The Glory of a Grieving God: Part III

Contrary to the opinion of many who postulate a doctrine of God, the fact that God grieves is not something that exposes weakness on the part of God and neither is it something that detracts at all from His glory, omnipotence, or absolute self-sufficiency. A grieving God may not be the God of the philosophers or many theologians, but it certainly is the God revealed by the voice of our guide. Some would even postulate that it is more comforting to believe in a God who always exerts absolute sovereignty to the degree that the free will of the beloved is compromised. As for me, I contest that it is far more comforting to believing in a God who grieves in spite of my abuse of the free will ‘He’ has bestowed on me as part of ‘His’ vow of unconditionally love for me, whether I remain faithful or forfeit my covenant with ‘Him’ for another lover. I find it far more moving to my soul and a sweeter melody to my ears to hear the voice of our guide revealing to us that our God has created us to be beloved who can only enter and remain in a covenantal relationship with ‘Him’ by an authentically free self-giving reciprocation of ‘His’ unconditional self-giving, which is a self-giving on the part of the Loving One that is potentially received by all, even though such a story involves the contingency that the beloved stubbornly continues in being hardhearted towards this unconditional gift of God. This is the absolute paradox I saw when I looked upon the cross with the eyes. It was the absurdity of a God who risks being grieved all for the sake of having an intimate relationship grounded in mutual self-giving that stirs within the soul the composition of loving adoration as I pour out my thanksgiving at the foot of the cross.

I find it sweeter and more moving than if I were to believe that I can never fall away from my covenant with God because of the absolute compulsivity irresistible grace that necessitates absolute perseverance on my part in ‘committing’ myself to the infinite-finite dialogue that is in actuality God ruling out the contingency that the gift is rejected in spite of ‘His’ desire and will for it to be received. If this were true reciprocal self-giving would in actuality be impossible which would render the dialectical circle of love not truly authentic to the love made manifest in scripture. The dialectical circle of love between God and the single individual only exists where the absolute paradox is presupposed, only then is the drawing of the beloved to the place of repentance is not merely a decree of the mind of God but a wooing of the heart of God. A marriage covenant build upon anything less ceases to be a covenant grounded upon mutual commitment that is authentically exchanged by a self-giving commitment to unconditional faithfulness that becomes a covenant based on love because it is built on the risk of unfaithfulness that comes with the possibility for departure from the koinonia of the marriage covenant. Therefore, the Koinonia of Agape presupposes the existence of such a risk when it involves a finite entity, who is himself or herself not essentially self-giving. Only with such an enigmatic equation of mutual self-giving inter-course does the infinite-finite dialogue take on its distinctive theme as essentially a love story, though such a theme of this is not build around a melody of sanctified ‘hedonism’ but rather a melody of self-emptying agape. 

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part IV

Let us refer once again to the parable of the prodigal son that is the exemplary illustration of the absolute paradox of a God who is essentially and unconditionally self-emptying (Luke 15:11-32). In doing so, we will interpret this parable via the theological context of our journey into discovering God’s self-disclosure throughout the oikonomia of finitude. According to this Biblically rooted theological paradigm of the infinite-finite dialogue as it revolves around the realization of the God-relationship, it can be said that the prodigal son’s father is glorified as being one who unconditionally and faithfully remained one who is Love no matter what the conclusion turned out to be regarding how the prodigal’s son carried out his part in this covenantal illustration ultimately. The Father would have been glorified both if the son returned, which would have evoked the delight of the father conveyed by Him rejoicing, and if the son did not return, which would have evoked sorrow in father conveyed by Him grieving. The reasoning of man would deny this conjecture, yet this is a tainted reasoning of a finite entity who is not love, as such he or she calculates the degree of being being glorified in a relationship based on the outcome not on the disposition of the loving one in this relationship. In relation to the story of Hosea and his relationship with his wife, the exceptionally reasonable people would have certainly scoffed at Hosea for repeatedly taking back his unfaithful wife who turned to prostitution time and time again, even when He bought her back and had more than proven his faithfulness, commitment, loyalty, and devotion to her. They would have condemned him as one whose glory was being ruined by his lovesick blindness that from their perspective should be pitied rather than held up as an exemplary form of agape. 

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part V

Both outcomes of rejoicing and grieving over the final outcome of the relationship between God and each of His most beloved creation manifest who God is throughout the Narrative of Finitude affirming that God is who He is. Such outcomes declare in a reverberating fashion the name of God given to His beloved, “I AM who I AM,” and consequently both equally bring glory to God’s namesake. The difference, however, lies in whether or not the beloved, which in this case is the prodigal son, has the occasion for sharing in this glory by becoming one who reflects who God is. This reflection occurs as the dialectical circle of love is made complete. This happens when the beloved becomes one who is unconditionally and sacrificially loving, and this reciprocal love is only aroused by the love of God (I Jn. 4:10, 12, 16-17, 19). Though such seeds of reciprocal love can only grow in the soil of a humble and repentant disposition. Only by letting go of one’s stubborn pride can one consciously and willingly be open to the unconditional and sacrificial love of God with the intent of believing in Him. This love of God is made contextually manifested to the beloved in works of loving that unconditionally remain intent on making right what has been made crooked by the unfaithfulness of the beloved. 

In regards to the prodigal son, this would have meant him repenting and positively responding to the father’s disposition of love that the father had perpetually manifested by his unconditional desire to make right their covenant via the possibility of reconciliation offered his faithful extension of merciful forgiveness. If he had returned his father’s self-sacrificial love with heartfelt sorrow and passionate commitment to become one with his father in the re-establishment of the covenantal relationship, then the son would have become open to the occasion of receiving the robe and the ring that signified that restoration of the covenant by the father’s act of sanctifying the son, setting him apart to fulfill the position correspond to being his faithful child. Yet to believe in such a self-emptying is a risk on the part of the son, for it appears to be an absurd proposition that seems too good to be true. Consequently, the son must believe in the actual self-emptying disposition of agape that his father unexpectedly displayed toward him, seeing as he reasonably and intuitively was previously convinced that since he had “sinned against heaven and against his father that he was no longer worthy to be called his son, and consequently expected to be treated like one of his father’s hired workers” (Lk. 15:18-19). 

Prelude to the Fall of the Children of God Part I: On the Origins of God-Relationship between the Heavenly Father and His most Beloved Creation

[NASA]

In the beginning, God created everything with the potentiality for absolute usefulness according to the eternal ends of His Vision. This, our Creator’s Vision, is that which illuminates what will be hereafter referred to as the divinely authored Story of Creation, a story that according to our Creator’s original intention is an eternal story with a commencement but no conclusion. Since God is the Author of all existence, it is fitting to call this world His creation, and the unfolding of the happenings of this world as they unfold in accordance with His providential will His Story. This is to say that the proper unfolding of this world, is like a story, His story, the one that He wrote even before He made the world. Thus, all that He created to be part of this Eternal Story was originally ordained for perpetual usefulness, so that everything He brought into existence would carry out its preordained part that belongs to His eternal story for creation. When these parts unfold in accordance with His Vision or His plan, it brings Him joy. Like a father pleased with his children when they obey him and accomplish what he sets out for them to do, so is God proud of His creation when it brings to fruition the ends of His Vision for Creation. His original intention was that every created piece would have a specific place within His blueprint for creation and that each one would fit in such perfect and complementary relations with all other pieces within this harmonious manifold. Such obedience of all parts bears witness to His great mastery and sends up to Him an aroma of glory most sweet to Him.

All that our Heavenly Father created was originally intended to magnify Him through abiding in His will, because when the plans He has for creation come to fruition, they bear witness to His absolute perfection and absolute goodness. When we, His creation, abide in His will, we bring glory to our Heavenly Father and in a sense make Him rejoice over us like a proud father. Creation also glorifies God like how a piece of art glorifies the artist that made it. Consider every curve that Michelangelo chiseled in the marble slab and how the product of these masterful strokes would serve to bring glory to him who was the artist. The stone slab that would transform into a grand piece of art work echoes its creator’s magnificence. As each chiseled indentation collectively became the ends of Michelangelo’s Vision, they formed a harmonious manifold that is the form of one of his masterpieces, “David.” The craftsman had masterfully revealed out from the stone slab the beauty hidden within it for through his inner vision he saw the hidden form of David and sought through each stroke to bring this invisible form to increasing levels of visible manifestation. Thus, each of these strokes brought glory to the artist as they bore witness to his ingenious vision, and taken together they serve as a complete exposition of the ingeniousness of this visionary. In a similar way, what is created brings glory to its Creator by bearing witness to the Creator’s vision that authored it with all of His designs, intentions, and aspirations. Just as each chiseled curve was intended to reflect the beautifully good realities of the artist’s vision, a created reality reflects the beautiful realities of how good our Creator is by participating in the ends of His Vision. Each aspect, characteristic, and uniqueness comes together to harmoniously lift up a living testimony to the character and excellence of our Creator.

Now a defectively chiseled curve would have left a blemish on Michelangelo’s goodness as a craftsman and take away from the finished product’s intended beauty and majesty. Therefore, in a similar way, a created reality that fails to have eternal worth would have lacked goodness and beauty due to its transience. It would thereby suggest a possible shortcoming of the Creator and the goodness of His will. Such a temporal created reality would, along with its effects, ultimately fade into nothingness, because it would not endure into eternity for the Creator will not allow it. It is later however, when we will see that regardless of our failings as a rebellious race to fulfill His originally intended purpose for us, our Creator continually remains just, merciful, and perfect. We will see how even in spite of our waywardness, His loyal love endures for those who were created to be His children. He proves to be evermore truer and evermore faithful.



It was our Creator’s original intention that we would exist to be His children, for He longed to have a relationship with entities capable of engaging in a cooperative, interactive, and conscious relational association. However, this longing is not a necessary one, because His existence is not at all dependent on such associations as these. Now in order to satiate His unnecessary yearning, He formed and shaped our human existence to possess an intimate correspondence with the very image of His Godness. Such a resemblance pertains to the immaterial essence of human existence that gives rise to our unique capacity to be free moral and civil agents, capable of possessing a self-consciousness ego by being made aware of our own existence as well as our existence’s relation to external objects, and having the ability to form subjective associations and inclinations stimulated by an autonomous will unbounded by instinct or compulsion. He endowed us with such existential freedom so we can effectively serve in a centrally proactive role in the Eternal Story of Creation. This role is one that revolves around our pre-destined position as the stewards of creation, which is a position that entails the responsibility to see to it that what is made subject to us continually remains as it ought to be according to the Creator’s Vision and thereby ensuring that it perpetually glorifies the Creator. This agency of stewardship required that we would possess the capacity to rationally manage, to think creatively, form bonds of commitment and devotion, and to have subjective compassionate feelings...

Prelude to the Fall of the Children of God Part II: Concerning the Necessity of Human Freedom in order for a Theocentric Selfhood to be Actualized

In order for such a truly intimate relationship to blossom within created existence between a infinite creator and a finite creation, such a relation by necessity must be based on trust and faith on the part of the created. For instance, it is only by faith in our Creator that we commit ourselves to submit our lives to His providence, trusting that His Vision is of the upmost benefit to our existence. This is to say that due to our limited awareness of reality and our inability to discern all future possibilities, contingencies, and outcomes, it is only by faith that we trust that God has our best interest at heart and that His absolute competency and trustworthiness deserves our allegiance. Since, we cannot fully know how it is that His will for our lives is the most advantageous; it comes down to a matter of personal conviction and devotion. Moreover, apart from personal commitment and devotion, a relationship cannot exist. Such bonds of a relationship can only be shaped by a commitment stemming from a free choice. An act of freely surrendering to the will and plan of Providence is only possible by a creature that possesses the ability to depart from the will and plan of Providence, which is to say that it must be possible for such a creature to stubbornly defy Providence instead of humbly submitting to Providence.

To illustrate why freedom of the will is necessary for an intimate relationship to unfold, imagine that you find yourself encircled by a crowd harassing and jeering at you because of a riot that ensued due to racial discrimination. Now imagine that your best friend, of the same race as those persecuting you, jointly shares with you the onslaught of the crowd’s hate because of his apparent commitment to you that supersedes his loyalty to his race. This is to say that he was not initially a target of the crowd’s hate due to the crowd’s prejudices, but he indirectly became the object of hatred because of his apparent act of standing up for you. The pain of everything is not as bad when shared with a friend. Imagine that your friend remains alongside you and his loving presence provided buffer for you against the hate of the crowd. Or so you thought…

Imagine now that that this apparent devotion of the one who you presumed was your best friend was false. Imagine that you learn that it was not due to devotion, commitment, or love but that the friendship relations between you both had only been fabrications of your mind that you imposed on the relationship. There were no relations between the both of you, no real friendship. The self-imposed illusion made you convinced that he freely chose and willed to remain alongside you, in spite of the consequences. You believed that he willingly shared in your suffering out of an unconditional and loving heart. You thought his decision to remain with you was based on a voluntary commitment, but while you are in this situation, someone so cruelly reveals to you the ugly truth: that your supposed friendship is a farce and the relations between you and his actions toward you were a product of involuntary or automatic impulses. The coldness of it all would grip your heart and suddenly all the realities revolving around the relations between you dramatically shifts away from the category of friendship and the emotional support provided by this fidelity shatters. Subsequently, your inner vision of this other person dramatically changes along with your feelings and thoughts towards him.

The refuge, warmth, confidence, and strength that had flowed from this relationship during a moment of crisis dissipate, and they are replaced by thoughts and feelings of desertion, coldness, insecurity, and brokenness. You suddenly become overwhelmed with a distressing sense of loneliness and instability, and it seems as though your world has been turned upside down and you succumb to the despair to the now exponentially heightened existential crisis at hand. The shock of the present revelation eclipses that of the persecution because it is an internal crisis of the heart that causes a deeper suffering of a different kind than even the internal suffering brought upon the self and inflected upon the self due to the persecution. The emotional distress caused by this disclosure overshadows the physical pain inflicted by the persecutors.

One can see from this illustration and by reflection upon the human situation that the negation of the factor of voluntary choice, devotion, and affection cancels the illusive bonds of commitment central to a true friendship. As one’s inner vision of the other person goes through a drastic change that lasts as long as his affiliation with you relies on automatic actions and reactions, the future possibility of any sort of personal relationship is thwarted. Now it is easier for you to see how essential voluntary commitment and freely offered devotion is to the bonds of a relationship between one life form and another.

Our Heavenly Father’s aspiration to participate in a loving relationship with each of us led Him to endow within each of us the faculty of freedom and innate aspirations to strive towards eternal realities. This necessity is based on how essential freedom is in human existence’s category of willingness in order to actualize such a loving relationship envisioned by the synthetic operation of our Creator’s heart and mind when He brought to mind each of us. Freedom of the will is indispensable for the realization of the God-relationship, because freedom is requisite for relations of trust, commitment, and devotion that form a truly loving relationship between the Creator and us His beloved children. A loving relationship between an infinite being and a finite being must be rooted in faith and trust. And the activity of faith and trust in the will’s ascent to action depends on the presence of freedom, for faith and trust only take shape within our soul if and only if it was ordained for us to be faced with the decision to either volitionally commit our existence to the Creator’s Vision or to depart from His Vision altogether.


Thus, the absolute possibility of departure from the Creator’s Vision would have to be in place, which will be discussed later, in order for us to have the true possibility of a free choice to commit or to not commit our faith in our eternal destiny and the goodness our Creator’s Vision. Apart from free will, there can be no authentic trust. Without trust there can be no authentic commitment. Without commitment there can be no authentic conviction or devotion. Without conviction and devotion there can be no authentic hope. Without hope there can be no authentic faith. And without the willfully active presence of all these, true love cannot appear. Faith, hope, and love are all dependent upon a heart that is free, because only such a heart can produce the authentic hunger and thirst that provides the grounds by which these eternal virtues are procured. Freedom is the essential means by which the key of faith is formed, and this key alone gives one access to the God-relationship.

Of the Fall of the Children of God and the Dawn of Temporality: Part I

Only in this moment of decision can a person have the opportunity to truly fulfill his or her eternal destiny of becoming a faithful child of God through existentially and resolutely pursuing the true-self he or she was originally intended to be. Such a true-self is identified by eternity’s claim that the Creator has placed on each of our souls when He authored them before the commencement of the Eternal Story of Creation. Now we achieve such theological self-actualization only when we willfully turn the disposition of our souls towards the final end of glorifying our Heavenly Father. And it can only be done if we definitively choose to accept that part in the Eternal Story of Creation He assigned to each of us. Such a surrender to the will of the Author of our existence demands that we not only accept the role He has assigned to each of us, but that we devote ourselves to its corresponding standard of oughtness that delineates the how, when, and why in relation to the tasks and activities that comprise our role in His story. Thus, this standard of oughtness not only establishes what we should not do, but also what we should do, how we should do it, when we should do it, and what are the proper motives and reasons for doing what we should do and not doing what we should not do. This decision comes down to determining whether or not we trust that our Creator has for each of us our best interests at heart and whether we should place our faith in the truth that His Vision for our life story is the one that is the most befitting for our existence. It is a decision of whether or not we will wholeheartedly entrust our lives to His will, believing His plans for us are superlative.

In answering this question, a person decides if he or she will by faith rest transparently before the light of the Creator’s Vision, or else forfeit his or her true-self as demarcated by the Creator’s Vision and decide instead to become a secular self and fulfill a role defined by another vision and another standard of oughtness. In view of eternity’s claim upon each of our existence, the unfolding of our lives, from its commencement to its temporal conclusion, is the preliminary examination for receiving the right to become the theological self we were originally intended to become. Eternity has a claim on our existence because we were brought into existence from nothingness into something significant: to fulfill our eternal role in the Eternal Story of Creation. If this was not the case, then eternity would not be written on the human heart, since some or all individuals would not have been created for the Eternal Story of Creation. Only if a person was originally intended to become and remain a theological self is it an eternal transgression to forfeit his or her destiny for the sake of becoming and remaining a secular self.

Therefore, this preliminary examination is applicable to the initial duration of every individual’s existence beginning with our very first parents: Adam and Eve. For our first parents, this test was twofold. First it demanded that each of them carry out the specific role the Creator had written for them for the initial chapter of the Story of Dasein, which had for its stage the Garden of Eden. Second, it demanded that each of them be given a paradoxical duty that could not be unraveled by their limited understanding as created entities. This would be so that their faith and trust would be absolutely essential for carrying out this specific duty. It was through this test that the Creator could weigh each of their categories of inwardness and willingness to determine their faith in Him. In other words, only by this test could the deepest faithful, relational, and devotional elements of human existence in the individual God-relationship be weighed upon the scales of eternal humanness. The test determines whether or not they were wholeheartedly willing to ever-remain transparent before the Creator’s Vision, even when doing so would sometimes defy their own understanding and their own perception of what is or is not acceptable or what is best.

Now this final stage of the preliminary examination revolved around the unfolding of becoming stimulated by the commandment that one should not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Regarding the basis for this particular commandment, it was made clear by the Creator’s warning that to partake of the fruit of this tree would result in death. Death was an alien notion to our first parents, because they dwelled in a world free of the cold realities of death, for the world they inhabited along with the living finite realities that occupied it with them was a world permeated by eternal life. It should not be considered that the ensuing inevitability of our first parent’s death was caused by the digestion and assimilation of the physical matter of this fruit. No, rather the root cause of their path towards death began deep in their souls. The inward ascent to this physical act of eating that instigated the inevitable outcome of death. Furthermore, such an understanding of death here referring to physical death should only be considered as the consequence of a deeper experience, of ineffectualness because of the soul’s new inability to produce eternal fruit. Eternal fruit refers to the results of the unfolding of the eternal destiny of the Children of God. It comes forth out of one who lives and abides in God’s will. Think of a branch attached to a tree. It must stay attached if it will ever produce fruit, if it is a fruit-bearing tree. If the branch fell off, it fails to produce fruit and withers away, good only for feeding a fire. So then, the Children of God must abide in God’s will like the branch must abide in the tree, or else they too will fail to bear eternal fruit and will wither up and die forever. Death then can be considered as the necessary forfeiting of one’s role in the Eternal Story of Creation, because only by participating in one’s specifically assigned role of bearing eternal fruit can a person have the capacity to participate in eternal life and thereby possess truly eternal vitality. From eternity’s perspective, a person who has forfeited his or her God given destiny descends into eternal untruth and ultimately becomes lifeless from eternity’s perspective. To forfeit one’s role in the Eternal Story means one forfeits his or her theological self. If we, for example, forfeit our theological selves, we would inevitably descend back into the nothingness from whence we came. The self would permanently remain a secular self, a completely lifeless existence from Eternity’s perspective.

Of the Fall of the Children of God and the Dawn of Temporality: Part II

We should now discuss how such an either/or came about, specifically how such a deception formed in the minds of our first parents. First, it should be emphasized that a change in what appears good to an individual can drastically alter the direction of a person’s inward state of becoming, worldview, and inter-personal relations . The most lucid illustration of such extreme existential implications is found in the following Biblical account of how this preliminary examination of our first parent’s faithfulness to our Creator unfolded:

“The serpent said to the woman, ‘Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it” (Gen. 3:4-6).

Now this false appearance of the good of [what befits] human existence was shaped in response to a false representation of reality. This façade of what befits human existence was introduced before the mind’s eye of our first parents by an idea formed by a temptation. In this instance a temptation could be understood as an inference of reason pertaining to the future possibilities of good realized by eating of the forbidden fruit, and these possibilities were based on ideas transcending their prior experiences. Their perception of reality only assimilated this idea when they chose to entertain the idea as one actually corresponding with reality. Being tempted was not a sin before their Creator, but entertaining the idea and then wholeheartedly living in light of it with the conviction of its authenticity. They let this counterfeit light illuminate the wrong path, the path that lead them along their life’s journey. Think of it like this: Imagine a street at night that stretches far beyond your vision, with just one lamp post shining bright enough so that you can only see a few yards on. Then imagine in the opposite direction the same street but brightly lit with neon lights, buildings, music, laughing people, and beautiful people all around it. To you, going down that path seems more appealing, less scary, and certainly less lonely. Yet, it was the other direction that God wanted you to go, full of uncertainty and quietness. That feeling deep inside from such a scenario, of a path that has a greater appeal and another that really does not, may have been similar to what Adam and Eve felt.

One of the rational aspects pertaining to the false appearance of how much more befitting it was to Adam and Eve was the idea of becoming a new self who reaped the fruit’s supposedly rich benefits, than to be a self that lacked the benefits procured by such fruit. They reasoned that this new self would be a wiser self. Hence, a better and more complete self. Such a basis for acting in light of the veracity of this deception was thus the result of rational deliberation, not purely intuition or basic instincts, which made them much more culpable in eating the forbidden fruit then if they had done so out of a momentary lapse due to an intense, immediate, and unreflective craving. Reflection upon this temptation stimulated imaginative fantasies of the future possibilities corresponding to this alternative path they would experience after eating of this fruit, and this stimulated lust for becoming this more attractive self that would have the opportunity to fulfill what seemed to be a finer role in the Story of Creation or a self that was better fit to carry out the role already assigned to them by the Creator. Thus, this temptation painted before their mind’s eye a mural of their trueselves from a palate of future possibilities previously unknown to them. Such a fabricated self, however, defied their Creator’s standard of oughtness, because it was a secular self formed by an alternative blueprint that was different from the theological blueprint of their trueselves that the Creator fashioned for them. But to them this secular self became a self they ought to be and once pride set in, this new mold of their trueselves became to them somewhat like their birthright; something that they deserved. But what they did not know was that such a secular self was also a fictional self that had no basis in future possibilities. They did not know that pursuing this ‘self-actualization’ meant to pursue a mirage of future possibilities of good, ones that faded away once they had finally become this secular self and realized that they had chased after a lie.

In relation to this false vision of their trueselves, on the one hand was a fabricated vision of the future possibility of good, implying that the Creator’s Vision was lacking in goodness, and on the other hand implied that the Creator was holding them back from becoming a finer, truer, and more perfect self. So, for them attaining this ‘self-actualization’, would have brought them into a higher realization of self-actualization that was better suited to realizing the height of their individual potential as human beings. In other words, to become this ‘wise’ self was to reach the pinnacle of possibility in relation to the trueself they could become, a self complete and perfect in every way. And true here is in regards to this new found vision of selfhood. Because of such a conviction that leaned on mere human understanding as the most secure grounds for determining goodness, the self illuminated by the Creator’s vision was a destiny that could not bring about the fullest reality of shalom to human existence. As a result, such a vision should not and must not be trusted. But for them (Adam, Eve, and the rest of fallen man) this newly introduced mold of selfhood appeared to be one better suited to the internal propensities of human existence, more so than the mold of selfhood formed by the Creator’s hands. So then, the destiny revolving around this new mold was perceived to be more befitting of human existence; therefore from their perspective, this either proved the incompetence of their Creator or that He does not their best interests at heart.

The other rational aspect that made partaking of this forbidden fruit more palatable was formed by a judgment based on one’s past experiences of eating the fruit of the garden, for this forbidden fruit came to be viewed as more enticing than the other fruit of the garden, because of how seemingly advantageous the benefits of eating of it were and because of envisioning how their selves would become after eating it. It would be like a low self esteem woman’s reaction to something that she now comes to know will make her beautiful. Thus, the carnal aspect of this false appearance of goodness made this temptation more enticing as it wetted the appetite even more in view of the pleasure procured from one’s past carnal experiences of satiation. Accordingly, the immediate benefits of eating this forbidden fruit, and not just the permanent benefits, enforced this appearance of good by making this appearance exceedingly palatable to both the eye of the flesh and the eye of the soul. Furthermore, the development of this false appearance of what befits human existence was initiated by a thought that did not stem from an idea formed by the rational faculty of a person, because their minds were passive in the formation of this proposition. Rather, another mind served as the active intellect that brought before their mind’s eye this inference of reason.

Of the Fall of the Children of God and the Dawn of Temporality: Part III

     Now it has been shown how the first sin committed by the children of God against our Creator transpired even before the defiant physical act of eating the forbidden fruit, because “sin is that which does not proceed from faith.” And the first evidence of such an inward ascent not regulated by faith in the Creator lies in the resolute and wholehearted aspirations of the human heart that place love of self, whether oneself or another self, above love for the Creator. Such unruly desires seek to fulfill one’s own selfish desires or the desires of another self, instead of bringing to satisfaction the desires of the Heavenly Father’s heart. Hence, it was with these self-centered desires that faithlessness in relation to the God-relationship first began. This infidelity modified the existential normative worldview [what ought or ought not to be in relation to one's part in the world one finds oneself in] of our first parents, because such a willful existential appropriation of these delusions exposed them to believing the ‘error’ committing oneself fully to the God-relationship, which necessitates that one submit fully to the Creator’s will. Even though these delusions were introduced counter-voluntarily – due to the fact that if they had truly grasped beforehand the outcome of adhering to these delusions then they would not have done them, which is evidenced by their deep regret after the fact – nevertheless, culpability for giving into these delusions remains. This is because the faithlessness of giving into these delusions took root voluntarily in the synthetic vision of our first parent’s heart due to a willful departure from the Creator’s Vision spurred on by an inward forgoing of a wholehearted trust, faith, devotion, and love in the Creator. Such an appropriation of the lies of the Deceiver led them to the point of wholeheartedly falling victim to this deception even before they had actually taken a bite out of the forbidden fruit. The primary aim of the deception was not the goal of getting them to eat of the forbidden fruit but was rather for pride to be sparked in their heart, a pride that would drive them away from surrendering completely to their Creator’s will and from placing their unconditional faith and absolute trust in Him. This pride led them to replace living for God with living for self, and such an act of becoming an egocentric self was an outright betrayal against the greatest commandment to remain a theocentric self, as it states that one ought to love one’s Heavenly Father with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength. Therefore, our first parents fell into untruth due to their infidelity to the God-relationship. Egoism led Adam and Eve to forfeit their faithful devotion to our Heavenly Father and to relinquish their faith in our Father’s goodness. And their egocentric actions drove them to refuse the parts that God wrote for them to fulfill in His eternal story for creation.

     Before this halt there was no true test of faith, because all the commandments of the Creator appeared quite fitting and advantageous to humanity’s existence. Only with this commandment and the subsequent trial by temptation could there come a true test of faith, whereby man would initiate the act of becoming by living in light of eternal realities (eternal realities correspond to the Creator’s Vision that designates His story for creation) and not in light of temporal realities (temporal realities correspond to the deception illuminated by the counterfeit light). Only with the presentation of intelligible realities of untruth before the mind’s eye was man able to lean on his own understanding and choose another way opposed to God’s way, because this presentation made the option to choose another way than God’s way become seemingly advantageous. Summing up the subsequent pursuit of the alternative path that resulted in a continuous moment-by-moment falling of the human race into eternal untruth, I would like to say that in these moments of either/or, we freely and stubbornly chose to fixate the telos of our souls and hearts away from the Creator’s Vision in order to chase after perverted, egocentric, and temporal aspirations and ambitions that are crafted by the deceptions and imagined possibilities happiness that are mere chasings after mirages. They are here one moment and gone the next; once grasped, they fade away and disappear, that is those things, temporal things, that we have attained to give us happiness and rest. Thus, the criterion of their being became set on temporal realities, so that their identity became coordinated by a opposed to the One that is supposed to define a person’s true and eternal self. The One I speak of is the Creator, who originally intended each individual to be, and is the only one capable of assigning each individual an identity that is eternally effective and truly meaningful. Thus, Adam and Eve became secular selves illuminated by temporal realities instead of the glorious eternal realities their trueselves, our true selves, were meant to be. For they each freely became a secular self that departed from its complete potential to be a free theological self participating in eternal truth, by choosing rather to become a self chasing after a mirage of eternal prosperity that was in reality eternal depravity. Consequently, the Fall into Original Sin occurred due to this misrelation within the category of inwardness that caused humanity, who had up until then remained fully as he ought to be and was fulfilling his part to play in Creation’s story, to depart from our assigned part to play in the pursuit of a part that we perceived to be more profitable than remain faithful to our relationship with our Creator.

     The following analogy of the relationship between a playwright and an actor can be brought to mind as a similar illustration of an act of rebellion that is in a way also an act of infidelity. Now this playwright is a renowned playwright who has single handedly been the one responsible for not only opening up the door of acting to this particular actor but has also been the one responsible for his increasing popularity due to the playwright continuously casting him as the star protagonist in a series of plays, that were specifically penned with him in mind. But during the unfolding of the playwright’s vision for this actor’s career, an existential revolution occurs within the actor, one that directly breaks the bond between them, a bond that had become close over the years. The actor comes to the point of desiring to rewrite the newest script he has been given, and as a result, he cannot devote his full attention passionately towards meeting the requirements set before him by the playwright in performing this new play. This newly kindled desire stems from the actor’s loss of faith in the standard of oughtness the playwright had established before he was even assigned this new part. He begins to question not only the words of the script, but the playwright’s vision for how he ought to act out this new character, which is a vision delineating how he should carry himself, his attitude, personality, and his relations to the environment and the other actors. In other words, the actor begins to subjectively conceive of an alternative way for developing his character both in his interpersonal and intrapersonal relations that will draw the audience into the character’s world. And it would all revolve around him as its epicenter. Such a drawing in would mean that the emotions of and the attention of the crowd would flow according to the development of his character, and if done right, it would bring the attentive audience to the point of seeing their human ideals freely unfold in such a way that his performance inspires within their soul an ecstatic type of heroism while at the same time lifting his image to heights previously unimaginable in the world of theatre. And this constant tantalizing over how the rest of his career would unfold through this most promising door of possibility results in the diminishing his once strong inner drive to surpass the expectations of his mentor. This loss of passionate devotion drains the actor’s capacity of carrying out the ends of the playwright’s vision. This alternative and egocentric vision begins to outshine the previous vision of how his career was to unfold, as the star of the renowned playwrights final series of plays before retirement. But now instead, the actor aspires to have this new found vision supersede the providential vision of the playwright. It is an aspiration based not on accentuating all roles in a way that fulfill the beauty of the storyline, but is based on directing the spotlight on his role while making all others serve as a mere means of accentuating his role, making it shine brighter and brighter above all others. Consequently, the actor’s attention and commitment becomes rerouted towards a newly concocted vision of a ‘finer’ way of carrying out his part in the play that ultimately reshapes the play as a whole, one that he is convinced is also better suited in highlighting his ‘proficiencies’ as an actor. Further, this disordered passion leads him to forfeit his hope in the playwright’s Vision as one advantageous to his acting career. Fear then grips him when he thinks of the likelihood that the playwright’s Vision will curtail his rise to stardom. That fear grips his heart as he dreads the possibility that carrying out the playwright’s will for his new part would open the way to the possibility of evil to his future as an actor, such as the possibility that it would bring an abrupt end to his promising career. Like a voice that attempts to rise above all other voices in a choir or like an instrument insubordinately playing louder than all others, with the intent that doing so would enhance the brilliancy of the composition, the actor becomes blinded by his pride and , during a series of rehearsals, performs the role in the way that he envisioned. In becoming so full of himself and through his blatant defiance, his actions cut the final tie between him and his playwright, triggering the playwright to dismiss the actor from rehearsals and from his job.