If there is will there is also the mind. There can be no object of the mind without thought. The things that God created existed in God prior to their creation; that is, existed in Him as the objects of his creativity, pure of will, without a mind. Can this be?

The Illogical Being

He is the illogical being who has created all things that have become or are to be made logical in the world, and He has created all things necessary for this world including the illogical non act of not creating Himself.  It is not necessary that He be made logical of by those whom He has created, because, having not created Himself, He is a being who illogically has always been, and who remains the necessary mystery that binds all created things together.

The more things change the more He stays the same. Everything that He has created changes because each and everything is a cause of everything else; be it linearly or by another means random and chaotic. He is the first cause because He is the same as He was, as He is, as He will be. If His creations look they will see that everything which exists has a prior cause intermediate to previous causes and so forth back in time and dimension until there is the ultimate cause, Him, the effect of all causes, who is the first premise of there being no change until the effect of that cause is the actual change He has progressed to the very present.

He has made it so that what exists now might remain existential in the future, or is existing and will go, or has never existed, because that which could or not possibly exist justifies Him in case there is doubt as to whether He really does exist. But remember, if all things never existed there would be nothing existing now, if it were not for Him who, having always existed, makes it necessary that what He makes necessary comes from Him as He is absolutely necessary in Himself, whose necessity He does not owe to anything else, but which makes Him the cause of the necessity of all things in this world.

Imagine that something gets better when it approaches the thing that is perfectly good, the approach being without fear and in total trust of that good. He has made the world flawed so that it may think itself fundamentally good the closer it gets to Him. He is the truest, the greatest, the best, the noblest there is, making Him the greatest of all beings, and because He is such that there is perfection in waiting for all, for He has filled them with the power of repentance, and in Him they will trust.

If He knows everything it is because all knowledge must have a source. And knowledge is useless unless it has a purpose. Knowledge of Him and His designs is the purpose He has put imagined in the minds of all whom He has designated to be His teachers to all creatures in need of His protection, sustenance and love. And what is imagined in minds can only be realised through language. And when language is shared throughout the world His knowledge is thus made material to be taught by teachers who imagine Him, they who are a little closer, for they will inspire ordinary hearts and minds into imagining that He is the divine being from whom they came, in His image, and who, when they die, will return to Him in imaginary Heaven.

To be God and human is a contradiction much too weighty for ordinary believers. Sunday worshippers could be inclined to dismiss this contradiction as a whirling devilment that theologians play out in their abstract minds. The simple fact is Jesus is God. Why would everyday believers want more than this?  They have at their disposal the promise of Jesus Christ as God, the most perfect being humanity must aspire to emulate.

Profile of a Perplexing Enigma

Christ the man mediated between God and flesh because the nature of God Himself could not be mingled with flesh without a mediator, the Christ, the god-man, whose substance is unlike any other human, He who is possessed by the Holy Spirit, and born of a Virgin. He was born to die, and He was resurrected, which is confirmation of Christ’s two natures, that of God and that of man. He bled and his lungs expired on the Cross but life did not go out of Him for in Him was the Holy Spirit which sustained Him until it was time for Him to rise again. 

As god-man Christ raised the dead, healed with a simple word, and changed water into wine. Though these were not acts of an ordinary human being, as a human he nevertheless felt tired and thirst, suffered pain and hunger, proceeded with the natural bodily functions, and felt desire. These experiences are appropriate to God who as the body and mind of Christ has come as saviour to the world. For there is no other way God could be recognised by human beings. He is like them but not of them. And those who see God in Christ and Christ as God will be freed from their sinful selves for eternity. As God he said “I am in the Father, the Father is in me’. And when Christ spat on human disability he did so with divine power, for by it he restored sight to the blind. When he willed to make himself known as God, he used his human tongue to signify this when he said “I and the Father are one”.

The word of God has become flesh without having assumed a normal human mind fickle and enslaved to dirty thoughts. Instead the word exists in Christ whose mind is immutable and heavenly divine free from the influences of the Devil; He is the One pronounced the perfect good. By one and the same person, a perfect human being and perfect God, the whole of humanity fallen through sin, hope through their redemption to be reunited with God. Christ is the One who is simultaneously earthly and heavenly, tangible and intangible, comprehensible and incomprehensible, the one and the same person, a perfect human being in sight and sound. For believers what has not been assumed has not been healed, for it is what is united to Christ’s divinity that is saved.

He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the same God who himself truly assumed human nature, who is consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead, and consubstantial with humanity in respect of his humanity. He descended from Heaven and was born of the Theotokos, the God bearer the Virgin Mary. He is God and man and he is one in the same who has come from Heaven as the saviour in the name of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit, who is He, God, Man, Spirit, the perfect being impossible to divide and separate, for He can only be one of the same, immune to indivisibility, for He is God who is everything and simultaneous in all of the Universe and in Heaven.

Theologians might try harder to develop a sensual relationship with their God before they are dead for eternity. They should try not to think or perceive God but instead FEEL their God. Feel Him through their nostrils, their eyes, their skin. Feel Him as though He is a breeze, or a flower’s fragrance, or a brilliant light splashed on sea washed rocks. They might get in there thinking, and lay between their experience and their God. Or they might just get there and lay peacefully, meditative and sensual, and be Godless.

The Democracy of the Dead 

It is good that what the vast majority believe is probably true. As it is the vast majority believe in life after death. Thankfully for the vast majority including the most important, the wise, life after death is probably true. Of course there was one man Jesus who spoke about the kingdom of Heaven and then he died and was resurrected; therefore He is the obvious authority on life after death. Now, either life after death exists, or Jesus was a deluded fraud. According to scripture it is terribly unlikely that Jesus was deluded or a fraud. Therefore it is likely that there is life after death.

In Heaven there exist the Souls. They are there because they are a part of God. If the Soul decomposed it would not be in Heaven. Therefore it was never composed. It is a part of the eternal God. The Soul cannot be wholly annihilated upon the death of the human, whose body decomposes, because a part of God would also be annihilated. Thus Souls neither decompose nor are annihilated, and therefore Souls do not cease, instead upon death they navigate their way to Heaven and remain there for eternity. Thus it is likely there is life after death.

Good is triumphant over Evil and what is just is good. The origin of good is God. When humans as Souls are judged before God there is faith in God that in judgment He is perfectly good. Though the righteous suffer and there are great injustices, faith in what is good will prevail. It might not always happen in life, but because God is good injustice on earth shall be replaced by justice in Heaven. And since God is in Heaven therefore it is likely there is life after death.

Human life must have meaning. It may come from the material self, but then life becomes an end in itself, and when created by the self is less than the spiritual self. It is not enough. Life must have an end worth living for transcending the self; otherwise the means of the self is the cause of the Soul’s end. If there is no transcendent meaning the material and spiritual self end together upon death. But this would be absurd since there are things outside of the self which cannot be proven either way, whether they are the beginning alone or the beginning of an end. Consider the death and resurrection of Christ. With such doubt and at the great risk of losing one’s Soul it is therefore likely there is life after death.

Material desire has for its satisfaction material objects. Spiritual desire is satisfied by the spiritual, but it is indefinable, a vague feeling; an anxiety when all is not right with mortality. Death cannot be infinite to the being who is troubled by the possibly of it being finite. In other words without a longing for something infinite life has little meaning, apart from the little day to day joys and sorrows which make human beings who they are, known to themselves and to all who know them - the epitaph of one’s life written as they live. This is not enough, for there is a longing for eternal joy and rest since life cannot be all that there is. And because there is such universal longing it is therefore likely there is life after death.

The being of the baptised is renewed after a decent submerging in water, and their distasteful essences are then separated. And of course the Christian language best describes baptised beings. Only in abnormal and unfortunate cases, is a being separated from its good essence; namely when atheists are separated from their immediate religious past to be left with only their essenceless bodies. The baptised state is where the heart is, but where actually is it? All happy beings are glad to be whoever they are; that is their essence is not separated from their being and their being is not separated from their essence.

Into the Water up to the Throat

The infant and adult fallen who receive the blessed waters in God’s baptistery, by the grace of God they will have their lives changed. They are placed in a sacred bowl or in a flowing river and face heavenwards, from where God will speak to them. With hands outstretched they renounce Satan, simultaneously welcoming the spirit of God who will gently touch their bodies and souls while the gentle anointments of holy water are washed over them. And when they are washed they are instantly enlightened, and they are adopted by God as His sons and daughters, perfect in His image, and little gods they are, the sons and daughters of the Highest of the high, God, the Saviour of all.

In the ritual and beatific washing, they are cleansed of their filthy sins, for it is through the washing that God’s grace is given, and they are enlightened to the love and majesty of God, having been blessed with His perfection. And when they emerge from the cleaning waters, they cry with joy, because they have beheld the heavens opening and they see the Spirit of God descending like a dove on them, and there is a voice from heaven which says: “You are my beloved children with whom I am well pleased”. They are now safe as the children of God, for they are adopted by Him through the voice of the Father.

Baptism is born of the Word of God who says “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.  And when all are baptized their sins are forgiven, and they are saved from the finality of death and from the Devil, and eternal blessedness is granted to all who believe, as promised by God. For anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, and those who do not believe will be condemned.

The Word of God through baptism’s blessed waters inspires a prolific faith which without question trusts in the Word of God. Without the Word of God water is merely water and there can be no baptism for the wanton. The sweet waters of life is a bathing from the new birth in the Holy Spirit, reigniting the soul and arousing new passions for the love and spirit of God in humanity; which perfectly saves humanity when its darkest hours present themselves wreaking havoc and destruction upon it. When there is baptism, there is no evil, for God has come into them who willingly receive Him.

And another thing. The unwashed original sins in the unbaptised will fester forever. Without sorrow and repentance such persons are bound to live an anguished life and they will hardly know why. Their sins will get the better of them and they will die unaware they are going to Hell. Baptism puts it all to death, one’s sins and evil lusts, and a new person emerges and rises up in righteousness and purity to live forever before God. The baptized made good can now take pity on those who refuse to ask for God’s forgiveness.

So many strange things have come down the ages which have fallen into lives as if from outer space, when most still have little idea about what is going on around them. There have been many answers put forward, for there have been many kinds of gods, but their craven images have long gone. What is left is an immaterial God desperate to be recognised. Perhaps He could come to Earth and sing a melody, or perform as a stand up comedian and parody himself. Perhaps He could do an Irish jig while casting the Pope and Curia from St Peter’s Basilica. Zarathustra said he would believe in a God who could dance. Who wouldn’t!

Dead Flesh Standing Up

There is no point in disbelieving the fact that Jesus arose from his death. Unbelievers on the other hand will go on questioning the fact, wondering what relevance the Resurrection has to human life. The dead unbeliever is therefore damned to remain on earth as nothing but broken bones or ash, a substantial person no more. For believers, Heaven beckons. Jesus stood up from his death and walked for a short time on the earth again. His was a strange corpse because when Jesus appeared to his disciples they did not recognize him. He was as different as day is from night, seed from plant, embryo from a person. His character, talked of ever since, is the new picture of life and the world is changed forever.

The story of his Resurrection fills believers with awe and trembling. It inspires all who are disillusioned by the awful things that happen in life. Joy and hope for eternal happiness comes easily to the despairing inspired by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is right that those who seek eternal joy are the true followers of Jesus Christ. For is it not they who truly believe that an incredibly heavy stone was rolled away, and that the tomb was found empty, and there was no sign of forced entry or removal, and that the body of Jesus was gone?  The witnessing apostles have chosen all, from their time to now time, to believe in the story of the Resurrection, having done so through the scriptures.

There is no need to question whether the apostles were fools or that they conspired to deceive their followers into believing that Christ was resurrected. Christ rising from the dead is simply beyond the human imagination. And there is no record of anyone, apostles or followers, sinners or heretics, blasphemers or sceptics, who under any circumstance of duress or rebellion admitting or intimating or suggesting that the Resurrection was a fabrication. No record, nothing. No Christian then or now believes the Resurrection was a fraud conspired by peasants to engorge the growing beliefs of a strange sect. If they were conspirators they obviously wouldn’t have been Christians.

Although in truth they were peasants, the apostles witnessed something that surpasses the human intellect. When pleasures of the flesh are spurned, and the deleterious influence of the material world curbed, the Resurrection appears to be very simple. From fear to faith, confusion to certainty, those who believe are filled with sincerity worth dying for. Heaven awaits for martyrs whose beliefs are the greatest inspiration for the living to do bold things.

The story of the Resurrection is central to the veracity of Gospels. What selfish sod would tell such a lie? None. And besides they were written close to the events. Not long after, when memory couldn’t possibly be cloudy, and gossip not yet a solid form. Not long after the Resurrection Christ’s disciples were publically proclaiming it in spite of their enemies. This proves that what they proclaimed was indeed true. If there was a fraud it would have been exposed. If the Resurrection was a lie it would have violated all the laws of lying! Such a lie would have been as untestable as the unique miracle of the Resurrection itself.

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eBook edition copyright B F Moloney 2014