Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation - Pauline Christianity = PaleoChristianity

[Harmony99]

I think that if today's mainstream Christians would read this book and take it's insights onboard, Christianity would go through a real reformation!

I love reading Paul works but was falling short on fully understanding some of his letters. This practical book from Ashworth should go a far way in providing increase awareness on Paul works.
The work here is very difficult,but guess what, i know for sure what i will be taking with me when i leave this body behind.
Thanks much .

 

[beetlemaniac]

Session 28 December 2019

Q: (L) In this recent book I read about Paul, it basically exhibits what Paul was seeing or perceiving in his visions, or his conversations, or his channelings with Jesus I guess you'd call it. It's pretty much what we have received via this communication. Now, this guy interprets righteousness as absolution. I would like to ask about this absolution/righteousness issue. What did Paul actually mean?

A: Something rather like what you and others have experienced as "cleansing" or "opening" of the conscience as Gurdjieff described it.

Q: (L) So in other words, this getting "saved" or "made righteous" or having absolution or whatever is not necessarily an instantaneous thing?

A: Exactly. But it can be in rare instances.

The moment I started reading I was hooked, and I don't really know why, because I haven't had much exposure at all to Bible studies, though I did read the letters that Laura had posted earlier on the subject. The emotional, religious fervor has died down somewhat now and it's become more of an object of serious study. I have time to do so and I don't intend to waste any of it.

Regarding the above quote, I was wondering -- I have had repeated experiences of a kind of liberation of suffering, guilt and stress that felt very profound at the end of the Eiriu Eolas program and my mind seems to automatically connect this idea of liberation or absolution to this. I guess that experience is temporary and if lessons still need to be learned, mistakes yet to be understood, acknowledged, and rectified if possible, then that process of facing up to one's errors with fear and trembling is going to be normal path for people seeking to find that absolution. It sounds like it's analogous to the process of character building, chipping away at bad parts of oneself by repeatedly doing what the predator doesn't like.

I'm not sure how this process connects to the idea of being 4D STO candidates, though, but genero81's explanation above does help me understand it, plus the thread on Stoicism and Paul: Making a Cosmology-Anthropology-Ethics for Today, which I have only now managed to read and finish.

As Laura had mentioned I decided to go back to read the First Initiation. It feels like again (I've come here many times before) I've reached that point where the choice towards truth or lies rests on a the weight of a feather. It feels really crucial and comes at a time like bankruptcy. I think it's due to a combination of things mainly to do with regrets for bad decisions in my career that led me up to where I am now. And this book has come at a really opportune time but I hope I can marshal enough brain power to keep myself on track in my reading.

From the First Initiation:

But you never stop yourself in what you are doing or in what you are saying because you believe in yourself. You must stop inwardly and observe. Observe without preconceptions, accepting for a time this idea of lying. And if you observe in this way, paying with yourself, without self-pity, giving up all your supposed riches for a moment of reality, perhaps you will suddenly see something you have never before seen in yourself until this day. You will see that you are different from what you think you are. You will see that you are two. One who is not, but takes the place and plays the role of the other. And one who is, yet so weak, so insubstantial, that he no sooner appears than he immediately disappears. He cannot endure lies. The least lie makes him faint away. He does not struggle, he does not resist, he is defeated in advance. Learn to look until you have seen the difference between your two natures, until you have seen the lies, the deception in yourself. When you have seen your two natures, that day, in yourself, the truth will be born.

I do feel like that weak and insubstantial part of me is coming back again and with fear and trembling trying to find it's bearings in a weird and chaotic reality. I'm planning to read the Collingwood thread before going back to Paul's Necessary Sin, which I've left off at Part 2, but may have to start from the beginning again because I feel that now I have new eyes to see.

If anyone has any suggestions to prolong this state or how to proceed further I would really be grateful, I'm honestly just quite scared, in fear and trembling whenever I reach this point, because any undue circumstance from the outside world, any lie accepted or any shock unprocessed and I might just lose myself in the morass again. It feels like a really crucial time to proceed cautiously and not make any sudden moves.

I wasn't sure whether to post this in my personal thread or not but since this is quite relevant to the discussion, and I am very keen on advice to handle / cope with this type of situation, I thought I would just post it here. If mods feel that it's better to shift the personal side over to my thread then please let me know.

 

[luc]

In the book the author presents the problem he sets out to resolve by introducing the historical setting in which it has appeared. I was surprised Martin Luther would enter the picture in chapter one, but the reasons are well founded:

Paul appears to be speaking of something momentous – a real change which in other contexts he can describe as a liberation. And yet this was not Martin Luther’s own experience. Luther was acutely aware of the intense and continuing struggle in his own life – he did not feel this sense of ‘liberation’. He continued to struggle with the reality of sin. To make sense of his own experience – and what he felt was the general experience of the Christian believer – he came to consider that Paul, when he used the word dikaioō, was indeed meaning a real change, but a change in the status of the individual in the eyes of God, not a felt change in the lived experience of the believer.

This is pretty much the conclusion I came to as well with regard to Luther. He was a troubled mind indeed, and he had his own "conversion experience" while studying Paul. But he seems to have gotten it all wrong and thought he found an answer to his own obsession with sin and his inability to escape temptation in his concept of God as sort of a one-way street: God unilaterally "saves" and forgives you if you just have faith. This belief led to so much nonsense in protestant thought - because it denies the importance of our own efforts and "salvation through suffering".

See also this thread: The Reformation: Martin Luther’s Pathological War

Still want to finish another book but I'm looking forward to reading this one!

 

[SMM]

Thank you for sharing this book! It sounds brilliant; moving this up to read it next on the reading list.

Your comments, particularly Laura's Amazon review, makes me wonder if my family would be interested in reading it with our Christian background. It's one I will run past them.

 

[thorbiorn]

This is pretty much the conclusion I came to as well with regard to Luther. He was a troubled mind indeed, and he had his own "conversion experience" while studying Paul. But he seems to have gotten it all wrong and thought he found an answer to his own obsession with sin and his inability to escape temptation in his concept of God as sort of a one-way street: God unilaterally "saves" and forgives you if you just have faith. This belief led to so much nonsense in protestant thought - because it denies the importance of our own efforts and "salvation through suffering".

Having been brought up in a Lutheran culture, it helps me to to understand the Quaker background of the author. In an electronic list of Quaker literature, there was a short statement by Caroline Stephen which alludes to the paradox that several protestant sects in spite of their opposition to the authority of the Church nevertheless apparently were confident about the authority of the Bible.

I believe the doctrine of Fox and Barclay (i.e., briefly, that the "Word of God" is Christ, not the Bible, and that the Scriptures are profitable in proportion as they are read in the same spirit which gave them forth) to have been a most valuable equipoise to the tendency of other Protestant sects to transfer the idea of infallibility from the Church to the Bible.[...] - Source: Caroline Stephen, Quaker Strongholds, 1891, p. 28.

The manner in which the author expresses herself leaves the impression she would not be able to conceive of the idea that some parts of the Bible have been deliberately made up or invented to suit various other purposes, but then considering the latter part of the 19th century that would probably be unrealistic. The above quote ends:

Nothing, I believe, can really teach us the nature and meaning of inspiration but personal experience of it. That we may all have such experience if we will but attend to the divine influences in our own hearts, is the cardinal doctrine of Quakerism. Whether this belief, honestly acted on, will manifest itself in the homespun and solid, but only too sober morality of the typical everyday Quaker, or whether it will land us in the mystical fervours of an Isaac Penington, or the apostolic labours of a John Woolman or a Stephen Grellet, must depend chiefly upon our natural temperament and special gifts. - Source: Caroline Stephen, Quaker Strongholds, 1891, p. 28.

 

[genero81]

The image Paul uses for this new situation is a subtle one. The movement from childhood to adulthood involves a real change. The external word of the parent must become the word inwardly established and revealed within the individual. Without this fundamental shift within, the law provides essential guidance and protection. Once the shift has occurred, the law is no longer required. Going back to the external word of the law makes no sense once the inwardly experienced responsibility of adulthood is reached. The real and obvious change from childhood to adulthood terminates the need for the external authority of the law just as coming to maturity involves a new life of independence from the parent.

Timothy Ashworth. Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation (Kindle Locations 2467-2472). Routledge. Kindle Edition.

 

[Goemon_]

Regarding the prize of Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation

On Amazon.com the Kindle is USD 54.14
Om Amazon.de the Kindle is Euro 29.30
The paperback from Amazon.co.uk is 40 £ and might be slightly cheaper than from Amazon.com where it is USD 53.30 but that would depend where one is living and what the rate of exchange is, but at the time of posting there does seem to be a difference.

For those living in France there is still a copy available at a good price (17,40€) here.

 

[Maat]

The image Paul uses for this new situation is a subtle one. The movement from childhood to adulthood involves a real change. The external word of the parent must become the word inwardly established and revealed within the individual. Without this fundamental shift within, the law provides essential guidance and protection. Once the shift has occurred, the law is no longer required. Going back to the external word of the law makes no sense once the inwardly experienced responsibility of adulthood is reached. The real and obvious change from childhood to adulthood terminates the need for the external authority of the law just as coming to maturity involves a new life of independence from the parent.

Timothy Ashworth. Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation (Kindle Locations 2467-2472). Routledge. Kindle Edition.

It reminds the concept of endoskeleton and exoskeleton which was address in length elsewhere.

 

[genero81]

It reminds the concept of endoskeleton and exoskeleton which was address in length elsewhere.

Yes, exactly right. That was in fact part of a potential post of mine on this thread that didn't quite manifest into an actual post. Religious Law is obviously akin to an exoskeleton for the spiritually undeveloped to govern behavior so that relatively decent lives are a possibility. The problem is, it's easily manipulated and exploited by the soulless ones. (i.e. psychopaths) It's also going to yield at least some bad results when certain situations call for a different solution in terms of what's the right choice, from what the Law demands. That's why the Law is only meant as 'training wheels.' When one has matured spiritually, one's awakened conscience can determine the right action without the need for the Law. One can make the 'loving' choice fulfilling what the Law is intended for. Love, through an awakened conscience that determines ones actions, fulfills the whole Law.

 

[Anthony]

Haven't finished the book yet, but here are some of the notes I wrote down so far:

• Paul would characterize our usual state of being as childhood, enslavement, deadness, being in a state of sin (separate assertivness in the individual), egocentric/narcissistic, focused and identified with many 'I's' (identified with the 'flesh'), in opposition to other people and the bigger reality ("God", Universe, Divine Cosmic Mind, etc.). Being in this state blocks one from even coming to understand that one is in a prison (echos of Gurdjieff). It is actually only after one has escaped that the true terror of the situation can be seen.
• For him, this state we are in is not something that can be broken out of by following religious and moral rules, those are valuable to a certain extent, as it prevents humans from 'wandering off', that is, bringing more danger to themselves. So being in 'sin' is not something that can be corrected thorugh following commandments such as do not steal, he is using 'sin' to decribe the state of being and awareness of most/all people. He is ultimately speaking of a real transformation; a death and rebirth process in which there is a break with our usual sense of 'I', and we become aware of 'Christ'/'prophetic word' (Real I, consciences, etc.), which from then on guides our life and from which doing what is right/right action flows naturally. The 'I' is 'crucifed' so that the real can be recognized.

 

[Mike]

Yes, exactly right. That was in fact part of a potential post of mine on this thread that didn't quite manifest into an actual post. Religious Law is obviously akin to an exoskeleton for the spiritually undeveloped to govern behavior so that relatively decent lives are a possibility. The problem is, it's easily manipulated and exploited by the soulless ones. (i.e. psychopaths) It's also going to yield at least some bad results when certain situations call for a different solution in terms of what's the right choice, from what the Law demands. That's why the Law is only meant as 'training wheels.' When one has matured spiritually, one's awakened conscience can determine the right action without the need for the Law. One can make the 'loving' choice fulfilling what the Law is intended for. Love, through an awakened conscience that determines ones actions, fulfills the whole Law.

This discussion reminds me of 'The Law of Three' from the FOTCM Statement of Principles. So it seems to me that the Law that Paul is talking about could be seen as the framework ("the law provides essential guidance and protection") from which conscience can sprout and develop normally in individuals capable of such and also the possibility of progressing to possibly an even fuller understanding of reality, laws and morality (ie the Law of Three).

3.4. On the Law of Three
We recognize that the Third Principle has a practical application at our level of awareness in the moral sphere. There is Good, Evil, and the specific context that determines which is which. It is our goal to learn to discern the correct response to any situation and we repudiate the notion that context-free morality can or must be taught. As such we repudiate the usefulness and authority of all rigidly defined codes of morality. We recognize that there are no set moral injunctions that are applicable to all situations of human behavior and repudiate such codifications as efforts in futility and as symptoms of human ignorance and arrogance. Rather, we recognize that developed Conscience is the only true teacher of morality and that, just as seeds of the same type will grow to be trees of the same type if cultivated and cared for correctly, Conscience develops naturally to the same end in individuals within whom it is cultivated. As such, we observe that the greatest exemplars of Conscience, no matter from which country or period of human history they come, hold the same virtues and are not found to be in disagreement.

 

[SMM]

I got the Kindle version and excited to read this one.

From what's been written, it sounds like this book and what has been posted here so far also has parallels with Dabrowski's Personality Shaping through Positive Disintegration - as with the example of St. Augustine's transformation in Dabrowski's book.

And what you said @genero81 echoes Dabrowski's book WRT Secondary Integration, at least from memory:

Yes, exactly right. That was in fact part of a potential post of mine on this thread that didn't quite manifest into an actual post. Religious Law is obviously akin to an exoskeleton for the spiritually undeveloped to govern behavior so that relatively decent lives are a possibility. The problem is, it's easily manipulated and exploited by the soulless ones. (i.e. psychopaths) It's also going to yield at least some bad results when certain situations call for a different solution in terms of what's the right choice, from what the Law demands. That's why the Law is only meant as 'training wheels.' When one has matured spiritually, one's awakened conscience can determine the right action without the need for the Law. One can make the 'loving' choice fulfilling what the Law is intended for. Love, through an awakened conscience that determines ones actions, fulfills the whole Law.

That too ties in with the concept of endoskeleton and exoskeleton.

 

[goyacobol]

It reminds the concept of endoskeleton and exoskeleton which was address in length elsewhere.

Yes, exactly right. That was in fact part of a potential post of mine on this thread that didn't quite manifest into an actual post. Religious Law is obviously akin to an exoskeleton for the spiritually undeveloped to govern behavior so that relatively decent lives are a possibility. The problem is, it's easily manipulated and exploited by the soulless ones. (i.e. psychopaths) It's also going to yield at least some bad results when certain situations call for a different solution in terms of what's the right choice, from what the Law demands. That's why the Law is only meant as 'training wheels.' When one has matured spiritually, one's awakened conscience can determine the right action without the need for the Law. One can make the 'loving' choice fulfilling what the Law is intended for. Love, through an awakened conscience that determines ones actions, fulfills the whole Law.

I think the endoskeleton/exoskeleton concept touches on the nature of our "magetic center" and it's growth and development. The childhood to adulthood analogy is another way describe it I think. It could be said in various ways I think. Paul's view of the law vs love seems to illustrate this. I am still reading the book.

Session 7 September 2013:

Q: (L) Alright. I think probably what our group members, at least on the FOTCM forum, would be interested in knowing is: What was the deal with {name redacted}?

A: Personality clash.

Q: (L) Personality clash with me personally?

A: Yes

Q: (L) And what was the nature of this clash?

A: She wanted to dominate.

Q: (L) Weird way to dominate. Was her way of dominating by manipulating pity and all that sort of thing?

A: Isn't that usually the way? But notice the pity was reserved for the self.

Q: (L) Are you saying that it's something like narcissism?

A: Rampant!

Q: (L) Anything further than that, or deeper than that?

A: Usually a sign of those lacking a magnetic center.

Q: (L) Hmm. Is it kind of like this article I was re-reading the other day about endoskeletons versus exoskeletons where exoskeleton-type people according to this guy's theory are kind of like people who need rules on the outside because they're unable to integrate anything on the inside? {See: Moral Endo-skeletons and Exo-skeletons: A Perspective on America's Cultural Divide and Current Crisis -- Sott.net }

A: Close. What is inside is so infantile it cannot see beyond the self.

 

[Anthony]

Haven't finished the book yet, but here are some of the notes I wrote down so far:

• Paul would characterize our usual state of being as childhood, enslavement, deadness, being in a state of sin (separate assertivness in the individual), egocentric/narcissistic, focused and identified with many 'I's' (identified with the 'flesh'), in opposition to other people and the bigger reality ("God", Universe, Divine Cosmic Mind, etc.). Being in this state blocks one from even coming to understand that one is in a prison (echos of Gurdjieff). It is actually only after one has escaped that the true terror of the situation can be seen.
• For him, this state we are in is not something that can be broken out of by following religious and moral rules, those are valuable to a certain extent, as it prevents humans from 'wandering off', that is, bringing more danger to themselves. So being in 'sin' is not something that can be corrected thorugh following commandments such as do not steal, he is using 'sin' to decribe the state of being and awareness of most/all people. He is ultimately speaking of a real transformation; a death and rebirth process in which there is a break with our usual sense of 'I', and we become aware of 'Christ'/'prophetic word' (Real I, consciences, etc.), which from then on guides our life and from which doing what is right/right action flows naturally. The 'I' is 'crucifed' so that the real can be recognized.

A few more notes from further reading:

This real transformation that Paul speaks about is an anticipation of what is to come in the 'future'. The present transformation is real and radical, but it is only a foretaste of that future 'coming of age', so the struggle of the mortal flesh continues. When talking about that further transformation he appears to be describing a state of being prior to the fall (4D STO existance); he describes such as a state as a cessation of separation between the Creator and that which is created, us and 'God'.

This is the ‘coming of age’ when humankind comes into its
‘inheritance’ as adult: a life in this creation, without self-centred striving,
with direct experience of the painful consequences of being at odds with
the Spirit of God, having seen the true nature of what is wrong, with
consequent knowledge of good and evil. This is humankind, the image of
God in creation, exercising God’s creative and loving dominion, fully at
home in the flesh, able to enjoy mortal bodily existence, but not identified
with fleshly existence, conscious of being surrounded and animated by the
eternal Spirit of God. And this is a transformation that affects all creation.
For matter now has at work within it a conscious utterly unselfish player
in the image of God and therefore filled with the loving purposes of the
creator and, being physical, able to implement that loving purpose directly.

Paul sees the humanity's fall as being necessary, "in order that the whole created order might be transformed", and as it says in the quote above, having attained the knowledge of good and evil through painful experiences due to being at odds with 'God', there comes about a choice for actively participating in this creative endeavour, and this active and willing participation affects all of creation. So, all there is, is lessons.

Paul's view on the the fall, and some of it's consequences:

The fall, according to Paul, is a change in perception, a loss
of the perception of the divine connected with the assertion of futile human thought and a
darkening of the heart. The consequence of this is that humankind can only see clearly the
physical and comes to be identified with the physical stuff of human existence. This is ‘the lie ‘.
Having been created to be the image of the Creator in the world of what is created, doing the
creative work of the Creator, humankind ends up blind to the invisible things of God and
identifying existence with what is created – physical, visible and mortal. And, very importantly,
‘the invisible things of God’ includes that ‘image of God’ in humankind itself.

This reminded me of a C's session where it was said that STS worship the physical as their God.

 

[kenlee]

Paul's view on the the fall, and some of it's consequences:

The fall, according to Paul, is a change in perception, a loss
of the perception of the divine connected with the assertion of futile human thought and a
darkening of the heart. The consequence of this is that humankind can only see clearly the
physical and comes to be identified with the physical stuff of human existence. This is ‘the lie ‘.
Having been created to be the image of the Creator in the world of what is created, doing the
creative work of the Creator, humankind ends up blind to the invisible things of God and
identifying existence with what is created – physical, visible and mortal. And, very importantly,
‘the invisible things of God’ includes that ‘image of God’ in humankind itself.

This reminded me of a C's session where it was said that STS worship the physical as their God.

I think this explains man's predicament very well. 'The lie' says that reality is only that which we can perceive thru the senses and a consensus of this view via the diabolical influences of the power possessors just cements this perception into a concrete reality for the majority. Basically, I think, what "a loss of the perception of the divine" means is a loss of conscience which is required to reconcile the duality between our (inner) higher and (outer) lower natures. This reconciliation is not possible for those who turn away from their higher (unseen) natures (or for those who are genetically incapable of seeing it). For those who do not see their higher nature there is no reconciliation (third force) possible for anything regarding the higher and lower parts of the psyche. Relationship does not exist for them in the true sense. There is only duality where the psyche is only capable of generating the inner dynamic forces that drive the hormone based physical body but they are incapable of reconciling these primal forces within themselves via their higher nature (assuming they have one). There is only 'self' and 'other' and anything that is considered "real" is based on what comes into them from external sources and stimuli.