We are manipulating reality in a sense, as the quantum sciences prove, or rather, making real by way of consequences in the material, our decision to observe reality the way we choose. One should not confuse the reality that is perceived within, thereby confined to perception, with the reality that exists before and after the observer exists. Individually, we are not the only observers. Self can only define reality by the selfs DNA and experience (heart). But by the rejection of self and a repositioning into relationship with the divine, one can experience a new birth that transcends DNA and experience (subjection). Only the latter allows the self to exist in both states; as an individual (' I '), in relationship with the divine who is also a distinct being. Though some suggest that to call ones self ' I ' is an egoist response to the dilemma, it is interesting to note, that this negative (black and white) view is held as a way of avoiding conformity for the sake of the divine, and maintains the ego. It is the acknowledgement of the ' I ' that reveals the individuals responsibility to the whole and recognizes the power to alter reality. This sheds light on the need for individual rehabilitation if one is out of sorts with the objective (reality).
Stating fact or arguing with reason is not, by any means, necessarily egoic or fear based in nature. However, the denial of fact, or the inability to accept a reasonable and logical argument is alwaysmotivated by ego and fear. Some claims demand serious attention because the implications are so inescapably enormous.
That being said, the most offensive thing anyone could say to the fear and ego driven heart is, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me."
That is the ultimate, staggering, and exclusive claim to sovereignty. It is also a completely reasonable statement. Even so, such a statement is either motivated by the purest form of ego,and/or, itintends to manipulate by the most blatant use of fear, or such a statement is the most selfless expression and profound truth that any man will ever hear. It is a claim that only God can make consistently.
I believe that is why C.S. Lewis wrote the following:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunaticon a level with the man who says he is a poached eggor else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [1]
The monistic worldview is nothing more than an attempt to escape from individual responsibility and the only way to maintain such a position consistently, albeit an obstinate and rebellious posture, is to declare 'ones self' as God. For most monists, it is far less confrontational to speak without such clarity. They like to avoid the necessity and inevitability of the conflict. The monist prefers to say that we are evolving into the divine. But by implication this is a theology of default divinity be it evolving or not. As in the disagreement over Jesus Christs claims, this claim is either the greatest blasphemy, or the greatest truth. The stakes are enormous.
Since much of the quantums incredible properties involve light and the difficulty of putting a finger on its true nature, it is exceptionally noteworthy that Jesus said the following: 'I am the light of the world' (John 9; 5) I have come into the world as a light (John 12; 46). This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3; 19).
Monism can explain our unity but not our diversity. Evolution can explain our diversity but not our unity. We seek unity in diversity (University, Quintessence, E Pluribus Unum), and the only way to have unity in diversity in the effect (creation) is to have unity in diversity in the first cause (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Only Christianity offers that.[2] The Creator, the triune God, is a being that is also an eternal relationship. He is one though making up three distinct forms of Himself. With Gods plan, we are allowed to become sons of God, by denying ourselves as God, and accepting the wisdom of the only God. It is there that we awake and begin to understand the hymnist when he wrote, I once was lost, but now Im found, was blind, but now I see.
According to Christ, there is unity in Him and Him alone. All is not unity, only that which is in Christ. Christ forces us to either accept Him, or reject Him. If we accept, then that begins with careful consideration of his words and their implications. He did not ask us to jump in blindly. Rather He warns us to weigh the issue with intensityand actually seems to attempt to talk us out of following Him by making it so clear. Luke 14: 27-33And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
If we reject Him, the only alternative is for man to claim himself and all of his conflicting and chaotic ambitions to be his and his life alone. Either Jesus is God, or we are. Matthew 12; 30 " He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters abroad." A monist cannot say this either because there is no against, there are only different sides of the same one, and therefore Jesus was not a monist.
Look at the following verse and see how Jesus describes the Spirit that created all things coming to make His home in the heart of a mortal, thereby making known to him the immortal and eternal God. This is the 'real', personal, and daily relationship with divinity (Christ). John 14; 23 "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him."
He often expands on the depth of the spiritual rebirth and further confirms the differential between powers and perceptions. John 14;17-20 " The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. At that day you will know that I Am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you."
The monist proclaims that we cannot 'know' that these things are true lest we risk being controlled by the ego (because all is individually subjective); but, if you did not notice in these verses before, see that Jesus proclaims that you will know, or see. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8; 32) It is just the same way as mentioned in the beginning of this article, that we may close our minds to alternatives while remaining objective, since what we have found is the objective reality.
The monist is forced to accept all that is as part of the evolving divine oneness. This allows them to see themselves as divine yet in a state not yet fully realized (and keep their sin without the internal conflict). Genesis 3; 5 Then Satan said, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God "
[1][CS Lewis, Mere Christianity]
[2] Ravi Zacharius / www.rzim.org
Stating fact or arguing with reason is not, by any means, necessarily egoic or fear based in nature. However, the denial of fact, or the inability to accept a reasonable and logical argument is alwaysmotivated by ego and fear. Some claims demand serious attention because the implications are so inescapably enormous.
That being said, the most offensive thing anyone could say to the fear and ego driven heart is, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me."
That is the ultimate, staggering, and exclusive claim to sovereignty. It is also a completely reasonable statement. Even so, such a statement is either motivated by the purest form of ego,and/or, itintends to manipulate by the most blatant use of fear, or such a statement is the most selfless expression and profound truth that any man will ever hear. It is a claim that only God can make consistently.
I believe that is why C.S. Lewis wrote the following:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunaticon a level with the man who says he is a poached eggor else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [1]
The monistic worldview is nothing more than an attempt to escape from individual responsibility and the only way to maintain such a position consistently, albeit an obstinate and rebellious posture, is to declare 'ones self' as God. For most monists, it is far less confrontational to speak without such clarity. They like to avoid the necessity and inevitability of the conflict. The monist prefers to say that we are evolving into the divine. But by implication this is a theology of default divinity be it evolving or not. As in the disagreement over Jesus Christs claims, this claim is either the greatest blasphemy, or the greatest truth. The stakes are enormous.
Since much of the quantums incredible properties involve light and the difficulty of putting a finger on its true nature, it is exceptionally noteworthy that Jesus said the following: 'I am the light of the world' (John 9; 5) I have come into the world as a light (John 12; 46). This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3; 19).
Monism can explain our unity but not our diversity. Evolution can explain our diversity but not our unity. We seek unity in diversity (University, Quintessence, E Pluribus Unum), and the only way to have unity in diversity in the effect (creation) is to have unity in diversity in the first cause (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Only Christianity offers that.[2] The Creator, the triune God, is a being that is also an eternal relationship. He is one though making up three distinct forms of Himself. With Gods plan, we are allowed to become sons of God, by denying ourselves as God, and accepting the wisdom of the only God. It is there that we awake and begin to understand the hymnist when he wrote, I once was lost, but now Im found, was blind, but now I see.
According to Christ, there is unity in Him and Him alone. All is not unity, only that which is in Christ. Christ forces us to either accept Him, or reject Him. If we accept, then that begins with careful consideration of his words and their implications. He did not ask us to jump in blindly. Rather He warns us to weigh the issue with intensityand actually seems to attempt to talk us out of following Him by making it so clear. Luke 14: 27-33And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
If we reject Him, the only alternative is for man to claim himself and all of his conflicting and chaotic ambitions to be his and his life alone. Either Jesus is God, or we are. Matthew 12; 30 " He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters abroad." A monist cannot say this either because there is no against, there are only different sides of the same one, and therefore Jesus was not a monist.
Look at the following verse and see how Jesus describes the Spirit that created all things coming to make His home in the heart of a mortal, thereby making known to him the immortal and eternal God. This is the 'real', personal, and daily relationship with divinity (Christ). John 14; 23 "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him."
He often expands on the depth of the spiritual rebirth and further confirms the differential between powers and perceptions. John 14;17-20 " The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. At that day you will know that I Am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you."
The monist proclaims that we cannot 'know' that these things are true lest we risk being controlled by the ego (because all is individually subjective); but, if you did not notice in these verses before, see that Jesus proclaims that you will know, or see. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8; 32) It is just the same way as mentioned in the beginning of this article, that we may close our minds to alternatives while remaining objective, since what we have found is the objective reality.
The monist is forced to accept all that is as part of the evolving divine oneness. This allows them to see themselves as divine yet in a state not yet fully realized (and keep their sin without the internal conflict). Genesis 3; 5 Then Satan said, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God "
[1][CS Lewis, Mere Christianity]
[2] Ravi Zacharius / www.rzim.org
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