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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Jesus

The Future of Humanity as Contained in the Humanity of the Son of God

11 Thursday Aug 2022

Posted by Prime Theologian in afterlife, heaven, Jesus, Resurrection, Transhumanism

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What is in store for humanity in the Resurrected World? Asked differently, what is the future of humanity based on humanity’s unity to the Son of God? What do the transhumanists want for humanity? I recently added an entire page onto my website where I outlined “Son of God Human Supremacy” as a counternarrative to the dystopic destiny the transhumanists want to design for humanity. In that outline, I mention “affirmations” and “rejections” and I want to explore the first of those a bit more here. Specifically, “We reject this world as it is, destined for futility; we accept only the world to come as encapsulated by the Resurrection of the Son of God.” There is a lot in these several clauses, so let’s get into it.

We reject this world as it is, destined for futility . . ..”

Son of God Human Supremacy

This world is amazing — its beauty, its complexity, the range of discovery to be had, etc. — but the scope of the influence of death, evil, and dismay, is not so easily ignored. I used to believe this world was filled with more good than evil; I suppose I still think this if I include the goodness of being itself, nature, beauty, etc. I doubt this though if I only consider human “goodness” vs. “evil.” In some sense, even from my personal experience, each of us seems to be a kind of microcosm of the ebb of futility that likewise infects this entire cosmos. My freewill complicates matters to begin with (please tolerate me my Calvinist friends): that I have a choice does not translate to making more right choices than wrong ones much of the time. Consider then the idea of “flesh” from Scripture: “flesh” indicates human weakness, limitations, human error. If this combination of “flesh” and freewill did not complicate things enough, we must also contend with God’s curse from Genesis 3 and God’s associated judgement against the world itself to be subjugated to futility. To summarize God’s curse off the cuff, it states that man and woman’s relationships would be contentious, that labor would be painful, that procreating would entail suffering, and that the earth (dirt) would be difficult to work with when trying to collect resources from it (e.g., food). The last part of the curse likely entails the “subjugation” of creation to futility. Potent comments on this from Romans:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Romans 8:18 – 22


Its funny that citing the Bible often produces such rich material for other tough, tough issues; verse 18 can be used as a response to the problem of evil although those more philosophically minded will complain that it is not verifiable. If the magnitude of the goods of “glory” is tremendously larger than the evils produced during the same time period, the problem of evil might be offset by goods not yet existing to put on the scale. Let’s leave that lie since I am digressing. The creation is waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed (not the Son of God) since its resurrection is tied up with the resurrection of all those men and women who love the Lord Christ. P.S., for anyone thinking, “why did God have to curse it anyhow?” The curse states what will be but its causality or agency (how it comes to pass) could take very different paths: (1) God’s immanent presence that prevents certain measures of evil is/was withdrawn, (2) God merely describes how the world will look when evil is given an enduring seat, (3) God directly does what He curses, or (4) a combination. I’ll let you decide, but the Genesis 3 text is mixed with God saying “because you did this” and “I will do this.” God’s subjugation of the creation is done in hope; and that hope is found precisely in the resurrection of the sons and daughters of God, whose resurrections are dependent upon and within the Resurrection of the Son of God. It is at that time that the creation will be set free from futility and corruption. Rust, decay, corruption, all these are shorthand for the law of entropy, that this creation is on a crash course with the void, emptiness.

This is the world as it currently is, and it is this world that we reject; this rejection is a mimesis of God’s rejection of this world. The Son of God’s mission to eradicate death is a thunderous statement of God’s rejection of this world. This world must end. To perpetuate this world as it currently stands is an effort in futility, a superfluous labor built from hubris. The transhumanists, the enemies of humanity, seek to extend life in this damned world. Much as the false prophets of ol’ who would always say “peace, peace,” the transhumanists proclaim, “immortality, immortality.” As a Son of God Human Supremacist, I can only calmly repeat myself in saying that if there is no future for this world, there most certainly is no future for humanity. The revival is incomplete if the cosmos itself is not revived, reworked, and reconstituted around a principle of Life instead of death (its current state). If you need reminded that death is the principle at play in this cosmos, just look out into space. It is horrible in its cold, in its void, and in its hostility.


Before I forget, God thought the idea of “living forever” while in a world marked by death was such a bad idea that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden so that they could not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in “sin and death (Gen. 3:22 – 23).” The transhumanists, globalists, the World Economic Forum elites, they have no such access to a Tree of Life; the immorality they offer is only a decaying world of corruption on a countdown to energy-less ruin. All this leads us to “accept only the world to come as encapsulated in the Resurrection of the Son of God.” Now this is a plan. If you need to sell me based on the potency of a narrative, give me the Gospel and this Resurrection; the transhumanists’ gospel is nothing more than marrying you to a world demarcated by death more each day. You may wonder why look to the Resurrection of the Son of God as the locus of hope for a new world. Aside from the many Scriptural citations I could offer, let me tie the theology of the Spirit together with the Resurrection. The Spirit is the life-Giver as evinced in Genesis 1:2 and 2:7. The Spirit is eternal and He made little “s” spirits, which are you and me, and He designed them to have a contingent or dependent eternality. The Spirit was there when the world was fashioned; He was there when the first human spirits were fashioned. Leaving the Trinity aside for now, the Spirit is the same fountain who was there when Christ was resurrected. With that resurrection, the principle of death was ousted, defeated, and made ineffectual. That Spirit who made the world is now there remaking the world, and that same Spirit unites redeemed humanity to this “resurrected locus” in the risen Christ.

The Resurrected Son of God is the microcosm of things to come; it is the initial demonstration before the full line of production starts up. Thus, rejection of this world centers down on the rejection of a world utterly scarred by death; the acceptance of the world to come is the acceptance of a world centered on the life-Giving Principle, as clearly marked out by the Resurrection of the Son of God.

I am the Resurrection and the Life.

John 10:25

Jesus meant this literally, hard as it is to understand. He is the new world even as we reject the present one.

Dr. Scalise

Transhumanism, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (Part 2)

03 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by Prime Theologian in Apologetics, Comparative Religion, Elitism, Fear, God, Government, Hebrews, Human Experience and Theology, Incarnation, Jesus, Transhumanism

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Eugenicide, Eugenics, transhumanism, World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum’s Eugenics and Ramifications

Listen to the Text of this Article

The WEF’s infatuation with transhumanism partly lies in its deep eugenicist ideological matrix. They recently claimed that their elitist group will be the ones intelligently designing humanity, advancing humanity’s evolution. They go so far as to directly dismiss the Divine as the Intelligent Designer, naming themselves as sovereigns in His place. Yuval Harari, much the prophet for the World Economic Forum, clearly articulated this in his January 25th, 2018, presentation at the WEF annual meeting, in a speech called “Will the Future be Human.” Perhaps one of the challenges of discussing this prophet’s narrative (Harari is a bit infamous for a work he put out called New Religions of the 21st Century) is the vast domains of knowledge needed to interact with this thought. These domains include eugenics, A.I., transhumanism, evolution, naturalism, Darwinism, economics, resource management, the nature of life (or better, bio-ontology), nature of humanity, metaphysics, God-world relationship, and, in some respect, cosmology. We cannot discuss everything here, but we can go through them one at a time. Eugenics typically involves a racial focus, a desire to “purify” the human species of undesirable traits. The World Economic Forum evidently thinks that humanity itself is problematic, of whatever race or sort. This is novel eugenics, one that we should call anti-life eugenics: for my DC comics fan, this is a kind of anti-life equation (Darkseid is obsessed with eliminating freewill, which in that DC universe equates to being “anti-life.”). There is a certain cynicism that may think, “well humanity will kill itself anyway, the WEF is just advancing that eventuality,” especially in light of the wars, genocides, and weapons of mass destruction the 20th century produced.  This thought provides no illumination of the good humanity does and is capable of, and such a thought would belong to a person who would be among the ranks of the WEF’s eugenicist ideology. There is an opaque connection here with nihilism, which is the subtle, indirect, direct, or tendency towards destruction or facilitating it.

Thus, clarifying, the WEF’s transhumanism is recreative, at least I believe they would see it that way; it is a eugenicist cleansing to bring forth, as Harari puts it, “non-biological life.” Cast down human life; raise up cyborg or A.I. life from the ashes.

Nevertheless, this sort of eugenics is also genocidal, even if the WEF and its advocates opine that what they want is to move humanity into its next evolutionary step, akin to how Neanderthals were eliminated so that more advanced forms of Homo Sapiens could thrive.

We have now branched neatly into the domain of ethics or morality, and we will discuss that in the future. Big questions about God, humanity, humanity’s role in the cosmos, what it means to be human, the morality of eugenicide even if done with the best of intentions, and how this vision of the future contrasts with God’s metanarrative for humanity. A few closing points that will extend and summarize what I have discussed herein.

  • WEF transhumanism takes, extends, but modifies the Darwinian principle of natural selection, which is itself a kind of “naturally embedded eugenics.” The WEF believes in the notion of survival of the fittest, but they want to take the reigns from nature in order to make themselves the architects of eugenicized humanity, of digitalized or cyborged Sapiens.
  • WEF transhumanism believes in a modified “Intelligent Design,” which typically means that God designed humanity and the world in remarkably precise ways to fit, operate, and create a plentitude of unities among diversities. The WEF modified form means that “enlightened humans,” those sufficiently illuminated, will be the futurist intelligent designers of this renewed humanity, of cyborgian/digitalized humanity. Who are these humans? The cohort that is the World Economic Forum’s true believers; they will be the little “g” gods who will play the role of intelligent designers, crafting a digitalized, futurist destiny for humanity.
  • This anti-life eugenics entails destruction of old humanity, of that normal biological sort that claims it is made in the Imago Deī (Image of God). I should be more careful here: it is unclear if the WEF wants all humanity’s biological restrictions removed. It might be better to call their futurist vision for humanity “anti-standard-humanity.”

The WEF has a eugenicide agenda, but it entails the destruction of old humanity to bring on this new futurist humanity. This genocide is more likely of the omissive kind; either adapt with humanity’s futurist, non-biological destiny or be excluded from all means of livelihood. Genocides are often thought of as brutal campaigns of death and slaughter for the unworthy, for the unbeliever, blood spilling everywhere. What we have learned since the Great Bioweapon Undertaking of 2020 (the Covid-19 pandemic) is that the globalist elites desire to structure disasters, then be the ones who offer the solutions, so that humanity will willingly accept their guidance. With sufficient fear, many humans will give up everything for security. Of course, you might think, “I would not,” and that is well and good, but the trouble is that these “crafters of disaster” only need a majority to advance their agenda. Once the majority agrees to ever greater degrees of surveillance and compliance, the globalists only need to bind that compliance/surveillance to someone’s ability to buy or sell. Once this is done, it will be ever more difficult to survive without submission to that system. Ergo, those who will not comply will be marginalized, and they will have to decide (and convince their loved ones) whether to accept the WEF’s futurist cyborgian destiny for themselves and their family or to descend into obscurity in some apocalyptic, likely pre-industrial, very discomfortable, living situation.

The other big “God” questions have to do with the divinization, at least in their own minds, of the WEF cohort, albeit in the little “g” gods sense. Is the removal of “the biological (body)” from humans a discontinuing of the human species? If so, and I will speak from my orthodox Christian position here, would the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ “count” for “non-biological” humans, if we can even still call them humans? The Book of Hebrews offers this:

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself was tested by what he suffered, He is able to help those who are being tested.”

Hebrews Chapter 2

Specifically, the WEF wants to remove the “flesh and blood” of humanity, either more or less, although we should lean to the “more” side since “uploading” is part of their emphasis (= fully digitized human consciousness). The consequence of Jesus’ appropriation of “flesh and blood,” the purpose for which He did it, was the freeing of humans from death and the devil. Jesus “had to become like” humanity “in every respect.” The biological composition of humanity is integral to its essence (or ontology); would disembodied digital “ex-humans’” consciousnesses still be salvageable by Jesus, the Christ? This text is famous in Church History, the Church Fathers creating this maxim from it:

that which is not assumed is not saved”

St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Letter to Cledonius

What does this mean? That the sacrifice of the Christ only applies to the form of humanity that He took up through the incarnation: which is, normal, biological humanity. It might escape out notice, it nearly did mine, but it is not unimportant that the “removal of life” historically means the onsetting of death, life-less-ness. The Hebrews text above notes the mission of this Christ was to remove the power of death. Is the digitalization, the removal of “biology,” of “life,” from humanity the codification of a near immortal reigning of death? Is Harari’s phrase, “non-biological life,” a euphemism for “life-less” or “death-ful.” If this too sloppily put? Certainly, prolonging consciousness would entail a major, or even dominate, feature of what it means to be alive. Has anyone seen the Matrix? Has anyone been in the Warhammer 40k lore? In almost all cases where the “machinification” of humanity is imagined, it is centered on images that are instinctually repugnant to our aesthetic faculty (P.s., I have an objective, historical, view of beauty, where it is not in the “eye of the beholder”). Why should this be the case? These questions set the stage for our next article. I have much to consider as I hope you do as well.

Prime Theologian

Joy in John 15:11

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Biblical Interpretation, Discipleship, Jesus, Joy

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Discipleship, Jesus, joy

A running trend in certain Christian circles is understanding joy to be some supernatural gift that comes despite our circumstances. I would not deny such a meaning for joy in Scripture, using Psalm 16:11 and James 1:2 as examples. We would be quite amiss to limit our understanding of joy to merely this. Jesus discusses what it means to be His disciple in John 15:4 – 15. Jesus links joy in v. 11 to what He just discussed in the foregoing verses: (9) “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (10) If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. (11) These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jesus shows Himself to be the Model after whom we mimic (v. 10). What is abiding in the Lord Jesus’ love? To follow His commands is to experience practically Jesus’ love even as Jesus “kept my Father’s commandments and abides in His love.” Whether the Father’s commands or Jesus’ commands to Their follows, these commands are designed to demonstrate and express love. They tell us what is right and good for us, and, if we do them, we concretely weave that love into our very action and being. In such weaving comes joy: “These things [about producing fruit, following commands, and abiding in My love] I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” To the extent that we do these commands based on our intimacy and love for Jesus, so likewise will our joy increase. Joy in John 15:11, therefore, can be occasioned by our affection and acting on that affection by keeping commands. Joy is not afar off or “too hard” or “unclear,” but it is near us in our hearts (love) and in our actions (command keeping). We can increase our joy beyond the joy at the moment by having ever greater love expressed in command keeping. Thus, greater joy than that now awaits you, and me, and all of us. Jesus has made it clear how to actualize it, by loving Him enacted in our keeping His commands, and all of this, in the light and in the Spirit.

Dr. Scalise

Reconciling Jesus’ human Nature with His divine Nature during His Incarnation

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Biblical Interpretation, Christ, Difficult Questions, Hypostatic Union, Incarnation, Jesus

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Biblical Intepretation, Christ, hypostatic union, Incarnation, Jesus

“if Jesus is God, why would Satan bother to tempt him; how can God be tempted with food and power?

Furthermore, why did Jesus not want to take the “cup that was given” aka the crucifixion?

Jesus also said his followers would do greater works than his. How is that possible?

Jesus said not to call him good for only God is good. But isn’t he God?”

I got this cluster of questions from a very old friend of mine, from adolescence and younger. This is certainly more than just one question to be sure, but all of them, except for the question about “greater works than these,” can be answered in one sentence. Although I intend to give this short answer, I’ll elaborate a bit on that one sentence for the sake of interest. I have given the philosophy of science’s definitions for an absurdity in distinction to a mystery in another post. By way of review, an absurdity is something that is logically impossible, contradictory, or unintelligible. A mystery is something that has a logical base and hence is intelligible, but its full understanding extends beyond human capacity. To explain the mystery in full would be to deny it the status of a mystery. Therefore, I will give a simple answer, but this is not to say that this answer does not entail mystery or that “I’ve got it all figured out.” I do not want to give that impression. A long treatise could be written on these questions without exhausting the mysteries. I, however, want to note that the answer I give has been covered many times over the ages, maybe the best short treatise on the God-man issue in Jesus was done by Pope Leo the Great in 449 c.e. in his Tome of Leo. It is worth the read: https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/incac1.htm. The answer is that Jesus is both wholly God and wholly man — this is, in technical and historical theological lingo, the hypostatic union. We must be careful not to think that Jesus would just use his divine capacities whenever he willed (Phil. 2:6). The many prophecies, especially from Isaiah (11:1–5, 42:1–2, 48:16, 49:1–7, 59:20–21, & 61:1–3), show that this “servant,” Jesus, was to act in certain ways and was especially to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit’s leading like a human. This is not to say that Jesus never uses His divine capacities, but it is to say that he wouldn’t use them just as He wanted because such would be in violation of the very prophecies He came to fulfill. Hence, being human, Jesus could be tempted; it was the Spirit, who “drove” Jesus out to be tempted in the first place (Mark 1:12). The divine nature of Jesus cannot be tempted, but since the text presents the temptation as real, and Jesus handles it like a human would by quoting the truth of Scripture back at Satan, it is not an illicit inference to say that the Spirit led Jesus there to be tempted as a man, and, as such Jesus did not function at that time according to His divine nature, but according to His human nature. Remember, I am not saying that Jesus was not divine at that time; I am saying that the capacity to which Jesus functioned in his divine nature was determined by the Spirit, and Jesus followed. As an aside, if Jesus just used His divine capacity often or whenever He wanted He could not be an example to us since none of us have that capacity like Him to just use a divine nature. On a practical point, then, it is imperative to note that Jesus’ living mostly according to His human nature and being led by the Spirit sets the basis for understanding Him as an example that we should mimic: we too should live by the Spirit, relying on God to direct us in our human capacity. It is Jesus’ dual nature, wholly divine, wholly human, that answers all of the questions except for the one about “greater works.” What can be said of this? Although it is fashionable to think or speak of Jesus “raising Himself” to life, and Scripture certainly affirms this, it is perhaps more important to make plain that the Spirit was the Enlivener and God the Affirmer of the resurrection as Romans 1:4 makes plain: according to the Spirit God declared Jesus the Son of God in power . . . . Hence Jesus teaches His disciples that if they have the faith of a mustard seed they could say to the mountain, be picked up and planted in the sea, and the mountain would obey. It may be too obvious but “greater” can refer to either quality or quantity: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:12 – 13). Two comments are needed on this text: 1) if greater means quantity (Greek term for “greater” is megas), then we can stop because this sufficiently answers our question, and 2) even if megas (“greater”) means quality or degree — although it is hard to imagine a miracle greater than eschatological resurrection life entering the middle of history — then it is not to be missed that the performance of the disciple owes to Jesus anyhow. The text makes this plain as day: “and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” The greatness of the works of any disciple first depends on Jesus’ successful ministry and work of redemption; hence the vitality and capacity of the “greater works” owe to Jesus’ work, and they owe to Jesus’ blessing in the moment as well, as Jesus says above, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do.”

So it is rather obvious that Jesus is behind all the works, whether His or ours.

Dr. Scalise

Recent Posts

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  • Some Thoughts on Critical Race Theory as a System of Liberal Ideology
  • The Future of Humanity as Contained in the Humanity of the Son of God
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