When you consider that without an organized society of some sort, you have only cavemen hunters huddling round the camp fire, the prophets’ enthusiasm for disinfectant cleansing seems a little extreme. My view as a lawyer is that you preserve such shreds of civilized life as remain after conflict has reduced society to a shambles, and build on them.
Yet I recognize that in encouraging the writers of “roads to reality” to look within, whether they are inside or outside the Church, a descent into the depths of the human psyche is a dangerous adventure. Jung attempted it between 1914 and 1919, and was lucky to emerge sane at the end of it. And it may be that less robust people have not the courage to follow his example; or if they did have the courage to follow his example, would fail to emerge sane at the end of it. But all his later writings were derived from that experience; so probably less robust people in practice have little to add to common sense, other than the re-arranging of the material of others. Few people have anything profoundly new to say, unless they have experienced great turmoil in spirit beforehand. So I consider that the ravings of the prophets, which often seem to verge on madness, must be accepted for the jewels that they utter from time to time. I reject their concept of the nature of War, with one exception; but I accept that they were trying to be true to the spirit within themselves, and express as best they could how much they believed God detested Evil. They were not meaning to describe accurately how God intended to behave; they may at times have thought they were, but if so they were wrong. The exception is a wonderful passage in Isaiah N.E.B. Ch.63v.1; “Who is this that cometh from Edom… It is I, who announce that right has won the day; I who am strong to save… I looked for a helper but found no-one, I was amazed that there was no-one to support me; yet my own arm brought me victory, alone my anger supported me.” The NEB lacks the resonance of the AV, but it makes the meaning clearer; God is in command! Indeed he is.
But to return to the concept of God acting through history, many people may not know that Tamerlane appeared as though out of the sky, and delivered Europe from almost certain destruction by the Ottoman Empire in July 1402. Bayazid, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, was rash enough to provoke Tamerlane, and the latter utterly destroyed the Ottoman army, before it could destroy Europe. Again the Poles saved Europe from the Bolsheviks, in 1920; Britain had demobbed, France was finished, Germany was starving, and the Americans had gone home, when the Bolsheviks invaded, and besieged Warsaw. Somehow the Poles broke out, and in a brilliant outflanking movement rolled up the Russian Army, and sent them scurrying back to Russia. What we owe to the Divine Providence is beyond belief!
Religion Rewritten, a religious view of nature and the universe.
Essay 4 - A Vocation To Re-Interpret Christianity.