rationality

Atheists can’t keep their hands off the maid

This kind of bad behavior results from individuals favoring secular reasoning and natural morality over spiritual conscience. To understand this proclivity toward maids by such individuals, we will have to explore deep psychology.

Growth of the human intellect requires a certain quality of love to enter into our cognitive function at different stages of development. The concept that one’s feelings are what focus attention and drive the ordering of our experiences has only recently received attention in neuroscience.

However, scientist/theologian Emanuel Swedenborg described the importance of love and affection to stages of cognitive development more than 250 years ago. He depicted the growth of the human intellect as a “marriage” between affection and knowledge. These neuro-nuptials between heart and mind take place at each advance of the intellect toward ever-higher levels of cognition during one’s lifetime.

First, at childhood, there is love of knowledge. This is why humans are born into the world with curiosity for everything.

Next, there is a love of understanding what one knows. This allows memory-data to be abstracted through the development of the human imagination.

Above the imagination, there is a love for perceiving and judging truth. We call this human rationality. The atheist stops here and evolves no further.

There are possibilities for further personal evolution but this can only come about through God and acquiring a new quality of love. Beyond natural or human rationality there is spiritual rationality, which arises from the affection for spiritual truth.

The difference between the natural rational mind and the spiritual rational mind is that the latter concedes that all real love and truth comes from God. It is this spiritual affection for God’s truth that represents the true and legitimate rationality for humans.

The quantum language of Scripture actually addresses this deep knowledge of human psychology and its proper development. For instance, the formation and comparison of these two distinct levels of rationality—the natural and the spiritual—is portrayed with Divine Ingenuity by the story of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, was born of Hagar, a maidservant, rather than with his actual, legitimate wife, Sarah. A maidservant therefore represents, on a psycho-spiritual level, a less important quality of love in human cognition. Swedenborg tells us that Ishmael represents the birth of the secular human rational.

When Sarah finally bears Abraham a son, Isaac, this symbolizes the birth of a more elevated cognitive function from the marriage between spiritual love and knowledge in the human intellect. Isaac represents the formation and birth of the spiritual rational, which follows after the birth of the natural or secular rational mind.

As unexpected as this may seem to the reader, further evidence that details concerning the human psyche are contained within Scripture is provided when Sarah sees Ishmael mocking this change in the relationship with Abraham. Sarah implores Abraham to cast out both Hagar and Ishmael. Psychologically speaking, to cast something out is the recognition that the spiritual rational (Isaac) is more important and should ultimately replace the first, or secular rational (Ishmael) and its love (Hagar).

Ishmael’s mocking represents how secular reasoning often pooh-poohs God and religion (Gen. 21:9,10). This is the unfortunate outcome of a cognitive function which is incapable of discerning the higher, spiritual meanings contained within the literal words and stories of Scripture. Such natural reasoning sees only absurdities.

Could you handle the idea that on a deeper level, Holy Scripture contains our own personal story? Or do you have a fondness for maids?

Posted on September 30, 2008by thegodguy

Posted in god, Inner growth, love, psychology, Reality, religion, science, spirituality, symbolism, unity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

 

Consciousness and Scripture

Human consciousness is multiplexed. For instance, we can see the world we live in. Physical sight represents just one kind of awareness. We also can internalize and store these observations in our memory as mental ideas, where from a higher frame of reference we can survey them and detect novel relationships. This kind of “seeing” represents imaginary sight, which leads to ingenuity and inventiveness.

We can also collect all the things we have imagined, and from an even higher frame of reference, find even newer relationships where ideas become objects of reasoning, that is, objects of truth and falsity. This kind of “seeing” is called rationality and judgment.

These distinct cognitive functions of consciousness are inadequate for verifying either the inerrancy or divine authority of Sacred Scripture. As evidence, these levels of ordinary human consciousness have given rise to an intense conflict of biblical interpretation among the faithful and also to serious-thinking skeptics who put their faith solely in moral autonomy.

There is need for a genuinely inclusive, unified approach to the systematic exposition of Christian doctrine derived from Scripture that makes sense in our post-modern and scientific culture. However, a new theological consensus will not come from the scholarship of men and women, but can only come from new Divine revelation concerning Scripture.

We need divine instruction on how to gain an even higher frame of reference for evaluating the Holy Word. This is the purpose of the Lord’s Second Coming – to help us connect to a higher and untapped level of consciousness by providing a “vertical” interpretation of the narratives in Scripture. These vertical interpretations transcend human subjectivity (and its abuses) as well as historical criticism because the events described in Scripture are raised to more elevated meanings, which have more potency and relevance to our lives.

Scripture is a multi-leveled deposit of Divine revelation, accommodating the Creator’s Infinite Wisdom to different levels of human consciousness. The good news is that it is now permitted for each of us to have access to these deeper spiritual levels of truth that previously were only available to the prophets. It is only through these deeper levels shining through, that the literal words in Scripture are turned into gems and gain translucency. But you have to want it. You will have to want the Lord to “make all things anew.”

The Lord’s Second Coming on earth is taking place NOW – one person at a time! The world can change only when people change. We are God’s instruments for change.

Do you think this change can be forced on anyone?

Posted on February 28, 2008by

http://www.provinggod.com

Soul – Does my pet have one?

soulOur pets are loyal and affectionate members of our family and we don’t ever want to be parted from them. Lucy a beautiful black cat has lived with us for seventeen years and is nearing the end of her days. To ask ‘Do animals have a soul?’ implies that you do believe in the soul but don’t know if animals have one.

Meanings of soul

Perhaps the answer depends on exactly what is meant by ‘soul’. Here are some possible meanings.

  • Once when Lucy was placed in a boarding cattery when we were away on holiday, she was said to be like a lost soul. Soul in this sense can refer to the individuality of the creature.
  • Soul can mean the essence of something. It’s central character, nature, or quality. If Lucy could bare her soul I’m sure she would purr her satisfaction with her comfortable basket, fishy food and daily strokes. Like other cats her central quality appears to me to be her sensory enjoyment of life.
  • Soul can mean the source of a pet’s feeling and behaviour, regarded as a distinct non-material entity separate from, and animating, it’s physical body. When younger, Lucy, like each living soul with youth, was certainly more full of life and the way she has been cared for has been enough to keep body and soul together. Science can directly observe the effects of life but has never created life itself. It cannot explain the phenomenon of animal instinct. Without a spiritual source to their lives how else can animals show unlearned knowledge of how to feed themselves, find their way home, and nurture their young?
  • Soul can mean a higher quality of mind. Lucy doesn’t say much and is the soul of discretion, but we can’t really say this is the reason for trusting her with our personal secrets. I guess it is difficult to say our cat has a higher quality of mind as such. She is affectionate to those who feed her and shows a limited degree of tolerance with the children but it is hard to imagine her developing more virtues than these. They say confession is good for the soul, but I’ve noticed no sign of any guilty conscience whenever she gets caught in some misdemeanour. On the other hand no animal I know of has ever behaved with the depravity and cruelty of some people. To sell one’s soul to the devil seems a possibility open only to a human being.
  • One meaning of soul is that of an immortal soul. When someone dies we tend to say God rest his or her soul. They may have been through struggle and strife and we wish them peace. Some would feel this sentiment is also appropriate for an animal. Will I ever see my pet cat again after her death?

Immortality of the soul

Why should you believe in the immortality of the soul?

A first suggested answer is in terms of the experience of a mystic and spiritual philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. Over the last 27 years of his life, he claimed to be able to see and hear what went on in what he termed ‘the spiritual world’ which he said was peopled with the spirits of human beings who had once lived on earth. He described their first condition after death. At first being involved with the outward aspects of their life, they experience things as little different from what they were used to on earth. To my mind this would include the form of their home, their clothes and perhaps the animals with which they were familiar. So perhaps I will see our pet again after I die.

The second answer to the question is in terms of a philosophical consideration. Swedenborg offers us the idea that eternal human life – a life after death not involving physical time and space – arises from our ability to understand and perceive timeless things and matters that transcend place. I would suggest examples of this are human appreciation of higher art and perception of beauty, our capacity for reflection, the experience of the state of meditation, understanding of ethics of conduct in social affairs, and rational thought that transcends desire. It is difficult to imagine a cat being aware of and appreciating a beautiful painting, or an uplifting musical composition.

Swedenborg maintains that our immortality also comes from an inner liberty that is reflected in our motivation, that gives us free-will to choose our intentions, and that, subject to external circumstances, allows us to make personal choices and to execute plans which fulfill our aims.

These two spiritual faculties he calls rationality and liberty.

Do animals have an immortal soul?

So do animals have immortal souls too? My answer thus hinges on whether they can be said to have rationality and inner liberty. Certainly my cat seems to know what she wants and has a will of her own. But her freedom of choice seems to be limited by her natural instincts conditioned by the system of rewards and punishments she has encountered in daily living. The same might be said by some people about us humans. Traditionally, science has assumed human behaviour is determined by nature and nurture: inner liberty of personal choice doesn’t seem to have a place in its theory.

I would say that human freedom seems to be broadened by illuminated thought. Understanding what is morally good in one course of action as opposed to what is bad in another will inform your decision making. Animals don’t appear to have this kind of deeper  understanding. Consequently, we do not hold them responsible for their actions. Animals can’t be accused of criminal conduct because only we are culpable in law. I assume our pets are uninterested in personal growth, nor fight temptation nor seek enlightenment.

So I conclude my cat has a soul but not an immortal one. Having said that I still expect to see her again in an afterlife because she represents for me the love and affection we have shared for so long.

Copyright 2014 Stephen Russell-Lacy
Author of  Heart, Head & Hands  Swedenborg’s perspective on emotional problems

Posted on17th August 2014AuthorEditorCategoriesHuman nature, Meaning of lifeTags,, , ,