AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2021 2:45 pm
These terms are not very helpful. What I consider
Psyche (Soul-Spirit) is essentially what you are calling "god" - precisely the Holy Trinity aka Godhead of Christianity. I know you stated before your view is different from anyone else on this forum, and presumably that is because you consider the Godhead to transcend any sort of ontological classification, i.e. idealism. We cannot speak of Godhead as "Idea" any more than we can speak of Him as "matter". That definitely is in tension with the monism I am arguing for because it implicitly sets up a dualism.
The trouble is that you need to accept some types of dualism. I don’t believe there is any substantial duality between mind and matter, but nonetheless my thoughts are immaterial, and my body is material. So that’s a type of dualism. Just because the cartesian dualism is fundamentally wrong, doesn’t mean all dualism’s necessarily are.
As an example, people throw around ‘timeless’, ‘beyond time’ etc as if it’s a kind of obvious base reality, with little seeming appreciation of what it means. We may be able to experience something of a timeless realm within, but the reality I would argue is beyond the limits of our understanding. I would also argue that applies to all absolutes. Timelessness and infinity are the same, even though from our normal relative perspective they should be opposites. Our existence is relative, always changing. We have hints of absolutes through our minds, either via experience of the formless screen out of which our thoughts are shaped, or via our thoughts when we engage with the likes of maths. But all the while we exist in and of the relative, it is our only mode of experience. So do you deny there are any absolutes, or do you accept that as a duality?
That monism is not about rearranging bricks on the wall. It is about forgetting the brick wall ("dying to our sin") and seeing what sort of new wall is built from within our own spiritual essence and through our own spiritual activity ("baptized and born again in the Spirit"). So yes it is definitely at odds with those who want to maintain a "traditional" brick wall of any sort and simply rearrange the top bricks from time to time. That simply is not adequate for true spiritual progression in our age.
Everyone has their ‘wall of personal truths’, without one you would not be able to speak or even think.
I understand it is very difficult for those steeped in such tradition to walk away from it, especially if they have family and friends, etc. who will be estranged from them because of it. It's a terribly difficult situation for anyone to navigate. There are many bricks of the person's identity seemingly dependent on that foundation.
My family is not at all religious, the vast majority of the people I know are not religious. For me the ‘difficult’ situation was everyone thinking “Simon’s gone all weird and started meditating, Tai Chi, Reiki etc”, then far more so when I started going to church. So I am not attached to any traditions related to religion other than what I have chosen with eyes wide open to all it’s historic failings.
All I can offer that person right now in response are the words of Christ quoted before, which may seem harsh but are still necessary for us to take seriously:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it."
I don’t think you should be too harsh on yourself. Even though you don’t fully understand why Jesus gave Simon the name “Peter”, or the binding in heaven of what is bound on earth, or “this is my body”, you do still believe the words. As he said, “He who is not against me, is for me”