Fear
I fear that if I walk into this stream of traffic I shall be run over.
I fear that if I spill boiling water on my hand it will hurt.
I fear that the word fear has much darker connotations than these, most of the time.
Screwtape said above that perfect fear drives out love, and as love is the only or chief good, that makes fear the only or chief evil. Even greed is fear that I won’t have enough, and lust for power is fear that the other fellow will dominate me, or not give me what I want.
“Yeshua uprooted fear, which is the root of evil, the poisoner of our lives;
But he only uprooted part of it,
Leaving it to us to dig out our own roots,
So that each person works to uproot from their own heart
That evil which is the cause of unhappiness.
We uproot it if we recognise it,
But if we do not want to recognise that which is wrong in us,
How can we uproot it?
This bad root bears its fruit in us and in this world;
It will dominate us, and make us its slaves.” (1)
I said above how I went to my friend in real, if theoretical, fear of eternal damnation. I based my life, and my soul’s trajectory on the answer that I received. Wasn’t this too slender a foundation for such a superstructure? The Divine presence was in my friend, and nothing prevented it from manifesting, young as he was. But also I see the version of the offending scripture in the Gospel of Thomas:
“Jesus said:
He who blasphemes against the Father,
It shall be forgiven him,
And he who blasphemes against the Son,
It shall be forgiven him;
But he who blasphemes against the pure Spirit,
It shall not be forgiven him, neither on earth nor in heaven.” (2)
What is the pure Spirit but the Unity? Since there is nothing but the Unity, there is no-one else to do the blaspheming, and the unforgivable sin is unperformable, which is what my friend said. He who blasphemes against the Person of the Holy Spirit, it shall be forgiven him.
This is a koan, that is, an outrageous statement designed to strike the internal gong and encourage comprehension. Why did I not take it as such? I nearly did. It is outrageous to say that there is any sin which my Father cannot forgive. Moreover if the Persons of the Trinity are equal, how can blasphemy against one be forgiven, and against another lead to eternal damnation? Is there some specialized knowledge which I am not party to? How can I obtain it, or even know its extent? It is not as if this is a casual question. It should have been, for the entire concept of eternal damnation is the uniquely Christian contribution to the welfare of the world, but I did not know that then, or rather, I thought that Christianity as I received it was the truth.
Here is another koan from the Upanishads:
“There is no consciousness after death”. (3)
Has the author left the conscious dwelling in the Unity in which he and all the writers of the Upanishads lived, in order to enunciate the melancholy modern doctrine? No. It is an outrageous statement. He follows it with discourse on unity and duality, and says that he has given enough information. So he has. If there is consciousness after death, there must be consciousness before death, and these are a duality. In the Unity there is only consciousness.
So what made the koan of the Holy Spirit go so disastrously wrong? What turned an overwhelming demonstration of the forgiving power of God into the imposition of fear so great that none can withstand it?
It was deliberate.
To keep people in fear is to have power over them. It is also to act the pimp and worse, for pimps peddle sins of the flesh, but fear instilled corrodes the soul.
“Lex orandi, lex credendi” is an ancient tag. Noting and discarding the emphasis on law, this can be translated “We believe how we pray”. So how do we pray?
“O Lord Jesus Christ, king of glory, deliver the souls of the departed from the pains of Hell and from the deep pit;
Save them from the mouth of the lion nor allow the dark lake to swallow them up, nor darkness to enshroud them…
Deliver me , O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day when heaven and earth shall be moved, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Trembling, I stand before Thee, and I fear the trial that shall be at hand and the wrath to come.
That day, that day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day and exceeding bitter.
Eternal rest grant , O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.” (4)
And this from the Te Deum:
“Non confundar in Aeternum.”
The Book of Common Prayer coyly translates this as “Let me never be confounded”, but really it means “Let me not be undone for ever”
Are these prayers appropriately addressed to God the Father, or to His Son?
They are not.
To whom are they addressed then? The ego God, I should imagine; the Lord Jehovah.
God the Father is all love, so such behaviour is not an option, so there is no point in asking Him not to do it.
“A book, written in, will be brought forth
In which is contained everything that is,
Out of which the world shall be judged.
When therefore the Judge takes his seat
Whatever is hidden will reveal itself.
Nothing will remain unavenged.
What then shall I say, wretch that I am,
What advocate entreat to speak for me,
When even the righteous may hardly be secure?” (5)
I never heard that a Father was a Judge. It is one or the other. He would have to declare a family relationship and decline jurisdiction. There is no niggardliness in the Father. So a better image of our entry into heaven would be a ceremonial procession, with incense, and celebration, and the warmest welcome we have ever known, and recognition, both of us and by us. “So it was you all the time”. (6)
In fact you will never get to heaven. This is a koan. Heaven is the Unity, so you are already there.
And the Protestant tradition is no better:
“O Lord, in thee is all my trust.
Give ear unto my woeful cries.
Refuse me not, that am unjust,
but bowing down thy heav’nly eyes,
behold how I do still lament
my sins wherein I thee offend.
O Lord, for them shall I be shent,
sith thee to please I do intend?
No, no, not so! Thy will is bent
to deal with sinners in thine ire:
but when in heart they shall repent
thou grant’st with speed their just desire.
To thee therefore still shall I cry,
to wash away my sinful crime.
Thy blood, O Lord, is not yet dry,
but that it may help me in time.
Haste now, O Lord, haste now, I say,
to pour on me the gifts of grace
that when this life must flit away
in heav’n with thee I may have place
where thou dost reign eternally
with God which once did down thee send,
where angels sing continually.
To thee be praise, world without end. Amen.” (7)
This is recognizably the same faith that I received in the chapel at Bangor.
God is separate, that goes without saying.
We have offended him, for we are sinful, criminal, unjustified,
So He is angry,
So we shall be shent (destroyed).
Good works do not make any difference.
But repentance, meaning acceptance of a sacrifice of blood, will make all right, and we shall live forever in heaven.
I detect some real warmth of faith in this lyric, and it is an economical, elegant expression of that outlook. But the first half of verse two is really preaching at us, though nominally addressed to God. It is therefore taking the Lord’s name in vain. If you are going to address God as separate, express your love for Him, for He loves you. You can’t love one who sends you to eternal damnation and says it’s your fault? That is a difficulty.
And you who are parents, wouldn't your insides curdle if your child said “Mummy, Daddy, please feed me today.” Just possibly “Give us this day our daily bread” is in a different category: a childish beginning in the art of manifesting the fullness of the Unity in the physical, rather than the imposition of dependence.
“T’was grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears reliev’d” (8)
Well, it wasn’t grace that taught my heart to fear. It was something else altogether, which has no place there.
And not only in my heart. It has no place anywhere. A friend described eternal damnation as the worst thought or nightmare that has ever entered the mind of man. I have sounded it, and have undone it for ever, for myself, and for the whole world.
Let a verse added to Newton’s hymn end the section, for though the language is highly metaphorical, and perhaps a little naïve, it is also powerful. It also acknowledges that we are the Light.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.”
1. Gospel of Phillip 123, trans Leloup
2. Gospel of Thomas 44, trans Hugh McGregor Ross
3. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Book 4, Chapter 5, translated Mascaro
4. Translation from the disk notes of the performance of Fauré’s Requiem by The Sixteen. This is a superb performance of an incomparable work. It is only the verbal text that I am discussing here.
5. Mozart’s requiem. Translation from good-music-guide.com
6. XXXI of the original Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
7. Set to music by Tallis. One source is wooden, inlaid in the Eglantine table in Hardwicke Hall.
8. Hymn: Amazing grace: John Newton
I fear that if I spill boiling water on my hand it will hurt.
I fear that the word fear has much darker connotations than these, most of the time.
Screwtape said above that perfect fear drives out love, and as love is the only or chief good, that makes fear the only or chief evil. Even greed is fear that I won’t have enough, and lust for power is fear that the other fellow will dominate me, or not give me what I want.
“Yeshua uprooted fear, which is the root of evil, the poisoner of our lives;
But he only uprooted part of it,
Leaving it to us to dig out our own roots,
So that each person works to uproot from their own heart
That evil which is the cause of unhappiness.
We uproot it if we recognise it,
But if we do not want to recognise that which is wrong in us,
How can we uproot it?
This bad root bears its fruit in us and in this world;
It will dominate us, and make us its slaves.” (1)
I said above how I went to my friend in real, if theoretical, fear of eternal damnation. I based my life, and my soul’s trajectory on the answer that I received. Wasn’t this too slender a foundation for such a superstructure? The Divine presence was in my friend, and nothing prevented it from manifesting, young as he was. But also I see the version of the offending scripture in the Gospel of Thomas:
“Jesus said:
He who blasphemes against the Father,
It shall be forgiven him,
And he who blasphemes against the Son,
It shall be forgiven him;
But he who blasphemes against the pure Spirit,
It shall not be forgiven him, neither on earth nor in heaven.” (2)
What is the pure Spirit but the Unity? Since there is nothing but the Unity, there is no-one else to do the blaspheming, and the unforgivable sin is unperformable, which is what my friend said. He who blasphemes against the Person of the Holy Spirit, it shall be forgiven him.
This is a koan, that is, an outrageous statement designed to strike the internal gong and encourage comprehension. Why did I not take it as such? I nearly did. It is outrageous to say that there is any sin which my Father cannot forgive. Moreover if the Persons of the Trinity are equal, how can blasphemy against one be forgiven, and against another lead to eternal damnation? Is there some specialized knowledge which I am not party to? How can I obtain it, or even know its extent? It is not as if this is a casual question. It should have been, for the entire concept of eternal damnation is the uniquely Christian contribution to the welfare of the world, but I did not know that then, or rather, I thought that Christianity as I received it was the truth.
Here is another koan from the Upanishads:
“There is no consciousness after death”. (3)
Has the author left the conscious dwelling in the Unity in which he and all the writers of the Upanishads lived, in order to enunciate the melancholy modern doctrine? No. It is an outrageous statement. He follows it with discourse on unity and duality, and says that he has given enough information. So he has. If there is consciousness after death, there must be consciousness before death, and these are a duality. In the Unity there is only consciousness.
So what made the koan of the Holy Spirit go so disastrously wrong? What turned an overwhelming demonstration of the forgiving power of God into the imposition of fear so great that none can withstand it?
It was deliberate.
To keep people in fear is to have power over them. It is also to act the pimp and worse, for pimps peddle sins of the flesh, but fear instilled corrodes the soul.
“Lex orandi, lex credendi” is an ancient tag. Noting and discarding the emphasis on law, this can be translated “We believe how we pray”. So how do we pray?
“O Lord Jesus Christ, king of glory, deliver the souls of the departed from the pains of Hell and from the deep pit;
Save them from the mouth of the lion nor allow the dark lake to swallow them up, nor darkness to enshroud them…
Deliver me , O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day when heaven and earth shall be moved, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Trembling, I stand before Thee, and I fear the trial that shall be at hand and the wrath to come.
That day, that day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day and exceeding bitter.
Eternal rest grant , O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.” (4)
And this from the Te Deum:
“Non confundar in Aeternum.”
The Book of Common Prayer coyly translates this as “Let me never be confounded”, but really it means “Let me not be undone for ever”
Are these prayers appropriately addressed to God the Father, or to His Son?
They are not.
To whom are they addressed then? The ego God, I should imagine; the Lord Jehovah.
God the Father is all love, so such behaviour is not an option, so there is no point in asking Him not to do it.
“A book, written in, will be brought forth
In which is contained everything that is,
Out of which the world shall be judged.
When therefore the Judge takes his seat
Whatever is hidden will reveal itself.
Nothing will remain unavenged.
What then shall I say, wretch that I am,
What advocate entreat to speak for me,
When even the righteous may hardly be secure?” (5)
I never heard that a Father was a Judge. It is one or the other. He would have to declare a family relationship and decline jurisdiction. There is no niggardliness in the Father. So a better image of our entry into heaven would be a ceremonial procession, with incense, and celebration, and the warmest welcome we have ever known, and recognition, both of us and by us. “So it was you all the time”. (6)
In fact you will never get to heaven. This is a koan. Heaven is the Unity, so you are already there.
And the Protestant tradition is no better:
“O Lord, in thee is all my trust.
Give ear unto my woeful cries.
Refuse me not, that am unjust,
but bowing down thy heav’nly eyes,
behold how I do still lament
my sins wherein I thee offend.
O Lord, for them shall I be shent,
sith thee to please I do intend?
No, no, not so! Thy will is bent
to deal with sinners in thine ire:
but when in heart they shall repent
thou grant’st with speed their just desire.
To thee therefore still shall I cry,
to wash away my sinful crime.
Thy blood, O Lord, is not yet dry,
but that it may help me in time.
Haste now, O Lord, haste now, I say,
to pour on me the gifts of grace
that when this life must flit away
in heav’n with thee I may have place
where thou dost reign eternally
with God which once did down thee send,
where angels sing continually.
To thee be praise, world without end. Amen.” (7)
This is recognizably the same faith that I received in the chapel at Bangor.
God is separate, that goes without saying.
We have offended him, for we are sinful, criminal, unjustified,
So He is angry,
So we shall be shent (destroyed).
Good works do not make any difference.
But repentance, meaning acceptance of a sacrifice of blood, will make all right, and we shall live forever in heaven.
I detect some real warmth of faith in this lyric, and it is an economical, elegant expression of that outlook. But the first half of verse two is really preaching at us, though nominally addressed to God. It is therefore taking the Lord’s name in vain. If you are going to address God as separate, express your love for Him, for He loves you. You can’t love one who sends you to eternal damnation and says it’s your fault? That is a difficulty.
And you who are parents, wouldn't your insides curdle if your child said “Mummy, Daddy, please feed me today.” Just possibly “Give us this day our daily bread” is in a different category: a childish beginning in the art of manifesting the fullness of the Unity in the physical, rather than the imposition of dependence.
“T’was grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears reliev’d” (8)
Well, it wasn’t grace that taught my heart to fear. It was something else altogether, which has no place there.
And not only in my heart. It has no place anywhere. A friend described eternal damnation as the worst thought or nightmare that has ever entered the mind of man. I have sounded it, and have undone it for ever, for myself, and for the whole world.
Let a verse added to Newton’s hymn end the section, for though the language is highly metaphorical, and perhaps a little naïve, it is also powerful. It also acknowledges that we are the Light.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun.”
1. Gospel of Phillip 123, trans Leloup
2. Gospel of Thomas 44, trans Hugh McGregor Ross
3. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Book 4, Chapter 5, translated Mascaro
4. Translation from the disk notes of the performance of Fauré’s Requiem by The Sixteen. This is a superb performance of an incomparable work. It is only the verbal text that I am discussing here.
5. Mozart’s requiem. Translation from good-music-guide.com
6. XXXI of the original Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
7. Set to music by Tallis. One source is wooden, inlaid in the Eglantine table in Hardwicke Hall.
8. Hymn: Amazing grace: John Newton