Some More Babylon

The symbolic logic behind parables requires quantum thinking. It requires that you tear things down to the smallest practical level, including thinking about thinking itself, and become aware that a particular symbol has meaning on multiple levels. The parabolic symbols in Scripture are alive; they are discrete beings with a life of their own. We are meant to see them differently in different contexts. We are supposed to explore the narrative in which the symbols appear and let them speak to us about God’s moral truth. This is why I insist that parabolic communication is planting signposts that indicate places to explore, versus Western communication that pictures truth as contained within the words. “Words mean things” — to which we say, “nonsense!” Words have no power on their own; the power is in the life explored. You cannot contain life in a box without killing it.

Truth is alive; it can never be static. It’s not that we don’t care about facts; we care little about facts because the facts can never be known, only perceived, which is not the same thing. Perception becomes reality on the grounds that reality is shifty mists that God can change on-the-fly at His whim. His revelation declares that He has done so repeatedly. A reality of immutable fact is a myth. Certitude is the dream of fools. Humans at large perceive reality as immutable because this puts it within some theoretical reach of human reason. We don’t need God; we can figure it out on our own.

If you examine what goes on in fiction writing and movies regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI), you see one recurring theme: the rejection of the Fall. It was first formally pronounced as the doctrine of the early Catholic Church that man’s intellect is not fallen, that a human can be conditioned and improved until his/her better self prevails. This is a direct rejection of revelation. But this theme of perfectibility persists across the board in just about everything you read seeking to provoke men to remake a better world. No one argues that we this world is just fine; everyone agrees it’s pretty messed up. But any solution that doesn’t start with confession of our fallen nature is doomed to chase everything — anything — except the truth. So when someone asks the question of what constitutes human nature, the answer is our fallen perception that won’t let us see what we really are.

By the way, the early Catholic doctrine of man’s unfallen intellect comes from the long-term effects of the Judaizers. You knew that, right? It’s a part of the effects of Hellenism that perverted the Hebrew mystical outlook into the legalistic nonsense of Judaism. That’s where “words mean things” was born, and the false “mystical” silliness about the power of words to work magic. Take a look at most writing in the study of magic and you’ll see it never quite escapes the assumptions behind Western mythology, and it reads that power-of-words back into whatever ancient texts they presume to revere and learn from. Sheesh, it even shows up in charismatic Christian religions today as the “Word Faith” doctrine — derived from early Kabbala, a component of Orthodox Judaism. We still hear Charismatics say, “Don’t pronounce a word-curse on yourself by negative confession.” Words do not make reality; perception does, and it’s not permanent.

Back to parables and parabolic imagery: So we have that story of Babylon from the early chapters of Genesis. What do we see? A megalomaniac Nimrod whose doctrine is that mankind can build a unifying religion that will make reverence for God unnecessary. I can recall a very brilliant student telling me that if God would just leave us alone we could accomplish so much good. Like Nimrod who continued to eat from the Forbidden Fruit: “We can be our own gods! We can decide for ourselves what is good and evil.”

In the past I’ve noted that, on one level, Babylon means that everything has a price and that’s all we need to know. On another level, I said the Babylon means slavery and oppression, whether the chains be physical or mental. But on yet another level, I’ll suggest that globalism is just another manifestation of Babylon. It’s a dream of pulling folks together and improving ourselves until we can all discover that great unknown potential of humanity. Babylon means all of those things and much more.

But it’s that persistent lie that we can somehow fix ourselves, that the real problem with this world is that we just haven’t tried hard enough/long enough — that’s the meaning of Babylon I point at here. All the solutions that rest on changing people are doomed before they start. Think about some of the more thoughtful statements about the problems of social media, in which it’s a subtle reminder from some globalist why Trump (dammit!) won the election for POTUS. “If we don’t fix this problem, we can’t get rid of the Trumps in this world.” It’s a form of scolding that marks the Social Justice Warrior front still causing mayhem and havoc in the US today. Shall we tell them that Trump is God’s whip-hand flogging the globalists? And when that’s done, Trump will face his own doom, and his grand schemes will wither away, because that’s how God works with those who refuse to hear His truth with their hearts.

I don’t claim to have such marvelous far-seeing answers as the globalist dreamers. There’s nothing to fix in human nature because it can’t be fixed on our end. If God doesn’t reach out and restore to us individually the pathway back to Eden, we’ll never find it. And there sure-as-Hell isn’t any way my answers will be your answers. They might come close enough at times that we can fellowship and work together, but the one thing you should learn from me is how I found the path, not the path I found. There is no one universal answer for mankind once you get past the Flaming Sword.

What I want most for you is the capacity to deal with living truth on your own. I can’t describe it; I can’t make the truth fit into a neat container. I can indicate something about it with a narrative that walks on its own feet and plants markers to things you could explore for yourself. There is no preconceived result, no concrete solution, no great shiny vision for a human future on this planet. All I have are little stories about how I rediscovered something long and often lost in human history: It’s the heart ruling over the intellect. What you do with my little stories is wide open territory in front of us both. I’m not worried about how it turns out because I have no vested interest in outcomes. Just seeing you free to explore the true Land of the Heart, the Land without Words, is all the payback I need.