) ones involve a villian, a hero, and..most importantly, a moral lesson about tragic flaws. It's how a little flaw wrecks a WHOLE (otherwise noble) person. Greeks were big on moral lessons, because they were a people keen on intellect. Hence, on nuances. Especially, with their language.

      So, when playwrights wrote (and the prizes for winning in competition were enormous), they would give the villian a lot of 'intransitive' verbs to speak. An 'intransitive' verb is one which takes no object. Meaning, heh -- the villian never succeeds in his purpose; he struts on the stage for a little while (depicting the 'stage' of life), and then goes off empty-handed. No Object.

      The Hero, by contrast, would be scripted with transitive verbs. Always gets the object -- due to his virtue. However, the hero always had one or another kind of tragic flaw. The play would usually have a subplot showing how the hero overcame his tragic flaw; or, if he did not, it was a tragedy. Oedipus, the Odyssey -- these are examples of tragedy of this type.

      Now we come to Scripture. Surprisingly, Biblical Greek scholars forget (though they are taught otherwise) that many other types of Greek besides koine are sprinkled liberally throughout the Bible. Like, for example, Atticisms. For, kinda like Shakespeare or KJV English, Attic Greek was deemed high-class -- and the plays (still popular in the Lord's day) were IN Attic (and other Greek). NOT koine. So, since Scripture is about some pretty dramatic stuff, it often uses Attic, not koine, in stressed/ dramatic clauses. That's partly why you'll see strange verses in English. They don't quite make sense, or they seem ambiguous or even contradictory, compared to other verses. This, because they weren't translated properly. It's not merely a problem of English being a bad language to translate TO: if you mistake which kind of Greek is being used, you don't translate it properly. Kinda like mistaking a tone in Mandarin Chinese, you can really screw up the meaning by not recognizing what Greek you are looking at.

      Romans 8:28 is Attic, for example. It introduces the Hero, God, as working out, (Gk:sunergeo) converting intransitive to transitive. Sunergeo is an intransitive verb. But has "all things" (ta panta) as its object: now you know why. Moreover, in Attic Greek if you want to stress the WHO, you use accusative (object) case, rather than the normal nominative. That, too, was a frequent drama language tactic used in the plays. So, also, in Romans 8:28: "God" is depicted in the accusative case: object of Love, but also the subject of sunergeo; a clever and common 'pivot' usage in verses about God. Finally, Romans 8:28 tells us how this play ends: "good" result (eis agathon, "resulting in good of intrinsic value achievement"). [See how much meaning gets chopped out in translation? English is a deliberately insipid, polyglot language owing to England's formative history, during which England had to learn diplomacy, to survive. Yet English also uses the accusative case sometimes, for stress: "It is US" stresses "us", because it's in the wrong case. Greek would add even more stress by putting such a word early in the sentence, even before the verb; sometimes, as the first word in the sentence; or, clause. Peter likes doing this.)

      So, look at Romans 8:18. The 'play' starts at verse 19 in order to explain Paul's v.18 conclusion; play runs through 39, with 8:28 as its apex. For, this is the 'play' of our lives, based on the 4 Decisions! Creation: low, impotent, compared to Infinite Righteousness .. becomes a villian, too -- due to sin. (Which we saw from Part I was inevitable, since we are so small. Free will just would, at some point, choose against God.) Hence, Creation is intransitive. But, our Hero converts what is otherwise a hopeless situation into transitive: Triumph! And what is His 'tragic flaw'? He has to pay for sins, though innocent! But oh! He overcomes them! How? By taking on Humanity and Becoming The Object. So now, He Himself is the Bridge (Mediator) across the unbridgeable chasm between Infinity and Finity; between God, and free-will creation. Between Righteousness, and sin; between Truth, and falsehood. So we helpless 'villians', otherwise stuck with an intransitive, no-object life, can become the object of "God works all things together for good." Oh: I forgot to mention that "to those" is dative, meaning indirect object -- but also meaning, for whose benefit the object is undertaken by the subject. (This is but one of many layers of meaning in the passage. All Bible verses tell many stories, all-at-once. Stacked, interrelated: kinda like the wooden game, "Jenga".)

      So this most-dramatic 'play' ends in Romans 8:39, the Hero's Triumph: No divorce, No separation! The stone too heavy, is lifted, the labor pains are over! The Barren, gives birth! Hebrews tells the same dramatic story in a Hebraistic way: Chapters 1+2 +5 through 10; the other chapters are all corollaries. Colossians, too unveils it in Chapter 1; then uses it as a foundation to interpret the spiritual life, weaving it through the rest of the epistle. [btw: Col 1:23-25 should be studied in Greek, not the tangled English; also, verse 10.] Ephesians picks up the story at His Session, tracing out how the spiritual life we get from His Victory, results. Peter, who seems to echo Ephesians' beginning in his own, also paints the same creation drama, in 2 Peter3: v.11 is a crescendo exclamation relating back to how we live today! ('But only in Greek: English is incredibly misleading.)


    So, then: think of the 4 Decisions as spiritual atoms, which, as a result, give birth to all else, and insure that Freedom and +R remain always met, thus ironically resolving the sterile paradox: Isa54:1! Hence, equilibrium. Hence, inviolate Infinity and Justice and Righteousness. Hence, The Impossible Is Done! The Cross represents the completion of this inviolability. Literally, the NEXUS of everything. Whether anyone knows or believes it, or not! For, the Lord did it this way for the pleasure of the Father. And, for Himself and the Spirit. So..inviolable profit. Just as is His Own Nature! Truth!

    See, His thought process (so to speak) went like this, way back in eternity past, which 1Tim2:5 so gorgeously records (in the Greek): Everything bad could not allowed to really turn out bad; else, there could be no creation. So, what we are seeing as 'bad' is a paradigm of what would have been true, IF IF IF IF IF The Lord didn't make those Four Most-Glorious Decisions. But He did make them: and said so! from the "bruise" clause in Gen 3, to the sacrifices, to the Mosaic Law..and finally, at on in forever, The Cross! Tetelestai! Stone too heavy got lifted! The impossible, the irredeemably bad, got redeemed! Heis.yar Theos..Heis mesites!!! That's why Paul is so exultant, shouting total military victory in Rom 8:38-39!

      Do you realize what this means? All those bad things are rendered, Lies! I don't know about you, but I become royally upset by the small, the petty, the martinet, the incompetent, the haughty; like everyone else I've harmed and been harmed by other people/things; like some others, it just kills me to see people suffer (i really can't take it at all). But guess what? These "bads" are all Lies! Bad becomes 'bad', just a "vapor" (James), a mere hallucination! Due to the 4 Decisions! Doo-doo becomes Diamonds BY design! Whether I knew it or not! And I, too, being big doo-doo, am a Diamond! By Design! And we know this is true, for Son would never make creation for Father to look at forever if Son didn't make and bring to full effect those 4 Decisions. So, the doo-doo woulda been real doo-doo, only able to effect doo-doo; but, due to the 4 Decisions, tetelestai! Now doo-dooing a diamond's job! Is that a sweet triumphal procession, or what?

      I don't mean to imply that bad doesn't exist. It does. But here's what actually happens: first, a hupostasis in the design: God's Diamonds baptised onto the bad thing, person, whatever. Second, the bad plays out in time: at that point, so does the God meaning. So, what actually happens is that the bad is converted. Derivative power (next bullet, below) becomes original power. So, the bad is flipped, with spiritual alchemy (next bullet, combat-green table) into Diamonds. Doctrine really changes the nature of bad: that's the alchemy. Truth changes untruth. It's not sophistry. A real bad becomes a real good. So lie becomes no-lie. In Him. Due to the Cross.

      So, then: no reason for guilt, for anger, for heartache, for any reaction to bad, because there is effectively no such thing -- instead, only an masked actor who struts on the stage of life, then goes off empty-handed, because all objects are in Christ, and no one else! (Isa43:25,51:12; plus Jn14:6.) Yeah, Shakespeare, that's what bad is: "A tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Yeah, Paul, tell it like it IS: "For I am convinced..that nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus"! Yeah, Shakespeare, that's what good is now! "So blow winds, crack Your Cheeks!"

      See the Irony? For, the lie really IS a lie. So, a semblance. A woulda-been truth, a coulda-been hell. Which we gloriously get to see and feel in the right-here-and-now: our salvation! No wonder the writers of Scripture make so many wordplays with salvation terminology: bad proves salvation works! Which you can also prove mathematically, since real bad IS a negative; therefore, it couldn't exist! Only positive ("real") numbers really exist! No wonder the Lord told the crowd to rejoice when they are reviled for His Name! Heck, even a drop of pee has cause for rejoicing! So how much more, a fortiori, all our pains, all those who have suffered from time immemorial! For nothing shall separate us! Did you get that pun on Rom 8:38?

      Above all, notice this: He Loves Us Totally; and the only way He could 'get' us, is if HE becomes the Object. The Gospel is the 'only way' because it's the only way for God! to get an inviolable relationship with otherwise-too-low beings! So, we should stop being on our high-horse when we object to the Gospel, or bludgeon the unbeliever with it. It's Love, the Triumph over the Impossible! Not, 'you're a bad person!' But Love, the only way Infinity and finity can be totally happy together. Just as it stands written, "For God Loved the world so much" (John 3:16, corr trans; verse is partly in Attic); "God demonstrates His Love toward us" (Rom5:8, corr trans). We sit here making a big fuss over our sins; but God makes a big fuss over the Prodigal Son, the lost coin, the lost sheep. Why would God make a fuss over us being 'found', if He Himself wasn't thrilled about it? Wasn't the prodigal's father thrilled? That's why the fatted calf was used (celebration, big deal in those days). Wasn't the woman who found the lost coin thrilled -- so much so, she calls her neighbors to tell them?! Isn't the shepard who finds a lost sheep thrilled -- so much so, he leaves 99 other sheep to go looking? Let's forget our guilt over being small, our offense over others not measuring up to our standards -- let's get thrilled over the fact we get to Live With Him Forever! And so also, anyone, anyone at all. No matter what sins, no matter how low, no matter how handicapped. The impossible is made righteous! Isn't that thrilling to know?

    Thus: Everything in creation, and the underlying rule for all natural laws, are intrinsically bonded by and to The Four Decisions, so have those properties: atoning, propitiating, reconciling, redeeming. These are the "God-meanings" with which virtually everything and everyone is baptised. Justice cannot be broken, not even in one iota at any nanosecond, thus. That's why everything is circular! The 4 Decisions are the cause of equilibrium! For, they would have to be reflected in the design, to set up the affinity for execution. Else, no fulfilment could be had. So, two-sided. So, Two natures. So, He took on HUmanity to execute what He designed in creation. (Father planned it; Son executed it, Spirit restores it. You'll see this division-of-roles throughout Scripture.)

    The Four Decisions' structure and function in creation, of course, emulate their Creator. Thus, two tiers, which here we'll call Alpha and Beta:

    • Alpha tier is non-volitional, inherent property. Everything bad or good that lives, happens, dies, whatever..all action, and all existences (even dust) will -- due to these Decisions forming a mini-hypostasis with the item's very nature -- atone propitiate reconcile and redeem. Thus, even a bad thing will have a good high profit-making effect; not merely an offset to bad. However,

    • Beta tier is volitional: any creature with volition can choose to reject some or all of this beneficial equilibrating result. As you can guess, for the believer this means he better get and use the Lord's Thinking, Bible Doctrine: because if he doesn't, he's REJECTING the result. Because:

      Alpha Tier represents the Lord's Own Nature in executing the decision to create, which is based on Beta Tier, His Own Decisions (so to speak) to take on Humanity. So, a thing naturally, as a 'child' of His Genius, will reflect His nature to the extent of the properties of that thing (or person); but also, if a person, must reflect HIS Choosing..to get the benefit.

    These two tiers cause all the things we think we know as secular laws in every field, from atomic structures to zoology. That's why things die, and that's why decay fertilizes. That's why no one ever ever ever suffers true injustice, except for His Own Rejection. That's why there has to be a hell, too, for even rejection needs healing. See, these laws are so punctiliar, even the one causing the wrong has wronged himself and therefore must be the beneficiary of healing! Isa 53:5's raphah! Which healing, of course, that verse explains: BELIEF IN CHRIST Saves, Delivers, Spares, Heals!

    Lots more is said about Beta tier of the 4 Decisions in "Micro Spiritual Growth Topics".

    (Important note: My pastor retaught Rom 8:28 sometime toward the end of 2001, I believe. The "Freedom" angle, besides coming from verses like Gal5:1, is also highlighted in the context of the 4 Decisions in L1552 of 92SD (7/4/99), first heard on 2/05/03. I feel a lot more comfortable with my own rephrasing now that I've heard his way of describing the role of the 4 Decisions, with respect to freedom.

    This table's contents is partly extrapolated from his teaching, as is most of what I write, in order to understand it better. So you should check his teaching; also, "4 Decisions", his title for a doctrine he frequently teaches, which hopefully is correctly represented here and in Micro Spiritual Growth Topics. He does not, so far as I know, claim that the 4 Decisions are an underpinning of all 'laws' in the universe; however, in L1552 he calls the 4 Decisions of eternity past "the birth of freedom!" (s.1). The 'underpinning of all laws in the universe is my extrapolation; but if it's right -- and it looks right so far -- it's due to his teaching that I got it right. Also, the idea for "Beta tier" came from hearing his "Law of Double Punishment" series subsection on the Attic object-and-result structure of Eph1:7, Col1:14, plus the adikia tie-ins of Col3:25 and 1Jn1:9. In short, I also do my own due diligence to be sure I get the Truth of what he's saying; in the process, corollaries naturally arise, like those here. Therefore, any mistakes, are mine.)


    Moreover, we now know from these 4 Decisions why all the punning judgements and blessings the Bible so profusely displays; why everything, in short, is matched. why all the opposites and men.de constructions in Biblical writing style. Why the association process is the key dynamic of all learning and living (including, mental illness). Why the pairing-nature of creation, WHY the so-called scientific laws (really God's Faithfullness laws, as my pastor so aptly puts it) depend on Opposites. Why economics and physics, and every discipline in secular life likewise depends on opposites, and therefore cycles, is circular. And, most of all, Why A Hypostatic Union! For, if God doesn't establish a "door" through which Divine Attributes can be replicated, compatibility with rational creation can never occur! Moreover, apart from the connecting of blessing-by-association, the rest of bad in life, plus all those who are yet UNconnected (haven't yet believed in Him) -- they wouldn't have ANY way of being benefitted, redeemed, even temporally!

    Redemption is what converts bad to a better Good than would have obtained absent the bad thing being there in the first place. Which, we now know, is essential to infinite homeostasis! And, even more, the Best Of Glories, no matter what among infinite options God would omnipotently make "truth" BE, even if He'd still stay God no-matter-what-choice-He-made! Which, of course, is Why the Truth is what it is, and Infinitely stable, harmonious, and never in 'need' of lifting a finger to 'help' it! It's not just -10 being 'paid for' by +10, but by +bizillion! So, the upshot is, God uses Bad To Leverage Incalculable Good. Not mere counterweighting! How can this leveraging be so good?

  • DERIVATIVE power. Due to the nature of God, all power in life is either original (God's, "thesis", cute likeness to "theos", constructive), or derivative (if negatively-derivative, then anti-God, "antithesis", destructive). Again, as noted in the last bullet, the uniting of opposites means the power at the very connection point of those opposites, is extreme. Extremely destructive.. or, extremely constructive. This power is, in physics and math, called "derivative". Idea is, anything bouncing at this connective point which separates the connection, unleashes a massive force. So, sin bounces against one's connection to God, hence is a derivative power (here, destructive); hence the massive shattering force of Satan's sin, Adam's sin, upon the soul. Hence, our immense proclivity to even abuse morality and good, to serve sin as a substitute god. So if the shattering power's derivative can be reversed, then the effect would be fusion with God, not fission away from Him.

    Frankly, that's God's Plan in a nutshell: to reverse both the finity derivative, and the sin derivative. That's why it feels so awful at times (depending on your own likes and dislikes) to BELIEVE. The actual properties of spiritual derivatives are mirrored in math and physics, so if you know derivatives, you'll find a good bit of Bible Doctrine reflected there. Right down to the nature of the bonding: the Worst gets bonded to the Best (Cross), and then next-less-worst to next-less-best, and so on: kinda like button holes and buttons in a shirt (but omnidirectional, not just linear). Many conundrums in science could be resolved if only people recognized the spiritual 'math' and 'physics', here. Because, there is a vertical universe operating on the horizontal one. Just as, the spiritual life is lived in two universes (Spirit and body, with soul as the connection between them), so also all the rest of the physical universe is tied to and impacted by, the Vertical One: God. So discern what the spiritual relationships are, and you can more readily see the physical universe relationships.

    Just as in math, physics, and biology, derivative power cannot be as large as its original source. In fact, it can be quite small. But, since derivative power is a break away from original power, its leverage value is extreme: for derivative power derives its power from the original. In other words: God's power is the "size" factor. So a 'little' negative breakaway from God produces a big destruction. By contrast, a 'little' deposit of Bible Doctrine one gets in a given moment; a 'little' use of Bible Doctrine one (associatively) 'baptises' onto one's experience -- these, being original power, have gigantic constructive effects! Oh boy, there are so many corollaries! My fingers can't keep up with the insights; type what i can of some corollaries.

    The successive depositing of Truth, God's Attribute, in a believer (Bible Doctrine is Truth) builds original power. Constructive. Reconstructive, actually, for the soul is trashed by original sin. [Adam's own, to Adam; or the first sin in a totally-depraved body, infects each soul who does it. Rom5:12 is not only a two-pronged indictment, but also the first prong is double-entendre due to const. aorist of hamartano.]

      Romans 8, How You Change Key ==> Because the Original Power inherent in God's Attribute of Truth, the believer grows beyond both his sin nature and his human nature; yet, remains inviolately human, a kind of functional hypostasis. (Part I's "Integrity Properties" did explain this, but not from the standpoint of the power of Truth per se.) God's Power, being original, is thus 'in' Doctrine, because Doctrine is Truth: so for the believer, the knowledge of Truth. (Heb: da'ath, chakmah and other nouns; Gk:"gnosis", "epignosis", and particularly the latter, which is doctrine BELIEVED, aka "pistis", "faith" in Bible.) So, if one does or thinks in the energy of his own flesh, he is but strutting on the stage, empty-handed: using derivative power, not Original power.

      POWER OF LIES KEY ==> So, then, one kind of derivative power of Truth, is the rejection of Truth. So, the power of a lie is (negatively) derived from the Bigness, the Power, of the Truth. So, because the Truth is rejected, the power of even a small lie is very self-destructive. Splitting an 'atom' of truth, even! So, self can't burn off 'bad karma'! Only self gets burned!

      Heb4:12, "The Word of God is ALIVE and POWERFUL" -- corr trans in caps + "wrath of man shall praise God", etc. reveal another interrelationship between previous lies which keep having negative momentum, and the incoming truth: Truth Flips The Power Of The Lie From Negative Force, To Positive Force. Again, this is another reason why it often feels so bad to resist temptation or believe. The real power is way greater than you can feel, but a small part of that power, is something the body can detect. Because, the body is connected to your soul, and all emotion and feeling, is in the body (but not the soul). It's helpful to know this aspect of God's spiritual physics, to fight against the temptation of guilt (one of the worst sins, really paralyzes the spiritual life).

        Again, if you know something about how derivatives interact in math or physics, you can see how what Romans 8 (etc.) describes, works 'scientifically'. Virtually any other discipline or aspect of life, has the same property. For example, cleaning your body regularly is critical to protecting against disease, yet itself is a very small thing. The cleaning 'plays' small and meaninglessly. So people have to have some radio or other entertainment in their bathrooms, to warrant spending what they come to feel is a waste of time (especially if you can no longer fantasize that looks matter). Well, see? Leverage is taking place. A small thing, bouncing in favor of a big truth, has a big effect on the body. Yet, always remains itself, small.

        Similarly, note how the negative effects, mammothly aid, the positive ones, when the positive ones are employed. For, you are not only cleaning your body, you are: gettting exercise; learning discipline; learning humility; learning a lesson (especially if you had let yourself go); strengthening your will. In short, whatever you neglected, becomes a bigger lesson, with the result that you are far less likely to repeat the neglect. Of course, if you spend your time reacting against the truth that you need to clean the body, the negative effects will mammothly aid the negative ones already there. But in either case, the negative past derivatives, aid, enhance.

      GREATER POWER OF HYPOSTATIC UNION KEY ==> By attaching Humanity to Himself, the Son provided the means of converting derivative power into original power. So, lies, even while lies, do the same job as Original power. So bad, even while bad, does the same job as good (agathos: good of intrinsic value, highest good). Doo-doo does a Diamond's job. The Cross is the culmination of that means, because during the Cross He absorbs all sins in His Humanity. And baptises them all with Truth. Thus the power of lies only multiplies the Original Power of Truth!

    This Truth is so Alive and so Powerful, it literally holds HIM together. Even now. What you are about to read in the table below is for me the most shocking of all the corollaries of Truth I've ever learned, so audit it carefully. I know I'll never be the same, again. This is the internal counterpart to the "Paradox" Table in Part V.

    So, the Escutcheon Glory: the Paradox of Infinity and Finity

    1Tim2:5, God's Alchemy: The 'Lion' Makes Gold! "Heis gar Theos..heis Mesites!" Payment for sins was Freely made on His Part -- it was not "owed".

    • First, the root concept: If God can make man separately without compromise to His Righteousness, then surely He can attach Humanity to Deity without compromise.
    • But next, notice this! The problem is the same in either case! Unbridgeable chasm!

    Just like Satan, we humans think that because He is Perfect Humanity and Infinite Deity, that duality somehow 'rigs the deck' in favor of Him being able to endure the Cross. After all, everyone else who was initially perfect succumbed to temptation; so why didn't His Humanity succumb? Must have been some 'help' by Deity...

    But the Truth is just the opposite: His Humanity should have been destroyed by the Union with Deity! Being in Hypostatic Union means His merely breathing is infinitely worse! For, by nature, finity is derivative (derives from Infinity). So He literally has had, every second of His Life from birth onward, unending crosses of separation, barriers within His very Nature: the sheer 'stretch' between Infinity and finity! Only Truth, which can be replicated into finity, can harmonize the two, bypass ALL barriers. Remember derivative power? Well, the derivative pulling-away tendency which must be native to finity, remains: constantly, since finity and Infinity are not compatible by nature. He IS the Cross, by nature. permanent nature: at His Humanity's Birth, in Heb10:5 depiction..and even now. "The Same Yesterday, today..forever." (Heb13:8.) No wonder He's called Ho Logos Tou Staurou!

      Excepting the classic theological definition of the Hypostatic Union, which is truly brilliant, history's councils and tomes explaining the Hypostatic Union betray misconceptions regarding the nature of Will, Self-Consciousness and Knowledge: treating these attributes as if they were but one attribute, and not distinguishing between the expression of an Attribute and the Attribute itself. So, 'holy' folks settle for truly insulting descriptions of the Hypostatic Union (like 'two wills', what a crock: as if God weren't Infinite!) or throw up their hands and say that God is 'inscrutable', or a 'mystery'. Yeah, a mystery to them!

      Look: if it were possible for finity to survive receiving Infinity's Attributes, there'd have been no sin and no Cross, because God could have just replicated the Attributes at initial creation. What makes this IMpossible, is that the replication would have violated free will within finity, because the attributes are too big: will has to be that big, too. So God would be destroying free will if He just binged everyone with His Own Attributes at initial creation, since the ONE difference in creation, is that it has its own will. Will is an inherent component of Aliveness, Self-Consciousness, Personhood -- you can't divorce them, and still remain a person. So the essential dilemma was this: to grow finity to become big enough -- freely. Or, decree automatons. In which case, the binged Attributes would be DISconnected from will; a travesty and wholly unsatisfactory, since God is Free. So, the automatonic option, won't work.

      SO UNITY MUST BE CHOSEN BY FINITY, for these Attributes to be in harmony with it. In short, finity must go against itself to make that choice. This, it cannot do of its own power; it can will to do so, but cannot make that will efficacious upon its own nature BY its own nature. Only the Infinite Truth coming into it (or, if already there, continually chosen) can forge the connection needed to make the will-against choice efficacious. For, Infinity can bond finity to itself, but finity cannot bond Infinity to itself. For, finity is but derivative, separatist power.

      So, as Part I's "Integrity Properties" table, and Part II's "opportunity cost" table explained, TWO methods of getting 'bonded' to Infinity were provided. First method (e.g. to angels, the Eden couple, Christ): from the initial state of perfection upward, via those Truth deposits (used or gained&used, as applicable). Second method, post-sin: by faith in Christ; the Truth deposits are post-salvation deposits (remember, any pre-sin deposited Truth was totally trashed by sin, as Satan's and Adam's Falls reveal).

      So clearly the Hypostatic Union means tension on the finity side, because finity can't naturally receive union with Infinity; Must keep choosing, therefore, to live with the interim Dichotomy between them, pending sufficient deposits of The Truth.

      So, obviously, there is no bleed-over of knowledge, etc. Will and Self-Consciousness are each different Attributes from Knowledge; so too, are expressions. Note well: things like powers, faculties and expressions are part of nature. Personhood, by contrast, is just living. Irrespective of nature: you can prove this quickly, since you are a person, and God is a person. You, like God, can will against your nature: you can will to not eat though hungry, to believe despite no justification, to be a bird.

      However, being able to execute your will is a separate issue, for the ability to execute will's directive is a separate faculty, which does depend on your nature. For, Nature determines content of living, and of course quality: but living, is just that: being alive and aware. So, since finity can't handle Infinity, Divine Knowledge 'feeding' into Will or Consciousness is no compromise to His Humanness: for only the Divine Faculty of Knowing could 'read' it; only the Divine Faculty Of Expression can express it. And, of course, vice versa, except that His Deity already knows whatever His Humanity is expressing, learning, doing, etc.

      But get this: since He IS Human as well, and bonded to His Infinite Deity Nature, He can tap Divine Attributes by humanly willing that to happen; including, He can will those Attributes to aid or 'do for', His Humanity. The second He does that, it's all over. Satan is trying to tempt Him to do that, in Matt4. In the name of 'good'!

    So oh, the tension on His finity! Greater than the tension needed to explode an atom bomb! For the will and self-consciousness, since attributes of Personhood (as distinct from attributes like Knowing, which are properties of nature) could tap into either Divine or Human Powers. Think of the pressure on Humanity to use Deity! For, He Is One Person, and can thus will to do this, which fact Satan was counting on in the Matt4 temptations! See, if we don't understand how He is constructed, so to speak, we can't appreciate the utter impossibility of His situation, and our so-great salvation...

      My pastor makes a big stink about this, and maybe what he says will help a reader 'get' how the Hypostatic Union works. First, the underlying concepts: Will Is The Center. Everything feeds into it. For example, a believer is trichotomous: body, soul, spirit. The spirit feeds to will, so does the soul, so does the body. The will of the believer is in his soul: still, everything feeds to it. For, Will Must Choose. So, obviously His Will is centered in His Human Soul, but 'straddles' both His Natures, so to speak. In short, His Will is capable of getting and giving information to BOTH of His respective Natures. Simple as that. So, as my pastor keeps on explaining and stressing, with oodles of verses: because He is both Deity and Humanity, He had to keep on willing to hold the universe together -- even, while on the Cross!

    For, the separatist-pull of finity, precisely because it can't take unity with Infinity, is ..immeasurable! That is why He had to grow to Love and thus go so far in Truth: why His Humanity had to stay perfect, and had to be Indwelt by God the Father and God the Spirit, and HAD to get the unique spiritual life (which we Church inherit -- oh, how we need to know this), and Had To Finish Salvation's Provision At The Cross. That's why we can't even add one 'drop' to His Work! That's why it's sooo important to know that the second He was born, He was born to total separatist torture, because the Union was Permanent and Eternal (everlasting, for humanity): for, Infinity will not have barriers!

    As noted earlier, since Truth is an undivided Attribute of God, it itself is also part and parcel of all other Attributes. So, 'deposits' of Truth likewise build Other Divine Attributes in the depositee. So: unless and until He grew up fully in Love For The Truth, to actually become Truth even in His Humanity, to thus become Infinite Righteousness even in His Humanity -- unless and until then, He'd not have Inviolable, No-Barriers internal homeostasis within His Humanity. Because, He IS One Person forever. From Birth. Not two persons (barriers!), not two wills (barriers!), but Wholly United (no barriers)!

      Again, the resultant intensity of finity's urge to pull apart from or use Divinity during the 1st Advent is incalculable. Think about what it's like for Him. He is, in essence, two antithetical natures. His finite human nature is the one tortured. For, it by nature needs to separate: that's part of its life, its freedom, its independence. Finity needs to 'do', to 'move'. On the other hand, Infinity Unites. So here He is, seeing all these fellow humans: oh, how much more Human Perfect Humanity is! yet, separated from them, and they from Him! Oh, what should be the total Barrier! Not acceptable! Hurts!!!!

      Then there's His Separateness from Father. Barrier! Hurts!!!!! But Truth, being original Power, FLIPS the derivative power, the pulling-apart, into Total Integrity. So, what should have been unending explosions within His Humanity instead became unending Unity. So, what was bad about Him having to become Human also, is now His Greatest Joy. So the torture of the Humanity 'stretch' became agonizomai, training! So, guomai (Heb5:8-9; Heb2, last half; Heb4, last half). Fitting. No longer pulling away, but wholly woven, connected -- depicted by the hugely intricate Temple Veil. Homeostatic. Forever.

    We also need to appreciate our own impossible situation. Until we recognize how impossible our lives are, we can't orient to the One Mandate of the spiritual life, "Learn My Son", which is THE Only Way to execute the First Commandment. Look: even Perfect Finity can't stay homeostatic without Growing in Love to the point of bonding with Infinity, by means of Truth. Part I's "Integrity Properties" presented this problem in simple form; this table presents the 'physics' of it. So, Satan went nuts when he sinned. So also, the first Adam went insane when he sinned. So also, OT believers were wacko. So also, that's why the OT system of spirituality was soo very limited. Contact had to be physically-expressed, or they couldn't stand it. For, finity, let alone having-sinned finity, can't "abide" Infinity. The gap is utterly unbridgeable, since derivative power, especially negative-derivative power, is incompatible with Infinity.

    So no wonder, we Church are also wacko; even, way more so. For, the instant we first believe in Christ, we are "regenerated" (see Tit3:5). Because we are Church/Bride, unlike other believers in other epochs/ Ages/ Dispensations (latter two are Paul's terms), we Church get a double portion (OT term for the First-Born privilege): both Father's and Son's +R and +EL Attributes are imputed by the Holy Spirit to the human spirit He creates at our (several) salvation. So, doubly wacko! More: as Parts III and IV explain in detail, we get the King of King's royally Intimate Spiritual Life. But, the equal-and-opposite-reaction property of Divine Physics means that -- watch out -- we can become that much more crazy!

      That's why we Church are so nutso upon being "born again": we now have human spirits with twice the Infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life in them! That means we are torn apart by wanting to go away from Him, and wanting desperately to go toward Him. The Energizer Bunny Already has both polarized, antithetical desires, classic symptoms of dissociation. So how much more, in those with Actual Attributes of both Father and Son replicated in them!

      No wonder Church history is the history of incredibly insane people. No wonder we go wacko for works; for rituals, tongues, and other emotionalities; for puerile denominations: in short, for virgins in tortillas. No wonder we can actually think(?) God would be so sadistic or stupid to put a soul in the womb; no wonder we don't even bother to check the egregious MIStranslation of Bible verses on the topic! No wonder every crazy idea that can ever come to our attention wins our love. We not only are finite, but born-in-Adam sinners, with the most Difficult Spiritual Life ever Lived! 'With two sets of infinite attributes!

    [There are at least 11 verses on these Two Sets, but I'm not sure which reference the Father's Righteousness and which the Son's. Same, for +EL. Looks like 2Pet1:1 references the Son's +R we get at salv. Got to find my class notes. Also: I'm not yet sure if the Lord's Humanity was BORN with +R and +EL, or if He wholly grew to that level. It seems to be more likely the latter, logically, since for Trial purposes He had to start out the same as Adam had been created, and Adam did not have these attributes in his human spirit. However, I've heard Thieme teach it both ways: whether or not his tongue slipped while talking expositionally, I'm not sure. Romans tapes, notes in Romans 5 and following, plus all classes after that. For me, either of the two possibilities is still just, but for different reasons; either of them makes His Humanity's derivative pull tendency worse, not better. For, on the one hand, if He was born with the Attributes in His human spirit, the pull from being also finity would increase; if not born that way, then the 'pull' would need to react to the task more; which would make the volitional adherence to Truth, especially in later years, far harder to maintain. Depends which is worse, probably: whichever of the two is worse, that's the answer. So far, I favor the latter (had to wholly grow these attributes from Truth, and L1542 states that also). In either case, no wonder Father and Spirit Indwelt, and Spirit Filled Him! No wonder Satan rebelled, but then again: no WONDER he is wrong!]



    Matt4's "Evidence Test" significance is thus to show not only why the E.T. has prosperity-related, invisible, can-do, know-in-advance properties; but also to show manipulations of derivative power by Satan&Co.: they tap into (or create), the sin nature's derivative power; and they don't need much! Think of fission! So, the ETs are mind games. [Do I need to make the caroming-off nature and mind-game nature of ET clearer in Part IV? Actually, that nature is in the text, but not until today (1/22/03) did I recognize it for what it is.] All tests and temptations are aimed at the soul, but ostensibly directed (feinted) to something or someone else. So the big doctrine in a person at that stage can be really leveraged by 'little' slips, little breakaways! Matt4 is pretty clear on this topic, if pondered over and over and over after hearing it taught. Satan takes literally every category of temptation, and arranges them all into a succinct statement in each of the Three Temptations he fires. Since Evidence Testing is in two flavors, 1) Relationship to God, and 2) Relationship to Life, you can easily see how Satan would have to marshall all temptation categories as he does. I swear, you could take Matt4 alone and write enough books about its meaning to fill the Library of Congress!

    This is why little is big in the real spiritual life, why God stresses it so. Relationship to God: living on His Son's Thinking toward Him. Relationship to Life: living IN His Son's Thinking 'on' a 'cross'. Bridging the unbridgeable, in both cases. Shows up as barely a blip on the world's radar, for all this big spiritual life is.. spiritual. Meaning, invisible. Can't be harder, for it is beyond all human ability. Can't be more enjoyable, for the same reason. Both.

      Again, two universes, both antithetical to each other, Romans 8. You are always choosing one or the other, and to grow in God you must constantly make choices which go against the sin-nature universe, this world. Go against by thinking and doing, essentially, the opposite of the urge. Urge to be good is opposite God also -- because the underlying reasoning is i-am-good-if-i-do-this, which is an insane lie. For, if you are good if you did it, then it itself is not good, but YOU are the one who's good. So if you are the one who's good, and hence it is not, then you are not good, because you are doing a worthless thing. And if IT is good, then YOU are not good if you do it. The goodness is either in it, or in you, never both. If in you, then you shouldn't do it; if it, then it's not you who is good BY doing it.

        The "i-am-good-if-i-do-x" was a training mechanism used on us as kids. When we stop being children, we learn to think differently. So if not a child, to have that thought evidences hatred of God, making self god. Which thought, isn't even really a thought, but a mindless urge from Gen3, in our genes: the stupid Energizer Bunny isn't even a person, but pretends to be one via such 'reasoning'.

        So what's truly good, is to always go through motives about GOD, not through motives about self. It's also truly impossible to do this: only living in God's System, enables it. You'll be surprised how often answers which 'seem' wrong are right, when the question goes through motives about God, rather than self. Virtually all works are trash. God has a different use for things you ought to do, and as a result the printout of "oughts" are very different.

      It's a killer, to live like this; very subtle, and the onslaught becomes constant, the more aware you become of Him via growth in God's System. Secret is to think like Paul does in Romans 5-8, where in his thinking, he distances the sin nature (Rom5), divorces it (Rom6), marries in his mind, the New Husband (ibid), and then remembers how "it" (the sin nature) is just this old "ex", plaguing him (Romans 7). Romans 8 is the whole process: note how the same distancing, divorcing, marrying-New-Husband, and "it"-ness is interwoven to show the macro effect on spiritual development: culminating in, the labor-pains stage of the pregnancy, Pleroma.

      Remembering it's an IT really helps. IT will keep saying "me". Because so many of these lies have been bought by the soul, guilt is a real problem, once you see how evil the sin nature is: so, it beeps you with, "I am evil." No, IT is evil. Same thinking Paul shows in the "covet" passage of Romans 7. I am paid-for by Christ. I am righteous in Him. IT is the lingering "ex", evil in all functions. Sure, you keep using 1Jn1:9, but IT is not the same, as you. So 1Jn1:9, yeah, you gave into IT; but only the Spirit's power overcomes it; so you breathe 1Jn1:9 (make it a habit), and keep on going, knowing HIS Power is overcoming it. Think of the process like a mini-Cross, for that's really the meaning: You are righteous, so all the stuff hitting you is to teach you how the Cross works. Doesn't matter if what hits you is your fault, too, except that you just use 1Jn1:9 and keep going.

    Ergo the world's 'big' is little, too. Satan's spin: All religions, including mainstream Christianity, bang the drum on derivative power. The many, teeny, observances/rituals/ taboos which infect every faith and society; the many teeny, chopping-off, 2nd-Temptation style mistranslations in Scripture; these are all accomplished by manipulating derivative power:
    • that little bit of negative (lukewarm! vomiting!) volition which deems it 'enough' to hear the insipid homily, light a candle, or do 'good deeds';
    • that little bit of negative (lukewarm) volition in the translator, who gives into the derivative of wanting to 'fit in' with his collegues.
    • That little bit of negative volition in a committee which gives into the manipulated version of 'academic objectivity', to thus compromise the translation versus the original power of the original language text!
    • That little bit of negative volition in a council which gives into the manipulated version of 'unity' to promulgate horribly-worded theological definitions, and thus justify (arrogance skill!) crushing those who won't bow to them!
    This is why denominations are all so intransigient! Why they don't fix their bad-lawyer-must-have-drafted creeds! Ohhh, I get this now: who can resist this manipulation? Wow, 1Jn1:9 is a lifeline! Have to stick much more on the nature of derivative power in here. Amazing how one can understand the entire relationship of all verses in Scripture via the understanding of God's Nature!

    The problem is puniness. We have puny apprehensions of things based on body ideas, and we are run by them. All this, the derivative negative power of our each first sins (when we were upset while infants, probably), spawned. Shattered in our souls, we are cannonfodder for the body, for Satan's substitute make-nice-without-God, plan. Chopping out the Person of God, but leaving His Name, baby. Salami tactic. Using that very same derivative power: "having a form of godliness but denying its power." 1Tim3, boy oh boy.

    [It would be nice to run the math replication analogy presented in Fixes through these added corollaries: maybe describe the Lord's being built up enough to go through the Cross in terms of the replication of Truth, with side explanations on how by depositing TRUTH, because God's Nature is undivided, means 'increases' in the other attributes too. Like, since Truth, and Omniscience is also an attribute, then growth in the Faculty Of Knowing likewise "enlarges" (to use Bible term) the soul. Like, since Love is also an attribute, that faculty increases also, per deposit. Etc. Thus the reader can see why our parallel spiritual life is indeed gigantic compared to OT. May have to explain Hypostatic Union yet again -- try using server-computer analogy to help folks see that Deity and Humanity never bleed over. Knowledge is a separate attribute from Will; that Personhood is Will, so one will -- knowledge is compartmentalized by nature (that council which came up with two wills was trying to address a Knowledge issue, not really a will problem; so they used bad terminology, kinda like TULIP did for its own reasons).

    Maybe need to explain 'replication' differential in OT, given no Filling, no Indwelling, etc. Moreover, the OT human spirit (also true of Trib and Mill believers) had special connectors and discerners which were expressly tuned to bodily functions, so that absent Filling believers could learn via the rituals, etc. Thirdly, the OT teachers were endued, since the exposition of spiritual information would require it; absent enduement, the attuned-to-body human spirit couldn't just teach principles 'straight'. Just the opposite of now, when we can't learn doctrine via ritual, but only by mainlining Scripture under our right pastor-teacher.]

  • [How important is this bullet to site flow?] Nature of Time Corollary: if Einstein only understood the Hebrew verb system in the OT, he'd have solved his conundrum with respect to vector physics! What really happened to him was this: in his formulas he discovered Parts Of Two Truths, but mistakenly joined them. So no wonder his conundrum (as JohnGuru explained it to me in #philosophy)! Einstein got apples and oranges!

    Again, I keep coming back to this whole 'time is relative' stuff. Einstein did properly recognize that time does not exist, but apparently he didn't go far enough: ONLY FOR GOD is there no time, because God's nature is not mass/energy. Einstein likewise did properly recognize that 'time' is a measure of movement, but what he missed was that time is an absolute constraint upon mass/energy, not merely relative. That's why, besides due to gravity properties, a body will inexplicably slow up. It's hitting an Absolute, not merely a relative. The claim that time is curvilinear rather than linear is used to conclude the relativity of time. Actually, I bet curvilinearity more explains that Time IS an absolute relative to any mass/energy. The faster a body travels, the more quickly it hits a barrier intrinsic to the nature of time itself, and thus..slows down. So, really, time is still linear, but appears curvilinear, because speed is assumed to to be a property of time. Which assumes! that time is 'inside' (a property of) the object. But instead, time is an absolute of its own which constrains the object, and is not 'inside' the object. They got it backwards! Time is not 'inside' finity, but rather, finity is 'inside' Time! Crud, I know this is right, but poorly worded, since I didn't take physics, and only some math: so I can't express the concept except in words.

      Seems like somewhere in the formulas we're mistaking our accounting of time for real time, and thus conclude time doesn't exist. For example, we think we're saving time, just because (so we think) something can travel faster than the speed of light. Travel speed doesn't actually SAVE time: real time travelled is the appropriate measure, not the so-called time (zone) at destination or departure. Just because I can get to Brussels from Chicago in 3 hours, but Brussels is 6 hours ahead of Chicago, doesn't mean I really 'saved' 3 hours! (It's this kind of fallacy which might be betrayed in the so-called 'inexplicable' slowing up of a body in vector physics.) What's so odd is that everyone knows (yet not) that our accounting for time is artificial. But then, they throw out the baby with the bathwater just like theologians do, and say..wow, therefore time itself then doesn't exist, or is elastic, relative! Nooo, whoa boy: our accounting is wrong. Don't chop out meaning to support your eisegetical goal. Don't do what Satan and so-called holy people always do with Scripture verses!

      Someone oughta redo the whole time thingy. The result would be a wholescale revision in our accounting for time. No more space fiction about how you can go 10,000 light years away in one year, and have the destination be other than one year older than it was before you left. In short, its age increment relative to your age increment remains the same. Even our earth timezones teach that; even jetlag teaches that. Doesn't matter how fast you travel. Which, of course, means time in the universe is an ABSOLUTE with respect to finity. And, that God is timeless, since Infinity is the opposite of finity.

    Ironically (heh), the closest thing to true 'time travel' is Bible Doctrine. For, God is Infinite, and in order to grow up in the Spiritual Life you have to become more like Him. Part III's "Third Reason" (both for Invisibility and Royalty) explained how this phenomenon changes you. Omniscience means that all is seen simultaneously, because Infinity is 'part' of Omniscience, since God's Nature is Undivided. We classify His Attributes into rubrics like Righteousness, Justice, Truth(Veracity), etc. in order to better understand Him; of course, we get the classifications from what Scripture says. But Godness is One Big Nowness, and all the Attributes are Infinitely 'interwoven' (drat, another spatial term). So, then: to grow up and become more like Him means to gain in His Knowledge, which is Timeless. So, one can truly see what the Cross was (not with physical eyes, for they are too limited; thus, forget even wanting dreams, visions, and other obsolete babystuff which now only Satan peddles). Can see what the future will be. And we are supposed to see. In order to learn how to think and act in our current situation. In order to 'obey' and thus profit from seeing him more. Obedience, where is thy 'sting'?!

    Moreover, Truth, being infinite, 'stands still'. Finity 'moves'. This fact, too, produces more corollaries. For example, you go to class, you get your Bible deposits from your right pastor; you go elsewhere, you USE the accumulated deposits you have. The actual 'use' is recall and identification (baptizo, association, hupostasis, etc synonyms). So, the doctrine replicates. Then, sits. So: it's the lies that move, trying to beat down whatever truth is there. Truth doesn't have to move. So, all that 'resistance' consists of the moving believed-untruths accumulated; external propaganda (human and satanic viewpoint). That's why it's loud, feels, even pushes against. Because, Truth isn't moving, and lies want to move the truth out of the way! So: it always feels 'tight', it always feels like failure..because only failure is moving. Moving out, actually, since nothing defeats Truth. The banging and pressure always mean that the lies are beating their 'heads' against truth, and thus are lessening. Opposite, of course, to how the process feels. So, again: 1Jn1:9 and continual intake and USE of eaten (believed) Doctrine is a continuing success, aggressive/offensive. Which will actually look and feel like the opposite of what it is. Because, it's only the opposition which is moving. As in, "moving out." For, God uses all that seeming-failure to remove those pesky barriers. So just Rebound (1Jn1:9, my pastor's term) and forgeddaboudit: He's handling those critters. You move ahead, looking at how everything in your life depicts HIS LIFE down here: the 4 Decisions!

  • How much time do I need to spend showing how abstruse, nebulous, fuzzy, and outright stupid theological language has always been, on God's Nature? Why is it, that through all these eons of time, people view descriptions/concepts/ artwork/ philosophies which make no sense, as 'beautiful' or even 'holy'? It's downright stupid to say God "can't" do something; it's insane to say God has "Two Wills", because they don't understand how (duh, can this be simpler to fathom, given man's dichotomy) God can also add Humanity to Himself? So they instead say the same "can't" and other stupidities, phrased as "God is constrained", or "Three-yet-One" and similar baloney. Have I explained enough why the blindness, then, or does it merely sound like finger-pointing, which is not at all the reason for the topic? See if the following points are clear enough in the series, and if not, weave them in:

    Most Christians, let alone unbelievers, don't understand the nature of being "born again". It's a REAL birth, and permanently puts the human on a superhuman 'plane' of existence. This, so that one can relate to God, Who is Infinite. Paul isn't kidding when he calls us, "kaine ktsis" (new-in-species creation, 2Cor5:17). It's a permanent, massive, higher-state change, whether we know it or not. It isn't felt -- except by the most organized part of our OLD nature, the SIN nature. So, no one can be more happy, potentially, than the Christian. No one can be more miserable, either.

    Thus, the Christian is uniquely vulnerable to the "pull" of being good, because unlike the unbeliever, he has a human spirit with +R and +EL in it. He's subliminally so aware of God that he's just got to do right, be right, be obedient..it's really too much to bear. Since this urge is below radar (which is really that battle between the sin nature's do-good drive and the human spirit's predilection, as Paul explains in Romans 6-8), the Christian will be much more dissociative, for he is under a lot more pressure, constantly. (James' keyword for this condition, when carnal, is "dipsuchos", lit., 'split-souled'; KJV's "double-minded"). The believer is thus a bigger pawn of Satan, potentially, than the unbeliever can be; for, the Christian Is Alive. The unbeliever is spiritually dead. So, that being-suddenly-alive-dilemma is part of what makes any progress in the spiritual life so hugely meaningful to Infinite God. He knows, far more than we do, how impossible our situation is. So, how much more impossible, if the Christian has some spiritual communication gift? Satan would target such a person MORE than he would the average Joe Believer. Satan's not stupid; he directs his tactics where they do the most damage. Satan knows that he has to capitalize on negative reaction to God in order to achieve his goals. So, the teeniest little negativity in a believer, especially one with communication gifts, will be exploited intensely. Thus it's little wonder that such definitional incompetence among respectable people is so rampant, historically. Frankly, I'm surprised it's not worse!

      Let's be honest, here: due to Adam's sin, any idea even remotely related to "God" in human minds..turns into insanity. I tried to explain the origin of that fact in Part II, taking what I'd learned over 12 years ago in Bible class and linking it to what I'd learned of psychiatry. [I'm not a psychologist.] "Dissociation" is a gut-brain-reaction, when anyone thinks of any topic which has "god" associated anywhere in its 'background'. Which ends up meaning, on any topic of strong importance or value to the individual, ergo the classic word-association diagnostics, to detect dissociative processes in a patient. [All those live psychiatric/psychological exams (and Scientology, too) test the patient with words or topics which carry high affective charges (responses) -- to hopefully root out problems. Lie detector tests work on the same principle, essentially.]

      Mild dissociation is very common; severe cases are rare. Dissociation manifests as an irrational connecting between a stimulus and a responding thought or behavior, but is accounted 'normal'; or, more commonly, the irrational connection is unrecognized by the patient. The disjunctive thought or behavior is 'triggered' by repetition of the idea, sense, name, or event giving rise to the dissociation. So, if the event was a dropping iron, other occasions of a dropping iron will tend to trigger the associative disjunctive thought/behavior again. Yet the individual will either not notice the connection, or will think it 'okay'.

      This lowered awareness is the key symptom, for dissociation is the brain trying to HIDE something which is 'exposed' by the triggering item. Think of Dissociation as a spike in electricity, followed by a surge-suppressor type 'response'; thus mental 'spikes' barely awaken any change in the overall 'current' of awareness. The 'response' is a coping (defense) mechanism employed to 'suppress' it. Because there are many different types of defense mechanisms, and many forms of expressing them, a widespread but low-level dissociative fragment will not be easily detected, for the 'responses' are too varied. Here, the mental 'spike' is triggered by anything associated with ideas of "god" in the patient's mind. The 'response' widely varies, because the "god" dissociation reflex is a pan-DNA result, the effect of Adam's original sin upon his biological life.

      That is how an atheist counts himself perfectly logical when he calmly and confidently tells you that he disbelieves miracles, because they are not scientific. So, God cannot do miracles and be God; so what he thinks he knows as scientific law is the only allowed way for Omnipotent God to have ever acted; so what is perceived as scientific law today must! have always been true for eons forever backward. So all the "data suggests" scientific conclusions are absolute, irreversible facts. Carved in stone, and always true in all conditions forever in the past!

      Other dissociative 'logic' paths: common-sense meanings of "one" take permanent holidays from scholars' minds, leaving them only "one in number"! That's how an All-Powerful Zeus can need sex, too. How life can migrate from one body to another, yet not remember what body it was in before, without a donative to a guru. That's how only in movies and church someone can say with a straight face, if you get wet, or bopped on the head, you're..saved! That's how lighting a candle for someone who's dead and can't see it, accomplishes reprieve from an unseen Candle Lover. How Majestic Deity is nonetheless honored by making the sun whirl around backwards while His Devoted Subjects look up in awe. That's how statues can cry; how holy Virgens make appearances in tortillas or fountains; how preserving someone's dead finger is so holy a thing to do, cities fight each other over the honor. That's how it's perfectly normal to cut yourselves to honor Allah (Iranian Shiites: chillingly witnessed in Tehran soon after the Shah was deposed).

      So, that's also how it's deemed rewardable that man, with his finite mind and needs, Thinks what he does for his fellow man should count with Infinite God, who never needs. That's how spewing verses or giving money or being nice or being a good person is supposed to satisfy INfinite God. That's how Scripture's verses on works can be twisted into earning salvation from an Infinite God Who Himself couldn't save without attaching HUmanity to Himself and going through the Cross!

      That's also how people suddenly become threatened if their pastor committed some sin (by their standard, of course), or taught something erroneous (really, or by their idea of "error"). That's how they become even more threatened if anyone disagrees -- even over "distinct" or "separate" as a descriptive word for the Three Persons! Oh, can't take that! Gotta call the other person a heretic, and never speak to him again! Oh, only bad people smoke or eat meat! Oh, anyone whose had an abortion is a sinner, but people killing an abortion doctor is Divine Retribution!! Oh, anyone who won't use my hair gel is anathema maranatha! Yeah, that's how people have murdered each other by the millions, throughout history. No matter what version of "god" they believed in. And bethought it a good deed, worthy of Divine Praise!

    Boy oh boy, when "god" is involved, we become genocidal maniacs, for crying out loud! And for what? What the heck difference does it make, if you and I don't see "God" the same way; and how the heck can we see "God" the same way, since we are each, unique, "one"? So-bleeping-what if we don't agree! What, if you love lemon meringue and I hate it, should we kill each other? Of course not. Moreover, it's not even possible to have the exact same view of Him, unless you and I were mere hydra-heads! Ohhh but where did that common sense come from? More importantly, because "god" is in the background, where did that common sense go? For, someone will huffily reply, "Well, God is rah-thur more important than lemon meringue pie!" Yes, of course He is: so how does that greater-importance translate into you killing me or me killing you because we don't agree? Isn't God the Authority? how then do we take it so personally? Because, when it comes to "god", everyone taps Adam's sin-reflex of dissociation. Period. The totally-depraved DNA just can't take it. The Energizer Bunny needs to beat the drum! Visit any Christian chat channel, and watch the drums try to beat each other up!

    See? In normal, secular life, we aren't this wacky. Mistakes are commonly made, admitted, corrected. It's called "learning", for crying out loud! And, if something we built awhile back doesn't work, we fix it; it was broken, so let's fix or replace it. Very common sense, right? But oh, insert "god" into it, and suddenly instead of a thing being improved or fixed, it's instead fixated, frozen-in-time; you're positively a heathen if you even question it. Can't fix TULIP: have to leave it broken for nearly 400 years? Or, can't fix the Nicene or Westminster creedal statements with their misleading "eternally begotten" put-down of Father and Son; "proceed" put-down of the Spirit [Greek term is military but was misinterpreted as origin, making the HS 'less' God]; their Three-Yet-One Hydra portrayal of Trinity? [This satanic "one" stupidity is examined passim in Thinking series.] Don't dare show how the separateness of the three Greek articles in 2Cor13:14 actually require an interpretation of Three Separate, Co-Equal Gods? Not to mention the genitive of Apposition in Eph4:30 (and elsewhere, to stress full Godness)? Oh, my: it's sacrilege, to disagree with Nicene or Westminster wordings; because, oh, pious folks wrote them -- yeah, far wiser than the Holy Spirit's Own Words? So, chant the Nicene creed instead of Learning Scripture (hide the Bible as best possible for 1000 years)? So, use "distinct" instead, or you die at the stake? So, adore King James' English with ponderously-'holy'-tones, as if English even existed when the Holy Spirit wrote the inspired Scripture through the apostles -- or you are damned?

      Golly gee willacres! If a Greek student translated Homer badly; if a student wrote goofball English prose like these creeds; if a logic student turned in a college paper inventing what became TULIP -- well, they'd all flunk! But oh, in the name of brotherly love (or something) it's incumbent upon us Christians to die for such incompetent expressions which no teacher in his right mind would pass? Hoo boy: not only the Energizer Bunny is at work, here. Tell me: is there a greater proof of Satanic influence, than here? I mean, come on! It's okay to leave pat insane definitions related to God; but oh, that dang cashier didn't give me the right change! So we spend lots of time getting that penny back, but no time fixing the egregious mistakes in Bible translations, interpretations, and Creedal Statements? Wow: talk about straining out a gnat, but swallowing a camel! [NAS, Matt 23:24 has the right translation, but you have to know what was considered Oral Torah to 'get' the gnat thingy's meaning. If a gnat flew into something you were going to eat, it rendered that thing "unclean". Naturally, a lot of folks would gingerly strain OUT the gnat rather than throw away the food. Camels were also "unclean" to eat. So, the Lord is very funny! He's saying you go to all this self-righteous trouble to get rid of a little unclean thing, but easily devour huge uncleanness!] The Lord didn't mean to search for the "lost coin" at the expense of found Bible!

    Sure will be a lot of embarrassed religious types at the Bema. Yeah, the good-ol'boys-network of complacent mediocrity, long the bane of every society, is nowhere more obvious than here. But what did the Lord say, about His Vineyard? Wow: what business would survive, if it didn't assiduously improve the quality and productivity of its plant over time? Wow, what country would survive, if it didn't improve its defense and public sectors over time? We have no problem fixing/updating anything at all where we don't have, hovering around, some kind of "god" concept. The minute that concept is anywhere in the vicinity, we become wacko! Gaa-ron-teed!

    So then: the unbelievable total blindness that even Christian theologians exhibit in their descriptions should be understandable; particularly, since Satan is doing everything he can to blind everyone (a main subtheme of Thinking series is to show this with many examples throughout history and in our current day). So, then: we need desperately to keep using 1Jn1:9 and keep monitoring what we think we know of God; desperately need to keep getting, and using, Bible Doctrine under our right pastors, every day. Our lives -- nay, our sanity -- literally depends on this vigilance. [See "Macro Collateral" section on Bible drama, also.]

  • Quick preliminary notes on the unlimited crosses/stones too heavy to lift. First of unlimited mission-impossibles: 1) the Cross, because a) sins are an impossible affront, the first cost, the first stone-too-heavy-to-lift (which is exactly the etymological root meaning in Isa53:5's dakah, which no lexicon I have even mentions); and b) the impossibility of sins being paid for by a free-will, always-remaining-perfect human -- giving such a One a Stone Too Heavy To Lift! And then lifting Him on the Cross! Victoriously! For, what even God 'could' not do (would never violate Truth to do) -- pay for sins against Himself, for that would be UNrighteous -- the Son of Man/Last Adam could do, solely by using the free doctrine deposited in Him and run by the free power of the Holy Spirit! Tetelestai! Lifted in the wilderness of this world, so we can be healed! The Impossible IS Done! The importance of the Independent Power Of Doctrine/Truth is the key to the Cross. "Nexus" section below will explain the mechanics.

      So oohhh, what happens next? Does everyone get a cloud to sit on, and we just chirp away forever, no differences, problems, challenges? Oh no. The Cross's Success only creates 2) yet-bigger-Crosses-and-costs! Whaaa??? Why? Because now, all these Saved Sinners are forever dependent; helpless, hopeless, useless -- they have to be cared for! And, all the Unsaved Sinners are likewise helpless, hopeless, useless, and disconnected -- they, too, have to be cared for! See? It was bad enough that the cost of the Cross was the sin offense/damages/fixing costs. But HE replaced that cost with Himself! Bigger!!! For, Christ Himself is surely way bigger than the payment due, even if we only regarded His Humanity in that measurement! Moreover, the net effect of His Work was a bigger burden as well as a bigger cost base (He is the new cost base, having replaced sins with Himself)! So, a two-fold stretch, and a bigger 'mission impossible' was deliberately created! Two-fold, because now the cost is higher; because these sinners need care both a) down here, and b) forever!

      Oh? What's that? Look: salvation saves the person forever, but the person himself is still "short of the Glory of God"; because, he's still finite. Of course, many versions of Christianity are all too aware of this problem, and come up with variant ways of trying to 'solve' it: Catholics posit Purgatory; Protestants posit some kind of you're-just-made-good-enough system (mistaking "positional sanctification" for "experiential sanctification"); others come up with their ideas. All posit body works as having some kind of magical power to transform a finite sinner's soul into an Infinitely-Glorious Person, come Resurrection; 'a dissociative idea, since the body, we all know, can't think: only the soul can think. So, logically, it must be what the soul becomes, not what the body does. And only Bible Doctrine, God's Truth, can transform the soul (Rom12:2-3,Eph3:15-19, 2Pet3:18,etc).

      So, all these dissociative proposed 'solutions' leave out one common-sense 'reply': God doesn't need to solve the shortfall, doesn't want to solve the shortfall directly. For, He will never be willing to compromise freedom, which is part of the 'printout' of truth. Even, the freedom of a being to choose to be low forever. For, Righteousness will never compromise Justice, Justice will never compromise Love, Love will never compromise Freedom, and Freedom cannot be compromised except at the cost of Truth. Again, that's a true cost God is never willing to pay.

      Huh? How is that fair to Him? Look: The Lord's Payment on the Cross is total. So the "opportunity cost" is fully paid (including funds, so to speak to spend on punishments like LDP, Hell, Lake of Fire). How that opportunity cost, that redemption price, is used -- is, as before, in OT law -- up to the discretion of the owner. Here, the Owner is the Father, and we know from Heb1 and Eph1, Col 1 that He gave all to the Son. So, the Son is the new Owner: doubly so, for He is Deity (Creator) and Humanity (Payor, Seed, Inheritor). So, it is the Son's discretion as to how much capital He applies to anyone or anything He owns. And, we know from the "promise", "deposit" (epangelion) and "inheritance" verses that not everyone inherits "the kingdom" -- which is not the same as Eternal Life. (Compare 1Cor4, Gal5:21 and other "kings", "kingdom" and "endure" verses, to John 10:28 and John 3, 1Jn5:11ff, etc.) Therefore, we know, though everyone gets Eternal Life at salvation irrevocably, people will still be unequal forever.

      So, then: the Lord wants that higher burden. Forever. "The poor you will have with you always" has more than a this-world application. I don't know if a stronger statement of Love can be made than this one. It's easy to love a rich, attractive person; it's not so easy to spend your life on someone who's not rich/ attractive.. forever! It's like having a disabled parent or child: limited and rudimentary contact/fellowship, and you're doing all the giving. Note well: it is no fun for God, to have pets or chirping Stepford wives. That's why we get the Royally-Difficult Spiritual life, which is Royal Adult Spiritual Thinking of Bible Doctrine, His Son's thinking; not childish works. For thinking, not works, paid for all sins on the Cross. So, since most people won't grow past the childish God101 basics, won't grow past the childhood preoccupations with "works", they will end up.. children. Forever. Takes a lot more love to want forever-children! 'Especially, if they become forever-children due to their own negative volition!

      Of course, post-death we will become perfect (1Jn3, among other passages). But we can be "perfect" at any size of soul. At any size of wealth. Most will end up perfectly small. Bible's word for this future is "naked", which is often a deliberate synonym for poor. That's a burden. It's a burden to have to care for a disabled person, a stupid person, a poor person. Ideally, it's a burden one comes to love.. or else, it's a living hell. Of course, the Lord Loves Everyone. No matter how wretched. Of course, to reach the Pleroma level of spiritual development, millions of millions of working Bible-Doctrine deposits have also enabled such a believer to love such a burden. And why? Because the burden remains. Even in eternity. Because people won't learn Bible Doctrine down here, the Holy Spirit is "grieved" and "quenched": the idols of works/ lasciviousness/ whatever have replaced Him in importance, for the getting of the Son's thinking was disregarded. So, most believers end up spiritually poor. Hence, need to be cared for by those richer than them. Forever. Starting, of course, during our own "1st advents": our post-salvation, pre-death life periods right down here, as Part III-IV explain. For, as Paul writes in Romans (15, I think): "the strong must bear the weaknesses of the weak". Forever.

      This same poor-forever pattern is way wider, deeper, taller -- due to the the calling-out of the Church "Age" (aion, Paul's term). People mistakenly think that what's called "dispensationalism" only developed in the 18th century. No, Paul classifies things dispensationally. (One could, I guess, class things covenantally, too. Of course, there are a many versions of "covenantal" and "dispensational" classifications, some more goofy than others! So, I'm just sticking with Paul's 'version'.) What's the significance of that? Well, the central theme of Ephesians is to show that Church is a Bride for Christ, and thus has a much richer and harder spiritual life. Corinthians weaves in some details about it (which was so well understood by the Corinthians they were all puffed up about becoming future kings); Colossians references it also. Peter and the writer of Hebrews talk about it passim, with Church keywords like "glory" and "priesthood" and "holy nation". Other epistle writers seem to prefer using keys like "promise", "inheritance", etc. to refer to it. Point is, this far richer spiritual inheritance requires reaching Pleroma to get it (a term all writers use, which has a lot of pregnant OT meaning). Most won't "grow in grace and in the knowledge of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" enough to inherit that "glory" (2Pet3:18). So, they will be eternally saved, but forever poor, comparatively.

      For, our spiritual life is uniquely like His -- so, way taller, way broader -- Paul's metaphor in Eph 3:15ff. For, it's such a royally harder life than other "Ages", way more poor will result: they won't grow up spiritually; they won't grow beyond the childish milk-usages of the Word, to the 'solid food' of living on every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. They will spiritually arrest into Brother-Foot Churchinanity, as indeed most Christians always have. So, will result in an even bigger #2) class burden than OT, Trib, Mill people did/will. For, the Church was given a way richer life, so more was expected. The shortfall in "glory" will be higher.

      So, then: He must love the burden of such a Kingdom, to let its many assets remain escrowed (because Church believers didn't grow up, they couldn't inherit their "portion" of the kingship, etc., promises). Moreover, everyone who instead grows up in the Spirit to Pleroma level will likewise Love The Burden. For, no ruler can love ruling without loving the ruled more than himself. The 'goodies' just won't compensate for the burden. That's why the Lord kept on reminding everyone that whoever would be first, must become last; whoever would rule, must wash feet. What He meant of course, was the mental attitude, not the activity: for, you can be arrogant and wash feet (yet another reason why works is totally anathema to God's Plan). Like, the condescending arrogance which masks itself with noblesse oblige, so profitable to fundraisers and fakirs of every stripe. Oh, they are sooooo bad, we must help them. Yeah, pat pat pat pat pat your ego!

    #3) BIGGER CROSS: each of the different covenantal/dispensational groups in human history end up being related to each other, so there are more interpersonal burdens (differences) to manage, for there are many-times-more inequalities; many-times-more people. Not only is the Vertical (God-to-people) burden thus expanded and enlarged; but also, the horizontal (people-to-people)! These attribute/wealth differences -- and all the problems resulting from them -- are magnified. Forever.

      Justice Key ==> So this endless-crosses pattern replicates, kinda like fractals, throughout eternity. Ever-bigger "mission impossibles". All LIFTED! True Justice and Enjoyment, this: all the things which forever went wrong down here, get flipped! What we used to hate ("inferior", "superior", details, big-picture, 'smarts', stupidness, poverty, wealth, polka dots, whatever) we come to LOVE!

      Is that ultimate JUSTICE-VICTORY, or what? If you loved "works" and hated learning Him down here, up there you'll love learning Him and 'hate' "works" -- but, as Part III's "Corollary 3B" explained, you'll apparently be stuck with works, since that's how you "measured" your learning-time down here: what 'soul skills' you developed. However, then you'd appreciate the Justice of that eternal position -- and still get what you then will love: to Learn HIM from it. Ahhh. For the same reason, it appears that whatever (paradigmally) bugged you down here, will be sheer delight to you 'up there', so to speak. It's the greatest justice to see the thing which 'victimized' you become your own best-and-happy servant! Wow: paperwork (so to speak) can be fun???? Paying taxes can be exciting???? Heh.

      To get to Pleroma down here, though, means you have to come to love everything you hate -- while still down here. The actual love, not an activity: God doesn't give brownie points. Again, it's not the work, but you which God saved, and the impossible thing is for you to love the way His Son does; which love, 1Jn and Romans 5, Eph3 all explain, only comes from learning to think like the Son. Just as, the Lord's Humanity had to come to learn to LOVE bearing sins -- which was the most repugnant and loathsome thing to do (Part IV's "COMBAT" table). So, a Pleroma believer will love everything, 'up there'. Even, bearing the burden of care for all in his kingdom. Loving learning exponentially more about the Lord, while doing it. For, the Lord had become, down here, the Pleroma believer's entire reason for living.. so, up there, any kind giving will be a Joy. In fact, the more burdensome, the better! Such a believer will then want the burden to keep on growing! Which of course, it will.

      Such a love is the hardest to have, not merely because there are others lower than you who are dependent. The biggest burden in being superior is the alienation. It's not 'loneliness', because the person who's superior is never alone: people always glom onto him. But there's this big gap in understanding; or, in some visible accoutrement like wealth, smarts, looks. In all cases, the ability to have camaraderie of any genuine nature is short-circuited. So it's worse than being 'alone', it's devastating. That's why Howard Hughes and so many other 'greats' all had such disastrous personal lives. That's why all the "poor little rich boy" stories are such true tragedies. For, everyone thinks, wow! If I just had smarts, or money, or looks, or you-name-it, I'd be happy and loved! Guess again: what really happens is that others without near-level accoutrements to your own regard you as something unhuman. They are resentful, or intimidated, or looky-loos (groupies) or..afraid. None of these reactions aid rapport! And the more you do to try and get close to them, the more of these reactions you generate!

      So, imagine what it was like to be here, Perfect Eternal God and Perfect Humanity. With such an awesome job ahead. With everyone you love (and, being perfect, you really love, heartbreakingly so)..just kinda wishing you'd go somewhere else. Poor Mary. How could she stand the pressure, knowing that the Baby she held was superior to her, yet she'd have to train Him? Poor Joseph. Scandalized marriage, but knowing the Savior was his nominal Son! How to train such a Child, who would be his own salvation?

      So, see: being superior (however accounted such) is no picnic. Because, superiority separates you from others. Someone should actually translate hagios and hagiazw and similar words properly for a change: sure, it means "holy", and its verb, "to sanctify": but that means, "to set apart"! Not human, but consecrated, separated from the mass and made different. For people to gawk at (so goes human reaction, because your being better naturally makes them uncomfortable). Like, while you're on the cross. No way around it. No one gets to Pleroma without mastering the burden of this alienation. It is a far bigger burden than the existence of 'inferior'. In fact, it becomes a relief to do something for them, as an expression of 'getting close', in the only way one can! So, then: see how it is possible for Pleroma to love the burden? It's their fondest wish and hope, the desire of a lifetime, to have a mechanism for being close!

    Let's come back to 'today'. So, as Peter puts it, "what kind of persons must we now become, in a dedicated-to-God lifestyle?" The Christian's spiritual growth pattern now is a lot like a military (really, Ranger/Seals'-level) 'boot camp', in which the Godhead all coordinate their Self-Chosen roles (not a church thing, but a Vertical Relationship): the believer is under orders to the Lord, not people, as Paul carefully notes in Romans 8 and like passages. So, the believer's growth should likewise result in expanding high-low 'stretches' as he ages in Christ. 'High', toward Him; 'low', toward your seemingly-shrinking, alienated periphery. It's all due to the growing Doctrine, and the pressure can't be described. Only Occupation with Him will bring you through. So, like the writer of Hebrews says, "Keep concentrating on Jesus" (beg. Heb12:2, corr trans of verb); like Paul said, in Phil2:5 "Keep on thinking this in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (corr verb trans). Keep on looking at Him -- for He was the One Forsaken. But now, Risen and Ruling. Close!

    Part III explains this process in detail. Upshot: 1Jn's Script, coupled with, eventually, abasement and abounding. 'Meaning, learning to love the burdens of both adversity and prosperity; of inferior, and superior. Of course, "works" have zero place in all this, since it is the person, not the things he does, who "expands" -- who inherits. Even as, it was Christ, not what He did, Who Expanded enough to become the Lamb of God. And now, the Ruler. Have to "finish", too. Can't quit the training. Even as the Lamb couldn't quit. [Doesn't mean we can't sin. 1Jn1:9 is for recovery. Part III explains what "quit" means in great detail.]

    So, instead of some magic-cloud existence of equally-attractive beings in heaven, we find instead, great inequality. Culminating at the top, with the Wealth indirectly transmitted, via Rulership: Burden loved. Bigger and wider and deeper -- the cycle keeps exponentially expanding, like the universe is said to do -- but, unlike the universe which will be destroyed (like 2Pet notes) -- this expansion-of-burdens keeps on going and going and going. Heh. Stones we love being too-heavy-to-lift, even as we're lifting Them! Forever.

  • Corollary result of these never-ending expansions: the difference between spiritual rich and (relatively speaking) poor in eternity will endlessly increase. I don't know if we can be dumber: how the heck can a polity as a whole become richer if the richest of them, don't become richer faster! Rich people have learned to invest; poor people have only learned to consume. So giving the poor money they don't know how to save doesn't make them richer! Get it?That's an unavoidable economic fact; no amount of communistic/ socialistic/ "democratic" legislation on earth can ever reverse that economic law. It's like throwing a ball up in the air, and demanding that it not come back down! Or, expecting a Latvian to speak Swahili, from birth!

      Look: if you're rich, you have more money than you need: so, what must you do with the rest of it? invest it. And, if you invest it, what happens? The place where you invested it, grows it for you, with the result that you have even more need to invest, because you have even more money than you need; for, "money begets money" and "it takes money to make money". I like how the Lord put it (about Bible Doctrine) in the stingy-servant talents parable, and especially in his extremely humorous "I advise you to buy of Me Gold" in Rev 3 (to the Laodiceans, who were among the wealthiest people in the world at that time). See also 1Pet1 and Eph1-3 (whole chapters) in this connection. Also all "riches" verses.

      Now, if you're rich, and you invest your unneeded wealth in some place; how does that place do that investing of your money? By creating jobs! Heck, even a bank has to hire workers to account for and protect the money you give it! Duh. So, then: rich people are needed for poor people to get richer by means of jobs. Not by means of throwing up balls in the air and demanding that they don't return to earth!

      Marx was a complete idiot! Governments are amorphous masses of workers, and no amount of hierarchy makes accountability more efficient: just the reverse, in fact. And why is this true? Because no one OWNS the capital government collects (i.e., taxes). It's instead in the "name of the people" -- not an individual; thus, the interest in caring for such capital is a step removed, so to speak -- for, it is not your own. Ownership makes for efficiency, because it is more important to care for what you own; what you own is your responsibility and right; for, you have authority over what you own. Like, God owns us. So, because you own a thing, you have the requisite authority to Learn How To Use It. The reason why governmental welfare programs can only fail is that the money they receive, they don't really own; the money they give out, the recipients didn't earn. Hence, no authority attaches to the money, so no learning to become wealthy can result from possession of the money, because there's no basis to respect the money. Everyone thinks he got a free lunch, so no one respects the money. If, by contrast, one earned the money, he'd associate it with his efforts: and By godfrey, he'd respect it! Just try to demand he give you some! This is human nature: even without the Energizer Bunny, man needs effort/pain to generate respect. Hence, learning; for, no learning occurs apart from respect. It's that simple. [That's why in the OT the poor tax was so small: a 10% tax every third year, as I remember. "Tithe" is a very bad English translation.]

      See? That's why governments can never be profit-makers for their polities, because technically the money is the people's, not the government's; a group's -- not an individual's. So, government unavoidably has insufficient authority, because none of the individuals (or group of individuals) IN the government themselves own that money; for, "the property of the people" is an "undivided interest" (legal term; and a real problem in any kind of law on property, giving rise to endless lawsuits in history). So, mere trusteeship, which is a cost; a burden best kept as small as possible. Even the communal sharing in Acts caused nothing but problems! So goes the true nature of 'Das Kapital'.

    God is not Karl Marx: God knows what He is doing. God is the richest: Father, Son, Spirit, each God, are Each Infinitely Profit. Uncreated, so, non-consuming. So, then: we who are by nature poor, Need Them To Care For Us; happily, due to salvation the Lord OWNS us, so has the requisite Authority To Care for us. (So, heh -- believe in Christ and get His Care: "casting all your cares on Him, for He cares for you" -- Peter.) So, then: given this eternal non-ending mass of beings..the care goes on forever. In a spectrum: Pleroma (highest group)-spiritual level, all the way down to the lowest-spiritual-growth level. What produces the spiritual growth levels? Bible Doctrine Is True Riches. So, by the time each person dies, the amount of Bible Doctrine which he "ate" and used goes with him. Prolonged carnality eventually eats away at this Doctrine (well, like a scar does, Greek words and cognates of skotizo and skleroo). Hence, the critical need for 1Jn1:9 and daily study under one's right pastor. You can only take Bible Doctrine with you: that's the capital base that's tested by fire, as 1Cor3 and 1Pet1:7 explain. (Well, 'need the "gold" and "riches" verses also to see this fact better.)

      So, then: at the Bema we each get some amount of capital to reflect how much the Holy Spirit grew us up in Bible Doctrine while down here; those who had no Doctrine will get some kind of (very personalized) de minimis (no McDonald's hamburgers, in God's Plan). So, then: we all start out unequally, with unequal amounts of capital. So, then: the differential in growth (which is easy to understand, if you know anything at all about differential calculus, economics, finance, or even a passbook savings account) -- will become greater over time. For, the poor will be consuming a greater portion of their capital award than the rich will be doing ("consuming" of course being defined in accordance with our body-nature and lifestyle then). Of course, everyone makes at least a bizillion percent interest on his capital, since the capital causing the capital award, is the Lord's Thinking (Deity, OT; Humanity, NT). But a bizillion percent on a dollar, is always going to grow slower, than a bizillion percent on 100 Billion Doctrine Dollars! See?

      So, then: Pleroma-growth level (see Part III's explanation) people end up as Rulers (Part IV-V); they are the richest, and of course, everyone is under the King of Kings, the Richest One of All: the Lord (see Heb1). They have the most Spiritual Capital: in fact, so much, they need to invest it! In what/whom will they invest? Well, really, in the Lord, but by means of investing in the kingdoms He gives them ("cities", for non-Church). So, those in the kingdoms are benefitted more than by their own God-given eternal possessions, because they are members of some Pleroma believer's kingdom. Get it? Synergy.

      So then: if Synergy works due to inequality, then it is even more synergistically enjoyable for the 'gap' to expand. Which it inevitably would, anyway. That benefits the poor more. See?

      [Part III's "Third Reason (and Fourth) for Royalty" is way too tamely worded. Gotta stick all this in there! But gotta make the point more explicit in Part I than it already is; Part II's end needs to reference this design more; Part V's sketch of eternity needs to incorporate more explicitly this purpose. Probably need to weave in the point in a lot of other places, too.]

  • God's Economies-of-Scale and the Ever-Expanding-Synergy-of-Crosses Purpose ['Bullet not yet finished. I'm still trying to figure out the shortest explanation method; what follows below will likely be substantially changed.

    How does God get a Miracle for Himself? Why shouldn't God get a miracle? We all think so stupidly about what we get -- but what about God getting something? How can Holy God get anything from us? We are so puny, so petty, so.. dull. Why, there's zero natural justification for our even being alive! So what is sufficient, propitiatory, satisfying, such that Holy God can even want our existence, let alone the intimate relationship we Church get through Christ? Why, only a miracle of too-heavy stones lifted! The True Wealth, Profit, The Miracle of Bible Doctrine, the Son's Thinking, freely circulating in our souls! Forever...

    God's Economics of Scale do what economists always dream of, but can never achieve: equilibrium. As we saw above regarding the nature of Infinity being infinitely homeostatic, it follows that if Infinity is united to finity, that finity will also operate in homeostasis. The Lord united finity to Himself (added Humanity) and in that finity (Humanity) paid for all the sins of mankind by means of the Infinite Truth the Holy Spirit poured into Him, as we saw in the combat-green table, above. This had the result of making what was bad about finity, do Infinite good. So of course it means that all the economics laws actually and finally..work! For, the discipline called "economics" is but a display of God's Attribute of truth, just as math is.

    How to illustrate this idea? Pretend that the mechanism for Bible Doctrine's replication from one soul to another is like a Bic Pen. To make a Bic Pen factory, pretend, costs a hundred million US Dollars. That's what it takes to make just one Bic Pen! But not just one Bic Pen is to be made, but rather, millions and maybe billions of them. For who? people. So, the more people, the bigger the market (assume no good competitors); the bigger the market, the more the volume. The more the volume, the higher the revenue, and the more the revenue, the greater the payback. Notice how there would be no payback unless the market was BIG enough. That's the economics of scale.

    So, then: since God by nature is pure profit, His Truth is likewise pure profit by nature; so this profit was put in the Christ, such that the Cross itself was paid by the Circulating Doctrine in Him. Which, in turn, becomes His Legacy to Church; which, in turn results in a "Bride"; a whole bunch of people, but only a few Pleroma among them. So the number of Bics producible is..endless! For, there are soooo many who didn't want to go the distance (footrace metaphors in the Greek of Heb12:1-2). Yet they profit, too. From the Pleroma directing, comes the 'factory' of endless sweet savor, written in everyone's hearts and minds, and written out back toward each other, and First, oh FIRST! toward Father, Son, Spirit! Under Son's Headship! 'Beginning down here..but continuing at ever-higher levels, forever! For, money begets money, and Doctrine is True Riches/Gold. Hence, true equilibrium, which economists have talked about forever, but never see actually happen! For, the Large Store Of Doctrine Circulating in the Pleroma believers transfers (akin to economic doctrines of trickle-down, circulation of money, velocity of money), because there is a large mass demand for it. So, the recipients write and write and write and write..wow. I'm too excited to write!

    How funny: here Satan thinks he's getting some kind of revenge against the Lord for every Church believer he hobbles off the Witness Stand (i.e., due to works), away from the spiritual life; and, yes, that's true, the cost of that believer's increased the cost and thus yield of the Bic Pen Factory! Not merely the elusive equilibrium, but Inviolable Equilibrium! For, nothing shall be impossible for God! No wonder Col1:25-27 and Eph read as they do! (Ephesians is the epistle of equilibrium, how God accomplishes it.)

    For, every person saved who doesn't get to Pleroma, because permanently saved, increases the break-even (not merely the marginal costs), because he's an "addition to plant" (economic lingo); so increases the requisite economy-of-scale for equilibrium to occur (unending stable profit, here). Since most believers quit the spiritual life's function (or never get in it), there must be a mechanism to make up for all that loss, since their personalized Eph1 escrow assets remain frozen forever. The way to not only make up for the loss, but produce FAR beyond it, is to create a higher break-even and volume: in short, larger masses (more saved people). Thus the blessing pipeline produces even more happiness-revenue (1Cor2:16) than if everyone got their escrows. (Lower break-evens would have occurred if everyone chose to advance to Pleroma, and did so.) Economic synergy due to large economy of scale is thus the secular counterpart to God's Economics-of-Blessing-by-Association.

    Finally I understand how so many escrow blessings can remain on deposit forever without 'cheating' God. Why didn't I catch on earlier? Could the Lord make it MORE obvious, in Luke 8? What about the Temple analogies, why didn't I see this fact then? Oh: could the epochs/Dispensations of history, each a higher break-even, advertise this fact more loudly? Oh, how stupid I was not to see this before! Ok, enough breast-beating. God always says, Tharsei! (Matt 9.)

    You can pick up almost any basic text on macro and micro economics and learn some of the fundamentals. Of course, common sense will also tell you most of what the textbooks say.

    ****** Maybe finish these bullets, maybe don't. Maybe let the reader figure them out by using economics textbooks. *****

    Let's start with microeconomics concepts you can see plainly in everyday life, and show how they interrelate with macroeconomics:

    • If you don't sell something at a higher price than it costs you to make, you can't keep making that product to sell. This is the first 'law' of profit. God's version of this law is that every transaction must be pure profit (zero cost), since God didn't make Himself and is Unsustained. The law applies to creation, as well, and is the root reason why no one can work for his salvation nor lose it, once saved.

    • People won't buy your product unless They think its price is a PROFIT to them. This is the second 'law' of profit. God's version of this law is that
    • So you'll want to keep on making a product which costs YOU less than what people are willing to pay for it. This is the 'third' law of profit. God's version of this law is that
    • However, if someone else sees people buying your product, and you are making money, they will try to beat you at it, so that they will make the money instead of you; so he will sell the product you make at a lower price, or fix some major deficiency in YOUR product and sell it at the same price. This is the fourth 'law' of profit, and the first law of competition. God's version of this law is that

    • If both you and the other guy are making the same product, both of you will have to lower the selling price, for now people have learned they are able to get the product at a lower price, and they will 'vote' between you. This is partly the MACROeconomic law of demand. God's version of this law is that

    • If both you and the other guy are making the same product but you agree about price and how many of the product you sell, you can together control the market, until some other competitor enters. This is one aspect of the MACROeconomic law of supply, which some derisively call "cartel". God's version of this law is that

    • If someone finds a use for a different product which is similar to the use for your product, the other product will maybe be used instead, depending on the PRICE of your product versus the other one. This is the microeconomic law of "substitution", and is based on the macroeconomic law of "elasticity of demand". Idea is, at what price will people substitute some other product for 'yours'. God's version of this law is

      Break is over! I'll finish or redo this bullet later. It will be very long.

  • This Ever-Expanding-Synergy-of-Crosses Purpose makes clearer why Satan rebelled: precisely because he accurately came to see it as a burden-too-heavy-and-too-undesirable-to-lift; as a burden, therefore, that he was unwilling to 'grow' to have forever. To him, such a 'future' was worse than hell itself. He still feels that way: and he's right!

      Huh? Remember how (earlier in this webpage) God faced the hellish choice of Allowing All Bad, in order to BE God? How, if He didn't, He was in effect a tyrant, and no good at all? So what did that mean? God had to Go Against Himself to decide to create. And, being as He's God, the going-against would forever be true. Not just for a moment or some finite period of time. For, God Is Timeless. So, then: in order to warrant such a hellish choice, hell has to become heaven. Else, Love won't love it. Else, Righteousness is compromised. So, Best united to Worst, and.. we exist. In short, the Cross.

      So, then: for creatures to grow up with reference to Infinity means we too must go against ourselves: what is heaven to us, must become hell, and hell heaven. Only Bible Doctrine circulating in the soul can bridge that horrible gap: just as it did, for Jesus the Christ, Whose Spiritual Life is given to us: Ephesians explains (whole epistle). For, God Himself puts the Word above His Own Person (Ps138:2b): the Word, the Word of the Cross, the Word of God. Now do you see why the Royal Spiritual Life of 'just study' is way more valuable to God than those cheesy works everyone lauds? What works can span the distance between Infinity and sin? What body-thing can accomplish the spiritual unity with God Himself, especially since God has no body? What good deed can cure the old sin nature? Only Bible Doctrine, the Thinking of Christ can do these things: just as, only His Thinking on the Cross entirely funded our salvation. Forever.

      Above all, the Testimony of Christ is this: not even HE could deserve spiritual unity, in His Humanity. Because, the GAP between Infinity and finity is unbridgeable. So nothing He could do, think, want, however sinless He could be without those Truth Deposits -- whatever He could do or be, would not be enough. Ever. "Why do you call me Good? Only God is good." That verse says it all. It's high time we awaken to the real problem: No One Can Bridge The Gap. Sin merely makes that unbridgeable gap worse.

      But it's impossible, to start with! It's just like the rich woman in love with the poor guy, or the rich man in love with the poor girl: their social differences create so many post-marital obstacles, the relationship will crash in divorce. For, look: if you love God, you can't stand the fact that you aren't good enough, because your inferiority is so unfair to Him! Going to heaven, then, is hell for you, because to you it means God is forever shortchanged! Thus you need the Cross to pay for you even more than +R (judicially) does, for you can't stand the guilt otherwise, if you go to Heaven! By contrast, if you hate God, you can't stand the fact that you aren't good enough, because your inferiority is so unfair to you! Going to heaven, then, is hell for you, because to you it means you are forever shortchanged! Thus you hate the Cross, for you can't stand the guilt otherwise, if you go to Heaven absent some merit you do!

      It's a Hobson's choice: no matter which way God goes, everyone gets hurt. Question is, what's "hurt"? Well, it's truly a multi-storied thing: physical, mental (soulish), spiritual (if a believer), perceived, propaganda, past programmings (what you or your environment told your brain a thing 'is'). All around us we are bombarded with definitions of things, people, feelings. That these definitions are almost always incorrect makes no difference. The weight of all these influences together constitute what "hurt" means. So, its hard to go against the self, even before recognizing the innate impossibility for finity to go against itself. No wonder I find myself "counting the cost" and concluding (inaccurately), mene mene tekel upharsin. [That's a clause in Daniel, the handwriting on the wall saying 'weighed in the scales and found wanting' -- meaning, inadequate. Too expensive!.]

    So, then: Satan is right. Same dilemma, as faced even Eternal God. Heaven is a worse 'hell' -- assuming, of course, that you never come to love the 'hell' of living on the Word. And, if you don't come to love Him (see Eph3:19, because the Word is the Christ), then all life, anywhere, is hell. For, finity itself is innate hell, which is why Satan's so interminably bitter: why did He make me, if He knew in advance that I'd turn out this way??!!??!! That's the core anger driving Satan's soul: he's hurt!!!!

    So, it's easy to see how he could conclude the Son flawed, and why he's become exponentially intransigent over the ensuing (perhaps billions of) years. This is Satan's root contention, so is the Trial Issue of issues, that God's Design and Purpose and life for Creation is a burden too heavy and undesirable to lift. YES! YES! YES! 'The very point God Himself wants made, wants us to understand..and come to love! For, God's Standard is, "Nothing Is Impossible"! So: everything impossible must occur! Endlessly, expandingly, fractally! Satan&Co. (and most of mankind for that matter) will never ever accept such a Standard. It is too slavish. All work, no enjoyment -- from their perspective. Hence their ever-expanding bitterness and iconoclasm, as the Thinking series progressively explains.

    Part I doesn't say a whole lot about why Satan&Co. rebelled. It's sketched out, and taken for granted. Passim comments throughout the series are made to show their attitudes and thus their 'plan' being played upon mankind. The Appendix really goes into detail on that 'plan' also, but does spend a little more time on the "Why". The reason to keep the "why" short in the main body of the series, was to focus attention instead on God's Answer, God's Script. For, we are here now, and we've got a lot of decisions to make! In short, I'm trying to be pragmatic. Now I wonder if I shouldn't say more; after all, it's important to show that Satan has reasons, and I'm not sure that I've really expressed them well. God Himself honors Satan in this way, for God loves him just as much as He loves anyone: Infinitely. But where do I put these points? Well, until that decision is made, here are the points I think ought to be woven in, or woven in better:

      1. Satan's base contention is that he didn't get to CHOOSE to be made, (duh, couldn't choose until he existed), so the very act of God creating him created a certain fiduciary liability on the part of God to allow him to choose whatever he wants, without punishment.

    That's a very key point. It begs the question of not only whether God's "Rule" is beneficial, but, more importantly, what Truth ought to "be". For, God is essentially saying that the Truth means rebellion against God is Hell, not because God imposes it so; but because that's the intrinsic result the rebeller incurs upon himself. Satan's perspective is that since God is Omnipotent, "Truth" is really only what God says it is, and "Truth" itself has no intrinsic properties of its own. (This argument exports to mankind in the popular notion that "all truth is relative".) So the Nature of Truth is the crux issue: is Truth, not Power, the determinant? If Truth is the determinant, Satan argues, then God is really not omnipotent. Conversely, if Power is the determinant, then Truth is arbitrary. Hence, either way -- no one who rejects God should be caused to suffer.

      2. We know that God Himself worships Truth. So, wow -- it sure looks like Satan is right! Moreover, if God did violate Truth, He really would stop being God – but only because it would be His act of Will. Wow, score again for the Defense! Moreover: Truth (as an Attribute, not as an output) Is Uncreated. Every Attribute of each Member of the Godhead is Uncreated. Moreover, each Attribute is Undivided. So, Omnipotence is 'colored', so to speak, by all the other Attributes; and, vice versa. So, even if Satan concedes God's claim about the intrinsic nature of Truth -- doesn't the Defense 'score' a third time, and thus WIN the Trial?

    In short, God is alleged to be enforcing "Truth" as but a Survival Instinct, rather than due to the Intrinsic Goodness of Truth itself. So, then: again, why is it fair to punish those who don't agree? If they want to kill themselves, so what? Or, conversely, if rebellion doesn't result in them killing themselves, so what? God has His life, they have theirs. It's a kind of no-fault-divorce argument, a "live and let live" argument. Really, yet another form of accusing God of violating his Fiduciary Liability, of being Arbitrary. (This satanic argument exports in all the denominations which "constrain" God in some way, like Calvinism, Reform Theology [TULIPS? link explains], and the mainstream idea that God can't go against Himself.)

    How does God answer these brilliant objections?! 'Empirically. Ok, let's just let everything play out and see what happens. You go your way, I go my way. If some choose Me, if some choose you, let's see what the results are. No interference from Me; and, with a few constraints, you can do whatever you like. Those 'few constraints' were agreed upon in advance, and ...then Adam was created. The rest, as they say, is history.

      3. Ok, but no matter how it plays out, the result always becomes unending-stones-too-heavy-to-lift! For, even if God is right in His contention about the intrinsic nature of what a rebeller does to himself, then the rebeller 'reaps' unending crushing. But look: Christ Himself, having Successfully Completed the Worst Crushing, what does HE get??? More Crushing..unendingly. So, it's a choice between one form of illness/masochism, and another. So, again: why should God punish the rebellers?

    It seems like I've searched for the answer to this unending-stones-too-heavy issue my entire life. When I was 4, apparently my mother evangelised me, and she says she used Infinity (anthropopathically-styled, "Omnipresence") to do it. According to her (for I remember nothing), I was frightened; I went running all around the house, looking under chairs, in corners -- trying to 'see' God. She looked out the sliding glass door, trying to figure out how to explain..then saw the sky.. then remembered John 3. So, she told me about how no one can SEE the wind, but only its effects. God, she said, is like the wind: can't see Him, but can know He's there.

      So, one objection I've never been able to share with atheists is their sense of God being at fault, and therefore not existing. To me, since God is infinite, any unfairness would FIRST be unfairness to Himself! But watch my version of little faith: for as long as I can remember knowing He existed, I've been asking Him, "What do You get for all this grief!" It seemed always sooooo unfair for Such Gorgeousness to deliberately choose doo-doo when He could have Everything Beautiful. And should! This was my stumbling block in the Gospel, too, for it seemed like still "I" did nothing -- which, I was quite certain, was the truth -- for who can do squat to please Infinite God! It seemed so unfair to Him. But there was no other way. I knew that. So, by age 18, on the bed, maybe crying, alone in that pukey green dorm room, I believed in My Lord's paying for all my sins on the Cross, and I knew I was permanently saved. Because, there really WAS no other way. That realization was pretty traumatic..as it probably is, for anyone! So, like most others, I did nearly every goofy thing any history book on Christendom reveals. Unlike them, I got Bible Doctrine right away (my college roommate was under the pastor who became 'mine'). So, grew out of the goofiness.

      Nonetheless, post-cognizant-salvation, countless prayers, countless tears, countless times I'd still ask this question, what are You getting for all this grief! For, the definition of "grief" became ever 'bigger' and more shocking, as the HS aged me under my pastor's teaching. So, for every day, each time I asked this question, a small piece of the answer would become evident. Mosaically (heh). And now....!! Oh, I'm still asking the question, and will never stop, but the tone is changed: now, in ever increasing admiration, awe..love of the answer!

    And just what is God's Answer? LOVE! 'Expressed often using metaphoric opposites! Or, using the famous Attic hupostatic balancing syntax, mev..de! (Greek "n" looks like "v") [English NTs are pitiful, here. They mistranslate "mev" as "some", "and", "verily"; and "de" as "others" or "but"] On the one hand, on the other hand! Mev: On the one hand, we were dead! De: On the other hand, we are alive! On the one hand, specks of dust don't do squat to please God! I mean, how can He have invented the need to urinate and defecate! That's what even all our works are, too (Isa64:6 sprang to mind)! For, a "work" is no better than the person who does it. So, to be good enough, the Person Doing the Work Has To Be God! So, on the other hand, God Is Doing The Work: and covenanted with Abram to that effect, by having Abram circumcise his phallus! Is that funny, or what! So, as my pastor LOVES to remind us, every time Abraham pees...

    Yep, Father Decreed to baptise everything with His Son's Thinking; in practice, Father, Son, Spirit ALL do this baptising in various Self-Chosen ways. (Their "names", really, "titles", reveal to us Their preferential expressions of Themselves.) And, during the Church covenantal period/Dispensation..the Spirit most deeply pours the Doctrine into our hearts (Romans 5:5). So, what a sweet savor, that doo-doo is baptised/associated/ hupostatised/ hupomone'd into diamonds! To look at forever! Yeah, it's the meaning which washes away the birth blood we were weltering in (cf Eze16:6, RSV), and makes us Beautiful Bride. By pouring His Thinking into us: treasure in earthen vessels, gold, gold/silver/precious stones, riches of His Glory, true riches, riches of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. So, then: if the ugly thing is caused to produce the greater beauty than if the ugly thing hadn't been there in the first place, isn't it a greater JOY to have a stone too heavy to lift? Remember the parables of the lost coin and lost sheep?

    When we think of the Cross, we think of anger, offense, judgement, sin, evil. What we don't think about, is grief. Just like children who think that Mommy and Daddy are 'mad at' them during punishment, so also we children don't see that Our Divine Parents' REAL attitude, is grief. Sorrowing for us: watching us lacerate our souls with our sins, Mesmerized by the kosmic kaleidoscope; imagining that we're having 'fun'! Hey, Matrix can't compete with Ol' Mesmer! Oh, how fun to stab self with activism, legalism, lasciviousness! How fun to whitewash the devil's world! How fun to fornicate in a vacuum! Yearning to heal us, but must wait for us to agree. Yearning to bless us, but we cannot receive blessing, because we choose to curse ourselves with our sins.

      It's GRIEF which is the biggest suffering. Really, way more than these anthropopathic terms can convey, for true and Infinite Grief is an Infinite Knowing. Oh, the loss! All this Deadness! All these dead thoughts! In live beings! All the separation! If you've ever suffered very deep grief, then you know how paralyzing it is. Unlike simple offense or anger, grief recognizes the irretrievable loss. So, is helpless, and knows it. So, avoiding the temptation to react to grief is far harder than resisting the temptation to probably any other kind of sin. Grief itself is not a sin, but reaction is. Paralysis, for example. Sitting catatonic, fixated. The one reacting becomes dead himself, at least for awhile.

      Father imputes Son's Humanity with all sins -- and what is the overwhelming weight, even beyond the unimaginable data-transmission weight of the sins themselves? GRIEF. The Loss! The deadness! Pain is a Knowing, and this kind of knowing should have killed the Lord's Humanity: for, He is the most compassionate human who ever lived, as proven by Satan himself in the Matt4 temptations chosen. The horrible knowledge should have paralyzed Him on the Cross! Moreover, Father's Judgment of those sins -- seems to me thus far that the overwhelming tone of the Judgement was GRIEF. Maximum lupew: Offense at the loss, offense at the deadness, but most of all: oh, lost! [Only lupew subseries of 92SD and L1535 give the many meanings of the verb, which essentially is a combination of grief and offense. I can't find the many meanings in any lexicon, for the lexicons are 'sad'!]

      If ever Bible Doctrine, Truth was on the line, it's here. On the other hand, if ever there could be a greater satisfaction of Making Alive All That Deadness, it's also here. Son is thrilled to be the One to baptise the dead, Make Alive Again! Grief, where is thy sting? Lost can be found! Just a small one-time decision! Lost can become Pleroma! Just a lifetime of learning Happiness, Bible Doctrine! So, think of how happy They are, seeing this Cross ever before Them: for the Cross is, at once, maximum grief -- but maximum celebration! For the dead is baptised with His Thinking, and made alive to God! No separation! No loss! Doo-doo does a Diamond's job!

    UNENDING-STONES-TOO-HEAVY INTERPRETATION KEY ==> That's what's 'in it' for God. Anyone He creates would be irrevocably lost upon the first sin, absent salvation. Would be irrevocably LOST upon rejecting the PleromaPlan, absent some some kind of hierarchy to Mediate Blessing Transmission of what would otherwise be too big to enjoy, given the recipients' resulting free-will-determined soul capacities. Would be irrevocably LOST, enfin, because the second God creates, the Truth is, even one "dot" below Infinity is an unbridgeable chasm. See why the Lord added Humanity to Himself? See how much LOVE was the motive!? Heis.gar Theos, Heis Mesites! (1Tim2:5, clause in it.) United God, Uniting Mediator! No Longer Lost Creation! But, Found! Anyone. Anyone at all. For, nothing is too "small" for God's Infinite LOVE. For, Nothing Is Impossible For God! Even a speck of dust, a drop of urine, can be "found" and used to produce Divine Blessing! Nothing LESS is acceptable, heh!

    "Capacity Righteousness" is how my pastor translates the Greek word, "dikaiosune", which is a very pregnant word in Greek philosophy. God upgrades the term to reference +R. But what is Infinite Righteousness? Well, think: infinity is a quality; hence, a capacity. Hence, "Capacity Righteousness". The thinking of a Judge must be Righteously Capacious, or He'll never render a Perfectly Just decision.

    "Capacity" in the usual sense means how much a thing/person can hold or do before breaking/quitting/dying..etc. So, how much prosperity can one hold? Well, we know the poor can't, because they haven't learned how to do anything but consume. That's not holding, but spending. Same is true for lots of other things: like, joy. Have you ever been so happy you almost couldn't stand it? That's a capacity boundary. Have you ever been so UNhappy you almost couldn't stand it? That's the other capacity boundary. Funny thing, about capacity: the more capacity you have for withstanding 'bad', the more you have for withstanding 'good'. It's just like the weight-bearing ability of your muscles. And is increased in exactly the same manner: by resistance training. In a word, pressure.

    So, to one of low capacity, an intensity greater than he can stand HURTS. So, to one of HIGH capacity, a too-low intensity, drags. This is the fundamental reason why we're all so uncomfortable with each other: our capacities differ too much. This is, even more so, the fundamental reason why everyone's afraid of God, just like the Exodus people were: He's too BIG! Part III's "Third" Reason addresses this issue in more detail.

    What's God gonna do???? There's only one thing to do, as "Integrity Properties" in Part I explains: increase the creature's capacity by pouring His Truth into them. Which, as the "1 John" subsection went on to note, requires one first be saved. For, sin destroys all capacity, even renders one genetically insane, as Part II illustrates in its "the Fall" subsection.

    We're wrecked by sin. It's not a me-bad question, but a disease question. Which, if we didn't have everlasting souls, would have killed the soul, too. So, we're not dead..but we're sure wacko! Down to our every gene. No way around it..except salvation. So, then: we can be saved. We can get that Truth in us. And Christ did it all the way! (Finite Perfection would still need to grow, remember.) So, then: no longer 'dead', but "alive again"! "To a Living Hope!" Stone-too-heavy, alive! Not lost! Found coin, found sheep, found Savior forever!

    Of course, just like Satan and me, the whole world has always asked this same question: what's the benefit for all the grief? A Gospel verse asking this question just sprang to mind: "How can these things BE?" We all ask this question. Atheists vary in their versions, from bad-exists-so-God-cannot, to I-don't-see-Him to Bible-conflicts-with-science..to, you name it. Believers in their variant religions also ask the question all the time; so religions all develop to allegedly answer the question. But, ah: the question got changed to "what do I get!" How can these things be so hard/easy/ big/small.. and benefit moi! Of course, the ascetics do in fact wonder what God gets for it, and in their self-torture to please Him, they hallucinate all kinds of deprivations/ rules/ behaviors/ rituals to make them feel comfortable with the answer. It's easy to empathize with all these variant reactions to, "How can these things BE?"

      It's not normal to want to kill yourself to get something; but that is, without a doubt, God's Standard. For, He is Infinite Love. And that's the key to the REAL answer, as Part I explained. For example, I dearly love analyzing/living on/playing with/sheer seeing Bible Doctrine. Lack of food, sleep, even bathroom functions go unheeded -- I'm a sop! So what? I love it. At times, people have said to me (and it was a surprise, for I don't recall saying anything to warrant the reaction), stuff like the following: "You're throwing your life away on this Bible Doctrine! Get a life!" God doesn't give brownie points. Study makes me happy, because My Lord makes me happy. Just knowing Him. Never want to stop that. It's not a sacrifice, but a joy.

        [So much so, it's a kind of prosperity test: to pass the test, one has to insert that joy into the things he hates, which of course means wallowing in what he hates. Akin to the imputation of sins the Lord received, the believer must learn to hold, embrace, even, what he least likes by means of the Doctrine He Loves. In my case, what I have always least-liked are the routines of living: you know, paperwork, taking out the trash, listening to someone tell me of their bowel movements, etc. ad nauseam. The more doctrine I get, the more irritating these things 'become': because my own Doctrinal standards increase as more doctrine is learned & used. So, then: if I don't do this inserting enough, I won't reach Pleroma, because one must be fully coordinated. Besides, God always reserves the Best Bible Class for such 'imputations'! So, nothing to lose, every additional sphere of joy to gain. Doo-doo of "routine" (here), becoming Diamantes of Doctrinal Association! And oh, it's rough! But worth it.]

      Others have their own loves, too; but think of what you love doing the most: do you find yourself happily killing yourself to get it? Well, then: what's wrong with that? Aren't you happy doing so? Do you really think much of the 'cost', or are you too busy enjoying yourself, to care about the hassle? Well, that's how love "is". That's how God's LOVE is. That's what learning Him makes of everything in life, by the time one reaches Pleroma. Heb12:2!

    Like Part I said, about the "middle": same data, but different orientation to it, makes all the difference in life. Is the glass half empty, or half pleroma, full? Sure: on the one hand, the older one gets in Christ, the more he sees the saturation of satanic thinking in every speck of dust. On the other hand, the more he ALSO sees the saturation of His Thinking in every speck of dust. Just think: the Muslim doesn't understand that the Koran is satanic, because the Muslim doesn't recognize the cardinal Justice principle that God better get paid for the two-pronged burden of man: Romans 5:12(?) "For all have SINNED [1st prong]), AND [2nd prong]) COME SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD." We are finite, and sinners to boot. Ok, that's the one hand, what the Muslim doesn't see. But on the other hand, he does see that Allah is absolute. Well, then. That's true! It's a start down the path of learning Him. So, the other "hand", is God. Isn't it beautiful to know this? "For the whole earth is filled with the Knowledge of Him" shows itself operating everywhere, 24 hours a day. For, who doesn't know the term, "God"? So, then: there is always, 24 hours a day, something for the Holy Spirit to make more profitable. So, then: there's no need to worry over heretical ideas, satanic thinking, etc., because there IS 'another Hand' working. Isn't that a joy to know? As the Lord said in the OT: "What, is My Arm too short?!" (somewhere in end-of-Deut, I think.)

    Oh, but the middle looks really bad, when one is hurting. But what is hurting? First, the biology of it: a) body has by Divine Design, a whole nervous system, which in part is made up of 'pain receptors' (i forget the medical term). Note well: if you didn't have pain receptors, you couldn't feel a wound or other damage when it occurred. What do those receptors do? They transmit communication to the brain that something is wrong, along with some data indicating the site and nature of the problem. Note well: pain is really a knowing-thing, because if the receptors didn't transmit to the brain, you couldn't know you were hurting. So, then: b) as most any psychiatrist/psychologist/ counselor can tell you, what man thinks is 'bad' is likewise 'transmitted' to his body and he thus feels pain. In psychosis, this feeling has morphed into very definite physical sensations which in a lot of cases are hallucinatory: some even show up as things wrong with the body, but the actual tests show the body part is just fine! Milder versions of this phenomenon abound: anxiety attacks, "nervous headaches", "butterfiles" -- a whole spectrum of physical reactions. Note well: it's what you THINK that makes for the pain, far more than the pain itself.

    Conversely, there are just as many instances of people who should be hurting, but are not. In the "Jokes" link there's the (true) story of a guy who cut into his own head deliberately with an AX, in order to get the 'demons' out (or something like that). Having failed to get them out, he calmly entered the police station, requesting help to remove the demons, with the ax still implanted in his head! He not only wasn't dead or disabled, he didn't feel any pain! You can learn of many others in every day: the mother who lifted the car to free her trapped child; the guy who rescued someone and didn't realize he was himself hurt until after the crisis ended; the lady whose legs were cut off in surgery (to stop gangrene), but still 'feels' them hurting days afterwards. More mundanely, you daily see people say and hear the most awful things -- and they themselves seem oblivious to the pain they cause, or receive (especially among some older people who are so terribly rude). Just look at any talk show (take Pepto-Bismol)! Note well: pain is knowing -- here, not knowing pain, even where there IS pain, makes it not hurt. Same "middle", different knowing orientation. That is, the (i.e., neuronal) association of thing "A" with feeling "B".

    Association begets orientation, and that is why psychiatry always looks into your childhood (etc): to see what associations exist 'paired' with events in your life. Only then can they treat the resultant malformed orientations which have resulted in the patient. For, the key to mental health is an integrated orientation to reality. For the Christian, this is far more true: an integrated life with God through His Son's Thinking. "Christian" and "crazy" begin with a "C" for a reason! If the Christian doesn't go 'crazy' for Bible Doctrine, he'll go crazy, because he's got, at spiritual birth, this perfect human spirit in which resides infinite Righteousness and Eternal Life! It's a trichotomy-stone too heavy to lift!

      DIAGNOSIS KEY ==> So, then: the pain you think you feel is really more of an index of your associative thinking towards it, than the actual pain itself. So, then: pain you express is more indicative of your attitude than the actual pain. For, if you didn't care about the pain, you'd not need the outlet of expressing it. So, then: people who are badmouthing, blaming, self-justifying, petty, always-stressing-what's-wrong, are in a whole lot of self-perceived pain. Which means, no knowledge of God is operating in them. Which means, most Christians are extremely undernourished!

      GOD'S USE OF PAIN KEY ==> The truth about either effort or pain is that it opens the ability to grow bigger. Or, negatively, backstops shrinkage. That's why if you exercise, you get stronger. That's why, if you study hard, you learn more. That's why, if you work hard, you earn more. That's why, if you save money, you get more. It always requires some kind of effort or pain to get something, because that effort or pain opens an opportunity or ability, absent which effort/pain, would not be open. So it's not at all about being bad, but about growing. Increasing capacity. Thus, Christ was so opened by the Cross, even His Humanity could become Wholly United to the Father. Which, His Humanity would need to BE, in order to be The Mediator forever. [Prove this to yourself: ponder Philippians 2:5-10, plus all of Heb1 and 2, 4, 5-10; Romans 4-8; plus the meaning of the Mercy Seat in OT (and NT verses on it); plus Paul's Spirit-Filled reasoning about himself in Philippians, 1Tim1 and 2Tim6. There are other passages, but my brain went out on the cites as I was typing just now.]

    See, whether positive or negative, believer or unbeliever, we all just 'rock along' in our concepts of what's true..until there is resistance. Pain and effort are types of resistance. Resistance makes us question the validity of a thing. That's a critical thought process to go through, for absent questionning, one never really learns. Moreover, until the material is tested, one doesn't really know what he knows. This point is pretty obvious: yet, as is true with everything where "god" is in the background, such common sense suddenly disappears. So, the child is told he is not allowed to question his faith. He's a bad boy if he does that. So..he stops questionning. And slides into deadness/roteness. That's not how God operates. So, what must God do? Give the child something to question. Which isn't very hard, since all around us life constantly is bothersome. So, the HS just takes advantage of all the 'bad' which exists, to motivate a questionning. Not, an accusing.

      Bad hurts. So, the person experiencing bad will, like Adam and the woman at the Fall, first accuse. So, the 'bad' needs to continue, even worsen..to burn off the accusing. Either the person will grow out of the accusation mode (guilt is a type of accusation, too) or will use defense mechanisms to deaden. Thus, the 'bad' has to worsen more, if he doesn't open up and start asking genuine questions. And, who doesn't ask "Why did God let this happen to me?" about a thing? Ahhh. Open window. Will it close again? Or will fresh information be sought..finally?

      'Good' feels good. Whether true or false good. So, one is enthusiastic, thus 'effort' is discounted, because the effort is part of the enjoyment itself. So, if enjoyment is high, then resistance can be high too -- increasing the capacity of the enjoyment even more. Trick is, as with 'bad', to be sure that what one enjoys is truly beneficial; else, the feeling will run you over (awareness will diminish, which is another type of deadening). So, if self perceives self to have 'too much' good versus others, he will be tempted to feel guilty about it; or, to get arrogant. So the good needs to continue or even grow, too -- in order to be questionned, lest it be false good, and deceiving; or, false guilt, and even more deceiving. Hence again, the HS just takes advantage of all the good which exists, to motivate a questionning. Not, a (self-) accusing. And, who doesn't ask "Why did God let this happen to me?" about a really good thing? Ahhh. Open window. Will it close again? Or will fresh information be sought..finally?

      So you can never say that because you experience 'bad', you are better or worse; nor, because you experience 'good'; for the sole criterion is, how much Truth are you learning under 1Jn's Script? No matter how it feels. For only God is good. So boy oh boy He'll use everything to maximize your growth in His Son!

    God's not hurting. He knows everything. Everything bad, everything good, everything everything everything. And Christ is always on the Cross, to Omniscience. Part III's "Third Reason for Royalty" makes a big point about this. So, then: if Omniscient God is not hurting, then the Truth is, even with all the pain-knowings, fabulous. Else, God would be hurting the worst of all! So, then: no wonder He wants ever-expanding, never-ending fractilic expressions of "stones too heavy to lift!"

    Hell remains the 'last' collection of too-heavy-stones. Those there are SO closed, so absent Capacity that they need that much pain to stay one 'dot' open (so free will can say yes, instead of the constant no's). It's astonishing. How does God stand knowing all that pain since forever past, and for forever future, which all at once is one big now?

    Ahhh. Notice how, because Hell exists, those in it are still not irrevocably LOST. If God just zapped them into oblivion, as the no-hell-exists faction contends, they would be irrevocably lost; God's too weak, see. OK: well, besides the fact that many verses show not only that Hell exists forever, but what it's like -- we know that God would NEVER allow such a situation -- for, Nothing Is Impossible for God.

    Alternatively, some folks claim Christ didn't pay for every soul created or born: that Hell contains such beings. So, there's the unsophisticated Calvinist; who contends, not knowing Calvin's teachings as well as his denominational brethern, that the Lord's Payment on the Cross was limited to the "elect". Ok, then: if we ignore the Bible's many UNlimited Atonement verses (even 1Jn2:2, a Calvinist favorite), +R would be unpaid for all non-elect; so God would violate His Own Nature, a contention Calvinists adamantly deny! Yep, they're right. God would never violate +R. So the Payment is UnLimited. "Atonement" in the Bible means the toward-God payment, not the toward-man application. The latter is called "redemption", in the Bible. The sophisticated Calvinist makes this distinction, and correctly. (See the "TULIPS?" and "Salvation Components Chart" links on the Home Page if you want further details.)

      Ok. But the unsophisticate Calvinist thinks that oh, then the Payment would be "wasted", since not everyone was saved, as if the payment would be wasted unless used on every human. Of course, since (at least simple) Calvinism contends man lost his free WILL as a result of the Fall (mixing up free will with freeDOM, a logical fallacy), there's no recognition of God's OWN Free Will to choose how He wants the payment used. This, despite the #1 Contention of Calvinism (and its best suit, which is why "TULIP" should at least become, "TULIPS"), that God is Sovereign. (Too bad the alleged justification and content of that contention makes God look trapped, threatened, weak, arbitrary: all of which are Satan's contentions in the Trial.) So, the simple Calvinist writes articles and tells listeners that Hell somehow compensates God. Christ couldn't do that! But suffering by these sinners, can. So, these sinners are more powerful than Christ? Perish the thought!

    By contrast: shall the Lord's Unlimited Payment not always remain available? For if "no", they would be irrevocably lost, bereft of solution -- trapped by their own negative volition. So Hell presents an unending Profit Opportunity to them..to "turn and be healed". Just like we got. So, then: is any coin irretrievably lost, too small, too ugly, too heinous? No: for, "nothing is impossible, for God". (End Part V explains more about this conclusion.)


    The Second (NEXUS!) Argument

    I can't breathe. I took a break from this writing to assimilate what I'd learned better, and was trying to figure out how God answers Satan's contention about the relative roles of Truth and Power; that, (says Satan) if Truth is the Determinant, then God is not Omnipotent; that, if Power is the Determinant, then Truth is Arbitrary. This is the only category of charges which is not answered in the writing thus far. Guess what the answer is? The Truth is the Determinant, because the Truth IS the Power, the Reason for Omnipotence! That was proven on the Cross. It was the Truth which held the Lord's Humanity together, not some override from the Holy Spirit's Power or the Father's Power! Understand, the Lord should have died from all that pressure! It should have crushed His Soul instead of Opening it (see Part IV's rainbow-bordered green table). If it would have been cheating for Him to tap His Own Deity to protect Himself (and it would have been, 1st class condition) -- then likewise, it would have been cheating -- by God's Own Standards, who cares if Satan objects -- to 'assist' in keeping the Lord's Humanity together!

      For, even compared to the Worst Suffering of All Time, the true Cost of compromising Truth is a cost God is never willing to pay. This, the most impossible thing, had to be done solely by a Human! There They all are, Father stabbing Jesus with all our sins! There They all are, Father CRUSHING Jesus with Father's Own Judgement Penalty for the sins! There They all are, just looking; looking at His Humanity suffering the uncalculable; there They all are, completely able with but a nanosecond's thought to deliver Him (2nd Temptation, writ largest!) -- and what do They do? They just watch. They don't 'lift a finger' to help Him. The Holy Spirit keeps the 'switch' of Divine-Power-to-run-Doctrine-according-to-what-Jesus-wanted -- but that's all. No more than keeping a light switch in the 'on' position -- with a hairtrigger 'off'! if Jesus but ONCE thinks "no"! Silent Sentinels, yet worse -- if He falters they will not deliver Him, and He Himself fully aware of this fact! For, a compromise to Truth is a cost God is never willing to pay. And, They still just watch. We falter, of course..and blame Them, heedless of Elihu's speech. But, to Omniscience, the Cross is always occurring.

      The worst kind of pain, is the kind you receive from family. The person does it deliberately! And you know! And the person knows! Looking you in the eye, even! The next-worst kind of pain, is the kind you receive in public. The jeering. The looking, ever-hungry looking. The comments, oh! how you are public property, a thing to be dissected, assessed! Which is worse, the comments from those who are sincere about their compassion (but have just as hungry eyes), or those who ridicule? The gaping-mouthed silence, oh! Like Auschwitz, looking and looking and doing nothing, saying nothing, just walk, just die..aware to the very last breath that you are a nothing, and no one cares. That your body will be thrown naked into a ditch atop hundreds of others; and someone you know well actually dug that grave! So your meager skin can be pierced by a worm, even. And crushed. While even God Himself, watches.

      So why did Jesus the Christ not resent the watching, doing-nothing-to-help Father who imputatively stabbed Him with our sins, and then judged HIM? So why did Jesus the Christ not resent the watching Holy Spirit, who only kept the 'juice' on? So why did not the LORD Jesus Christ tap into His Own Deity to hold Himself together? Because He Freely had the Same Attitude. He Himself Chose to be imputed and judged. And He kept on choosing it to keep on going, wanting nothing BUT the Doctrine to 'fight' it with. Only Doctrine flipped all those horrible imputations into victorious responses; only Doctrine embraced all our sins and the penalty. Embraced, not gutted-out. For, Doctrine is Divine Truth, and Truth is 'colored' by all Divine Attributes, since it is one of them. 'Colored, for example, by LOVE. Love for Father. For Spirit. For His Own Self. For..even us. He's positively triumphant on the Cross! Verify this yourself, if you value your life at all. Look at the verses about it: Ps22! Ps31:5! Ps89:14-15! Ps100! Ps119! Ps138:2! Romans 5:5-8, Heb2, last half Heb4; Heb5:8-9, Heb9-10:18, Heb12:1-2. Oh, why the English strips out the exultant shouting I'll never know: "joyful noise"? (Ps100) -- pitiful! It should be translated, jumping-up-and-down, can't-contain-myself cheering due to Victory! Same for the other passages! Well, at least the movie "David" (starring Richard Gere) did manage to convey some of the celebration, in that scene where David brings home the ark! (2Sam6.)

    Have you ever had to watch someone else suffer deeply, or watch them suffer for a long time? Did you enjoy that? Of course not. Only an insane person really enjoys watching someone else suffer (and insanity is NO excuse, not ever). So, Father and Spirit would NOT ENJOY WATCHING HIM SUFFER. In fact, because They are God, the watching goes on right now and never stops. How can They stand it? Due to the Truth of what that suffering means: Nothing is Impossible! The Stone Too Heavy Is Lifted! TETELESTAI! Forever!

      See, the only reason He didn't die from a bizillion 'atmospheres' of pressure shooting and crushing His Soul, was...emeth! Truth! Nothing-Hidden Aletheia! Doctrine! And "Doctrine!" was the Last Word He spoke before dismissing His human spirit (His last words were from Ps31:5)! And why not? What's the point of being Omnipotent, if no Truth? Not even Omnipotence would be true, in that case! Truth Is The Reason For Everything. Apart from truth, nothing is true. No Righteousness, No Justice, No Love, no PURPOSE for 'goodies' like Omnipotence, Omnipresence..not even Life.

    So, God answers, is it a survival thing? You bet! Without truth, even "life" is untrue! Dead even while living (a lie)! So yeah, it's a Matter Of Life And Death To Be Faithful To The Truth. So, not arbitrary. Or, if still libelled as "arbitrary", superior! Why else does it always result that those who reject God, see but won't see, hear but won't hear, lest they turn and be healed? What's with such a suicidal 'prime directive'? Why is it that by obeying that prime directive do such folks always shrivel up into their self-absorbed dungeons? So that only a "hell" can give them a sufficient counterbalance of sanity, to "turn and be healed"? And by what would they be healed? The Truth! For, He is "The Way, the Truth, and the Life". Survival.

    So, then, is survival "good"? If "Yes", then it IS the Goodness of the Truth, which makes for survival. Live, true. Dead, untrue. So, then: hell is not good, is it? So why not "choose Life", as Moses told the Exodus people: Believe in the Way/Truth/Life Who paid..and, by preserving the Payment forever available; and, by preserving Hell, preserves the option for those in it to choose life. So no one too-heavy stone need ever be lost. For, No Stone Too-Heavy-To-Lift shall be unliftable! Even if the knowing-pain of Hell is forever before Omniscience. For, Nothing shall be Impossible for the Living God!

    Of course, God doesn't merely give His "coat" to Truth, but His Cloak also. For, Love covers a multitude of sins. Kopher, always occurring! Not merely withstanding, gutting-it-out; rather, embracing. Nothing hidden, nothing ungiven. Naked LOVE. He gives His All, becomes the First Slave of Truth: Willingly. "He", Father does this, by delivering up His Son, so to give us His Son, so to give Him, us: ta panta; "He", the Kopher, Kephale, the Son does this in two natures; "He", Spirit does this, restoring us far more than He did to Satan's home planet (heh) after the First Trial, in Gen1:2ff. For, we became tohu wa bohu in Adam; we become even more tohu wa bohu with each sin we commit after salvation; so, all that resulting adikia, the refusal of eusebeia! hemin Katharizete, 1Jn1:9, for the sake of Heb10:12-14, kadash for Kadosh! For, that was the Desire from the beginning. For, that was the Decree from the beginning. For, that was the Gem from the beginning. Not Good, that truth go unexploited. Not Good, that Attributes go unexercised. Not Good, that Love be restricted. Not Good, that Righteousness and Justice be constrained by only that which is compatible. Not Good, enfin, that there be any too-heavy-to-lift stone which isn't liftable! Marry, that would be unacceptable! So, marry..They DID. That They Indwell every believer in this epoch of Divine History ought to be conclusive evidence of this First-Slave-to-Truth Choice each of Them has since FOREVER made. Heis gar Theos, Heis Mesites!

      Religion, which is Satan's plan, is always about 'have-to'. Have to do this, have to do that, must do do do do ..until you collapse and die. That's how he thinks of God, of Christ, of everything. Even, of himself. He prides himself on being a martyr, a savior, even -- of those who think like him. That's why he really prefers Hell; He loves hating. He lives to hate. "Hate" and "have-to" both begin with an "h" for a reason! You have to do something nice to get something nice. Not love, but arduous, loveless, hating, duty. Ergo, Religion, Satan's heart.

      Ergo, Ananias, who Satan filled; who collapsed and died. It's amazing how people read this passage as if it were God's fault Ananias died; how they think God killed him because he didn't give all, but only rather part of the money. That's not even what the English says! But, the English doesn't make clear, though the Greek does, Ananias' (and Sapphira's) desire to bribe/win approval, to outdo Barnabas; for, everyone went wacko in reaction to Barnabas. Like children always do. Status, baby. Yeah, babies don't know anything, so mistake Nike tennis shoes for REAL skill at basketball!

        So Ananias either was, or became, a spiritual baby. (Probably retrograded into one through the usual bitterness path, for Satan wouldn't have to fill a true spiritual baby to get his way.) The fact that Ananias lied about the price indicates how far gone he was: because Barnabas brought full proceeds, Ananias would say the same thing (and probably with more money). Takes a lot of insane jealousy, to want make up such a stupid lie. Note how the HS makes a big deal out of how Ananias died, in the Greek of Acts 5: the Greek participle "pipto" (English tamely says "he fell") means to fall, but when it is a participle of attendant circumstances, it's stressing that the falling itself was not a cause of the resulting action, his death. (Greek ekpsucho, 'he expired': literally, he breathed out his soul; looks like a cute play on Hebrew verses about how one breathes IN his soul at birth.) So, he fell facing his money -- he tried to bribe his way to get approval, tried to force others -- to make them have to admire him more than Barnabas. So, God 'forced' him to fall, maybe. Alive, face to face with his money, knowing now full well his sentence, having answered all Peter's questions publically -- he still did not think 1Jn1:9, privately. So, he breathed out his soul. (And, of course, is in heaven. No fall of any kind is more 'rich' than Christ's payment!)

        Satan, of course, has been busy since Ananias, intent on making many more just like him. Look: Acts 5 in English doesn't translate Ananias' answers: why? Why do the translators treat "ouXi" as part of Peter's question! Or is this because the passage is in Attic, but the translators blindly make it koine? Isn't it important to translate that Ananias replied, else the passage appears as though he was just whapped dead? In fact, some infidels.com piece on Ananias on the web accused Peter of whacking him (of course I can't find it now). Oooohhh I get it now. If English-trans'd as it is, someone can spin it as a warning to give all -- how gross! So now the 'ananias' role is being played by someone who wants your money.. ewwwww. Ok I get it now: this is a way of trashing Peter and the church! (See also Part IV's "Retire or stay the course" section.) Which then Satan fulfills by spinning the passage as Oh, believer, you bad person you, you didn't give enough!! Wow. Typical satanic reversal tactic, as SatSpin.htm and Appendix explain. By accident I discovered the following link on the web: to see how this deft reversal tactic works in a satire on Ananias and Sapphira, click here.

      But Love, which is God's Plan, is instead always about "Want to! Heis gar Theos.. heis mesites!". Cheerful giver. [Greek hilarios, from which we get the English "hilarity"; Greek seems to have connotation of overflowing enjoyment so keen, it shows in the eyes, the smile.] Barnabas gave his money away because he wanted to be unencumbered for his trip with Paul (1st missionary journey). Barnabas didn't care about approval. He didn't need the money, so he got rid of it. And obviously enjoyed doing so. He didn't have to; it was his to give or keep, as much as he wanted; just like Peter would later tell Ananias (in Attic Greek, mind you) about Ananias' own money; his money, to keep or give. So, then: why lie to God the Holy Spirit and pretend it's something it's not? have-to's are a lie. works are a lie. Ananias died face to face with his money, in a prostrate (worshipping?) position. And Sapphira, who was either the instigator of this competitive sale or at least implicated (sunoida is Attic there; has an "implicated" kind-of-knowledge connotation), died nearly the same way, but at the apostle's feet. So, she was buried face to face (Greek prep. "pros") with him. For, both died the "sin face to face with death". (Greek pros.. thanaton in 1Jn5:16, a book written later: I forget right now where the OT version is, but it's near the Aaron death passage, so the doctrine was known. And, even if not known, wow -- every word in Greek of THIS passage displays it deliberately. That's exactly the mode of their dying!) [Note: Thieme concludes from sunoida and the fact she comes in three hours later as indicating she was behind the lie. It is royally odd that three hours pass. Why didn't anyone tell her he was dead? Why didn't she inquire what happened? Why did she stay behind? It's significant, too, the use of "feet" throughout the passage. Like, what they wanted was for everyone to worship them as much as the apostles. The wordplay is rich, and this is just a start on analysing it. I understand now why God killed them: people were impressed by the wrong thing, as usual: money! Never impressed by the "true riches" of the Word, but only in goodies which make other people envious, lol.]

      Acts 5:11 records the result: the people, and all who heard of this episode came to respect God. (Greek "phobos" there should be translated "respect"; English seldom gets it right.) PRINCIPLE: God's Plan is only about want to. Have-to is sheer blasphemy; have-to is hatred. Satan's. That's the lesson of Ananias and Sapphira. That's also the lesson of grace; like, the grace to the couple. For, don't you think they are relieved to know that they didn't die in vain? For, don't you think they know now, being face-to-face with the Lord, how He used their deaths to save their fellow Christians from the same downhill road the couple traversed? See, everything with God is tharsete. Even, when we fail. See, everything with God is giving us the victory, just like it says in 1Cor15: so, even capital punishment -- where is 'thy' sting? Eulogetos ho Theos kai pater! (Eph1:3, most fabulous punnings on eulogetos! Proving oh how much He gives us the Victory!)

      The have-to's in the Bible are largely written that way for two reasons: a), as Part II explained -- it's the strongest way to say I Love You; and b) because we are all little Johnny's, too young to know what Good, really is. What we know is we need Daddy and Mommy; we want Daddy and Mommy to love us; we know we are small and weak; we know that things feel bad or feel good. We don't know why it is good to bathe or take out the trash, but we do know Daddy and Mommy say it is good, and that's all the "good" we understand. So, Daddy and Mommy have to say what is good. In terms of command: for, "command" gives us the security of command over ourselves. Precisely because we don't know. Same for spankings, for they teach respect.

      Sooner or later, we gotta grow up and shed these 'have-to' training wheels. Like Paul said in 1Cor13:8-13, 14:20; like the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 5:11-6:8, and Chaps 7 and 10 (8-9 being explanation linking the two, under the rubric of a better priesthood). We gotta progress to solid food, not drink milk all our lives. The have-to teaching wheels can't stand still: if they do, we'll get into a rut. If we do, we'll become moldy. If we become moldy, we'll rot, rust; then, infect everyone. Just like Ananias & Sapphira. Because, if we're grown up now but insist on using childish have-to's, the have-to becomes what we want! So that's the result we 'have to' get! Part III's "Corollary 3B", Matt7:1-2! Acts 5! (Much more about the problems of childish thinking are in the "Ananias and Sapphira" bullet in the "Errata" section, the last subdivision of Fixes2.htm, for my editing convenience.)

      Conversely, child who truly grows up comes to realize that all those rules his parents gave him, were for his benefit, as Part III's "First Reason for Invisibility" explained. Then he comes to value all the have-to's for himself. So, the have-to's become want to's. Slowly spreading out into all areas of his thinking. Doctrinal thinking of course accelerates this process, big-time. For, God is only and always about WANT TO. Not mere survival. For, what's the purpose for surviving, if not to enjoy?

    In a word, for LOVE.


    Time and time again, I have asked Father about these issues. As noted earlier, time and time again I get little pieces of the answer via doctrinal recall and analysis. In the last five years or so, all these pieces have fit together, and tons more! added, rapid-fire. Like a camera taking pictures at light-speed. So, time and time again, I keep on reaching the same conclusion: God doesn't want to be God if He doesn't stake everything on the Cross. It's not a have-to question, but a want-to question.

      The more I revisit this question, the more He makes it clear that He would not have wanted to be God, else. See, God already IS Everything, so being Infinite, He wants the most, what He is not. Yet, without sin. We are at the opposite end, totally fettered with needs, so what we want is Relief. But Relief has two sides: when you are already Total Power, you want Love. When you are total impotence, you want POWER and will call that Love.

      God is Omniscient. So, no matter what He Decrees be the reality of creation, or potentialities, all the knowledge is just there. No matter what. So, in Part I's a)-e) hells, I tried to convey key alternatives which Truth contained on the subject of "hell". Enough, so that the reader can see that, no matter what, some type of hell results the second creation is ordained -- no matter what type of creation, either. How does a Being LIVE with such knowledge? Well, kinda like what faces us when we have what seems a Hobson's choice: you go ahead, or you quit. "Into the valley, rode the six hundred..." The "Charge of the Light Brigade" ..going to the end, if need be; even though knowing total defeat awaits. God, being Omniscient, ironically faces Total Defeat if He doesn't ordain what we know as "life". Yet, the defeat wouldn't defeat Him, nor even change Him one jot. For, nothing changes if He doesn't do it. The Knowledge Remains.

      But, as is usual with God, He never does a thing because He 'has to'. It has to be Infinitely Gorgeous -- or, it's not worth living. Being Omniscient, does it really matter if He left what we know as "life" in the 'iffy' category, rather than ordaining it? Couldn't He enjoy it just as much in any category? Sure, if He doesn't ordain it, what could be true is rejected, but.. is it not His Right to choose, since the first Truth is, God is? Sure, if He doesn't ordain it, then what bad there could be has likewise been rejected, and He's technically a tyrant; but since He still knows all the bad Himself, wouldn't He stay in homeostasis? See how the fact that The Knowledge Remains is invincible?

      It all boils down to One question, enfin: what's the most gorgeous way for Truth to 'go'? For, being Omnipotent, why should He settle for anything less? And, with the Truth being that Gorgeous.. why want to live for any other reason? In short, if Jesus didn't want to finish paying for salvation, it really looks like God didn't want to be God: not the Father, not the Son, not the Spirit. So, They all just watched. Not even one iota of gerrymandering. If the Truth couldn't hold Jesus together, well..there's no point in being, anymore.

      Of course, there'd be no point for us, either. While we're young, the kaleidoscopic prettiness of arrogance beckons. Oh, the lights! Oh, the feel! Oh, the potential! Sooner or later, though, we come to realize just what a piece of doo-doo this world really is. Nothing lasts; everything is either fake, or worse! -- fragile. Always the promise of the pea under the walnut shell, but never do we get the pea. Always the promise of romance, a nice house, something.. which always but always! turns sour. Sic transit veritas mundi. So, then: to live down here in this putrid, quixotic, wish-it-could-be-better world that instead spawns live humans who actually think it good to make a lampshade out of human skin.. why bother living? Even more important: what's the point of living, if one can't see Him, however beautiful a world could be? What can compare to the Beauty of His Thinking? So, then: if God is not the Biblical God, where's justice? Where's Love? Where's enjoyment? And IF God IS, then.. where is suffering? Oh, just a form of learning Him (Heb5:8-9, Heb12:2)! The Cross proved that! Best and Only. But most of all..

      BEST.

    MACRO Spiritual Growth Topics

  • To see the Irrevocable Majesty of Their Attitude toward Truth; to see how it is Truth, above all other Attributes, which answers the question, "Why does God want to be God?"; to see how it's absolutely and totally insane to think that any other structure BUT 1Jn's Script could even be considered as a substitute for this inestimable Truth in earthen vessels! Well, no wonder "vessels of destruction..!?!" (aposiopesis in Rom9:22-23) result if we reject this great spiritual life! Truth holds together, lies destroy, the soul! Truth makes happy, lies make desolate! Gotta avoid that. Gotta get to Pleroma. Yes, an unending (what a pun) effort which, if successful, leads to even more unending, expanding spheres of effort for all time....! The essentials never change, not even in the Eternal State..only our attitude changes. From hatred, from puerile preoccupations and definitions..to mature, married LOVE. Forever.

      Of course, what constitutes the mass/energy makeup of the eternal state will be vastly different from today's structures. But look what doesn't change! "Nations" in Rev's eternal-state depiction speaks volumes. Still a hierarchy. Even, still taxes (tribute)! But..eagerly paid! So, all the value structures are preserved..and, for the First Time And For All Time, we will all love the 'cost'! We'll love the cost so much, we'll eagerly want more cost! Which is why the JSC is so painful, because if we didn't grow up to Pleroma, what we'll have to 'pay' with (play with!)..will be soooo small compared to our yearning. Yet, at the same time, we'll understand how the system works, and will exult in both vicarious and owning, pleasures. Those small will love 'owning the mink coat' and the other accoutrements which they will get in profusion. The Pleroma, by contrast, long ago down here learned to prefer something else: Pure Seeing Him. So, the goodies Pleroma get, are good to use on behalf of the small. That's the keenest (vicarious!) pleasure the Pleroma get from them. For, every goodie will be valued thusly: as a way to express Something About HIM. Forever.

      Weave this meaning into Part V; "Our New Universe" is too vaguely written. Have to establish the unending-too-heavy-stones meaning very well beforehand. The most important structural point to make is that the structure-designed-for-effort is what makes for not only the enjoyment, but the Freedom. It's apparently been long a theological quandry how we can have free will in the Eternal State yet not sin. Well, this is why: the structures don't essentially change. The structures (to the extent adopted!) sure preserved freedom down here, even for us totally-depraved humans..so how much more, once we have the Knowledge Of Him, the freely-down-here-determined-desire, the customtailored rewards, and the bodies to live all this in? Everything perfectly matched! [Reword to make clearer, in the piece. Too much ellipsis, here.]

  • Corollary: what life is like post-death for believers. This is the 'personal' side of the 'macro' topic above, the structure of the New Universe and why it is that way. So, too, this corollary is way dicey to discuss, for the reader will really glaze over, and/or object that the extrapolation is wrong, for who can know? Yet we are told what it's like, via seeing our Lord now via Scripture, compared to how He was during the 1st Advent; by seeing those angels in Rev4; conversely, by seeing the hardness of folks in Torments (Luke 16). Attitudes are clear: everyone wants to spend himself! Having goodies is desirable in order to spend them on someone else! Bigger proof still, is God Himself: He's constantly spending Himself, and via the Cross, bigger spheres of spending were created! Never ending, but more spending! Can't outspend, so never has to stop! Christ spends Himself now more than ever, and the Cross is what enabled His Humanity to become big enough to have unending Bigger Crosses! After all, the rest of creation is forever smaller. So, the necessity of spending more and more, forever, was created by the Cross. What was the cost, our sins, was replaced by the 'cost' of Him! So, now a far bigger capital base: so big, there's the Royal Family Escrow!

      Without looking to that future date, one can't function now. All today should be lived in light of that date, for that date is what we will then be like, and now is in preparation for it. It's like going to the grocery store: before you go, you must plan what you need to buy. That involves a lot of little, logistical adjustments to your pocketbook, your schedule, your..everything. So, then: if even a little thing like grocery shopping involves now adjusting to what will be then an experience, how much more, now adjusting to how one will then think?

      We will all then think of only one thing: How Beautiful Our Lord Is. Everything else will be a function of that one thought. Anything apart from that One Thought we will freely deem boring, ugly, not-worth-our-time. So, each person will be taking whatever he is, whatever he has, and spending it on something "to do" with Him: talking to others, doing for others, not talking, not doing, receiving from others -- all will be viewed as a function of Him. So the higher, will love being higher, for with their 'higher' they can spend it all on and about Him -- to benefit others who don't have that higher -- to share the joy of knowing Him together. Same thought will be in those lower: they will want to give all they have to each other and those above them, as an expression of Sharing The Joy Of Knowing Him. Just like the Father, Who forever enjoys us, our smallness, even our sins, so to speak, because of the beauty of His Son's Thinking on the Cross! (Wow, that will take some explaining, too.)

      The BEMA/JSC will be very painful for that one reason. People mistake the 'shame' and other regret forewarnings in Scripture for something God imposes. Rather, to Omniscience everything is one big 'Now' [no time: to communicate timelessness, Greek uses static present or (in Jn1:1) imperfect of eimi, or leaves that verb in ellipsis; for Hebrew's roughly-equivalent hayah, see Thorlief Boman's Hebrew Thought compared with Greek for a fabulous explanation]; so He merely relays what He already-always foresees as our own soul's real-time mourning! when we actually see Him as He is: oh, He's so Beautiful! Why was I so negative and arrogant! Oh, Thank You for my suffering on earth, Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You -- because it glorified You and backstopped my decline! Ohhh, I just couldn't stand to be in Heaven absent having that punishment! Thank you for this relief! I never want to stop Thanking You, not now not ever!

      So, not one person will regret being lower, for he'll need to be lower to be comfortable in Heaven given the knowledge that he screwed up so badly. Justice will be served, and it will be a gigantic comfort. Moreover, the bizillion-times increase in our natures will be such a grace-out we can then appreciate, we'll crave to lose status due to our this-life spiritual rejections! We will all see how Truly Gorgeous He is, and we will all 'lose' something we could have had in the eternal state -- for 100% of God's Highest and Best provision is always higher than what we grew to love, and thus be capable of receiving as an eternal inheritance. So it will be a comfort, any loss, which we can forever see in the Church Age Escrow Memorial (so to speak)! [I figure that even if we get our individual escrow due to reaching Pleroma, there is a vast differentiation within Pleroma, so that something we could have gotten will be leftover. Maybe that's not true. It just makes sense to assume it's true, for now, because Infinity is punctiliar as well as Absolute (two sides of same 'coin' of the Attribute).]

      So, then: if we get a grip now on what our values then will be like, we can plan for that trip to the grocery store. [Part V or Part IV will have to say a lot more than they do, on this topic. Maybe enlarge "Reasons" in Part III, too. Hmmm. wonder if this requires a separate site to link to, lest it be too fragmented.] Also, gotta weave in many reminders that this will be our free will attitude, not a programmed/ manipulated/ coerced thing due to death. Weave in that Satan&Co. regard such an eternal state as programmed/ manipulated/ subservient/ low/ demeaning. Why? Because that's their nature, not God's; their projection of their nature, not God's.

  • The Beauty of Authority: even, bad authority. The first role of Authority, is Love's Synergy. More will be said about synergy per se in the bullets below. Idea is that Infinity uniting to finity makes finity happy and inviolable. For that to happen, though, there must be order. For order to exist, there must be obedience to authority by finity TO Infinity. Finity, being necessarily separatist and divisive by nature (for it is a derivative of the original Infinity Power), needs constant birddogging. [A "bird dog" is a hunting dog which is trained to seek out birds, flush them out, even 'direct' or 'herd' them to its master. So 'birddogging' is a hunter's term for leadership or executive management.] Like a body, finity can't rise above its own nature on its own; it needs a master. Infinite Truth being poured into the Christ's Humanity mastered the inherent divisiveness of His Own Finity. Made Him so inviolably happy, even the Cross was a Joy (Heb12:2). So it is, for us (Heb 12:1).

    In order for this inviolable happiness to develop, finity must hupomenw Infinity. The military Greek verb used so often in NT (and LXX) means: lit., "live under" (hupo=under, menw=live-at-home), translated in English Bibles variantly as "dwell under", "stay under", "be patient", "endure", "obey". [A stronger military word is "hupotasso": hupo+taxzis, but verb for taxzis is tasso, meaning "command". Taxzis, its cognate, means a given group of troops "in ranks", etc. and is likewise a frequent Bible word.] This finity cannot do absent respect, trust, love for Infinity's Authority. Ergo the constant clamors in the world against "authority", all of which represent Satan's arguments in the Appeal Trial: authority is bad, authority is unfair, authority abuses its power, blah blah blah blah. All this clamor is rejection of authority, based on the claimed unrighteousness of people in authority. But authority is not the people who have it, but the organization which, if one lives under it, will bless that person. No matter how bad or good those in authority happen to be. This, because the first role of Authority was invented by God for finity's protection, growth, and stable happiness. Whether believer or unbeliever (viz., the 10 commandments are not a spiritual code, but rather, a freedom code for anyone).

    Authority, as my pastor loves to categorize it, comes in basically four organizational forms: God, nation, family, individual (corporate structures are aggregates of individuals, so have a separate authority in aggregation). That's a hierarchy, too. God being the total lover of authority, hupomenw's to it completely: First Slave of Truth, for example: that is why you find passages like Romans 13 (e.g., civil disobedience is never God's Will, will always be punished). So it is not demeaning. Rather, the other way around: you cannot become master of anything until you first love being a slave. We saw that in the unending stones-too-heavy bullets. We saw that in Our Lord's Life. So, then: far from being demeaning, submission to authority means Strength. Not weakness.

    The trick is to first learn to love being a slave; but then to grow out from that love to the higher love of being a master. What's great about being under authority, especially bad authority (what irony!) is that if you keep on hupomenw'ing, you'll come to believe in authority. That's a critical thing, believing-in. It doesn't have the weakness of emotion, which leaves you vulnerable to how 'good' the rule (or ruler) IS. Better still, believing-in forges a bond between 'have-to' and 'want-to'. Why? Well, think: to believe in a thing requires a good deal of thought, especially when it's hard to believe. That's why doubt is so cool: it fosters a questionning (well, after one tires of being angry or shocked). With questionning, come answers; with answers, justification; with justification, faith. Unlike the ignorant kant so popular nowadays, the only truth about faith is this: it is a faculty of the soul, never an emotion. The act of faith never occurs until one sees some kind of justification to believe. Whether it's 1+1=2 in base 10, or "Believe in Christ and thou shalt be saved!" Same faculty, which is an attribute of the soul. One never ever ever learns anything at all absent the faculty of faith, which is just volition saying "yes" or "no".

    Acts of "faith", "belief" thus are obviously mere synonyms for the faculty of choice. So, there's no such thing as "head and heart belief" (what wacko invented that lie?); there's no such thing as Lordship salvation (worse lie); there's no such thing as faith being something you feel (most insane lie). You believe or you do not; you choose or you do not. Anything else which seems to ride along with faith is not faith, but comes from some other soul or body attribute. This ought to be obvious to a 2-year old: feelings are feelings and choices are something else. Every choice anyone makes is based on some kind of assessment of merit in the item chosen. That's why it is chosen/believed, for crying out loud!

    Believing-in makes for a smooth transition from the slave 'side' to the master 'side'. For, the rule is something you still believe in: whether slave, OR master. Peter made a play on words about this: look up "huparchein" in Part IV. The Ruler is the one Most Ruled. Because, He believes in the Rule: Royal Law.

      If you use any other criterion for obedience, you will hit glitches galore, especially in the Christian life, and will probably become spiritually retarded due to spiritual arrest. For example, you might focus on how you owe God; that sets you up for becoming legalistic and unforgiving, especially toward self, because you can never measure up, never pay what you owe. So, it's a bad standard to use, except with a smile (i.e., making it an excuse, since you know you can never pay). Another example: if you focus on an obedience criterion about how you are benefitted, that only works so long as you perceive the benefit. The moment you don't, you're shot. So, the only way to survive through the transition from slave to master is to know intrinsics and keep on recalling them: believing in these intrinsics will steer you safely between the bombardment of "owing" and "self-benefit".

      Of course, believing-in can be 'barnacled', too, with false criteria which pass for belief, the classic wolf-in-sheep's clothing. So, glitches galore can also mire you down here. It's hard to recognize false criteria for 'belief' which have creeped in subconsciously, so here's a short but common list of fakirs:

    • emotion (so you believe based on how you feel, not on the actual content);
    • mass pressure (so you believe to fit in, not based on content);
    • fear or intimidation (like emotion, but with abuse victims' results);
    • temporary curiosity (it 'entertains' you to believe);
    • Pride (it makes you feel important or special or better-than, to believe).

      Every act of belief is a choice to agree a thing is true, whether it is or not. For example, as James notes in Jas 2, demons believe that God exists, and that He is Who He says He is; but (unsaid in James, but clear elsewhere), they don't agree it is true that they ought to believe in Him to be saved. That's their contention in the Trial, from inception. Instead, what they agree to call true is that their merit and God making them apart from their consent merits them avoiding the Lake of Fire; merits them having whatever life they want, and God should not punish them. So, human history is playing out their votes as to what's true, versus God's votes on what's true. choice.

      So, every act of belief is ordained to have its intrinsic effect, the intrinsic depending on what are the intrinsic properties of the thing/person you believed, rather than on what you thought the intrinsic properties were when you believed. Hence, to be saved it doesn't matter what got you to that act of belief: sure, you believed on false pretenses, and those false pretenses being believed will come back to bite you: but, you also simply believed in Him for salvation -- which of course also has its effect -- you are permanently saved. However, after that moment, to grow up in the spiritual life, it matters a great deal why you believed. You can't lose salvation, of course -- only the insane would imagine man having more power than Christ! -- but you sure can stay in the spiritual playpen until death. Because, these false criteria sooner or later prove themselves empty. Thus comes spiritual arrest: oh! suddenly you lose faith! LOL: you didn't know what you believed in the first place! It was a fakir giving you that assurance, not content! I swear, religions all use these fakirs, so no wonder the "crisis of faith" is today so rampant! Content content content. See the parable of the seed and sower in the Gospels. (Luke 8 is one retelling; each Gospel focuses a bit differently on the same data.)

      Being finite, and being sinners, our natural inclination is to value based on likes and dislikes, versus the intrinsic nature of what a thing (or person) IS. To demonstrate this in Part II, I proposed the reader run a short experiment: try yelling I LOVE YOU in the nastiest voice possible -- see how the reaction to the sound drowns out the property of the content. That's how we are. So, valuing as we do based on likes and dislikes, which often means based on how things/people 'feel' to us: how good could any work we do, be? Not good at all. For, we can't jettison the prejudice of like/dislike, which is a criterion of value superimposed over the intrinsic properties (content) of a thing/person. So, naturally enough, anything which goes against the prejudice will be deemed 'bad'. Ergo, spiritual arrest: lost faith, someone/ something let self down, self is right..etc., ad nauseam.

      You can prove this problem of spiritual arrest has long been true for believers. That's why God had to word most of Scripture in childish "commandment" terms. Still, it's great He did so, if you come to understand that "commandment", (entole, among other words, in Greek --mitsvah, tsavah, other words in Hebrew) because a mandate, is automatically OK to do. Smartly, of course. This recognition, which begins as a security in childhood, becomes a reassurance in spiritual adulthood, when one begins to realize the vast blessing such a "commandment" affords; one is tempted as an adult to think it not fair to be so blessed. The "commandment" then comes in as reassurance: yes, what you have to do and now want to do is still right to do -- the enjoyment is the fulfillment on the promise of the commandment. So, what starts as an ignorant trust becomes a cognizant respect; then, confident love. Self gets reconciled in the process of belief. Or, wrecked in the process of disbelief, the usual bane of 'growing up'. Our choice.

    So, if you don't finish the love growth to the 'Master' side, you'll never grow up. For, the master is really the bigger slave; for, by being the master of what he has (Greek Krateis ho eXeis, Rev2:13; commanded in 3:11), he learns to Love The Burden. It's a kind of parental love, and has zippo to do with machismo or Uriah Heep "service". For this transition to develop, the individual has to come to learn to balance both subordination and rulership. For that to happen, he has to learn and love the intrinsic meaning of each, rather than the 'status' meaning. The latter will kill growth, and thus enjoyment, for 'status' doesn't mean anything at all: content is meaning. So if in charge, one will come to loathe it. So if under charge, one will come to loathe it. So has gone the history of the world. We don't grow out of the slave-love any more than the Exodus generation did. So, we can't be happy masters, either. 'Especially, of ourselves.

    For example, if you can't manage your time, you have not learned to exercise authority over yourself. So, your life is chaotic. That, because the 'infinity' role is absent. Lack of self-control means weakness, not strength: you can't delay gratification, you can't manage competing needs/wants, you can't stop and go given some external authority-rule which matters more than your desire; you can't switch gears from fun to work. In short, you can't function! So of course, absent sitting under a pastor teacher and getting plenty of daily Bible Doctrine, you'll never grow out of such a fragmented, body-controlled life! For, absent the synergy of authority, you can't learn the boundaries, so will either beat yourself up, or not push yourself hard enough, and you will be "too dumb to live" about the difference! In such a case, God does (it seems) one of two things: either He orchestrates a life for you in which you have to be in charge, or He gives you one in which you can't be in charge. Depends on what will wake you up to the problem. Because, you can't handle wealth until you can handle your time. Wherever there is a weakness in this particular area, all else will be adversely impacted. For, if the body is allowed to go slack, the brain will, too!

    One's own lack of authority orientation can easily be masked; fortunately, there's so much 'bad' in life, the mask is easily removed. For example, it may be often easy to obey because one likes either the rule itself or the one giving the rule. So, one doesn't notice one's own lack of authority orientation for what it was, when hitting some major situation one does not like. Even if one loves getting those Daily Diamonds.

    This orientation blunts the not-likes, but a peculiar anomaly develops: 'obedience' has to be to someone or something else, in principle: so if self is the only one to 'obey', self disrespects his own authority! That's a lack of human maturity, because really the person is playing 'hooky'. Oh boy, just me, I can do what I like! I've seen that rationale slowly destroy loved ones; absent Doctrine, it would have killed me too.

      MATURITY KEY ==> Maturity requires one find the harmonious function between two sets of existences: others, and self. People are constantly battling with others and themselves over relative importances. In the process, either they over-subordinate or under-subordinate in order to achieve what they feel is a harmony. Any inaccurate assessments of what constitutes 'harmony' and 'subordination' will inevitably show up, and especially, if one is a Christian. Subordinate to the intrinsics: that's the key. Don't do it for another reason. For, the Biggest Intrinsic is the Truth. For, God is; and He is out to make us Like Him -- which means, neither slavishness nor i'm-always-in-charge are correct. We have to find the boundary lines and respect them, from the Truth. Not from other motives. That's a very tricky thing to do, especially since the intrinsic property of all in this life (if you ignore God's meanings), is bad.

    So, say one always opted for over-subordination, so didn't respect one's own authority. Someone else's benefit had to be the motive: it was 'bad' for self to do it for one's own benefit. That valuation is just as wrong as rebellion, and is actually a form (very subtle) of rebellion. Which Satan peddles constantly, since it makes God look like a tyrant, and us, as the poor unwashed slaves! Think about it: if self is always putting self at the bottom, that's a hidden form of self-righteousness. It denigrates God's Plan, Will, Purpose. Christ was not a masochist, as we just saw, in the "Nexus" section; as we saw in the first yellow table of this webpage. So to disrespect one's own authority, is to disrespect someone HE paid for! Not good! And, if it is so wonderful to get Doctrine, and one knows it is His Mandate -- nonetheless, one won't see the falsehood of disrespect-self, below radar. Percolating. He sees it, though. Yikes!

      RESPECT KEY ==> To the extent self is disrespected, God is disrespected, and so are other people, too: it's all a unity. So, to the extent anything or anyone is disrespected -- so is God. Whether one knows it or not. Moreover, respect is not the world's multicultural, politically-correct hypocrisy. Quite the opposite: if you respect, you are truthful. Not too blunt, nor too fawning. Further, you don't group people or yourself in neatly-stupid categories like color, culture, etc. Each one is individual. Including, God. First. Including, self.

      The arrogance of multiculturalism and other isms is that they depersonalize. Just as nastily as Satan cast God in Genesis 2, using only "Elohim" (God's Essence, His 'last name', so to speak). Of course the multiculturists (etc.) instead claim that their isms are designed to foster greater respect of the individual. But think what a lie this is: to make an issue of one's culture, one's race, one's ancestors does have its place: but not as a self-worth thing. One is not worth more because 'white'; nor, less. 'Not worth more because American; nor, less. 'Not worth more because female; nor, less. Self is only worth whatever character one is personally. Culture, color, smarts, race: none of these guarantee character. None make for nor guarantee integrity. None make for being bad, either. In short, these things are all irrelevant to self-worth. Period. To say otherwise is to say that self has no responsibility, no role, no importance, and worst of all: no will. Which God made, at birth.

      So the multicultural lie is, that culture, color or some other aggregate makes a person better or worse: the exact antithesis of what the claim claims to be 'for'! So if religions make big stinks out of being religious; if women make big stinks out of being women, blacks of being black, poor of being poor, rich of being rich, etc (both spectra) -- they advertise to the world that they are among the most incredibly stupid people on this planet. "The lady doth protest too much", wrote Shakespeare. He's right! More so: the criterion doth stink too much. You Are You. Not, what you own. Not, what your religion, race or background makes you. Galatians 3:26-28 is who you are! Like God says a bizillion times, "I MADE YOU". that's who you are. In Him. Not someone or something else! So much for the paltry cries of this world in the (disgusting) name of "equality". Like George Orwell had the pigs say, in Animal Farm, "but some are more equal than others." Stalin's line. Satan's line. We don't need it! We're each unique! "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord!" Made by Him personally at birth, and forever in Him! [For more on this topic see NTKeys.htm, "Big Picture" section. The chief reason why the prolife argument is a lie (which they don't recognize as a lie because they don't know their Bibles) is that God asserts personal creation of everyone. It's a very tender, anthropopathically-possessive way to say "I Love You." And He's adamant about it; absolute, even (heh). If you've read the Thinking Series you've already heard this topic discussed in other ways, e.g., in Part II below the "SINE QUA NON..BALANCE" table, and in SatStrat.htm (Appendix).]

    As noted a few paragraphs back, there are other lies just as disgusting: awwww, self should always be serving; not right to just do thing for self's own benefit; shouldn't have so much Bible Doctrine, because you enjoy it! Should be out hustling, instead! What baloney! Hoo-boy! Trap City! So, you can bet the Divine Discipline will pun the lies!

      As explained in SpirPath.htm, the natural effect of Adam's dissociation is that one's self-told lies have external punning effects. So mostly, when God 'punishes', He lets you just have the effect of your own bad decisions within certain parameters, to communicate a message. That's especially true later in the spiritual life, since one is an adult and should know better; since little spankings won't solve the problem (especially, here). So, the inevitable happens: one comes to really really really dislike having to do do do do for others (duh, good morning); one finally awakens to the fact that, hey, I have a life, too! Good Morning! Of course, if one only awakens in this rebellious manner, one rebels: at that point, Divine Discipline adds something to the effects of Volitional Responsibility. It ain't pretty. It is a huge Blessing: for now, self wants to 'get' too. Ahhh. Volitional Window opened. Time to harmonize!

    So, particularly if one loves the Doctrine so much, the Energizer Bunny uses that Love to dismiss or denigrate what is disliked, in the name of (get this subtlety!) "it's soo small, compared to studying Doctrine." Or, some other Matt4-type argument (1st Temptation). Conversely, the same "too small" is used to still claim that oh, I shouldn't get this nice thing, for I'm too small! As you'd expect, such a rationalized disrespect renders life chaotic, with respect to things not 'baptised' with being toward-Him: can't use the have-to argument, anymore! For Infinity doesn't 'do' based on have-to, but on want TO! Intrinsics! Mastery! In short, Balanced Love.

      One of the big problems in the spiritual life is, self becomes reactive, when falling in love. Falling in Love with Him is the biggest kind of falling in love, and since Bible Doctrine is the Base, the Love isn't so easily dislodged. Energizer Bunny goes crazy when this happens. Of course, many is the movie or novel depicting how goofy lovers become; but seldom is it recognized how coming to love God brings out the 'cracks' in spiritual development! Oh, I can't do enough! Oh, this isn't good enough! Then follows the inevitable rebellion: oh, this hurts! Because, self isn't adjusting properly. So, it reverts to childish black/white values. LOL: the whole reaction thing is a shell game, and the believer gets trapped in it, because the pressure is for self to RECONCILE to the change in desire. Those trapped, if formerly hedonistic, become ascetic; if ascetic, become hedonistic. Neither works, of course. If you evaluate yourself to be 'here', just keep on remembering why you believe in His Plan, His Rule. Go over and over and over it, firing the meaning you know like weapons. For, belief IN the Rule will carry you past all the emotional trauma. Energizer Bunny is not stronger than the Word of God!

      Continued spiritual growth does create a balance; but new thresholds are reached, and the imbalance occurs again. This is especially true, when Occupation with Christ becomes THE issue of one's life. Then comes the first phase of Evidence Testing, which centers around Him or self, and it's very subtle, because since He's more important, one tips too much against self.. giving the Energizer Bunny a derivative rebellion power of unbelievable strength! This was what Satan banked on, when tempting The Lord's Humanity in Matt4. By appealing to His Love for Father and us, Satan hoped his obvious insults would trick the Lord into reaction. So too, this might be what tipped Paul, in his sudden carnality over going to Jerusalem (despite the Holy Spirit's express communication that Paul was to give up running around, and become a pastor/bishop in Rome). In Paul's case, he couldn't admit that he was upset over not being allowed to evangelize his beloved fellow Jews. So, he instead rationalizes the go-to-Rome-permanently command into a different Divine Will. Note that God took Paul to Rome anyway -- in chains. Comfortable chains, as it ended up. Paul had had some suffering, but by others he was treated especially well.

    More commonly, a believer's reaction to Occup is to become more slavish. Note the irony: whatever one has been given, the acceptance is imbalanced: only the slave motive of Love. But there's the 'other side', mastery! For self! Not just for Someone Else, not even God! For Infinity doesn't 'do' based on have-to, but on want to! Mastery! In a word: Love. So, God will do some stuff to wake self up to the other side. Then (usually) comes rebellion. Then, spanking, big-time. And, for the recovery to work, Krateis ho eXeis must become the guidon. So guess what blesses one to do that, despite the Energizer Bunny, which, having swung too far to the left, rebelled for awhile and swings too far to the right? Those Beautiful Diamonds! So, what will overcome the remaining class-of-barriers? Bible Doctrine! The Intrinsic Of Life!

    Ok, but what are these "intrinsics" I keep talking about? Well, they are uses of Bible Doctrine. All of them. For, Bible Doctrine is Truth: an Attribute of God, and an Attribute Jesus the Christ grew to have in His Humanity during the 1st Advent, just as it stands written: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me." (Jn14:6, NAS,NIV) So, Truth is the Intrinsic. Uses of the Truth therefore are entirely content, entirely intrinsic, and are determinative of virtually everything in life. Best of all, you can use the Doctrine in a bizillion ways, even the same verse! It's a creative act! Of Intrinsic (agathos!) value!

      Here's a funny example. As you might have guessed by now, I've been caused to notice how shot-through with humor every verse in Scripture is. I first learned that fact in connection with the doctrine of hope (elpis, pregnant word in Greek lit) taught in my pastor's Romans tapes, back in 1995. Well, even earlier: when he first taught the humor of Abram being circumcised, to make the brith (covenant). So, when seeing a verse, particularly in the original languages, it becomes easy to see wordplay. Now, watch:

      A few days ago, I was having an attack of "something" in the bathroom (use your imagination). It was disgusting, embarrassing, and probably there is no more humiliating moment in a day for a human than to be..ahhh, having such a moment. Feeling low, recognizing it was a temptation, all I could do was refuse it, thinking something like "I don't agree", when wham! Out of the blue comes a verse I've not thought of in years: "I have learned to be content in whatever state I am." Actually, all I 'heard' in thought was "learned..content..state" and immediately knew what it was: something Paul said. Context was clear. [Turns out it's Philippians 4:11 in RSV. My RSV Bible is my oldest one.]

      But funny!!! Think about it. Here you are, totally aware of being weak and inferior, not wanting to give into it, for you know the highest truth that everything glorifies Him; but that's as far as you can think. Then, wham! comes this very funny verse (I was on the toilet, k?) and that one verse, in a nanosecond, changes the entire character and meaning of the episode. Forever. You can bet I'll never look at the toilet without remembering that verse! It's even funnier still (I'm trying not to laugh as I type) when you realize that the "4 Decisions" have prompted me to keep on categorizing everything that happens to me as if it were an 'imputation of sin' so I can get a better appreciation of how that played on the Cross. For, I know He was joyous there, and I'm trying to appreciate how that could be. So, this little bathroom episode at once entirely changes the nature of the event; and, even more importantly, entirely explains how each imputation and His Response looks (paradigmally) to Them. For, the Cross is always occurring, to Omniscience.

      If you think over all the layers of meaning in that pairing of verse and event, you can see virtually every doctrine in the Word of God: from Essence, to Hypostatic Union, how the Cross 'worked', to nature of man, to Freedom of Salvation, to how the post-salvation life is supposed to be. It's awesome. Then again, Doctrine is Truth, infinite: so of course ties flawlessly to every other thing 'in' Infinity.

      While the foregoing example is kinda dramatic, often the recall of doctrine (remember that "doctrine" in my websites only mean God's doctrine, never men's) or particular verse is as 'normal' as querying a database. Like using a Bible bot or CD. Only much more enjoyable and efficient. Question asked, doctrinal answer replies. All this is your soul's repetoire of past deposited Doctrine, playing out fractally, in reply to a 'stimulus', the query. Since the query is V+, and you're Filled with the Spirit (1Jn1:9 was used and no succeeding sin has yet intervened), the doctrinal answers are ever-swifter, as you keep on in 1Jn's Script. Since each soul has its own quirks and difficulties, almost all of which are due to blocking by emotion and defense mechanisms, the query-and-answer process is a lot harder to use when these blocks are active. Which they always are, due to the Energizer Bunny and Satan&Co.'s 'kind assistance' in macro and micro propaganda. So keep plugging. Doctrine conquers some of the enemy every time you use it. See how it entirely changed a bathroom experience's character? How much MORE, then, do you think it's conquering in the less dramatic, everyday, (eventually) every-minute use! Especially since the entire plan works on the low, slow, constant principle? So it's enjoyable, becoming a natural habit, even though each learning or use of Doctrine is the Miracle above all miracles? Do you see now why, when people were so awestruck at a miracle He did, His reply was "greater than these shall you do" (see that verse in context)? Just think: you're learning to think as Christ did and does! What greater agathos, good-of-intrinsic-value-achievement, than THAT ONE (ekeinos, a frequent cute wordplay to designate Him, by Scripture writers)?

    Satan didn't learn to love the Intrinsic One, so he didn't learn to love the Intrinsics, because he wanted his own abilities to BE an 'intrinsic'. So, he didn't grow past his glitches with respect to Authority. The big sticking point for him was first that he loved the pat-on-the-head approbation for what he did "good", but felt bad when he didn't reach some (progressively-unrealistic) goal. As you've seen by now, the goal is always too high, because Infinity is always greater. Question is, do you come to love that fact being true, or do you at some point rebel, like Satan did? Is 'obedience' to you something which gets you a pat on the head, approval (however sophisticated your Energizer Bunny might phrase it) -- or is it, of itself, deemed such privilege, you never want to stop?

    Only the latter attitude will cause finity to submit, because only the latter attitude divests finity of its inferiority preoccupation and its divisiveness. Finity has to come to see itself correctly as being both inferior and gifted with its own life; obviously the gift means, inferiority is no problem! Only Bible Doctrine running fluently in your soul will cause finity to be happy submitting. For, Bible Doctrine, this inestimable Infinite Truth Our Lord thought and gifted to us -- this Bible Doctrine is a privilege above all riches. Just having it makes submission a joy. For our own benefit! To make us like the Most High, Him! For, God gives us things to "obey" as a gift we need to exploit our growing enjoyment of Him. Never, as some I'm-better-than-you baloney (well, i mean "bull$#@!") peddled in the name of God by Satan& Co.!

  • Pleroma level of spiritual growth depicted as inviolably-profitable operating steel mill; idea of first needing to build up a huge capital base and the downtime in that; then, the construction and hiring and dealing with flak like governmental regulation, bringing in workers, etc. Pleroma as a going-concern. So, the tests between SM and Pleroma are similar to structural/functional integrity tests for a building/business, to demonstrate the soundness more than to look for flaws. Magnitude of this is like a working and profitable steelmill despite all the governmental and stupid-people interference, so the going-concern analogy is the more apt. Doctrine as capital, which needs to first grow to a huge amount before it can be 'physically invested', so to speak, in 'work' (the building and use of the steelmill). So long-term, huge downtime, study study use use study use study use on a daily basis for a long time before any 'results' are visible. Of course, Father sees every second of growth during the downtime, so 'results' are really immediate and way bigger than the puny iceberg tip the world will ever see: kinda like Tacitus knew of Chrestus, but only in passing.

      A steelmill has vicissitudes; its profit can be hit; there can be downtime because the line must be shut down temporarily; but the question is, does the mill keep operating profitably no matter what happens to it, or does it become so cost-ineffective it must be shut down? Does the believer quit permanently from growing in doctrine and thus the spiritual life? Or, does he reach a level of cost-inefficiency, so to speak (yes, keeps rebounding, but no, never really progresses in the spiritual life or not enough)? There's always a waiting period to see if the one becomes profitable (analogous to the fig tree parables) and stably so. When that period is up, time-to-go-home. Same cost-benefit analysis concepts as in microecon, except that because Doctrine is so uniquely profitable, even a dot of it can take a bankrupt concern (long-carnal believer) and turn him back into a goldmine. These ideas all came out of thinking over how Col. explains Chrusion in Rev 3 ("gold": Lesson 1518, heard on 12/23/2002), in light of his past explanations of slag and chara (1Peter1 lessons), and "riches". Maybe don't call it a steelmill but a goldmill? Smeltering, foundry? Those each require huge capital bases before they can even begin building the plant, let alone operate under a welter of do-good governmental baloney! I think there are still only 3 foundries left in US (one being in Holland Mich, and very small)...think over what analogy to use.

      [Biggest Problem with the description here is the steel mill metaphor; which metaphor depicts the believer (who is 100% THE Work of God the Holy Spirit), at the various stages of spiritual growth: when believer is operating inviolably profitably with circMD, that's Pleroma. The steel mill metaphor is apt, to depict strength, esp in light of Paul's height/width/depth metaphor in Eph3, and the "foundation" verses (i.e., in Gospels and 1Cor3). Gold/riches depict value, but gold is among the softest of metals. So if I change "steel mill" to "gold mine", even including smeltering off the slag, the connotation of Strength, Integrity, Virtus is missed. Doctrine is really gold steel, pure, unalloyed; but "steel" is technically an alloyed product. Moreover, steel can be melted, causing it to lose its strength; which is why the Twin Towers of World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11. So I need a better metaphor. "Diamond mine", since Diamonds are the hardest stone, and we are living stones? Think over and find a better metaphor. Probably need a group of them, analogous to the 4 quarters of the Divine Escutcheon ("Summing up the Reasons" in Part III), since at Pleroma each believer becomes a Ruler because within himself he has been made a whole 'polity', wholly reflecting the Lord. Also, given next bullet, maybe need to create other metaphors like "cottage" or something to indicate different sizes, but all 'buildings' or 'businesses' have utility relative to their own niches.]

  • EP/EO and Pleroma: because spiritual growth levels are definitional, inequality is no hindrance to anything, and instead becomes advantageous to everyone. One's slot on the spiritual (and even secular) team is totally interwoven with one's own characteristics, both spiritual and secular, at any given moment. Since each growth level in the Christian life is definitional (i.e., at SM one is constantly living on Occup, with 10+6+9 interfacing the most in the motivational drive to P/MGG), and since no two of us are exactly alike, the crossing of each growth stage is relative to who we are.

    A pastor, for example, ought to be kitted out internally to be a bigger 'glass', so to speak, than a regular believer, for his spiritual gift is bigger. So for him to reach (say) spiritual adulthood requires more to get there, but then he is kitted out for growing more. He's not kitted out to visit the sick, etc. -- that's the job of whoever has been designed for that function. Similarly, for the one kitted out to visit the sick, etc., for him to get to the same stage takes less -- he's a smaller glass. Yet in both cases, two things are true: a) woe to the one who doesn't grow up with reference to his kitted-out role! and b) Pleroma being reached means even a 'small' glass is complete, so post-death can be just as much a ruler as the bigger glass, precisely because each growth level is definitional. So, equal opportunity remains, despite inequality of 'jobs', even while down here. So, no one handicapped is left out. So, no one of a big size can attribute his big size as contributing to his rewards; so, no one of a small size can attribute his small size as detracting from his rewards. God appreciates all, so nothing is left out of the baptising-by-circ-doctrine effects of Pleroma.

      This may be too big a topic to put in Thinking, but some reference to some of its ideas ought to go in Part IV, because people are so hung up on their superiorities/inferiorities, and need to see more of their own fit to get rid of those? Then again, since each of us is made totally important because the Son is gifting us to the Father just as the Father gifted us to the Son, with the result that the Father, who Sees All, All The Time (just like the Son does) -- is Pleased by whatever growth He sees -- does it matter then to talk about people-to-people relative attributes at all? Well, it does, re the whole Divine Design..so I gotta weave this concept into Part IV, as it is a macro design-and-function issue.

    Part IV's "variety" subsection needs a lot more work. Passim in the series is the running point that the Godhead, Each Equal Essence, choose to function unequally with respect to each other, due to LOVE: hence, the titles They choose to use to denote themselves: Father, Son, Spirit. One of the levels of meaning of love, though, is love-for-variety. It's nice that One 'specializes' in Sonship function. It's nice that One specializes in Fathership function. It's nice that One specializes in Spiritship function. That way, Each gets to give something unique. So, then: If They afterwards spent their time saying, "Ok, what I did was worth $2 and what you did was worth $1, so you owe me $1", how much enjoyment would They have? There's no love in that! It's Satan's torture! Man, the whole "equality" argument is such disgusting rot. By Satan's argument, if Jane is better at making cakes than me, she can't make her cake unless I give her something of equivalent value! But the value of the taste of that cake to me isn't going to be the same as the value to another, because we value things each differently, as an inherent function of our own free will! So, then: how, pretending that either Jane or I demand I 'pay' her for that tasty cake -- how do I value it? What if the value I give her is, by her standards, too high or low? How enjoyable will it become, after x repetitions, to make that cake? To 'buy' that cake? What a mess!

      Whoa, God's System is soooo humorous and superior! He starts us out at salvation, All Royally Equal In Christ. Our human inequalities are thus rendered equally capable of reaching Pleroma maturation: because, as noted above, the spiritual growth levels are definitional, and thus relative to the 'glass size' each one is. So, we are structurally unequal, but positionally and opportunity-wise, equal. So, the best of both worlds! So, we can constantly be saying to each other, "Ok, what you did was worth $2 and what I did was worth $1, so I owe YOU $1!" Thus cancelling each other out! Constant excuses to express love by giving more! 'Laughing, the meanwhile, for we valued the other higher, and thus get to perpetually 'argue' about that! Wow, that's LOVE, baby! For, the truly-higher one would be bereft of something to do with his higher-ness, if there were no lower! So also the lower one would be bereft of something to do with his lower-ness, if there were no higher! And, each of us is lower than Him! Wow, talk about maximizing the Love Benefit of Inequality! we all get all the joys of 'lower', and 'higher', this way! Yet, each one is unique, so no one is denied his 'specialty'!

      So Part IV needs to say more about how the most important thing to make of equality, is inequality, so to maximize interpersonal enjoyments. So, given that we are unequal, to start with, and (as noted above) we get Equal Opportunity TO Pleroma from salvation onward anyway -- the resultant inequalities post-death are a joy. Just like the Joy among the Equal Members Of The Godhead. Wow, that will take a lot of explaining, too. Dunno if that is too big a topic, given how Part IV needs to "flow" to keep to its main point, how the design of God's MacroEconomy plays out in history.

  • Then there's fake inequality. Take two folks, and put them on the same road to a town, even in wildly unequal modes of transport: say, one on a bike, the other in a Maserati. En route, the biker breaks down early. Heh: we'd expect that. But we don't expect the Maserati driver to gauge his superiority by the biker, and thus himself get lost driving around the countryside because he thinks he has so much more time. Meanwhile, the biker may have repaired his bike and reached the town first.

    What happened here? Well, both travellers hit a glitch. One woke up to it and the other, did not. Didn't really matter if you had switched their places. So it is also, in the spiritual life.

    I gotta get personal here to make a point. All my life people have showered me with compliments about my 'smarts'. It really hurts to watch them feel so low, as if God didn't give A something so B could benefit from it, too! Funny how we all admire something someone else has, and put down what God gave US! Anyway: they feel intimidated, as if God needed human smarts to convey information which only HE can do!

    So, the tragedy: they get hung up on their 'slowness', and settle for less-than versions of spirituality: the laundry-chore Sunday church visit, the chanting of Bible verses no one hears or explains; the do-good drives and scads of little, hateful activities which will hopefully be appreciated someday Up Yonder. They look at theologians, 'professionals', and all the high-vocabulary folks as the biker would the Maserati driver. And so they get discouraged. And so they sell themselves short! Didn't God choose for them to exist, make their souls, just as he made the Maserati drivers? Hmmm. Then maybe God chooses to make the so-called 'low', Truly Smart Like The Son -- by Bible Study. Not via some mindless genetic process God never needs anyhow! God takes you as you are, and promises He can make you reach the Fullness of His Son. Do you believe Him? Then, start pedalling to Bible class! Like David said, "The Battle is the Lord's!"

    Also, people like me tend to overthink, just like that Maserati driver: we can dissect so well, but can't make tea! So, yeah, we might look like whiz kids, jumping right outta da box, into the spiritual life, great potential, upward mobility and all. But we hit glitches, too! internally! Did you see how Renes Descartes ran around in circles on his little philosophy trip? Only to make a typo at the end, and waste all that time and finger-cramping? CogitO, not CogitA? I think, not God Thinks? And what about good ol' Aristotle? He, too, started at the bottom, rather than at the top: with induction (OT method of teaching spiritual life, and Ari was OT age, so I guess I should cut him some slack), rather than deduction (NT method, Christ's Thinking)?

    Remember, the Lord's Humanity was the greatest Genius, ever. And, of course, is even way higher, now that He is Seated. One of my pet names for Him is "the Ultimate Jabez" (after Jabez in the Bible), because He didn't settle for anything less than ALL the Father wanted to give Him. That's why He is Seated. That's why we can ask for ANYTHING in His Name: and get it. So, let's be jabezes, too: enlarge our boundaries, Father! So to "enter into the joy of thy Master." (Matt 25:21ff.)

    So, don't be jealous, don't be fooled, and above all don't quit on God's Academic Style Divine Broadcasting System. He provides Spiritual IQ, and no high or low human IQ can even begin to help out (or, hinder). instead, beware of something else: For every human on the planet, there's a dot on an invisible line somewhere, representing his spiritual 'glitch'. Find yours, and give it wide berth. Or, if you fall down, get back up and at least walk!

      Remember Paul? Talk about Genius! Yet he was a full adult (and what, maybe 25?) when he first became a believer! So, Paul's big glitch in the spiritual road was in the beginning. So also, Paul hit a glitch years later, when a big spiritual adult -- teaming up for that vow in Jerusalem. Aha, so even being resuscitated (see 2Cor12), and even after that becoming a Spiritual Giant didn't keep him from falling down for some while! So much for the claim that we need signs! LOL, Paul died and saw the Lord in Heaven before he even wrote 2 Corinthians! Yet, just after he pens Romans, he goes wacko to Jerusalem? Old Home Week is more important than all that doctrine? Even Moses, who lost the privilege of going into the Land because of 2nd Meribah -- big glitch toward the end of the road!

      Do you see the point? If you're 40 or 50 and you realize you're a spiritual baby, hey -- just get going! Maybe now God will kit you out with a Maserati! You'll end up passing up a whole lot of 30-year olds who at the moment are ahead of you. So, also, if you are a 20-year old whiz kid with Bible stuff, watch out! You start out fast, but..there are significant bumps ahead.

    Wheat-and-tares parable seems to explain the spiritual growth pattern internally, too, given how the Greats all fail sometime in spiritual maturity. Of course, God also makes it obvious this is true: for He uses terms like "children", an obvious reference to the fact that growing up spiritually takes at least as long as growing up physically. Even the Lord Himself didn't go public until age 30 (Jewish culture standard of the beginning of mature age -- note how folks like Isaac didn't marry until age 40 or so).

      So, then: our weirdnesses, our wackinesses, they persist side-by-side with the beautimous Doctrine deposits. Then, sometime during Spiritual Maturity (see Part III), the harvest begins. Looks like Evidence Testing is the harvest. Even then, a mature believer will be at times quite wacky! But it's never the experience which matters in the spiritual life: it's only the Doctrine. When Doctrine is ready to be harvested.. then, the crop! Keep that harvesting pattern in mind as you watch yourself fail, so you won't get discouraged. He'll use the tares to grow you further! Even if all you've got left of wheat is that small 'stalk' of positive volition to get going, again..He can make a 100-fold crop out of it, using the tares to fuel faster growth! Look what He did for Paul: out of Paul's massive failure, the most doctrinally-dense books of the Canon were written! (I could write 1000 pages about this fact! Doctrine, not failure; qualification due to eaten Doctrine, not experience!) And you can't fail as much as Paul did. Paul is the worst sinner in history (see 1Tim and 1Cor15). So how much more, then, can He do with your tares?

      So, then: we are in the Twilight Zone the minute we believe in Christ, even though we can't feel it. Because, human nature can't take infinity, as we saw earlier in this webpage, regarding Our Lord's Humanity. So of course we will be wacky (see Romans 8:4-10, NAS). The more we grow, the more the divergence is palpable to us; the more we become aware of it. That worsens the burden; just as it did the most, for the Christ. Everything but everything that we'll ever learn or see is a parallel to His Life, by Divine Design. "Experience" is no determinant -- only Truth is the determinant. So without the Doctrine, there is no valid experience. So also, experience, like works, does nothing for God: Father wasn't compensated by Jesus' suffering, for crying out loud: but rather, by His Thinking! So, then: only using Doctrine does something for Him. Doctrine alone works. So fly 'on instruments', on Doctrine! It paid for sins! It pays for death! It pays for Life! It pays, period! Divine Thinking, which was poured into Jesus' Soul via the Holy Spirit, and is now In Writing for us. Never anything else. Period.

        ORIENTATION KEY ==> Just as the Holy Spirit's IQ is alone useable, so one's own human IQ neither helps nor hinders spiritual growth, so also no experience helps or hinders spiritual growth. Only only only only only 1Jn's Script, eating and living on Bible Doctrine! Just as Christ Himself did! All the way Through the Cross! So now maybe Ephesians, when you read it, will become more real to you. And the power theme in Colossians: this treasure in our earthen vessel is Omnipotent, and the sweet savor to Father. So who needs anything else?

    So, then: when it comes to God's Post-Salvation Plan for maturing you spiritually in His Son's Image all the way to "fullness" (Pleroma, Eph3:19) it only matters who gets to the finish line: "endure to the end". Not how long it took you versus someone else nor how you got there! Um, but..if you see me stranded by the road on your way, will you drag me along? :)

  • Infinity, Love, Spiritual Growth and people-to-people relativities: People get so confused when trying to think about God largely because they misapprehend the nature of Infinity. Regarding it in anthropopathic, spatial terms (i.e., accretive, +1), they think that somehow if another person is 'better' than 'me' then God loves that person more. Just as they can't figure how Three Persons can Each be Infinite God, they can't figure how multiple persons can be equally loved by God. It's always what He is, not what we are, which unlocks the apparent conundrum. Infinity is Qualitative, so Love is Infinite. It's His Attribute, so never goes up, down, sideways in 'size'. There's no 'size' to Infinity, because it's Infinite (non-spatial, nontime). So I guess that's why Col keeps stressing in LDP the fact that God punishing you for rejecting the spiritual life (sin being but the catalyst, and sin having already been judged on the cross, sin is not the issue) doesn't means His Love changes.

      Duh. But it's not so easy to remember this when hurting. And it's not so easy to remember this when you see John/Jane Doe being more 'spiritual' than 'you' think 'you' are, because you value everything relatively, and you don't 'love' people equally, so you think God doesn't, either. Love in man is totally fragile and hopelessly dependent on not only his own integrity, but on the attractiveness of the object (real or imagined). God's Love being an Attribute, is not violable nor changeable like that. So (and this may be misleading?) it's as if you are the only person in the universe, as the object; Christ's Love for the Father (Col's +R +L synthesis chart) is whole; He doesn't love the Spirit less because He loves the Father. Likewise, He doesn't love you less because He loves the Father, nor you less because He loves 'me'. Each is its own 'compartment', and whole, and never detracts from any other 'whole'.

      So the growing believer's 1Jn-described Love via circ-MD likewise develops into these compartments, so that the relative attractiveness at any given moment is (progressively) less a factor. IL and PL, or IL alone -- but always, Love. Sure, Love for Him is #1 -- but due to that, all loves dock under His -- seeing-ever-more-through-His-Eyes, the 'view' toward others becomes ever-more-unique. Jane is Jane, and is loved as Jane, not compared-to-someone-else. Faithfulness means the person loved is sacrosanct, unique, in his/her own compartment of the lover's mind. No bleeding over. Just like the Hypostatic Union, in design. (Wow, that would take some explaining.)

      So, we being unequally-developing-spiritually, God's Love expressions vary in accordance with how we are (not merit, but matching). He loves 'Jane' while He punishes her, and He punishes her with what most benefits her to (remedially) learn; He loves 'John' while 'John' goes through Evidence Testing, and He blesses 'John' with what most benefits him to learn. To other people on the ground, it may well look like John is being abandoned or hurt by God, but Jane is being blessed! So what? It's like each of us, being a person, is a 'sphere'. Whole, separate, entire -- a "quantity", as Aristotle would put it. So, there's no such thing as the number of quantities impinging on the quality of the Love expressed toward each one. That's the big thing we Christians don't "get", for the same reason we don't "get" Essence as fundamentally true (not accretive) Infinity (all Attributes being undivided, each is Infinite).

      Of course, Total Depravity is talking in these anthropopathic misapprehensions we have. For, underneath all our brow-wrinkling over Infinity, is this T.D. value which says, "God should Love unequally, due to relative merit". Aha: just like Satan says. So 'I' can get more love versus some other shmoe for my good deeds or knowing-so-much-doctrine or fill-in-the-blank-totally-depraved-idea-of-good! So, whoa: we're not so noble as we tell ourselves in our brow-wrinkling. We don't like the idea of God loving equally each sphere: we want to cut out something or someone else IN FAVOR of moi! Or, the flipside, we make big stinks out of (what WE perceive as) our own failures, so God shouldn't love us as much as someone else -- due to those failures. Wow, how ugly. We're telling God what He should BE, in two opposite flavors! Yikes. No wonder we don't "get" Infinity! To "get" it would expose our Energizer Bunny (T.D.)'s arrogance! Gotta use that time-honored defense mechanism team, denial-cum-rationalization, to cover "God's Nature", up! Double Yikes!

  • Infinity, Love, Spiritual Growth and people-to-people interaction: People want other people to agree with them, so the "Christianity" sold in history is always the childish version of the masses. Love accepts this, for Love will never coerce. So, if you Love the Lord, you are a salmon swimming upstream, and you must come to grips with that. You will have to leave the masses behind, in order to serve Him, and thus also serve them. For, that's how HE did it. He didn't give into Satan's mass-oriented temptations in Matt4; neither should you. Meaning, your interactions with people are God-versus choices: like the choice the angels had to make (God vs. Satan); like Adam had to make (God vs. fallen Isha, his wife); like Christ had to make (Father vs. Christ using His Own Deity as Son).

    So: you 'gotta go it alone', and you gotta go against opposition; you gotta ignore the opposition, and you will be severely chastised for it. Your own family will be against you, the Lord warned the disciples. Moreover, you don't apologize for not following the crowd, and you don't rub their noses in it, either. You don't seek to be equal, you seek to be with Him. That's His Plan for your life. For my life. For Each Human Born. So, in that sense, we are all 'equal'. Only in that sense. The sooner the believer wakes up to the highborn Eph1 purpose the Father set aside for us from Eternity past, the better. To reject it is to choose to be a peasant, not only down here, but..forever. A Charly, a retarded spiritual being, so to speak. A disabled child -- by CHOICE! YOUR YOUR YOUR choice. Not the choice you blame on your background, parents, teachers, ethnicity, the nurse who dropped you on your head as a baby, the priest who you imagine fondled you. Don't be a crybaby. BE ROYAL. That is your destiny.

    9/11 proved we Americans are in spiritual third grade, in aggregate. So our interactions are terribly puerile, setting up klieg lights to replace the Towers on the one hand, but suing the airlines who ferried the terrorists, on the other; lighting candles and raising money on the one hand, but refusing to spend money where it's needed (i.e., on better immigration controls) on the other. So we of course are tremendously shallow in our values of things, terrifically fond of playing with our god-dolls, and terrified by every little chance of harm. Yet, being children, we are all aware and kinda trusting about 'getting back to God'. Our ideas about what that is are necessarily childish, but at least we have the idea. So, our Total Depravity is collectively showing in far greater detail: since, as shown in Part II, the essence of T.D. is insecurity about one's self-worth, the genetic, dissociative, Lady-MacBeth need to get rid of our damned spot of original sin. This brings some hope that a few who are really interested in the Real God will wake up and truly start growing in the Christian life. Whatever their chronological age.

    Just as with any other kind of advancement, if one starts on the road to town but others are lollygagging back, these others will try to dissuade the one going on the road: the one leaving is.. um, different. So it will be very hard to keep moving, with all that flak. Harder, actually, than if (as is usual) the one leaving was the only one going to college, making money, looking 'nice', etc. Instinctively the lollygaggers deem the real spiritual life 'too hard' for them: For, they do not like the real spiritual life, and 'too hard' gives them permission to opt out of it. They don't even know that's their specious reasoning; but instinctively they react. So, in any period of history, the one choosing to learn Him will encounter opposition. Much more now, in this, a crisis period of world history. Macro Collateral Drama Topics in the 2nd page of Fixes will have a lot more to say on the global side of this topic.

    But for now, consider this: In the Eternal state (see last chapter in Rev), people still pay taxes (called "tribute", an ancient term for taxes); there are still nations. Presumably, there's still a military, even though we don't fight wars, because the PRINCIPLE of always being prepared to fight will still be needed -- and, makes a fabulous memorial to Our Lord, to those slain in the world's battles. Ahhhh, but we do perpetually fight something else, even in the eternal state: slavery. But it will be FUN, then. Enjoyable, an auld lang syne about the old things having passed away. Finally, effort will be a thrill!

    HUH? Look: we know God doesn't coerce. We know God doesn't gerrymander Truth. So, then: don't you wonder how it is you can have Free Will Forever, yet never sin again? How is that possible? Not by Divine binging, so that we all just smile forever, having no challenges, having nothing to look forward to, stagnant. Rather, God preserves freedom from sin by doing a bigger version of what He gave us back when He gave us marriage, family, nations: by an eternal societal structure which maximizes Freedom. It's not just that finity needs to have division in order to maintain its integrity. Oh no.

    There's a far bigger reason: FREEDOM OF CHOICE. See, you can have free will, but if all the menu you can choose is spam spam spam or spam, you have nothing to 'spend' your free will ON; it's like shopping at the Soviet G.U.M. department store a generation ago. See, if we were all "equal" (which the world viciously pretends a virtue), then there'd be no one different to watch and learn from. You couldn't learn from watching 'rich' what that term meant. You couldn't learn from watching someone do a different job from yours, because in the name of equality, you wouldn't be able to say there was Relative Merit in so doing! Get the point? We are unequal, and still ruled, and still even pay taxes (which is a glory then to do, so "glory" is the word used in last Chap of Rev for, lol! even taxes).. in order to have Freedom via authority, differentiation, roles and rules. Of course, since in God's Plan Best is united to Worst, thus Infinity keeps all whole -- what's good about anything and anyone, is exactly the same as what's bad about anything, anyone.

    So, even if there are boundaries on the choices we can make once in the Eternal State, the very nature of the spectrum of choices prevents the boundaries from impinging on free will. So, the person who elects only the form of marriage to Him, but not the content (believes in Christ, but never learns enough of His Thinking to grow up spiritually), that person's boundaries are more limited than the one who grew up to Pleroma. Still, within those boundaries, both the high and the low are fully free. Fully, because they can all see each other at all levels, so the boundaries don't prevent learning, but rather.. enhance it. The mass, who really only wants symbols and feelings, learns that way. The Pleroma, who really only want pure content and use the accoutrements like ketchup, learn better by pure content: Doctrine Doctrine Doctrine. That's too concentrated a method for the mass, who never elected it down here, either. So, everyone still gets more: Pleroma vicariously enjoy mass pleasures, and mass vicariously enjoy Pleroma pleasures, but each via its own method -- which was voluntarily crafted during the lifetime down here. Like the Warning Labels in Part I and III said: you get what you want from God's Plan, both now and forever. Watch out what you choose!

    See the Grace? You're not free to learn if there are no differences to learn from; you're not free to get and have more or less if there are no differences in having. You're not free to be unique if not uniquely different! Get it now? See why it's so monstrously satanic, this "equal" bulloney! If you throw money and works projects at the poor, then you rob them of the difference, which is the source of the thrill of learning how to get something they want but do not have! Could mankind be more cruel to the poor, than to demean them by giving them something they themselves didn't work for? Isn't that why prostitution is so degrading? Isn't that why people reject the Gospel, on the grounds that well, some people don't DESERVE it (but I do, of course)?

    Look: people like their petty conceits, and they like them so much, even God, even Truth, takes a back seat. Beneath this is another fact: people CAN'T discern truth, anyway. Read the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, sometime. It's a collection of news articles which were printed in various newspapers for what was the trial-of-the-19th-century, the brutal axe/hatchet murder of Lizzie Borden's parents -- while she was at home, during the day, in a house which was on a busy street. Because her parents were rich, because she was a spinster, because she was a Christian (especially that!), because they couldn't easily find any explanation for the murder -- she was scurriously blamed, and though exonerated so thoroughly she was acquitted by all jurors, she was forever after a pariah. And on what was the criteria of her innocence or guilt decided by the public? Based on what she wore. On how she behaved in court. On her wealth. Not, you'll notice, on any real data. People who were witnesses or otherwise associated with the case were reported as having a name, maybe an occupation a birth year or age, and a birth town -- and that was supposed to tell you about the person?!!! What she wore to court was commented on in excruciating detail -- and, pray, what did that information reveal? It revealed our petty conceits. It revealed how we can't and don't want to learn how to discern truth. We just want to know what she eats and wears, and if we like what she eats and wears, we declare her innocent; if we don't, she's guilty, baby.

    That's why any idea, any pair of Nike shoes, any demagogue can lead people like lemmings anywhere he plays his piping tune. Taylor Caldwell's semi-fictional novel about the rise of Gengis Khan, The Earth is the Lord's, explains this fact with Asian-style florid prose. Khan, a child of destiny, became the bitter crafter of a mass of soulless men who wanted tyranny for their glory, rather than thinking: seduce them to think themselves greater by giving up freedom, rather than being truly greater by taking responsibility for that freedom. (Same theme as Dostoyevsky had the Inquisitor explain.) How man loves a good lie!

    So why is it that people crave their petty conceits? Why is it SOO important to have a certain job, skin color, body shape, friend, spouse? Why preen over that car, that invitation, that opinion? In a word, such conceits make people feel they matter. Conceits are chosen to mediate perceived differences, rationalize the conclusion that just because I don't have what 'he' has, I am not a worse person. The crafty legacy of Marx was to enslave two of the smartest nations on earth (Russia, China) via their chief conceit: hypersensitivity to interpersonal differentiation (jealousy). By contrast, God's G.U.M. is TOTAL differentiation: that's why we can stick together, yet not sin. All unequal, even within the Godhead, even though Father Son Spirit are Each Equally God. All unique. So there is Only One Father. There is only one you.

    America needs to learn quickly the legacy left it by the fall of Europe as a result of 1000 years of interEuropean strife which finally bled Europe and Russia white, which culminated in the post-WWII collapse: that America is, albeit tenuously, the biggest and baddest guy on the block, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with inequality; we don't need to apologize, intranationally, for our rich to our poor; we don't need to apologize for the past, the present; we don't need to bully, either. Even God in the eternal state Decrees Inequality, get it? There's nothing wrong with being 'different', and there's nothing wrong with letting the world qvetch. If we don't learn this lesson -- and we're not, so far -- we will end up becoming the "USSA", a satire of the real historical outcome of Marx. Well, better said, 'the real objective of Satan's use of Marx. And of Thomas More. And of Genghis Khan. And of Athens. And of race, gender, money. And of every mafia, raiding band, petty fiefdom. And, of Isha. That is to say, religion, for religion seeks EQUALITY with God. Making self like the Most High. Power, baby. In holy garb, of course.

    Summing up: in this page we've looked at the aerial or "macro" view of the spiritual life in some particulars, tracing them first from the Highest Truth, God is. We've seen how it came about that Our Lord got this Most Difficult Spiritual life, and what its parameters mean to us, on a macro level; "macro", in the sense of a body of people, an "economy", even: the Church. The "continue reading" link below will shift this continuing topic over to the micro side, one's own life: but of course will also reference how it plays relative to others "from inside". Much more importantly, how it plays with reference to Him, for Whom and by Whom all things were created and without Whom was not anything made, that was made! (Concatenation of John 1:3, Heb1:3,10, and Col1:16-18.)

  • Sisyphus