11 October 2023
Of all the things we can blame on Satan, I still believe few things have done us more harm than compartmentalization in our thinking. We can see traces of it in the Old Testament, all the way back to Eden. It's far more than a cultural thing, but it most certainly has become a fundamental element in Western Civilization. So far in the story of humanity, no other culture or civilization has been so thoroughly pickled in the essence of the Fall.
The human lust for seizing the code of reality, so as to take control and manipulate things for a hedonistic outcome, has been greatly advanced by breaking reality down into various domains so that talented people can specialize and push their research much farther without having to drag along the rest of reality. We don't have to be good at everything, just really good at only one thing. But Satan pulls that out of context, in that we chase all kinds of frivolous nothings instead of the one thing that makes for peace with God.
But the worst part of this is how it imparts a tendency to ignore the big picture. We celebrate the talents of a few individuals who are able to integrate some depth and breadth into almost any human endeavor. Does it not strike you as odd that these heroes integrate only a few things at a time? Even with their talents, we are still left with a fundamental compartmentalization of human awareness that keeps us under Satan's control. Our human awareness is atomized so that the fleshly lusts can devour us. It's part of the Curse of the Fall; we can scarcely escape it.
Because of this fundamental flaw in our understanding as fallen creatures, Jesus spoke in parables, giving us little bits of truth meant to connect us back to our hearts. In the heart, the full fabric of reality is clearly understood as a whole. It's not just collection of bits and pieces. For those of us whose spirits are awakened by the divine Presence, everything we really need is provided there. The struggle is getting our minds to submit to that vast truth. The mind cannot do this by itself.
Thus, we can be grateful for the teaching of Dr. Heiser as reflected in his book, The Unseen Realm. It's the very nature of such useful information that it be specialized in one narrow area. The duty of believers is to take that and integrate it back into a wider understanding. To the degree it's true, Heiser's teaching can be woven into the fabric of our perception of reality. It wasn't just a few great ideas for me; what I discovered in his work connects back to my whole life's education in dozens of places. It's more than a specialized concept; it touches something fundamental.
Pulling together the various threads, we come up with the image of our place in this world and what we are dealing with. In a parable, we are a living experiment, that "simulation" so often suggested in computer science theory. This world is not real, though it certainly seems that way to us, as we are caught in the middle of it. Our human perception -- whatever ability we hold in our fleshly nature -- is not able by itself to see beyond the simulation environment. Only through subjecting our awareness to our hearts can we touch something beyond this world.
I've said this before: Our existence here in time and space is a test case. We are God's proof of something He seeks to show to His divine council. The Elect are His proof, but the meaning of our proof must be cast in the context of all those who are not elect. The first thing Satan wants to use as a distraction is a faux "concern" for all these non-elect. It's not that we could actually care, but our fleshly nature starts belching and barking about how unfair it is. What if that was you? What if you were among the non-elect? How fair is that?
There is no sensible answer, because the question itself is a lie.
It's not an accusation Satan makes toward God Himself, but one that he wants us to swallow. The key to the Fall for us was in how Satan accused God of being unfair, of holding back from us the knowledge we could use to understand how Creation itself works. That was the core of what he said to Eve: "You won't die if you eat from the Tree of Judgment! Instead, you'll be like the elohim, able to judge for yourself what is good and evil." Multiple lies were hidden in that one. It teaches us to accuse God of lying, in our instincts, if not consciously.
That was the first fracture in human awareness, the first extra compartment that distracts us from seeing the greater whole.
The whole point of using parables is that it denies the facility of the intellect, and points back to the heart, our one link to Eternity. Only the heart can read a parable, because the heart sees the whole. The heart realizes that the mind cannot handle the whole, so it feeds truth back down in little bites, snapshots that capture truth in a moment of time and space. It prods the flesh to become familiar with the path of peace with God. That's what a covenant law code does.
Even my explanation is a poor substitute for ultimate truth. It's just a parable. There is no clinical description possible. We cannot really reduce the truth to little bites the mind can handle. And yet, somehow it all works toward building faith. The Lord makes it work for us. One way or another, it all points back to Him as a Person. Get to know Him; learn to trust Him.
We are much more to Him than a mere demonstration to some invisible third party. He says that Himself. And yet, the only way to understand what is happening to us, and to grasp the balance between what we can do against such an overwhelming lack of power, is to adopt the parables found in His Word. We are the proof that He is just and right, and that His judgments are, by definition, Eternal Justice. Our souls will not be dissolved when the case is proved. As is typical of any Ancient Near Eastern potentate -- the image of His self-disclosure -- He will reward those who support His claims.
Comments
Fun and Prophet
Cold-hearted reductionistic traps are everywhere. I recently overheard myself using parables as symbols and "teaching stories," rather than actually entering Jesus' next-level simulation where the Prodigal's footsteps raised hopeful dust along the "great way off."
Recognizing existence-as-simulation gives relief from taking oneself, and one's Fancy Ideas, too seriously.
So does your reminder about all our tricky "fairness" preoccupations. Systemic ethics IMO dangerously substitutes a reality-code algorithm, for heart. As you say, the quest is truth, reality, shalom, the ultimately righteous Person thereof.
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