A Ramble About My God

I have written a great deal about Who and What I understand God to be. Mostly though, what I want people to understand most is that this Being whom we commonly call “God” is real. He exists, and in fact the very name in Hebrew that He gave Himself, Yahveh (hayah/havah, 3^rd person masculine imperfect piel: Y'haveh → Yahveh) means just this, except in an intensive form, “HE EXISTS!”

Yahveh isn't a fantasy, and he doesn't just exist in people's minds like an imaginary friend. His Being is impossible to understand and this inability to comprehend ends up looking like a darkness as we try and compare Him to things to which He is incomparable. But our inability to fully comprehend Him does not negate His reality, nor does it negate His personality or His attempts at reaching out to us to break through our own collective insanity.

What is most disturbing to me at times is how much those who profess to believe in Him treat Him as though He is imaginary, and I have seen this from both layperson and clergy. They do not expect Him to interact or respond to them when they pray or when they ask for anything, and see it as some unusual or great thing when He does, or else they cannot explain it at all. This latter is especially true when He responds in a way which contradicts the way they believe the world and He work, as though He is a mechanism or a law of physics.

This latter concept is fundamentally ridiculous.

Yahveh is a person. He is a person with will, emotions, intelligence, and self-awareness. He acts when and how He thinks is best regardless of what human beings think He should or would do. What is more, He acts with the best interests of everyone in mind, as both individuals and collectively as a species, and as I have written previously, He is in a unique position to know exactly what that may be. It is this overarching compassion, justice, and mercy more than anything else which informs and constrains how He will respond to any given human request or situation, and quite frankly He doesn't answer to us or anyone else. He answers only to Himself and His personal character.

He knows how many times I have struggled with the circumstances of my life, and how many times those circumstances have resulted in pain and hardship for myself or my family. He is responsible for neither my decisions, either helpful or harmful, nor the decisions of other human beings which caused me either pleasure or pain. Those circumstances He is responsible for were put in place with my best interests in mind, as well as the best interests of all those around me and the best interests of the human race as a whole. Just because they cause me pain or I don't like them doesn't make them bad or wrong (it is the hamartia disorder which twists my mind into seeing them this way). It means I'm having an adverse reaction to them instead of accepting them and moving on, and that is a malfunction of my own human psychology.

Why does He allow human beings to hurt each other? Because He respects our free will more than we do, and the truth is that He has gone to several lengths to keep the damage at a minimum in spite of us. He has in the past culled several groups of human beings when they have gone too far past the point of no return so that those who are less harmful or self-destructive can thrive. The only cure for human derangement is death. The symptoms may vary, but the underlying problem is hereditary and ingrained into human DNA.

I've known Him, talked with Him, been talked to and at by Him, and interacted with Him now for decades. I have no idea what His long term plan is, or even His plan for the next five minutes. His instructions are a lot like a GPS system that won't tell you what the destination actually is, but continually tells you to “turn left” “turn right” “go straight and turn when I tell you.” When He tells me and my wife to trust Him (something He says a lot), He virtually never tells us what's going to happen when we do. Thus, we need to trust Him that it's the right move to make or the right thing to say.

Why doesn't He tell us? Truth be told, because there are too many factors at play that can be altered if He does. Things that need to happen, and things that shouldn't happen. It's kind of like quantum mechanics where you can measure either a particle's position or its velocity but not both, because measurement of one changes the other. Us knowing the outcome or the reasons why we need to follow His directions would or could change the outcome He desires, and this could cause a cascade of outcomes which would result in circumstances which would be worst case scenario for everyone. This is also, I believe, the reason why when He does reveal something in the future, its usually only a snapshot of a scene or a short clip like a video without any context to the events leading up to it, if not an outright obscure riddle. These things are far less likely to affect the outcome than straight up explanations. He knows all possible outcomes and timelines and steers us towards the best one possible under the circumstances, even if it doesn't feel like the best one possible to me personally.

The Being I know as “God” (and this is a serious understatement calling Him that, capital “G” notwithstanding), is real. He exists. Not within space and time, because dimensional space and time rely on His Being for their own existence, but that is another discussion altogether. What is more, He wants you to know this and to understand it even if you can't understand the how and what. He wants you to try and get to know Him as a person. He understands the difficulties involved in it, but He wants you to try anyway, and He is patient with both honest mistakes, and explosions of frustration or anger when you don't understand or when what He does or says seems to hurt. He knows why you do it, and where it comes from because He knows every thought and emotional process which happens in your brain. He knows with precision the firing of each individual neurotransmitter in each synapse between each neuron. He knows exactly how you feel, how you think, and why that is. He knows this for everyone on the planet.

My God is real. He is fundamentally incomprehensible to the human mind. He is the underlying existence for all other existences. There is no box, no mental image, no constraint by which we can control or “make use” of Him and such thinking is ridiculous. To truly contemplate what He is, the depths of power and control He has over everything that exists is more than mind-boggling, it is paralyzingly terrifying. Moreso if you don't really know Him, and believe Him to be angry with you for something. But if you do get to know Him, and understand that what He does He does because He gives a rip about you and those around you (which thought should be paralyzing in its own right), then it should give you at least some peace to know that He is, at His core, on your side even when you aren't on your side.

Finally, my God is so real He caused a human virgin birth to show us what He is really like, and give us something to work with as to His personality and character instead of the myths and legends and misunderstandings which grew up over the millennia. He is so real that this singular human being's impact continues to reverberate throughout history. He is so real that He wants you to get to know Him as a person through this one person who demonstrates everything He is as a person. He knows you won't comprehend His “physical” existence. He doesn't expect that and it's not important that you do. He wants you to get to know Him in a real relationship with Him which involves give and take, highs and lows, good times and hard times, spending time with Him as you would in any serious relationship with any friend.

This is my God. This is the Being I know and have gotten to know over my lifetime as Yahveh, and very personally as the person who became a father to me when I was a teenager. Anyone who says He is something different than this, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't actually know Him at all and is talking about some figment of their imagination.

A Ramble About Answers

One thing which motivates me in going some of the directions I do where Scripture and theology are concerned is simply finding answers to questions. I can't count how many times I've either seen or heard of someone asking a perfectly rational question like "how can God be everywhere at once?" and then told he or she doesn't have enough faith or is just looking to make trouble (or some other similar defensive response) when they (reasonably) can't accept the "spiritual" answer they're given because it doesn't make any sense. What is worse is that often they're given such answers by pastors and Sunday School teachers who themselves don't actually know, and feel the question is a direct challenge to their own faith because they've always just accepted the "spiritual" answer and been told that should be good enough for them.

People don't question unless they really want to understand something, and Almighty God is worth attempting to at least try and build a framework with which to, if not fully understand, than to have enough of an understanding to work with. The Holy Scriptures are important enough to try and develop this framework as well.

Another question which might be innocently asked by an intelligent mind when told that "God is Spirit" is "What is spirit?" I will bet money that this is another question which throws people off when asked directly. You see, this word and its adjectival form "spiritual" is bandied about in church circles frequently. More often than not, it is used to describe or defend something which may either seem imaginary, or actually be imaginary. The dangerous thing here is how frequently pastors and preachers do this, building whole doctrines around "spiritual truths" that when closely examined disappear into thin air and are wholly unsupported by any measure or standard of either scientific analysis or contextual Scriptural interpretation.

The truth about this word is that it comes from the Latin word "spiritus" and means "breath". It is the direct Latin translation of the word used in the Greek New Testament "pneuma" also meaning "breath." But in the Greco-Roman worldview (and in the Hebrew for that matter), breath was more than just the air which was pushed in and out of your lungs. It was also the force which animated a body and gave it life. Thus "spiritus" is also the root word for the term "aspirate" meaning to breath. So, in the ancient worldview, one's spirit was the animating force which gave the body life.

Today however, we understand the human body to be a complex system of which the breath is only one part of and which has little to do with the unseen "essence" of the person and more to do with supplying oxygen to the bloodstream and removing carbon dioxide. A more modern analogue of the idea of "spirit" might be the electrochemical signals which run by way of electrical charges and neurotransmitters through the brain and central nervous system. In other words, the energy exchange system which not only powers the human body but carries all the thoughts, muscle commands, emotions, and memories through the firing of synapses.

So then perhaps from a modern viewpoint, rather than breath, "spirit" can be defined as "energy." "Energy" is something we can define and use in our framework of understanding and build off of (and lest someone balk at the idea of "God is energy" rather than "God is Spirit" on the grounds that it is equated God with a created thing let me remind you that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but, like God Himself is described, appears to be eternal; it's the first law of thermodynamics). It makes no sense to continue to use a first century Greco-Roman understanding of how things work two thousand years later when that understanding has been soundly disproven.

Here's the thing, I follow these trains of thought because I do believe, not because I don't. I try to understand and explain because I believe there are reasonably sound explanations out there without having to resort to disparaging people or doubting one's own beliefs, and I also believe that its okay to incorporate new data to help flesh out those beliefs or even modify them where they don't fit all the data presented so that you ultimately get a richer, more full picture rather than a Sunday School cartoon, however comforting it might be.

God says "trust Me" a lot, but He rarely ever says "don't question." He always works within the framework or worldview the person He's communicating with has and doesn't appear to see the need to correct misunderstandings about the universe or even His own nature where they don't conflict with His intentions towards the person. It is a truth that no human being will ever fully understand who or what He is, and that's okay. But it's equally true that it's okay to be curious and to want to know more about Him as He fits within reality, not some imaginary fantasy. In my opinion, and within my own framework of understanding, the closer you look and the more pieces you put together the more awesome and mind blowing He really is.

So go ahead and ask those questions which don't appear to make sense on the surface. Do the digging. Ask about that rock so big that God can't lift it and other uncomfortable questions about omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence, eternity, and all of the other things attributed to Him, but then look for the answers and be prepared to adjusted your framework of belief when you get them. It's okay to do it. I'm pretty sure He would rather you spend your time trying to get to know Him better than ignoring Him completely.

An Unconventional Theology - Chapter 5

Note: This is a very rough draft and is subject to revision.

Chapter 5 – Salvation

The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9, WEB)

“Or are you ignorant that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried together with Him through the baptism into the death so that just like Christ was awakened from among the dead through the splendor of the Father so also would we walk with a freshness of life. Because if we had become grown together in the resemblance of His death, but also will we be of His resurrection, knowing this that our old human being was crucified together with Him so that the body of Hamartia would be left unemployed so as for us to no longer be enslaved to Hamartia. Because the person who died has been set right from Hamartia. Yet if we died together with Christ we believe that we will also be made alive together with Him, knowing that Christ being awakened from among the dead no longer dies, death no longer owns Him. Because what died to Hamartia, died once and for all. Yet what lives, lives to God.” (Romans 6:4-10, my translation)

Yahweh’s goal with the descendants of ‘adam since their malfunction has always been to save as many human beings as possible from it. One could argue that, being who and what He is, He could have simply made it go away in a kind of “reset”. One could also use the same argument and ask why He took any time at all in creating the universe, be it six days (as I have argued against) of billions of years. I cannot give a definitive reason for this, to be honest, but I can speculate based on His behavior as recorded in the Holy Scriptures and my own limited understanding of His Existence and His relationship to creation which I wrote about in the first chapter.

My limited answer to this question is that the course of action He chose was to produce the best possible outcome even if it appears to be the messiest and most painful at times. Imagine a pool of still water. Now, throw a pebble into it. The pebble creates ripples outward from where it entered the pool. Now imagine two or more such pebbles hitting the surface in proximity to one another. The ripples they create interact with and change one another. Now imagine millions of such ripples across the surface, billions, trillions even. Each one affecting the one next to it, which affects another next to that and so on across the surface of the pool in a chain reaction. Every reaction is interconnected with every other reaction. Like those pebbles on the pool, every event, every action, every thought has an effect on everyone and everything around the source. One minor ripple, or a lack of one, changes the whole pattern. Yahweh, being who and what He Is, knows all possible outcomes to every decision, action and interaction and the succeeding consequences of them into infinity.

Allowing the afflicted descendants of ‘adam to continue to exist with the affliction may have been the only path available to Him where anything or anyone survived beyond Himself. That no descendant of ‘adam should survive was unacceptable to Him. He has also demonstrated a refusal to interfere with anyone’s individual volition or free will though He certainly has the ability to do so. He appears to respect a human being’s free will far more than human beings themselves do, and this respect appears to extend to those sentient creatures described in the Holy Scriptures as “messengers” (Greek “angelos”, Hebrew “mal’akh”). It is clear that, even though one or more of these messengers has itself malfunctioned and appears to be psychotic, He has not chosen to “reset” them neither has He chosen to wipe them from existence in time and space, which He is perfectly capable of doing. Yahweh never appears to take the “easy” route or answer to a problem, and Hamartia is no exception.

In any discussion of salvation from Hamartia as I have described it, there are several points to consider. These points come from Holy Scripture, psychobiology, Christian ritual tradition, and quantum mechanics.

Because Hamartia is both biological and hereditary (Romans 5:12; 7:14-18), it is ingrained into the very DNA of the human body which encodes how the human brain and nervous system are to develop. This human psychiatric malfunction brought on by the damage caused by the consumption of a toxic fruit cannot be escaped from by a human being as long as that human being remains alive. While one may be able to be trained to live a life with relatively normal functioning, the only true cure as such for this malfunction is death. The human body, in particular the brain and neural connections within it, has to die.

Functionally, this is no different than any other hereditary or genetic disorder a human being may be born with. A person can learn to live with, say, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and even learn to function with relative normalcy, but the disorder or malfunction in the brain doesn’t disappear. The afflicted person has merely grown adept at working around it or in spite of it. The same is true of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Clinical Sociopathy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and other biologically based developmental and psychiatric disorders. With time and training (and at times pharmacological or neurofeedback intervention), depending on the severity of the condition, it is possible for such people to lead a relatively normal life, but the disorder never actually goes away because it is hardwired into the brain and nervous system. They will be at least occasionally reminded of their limitations through social and relational mistakes whether they want to be or not.

How then do you apply the cure while preserving the patient if the only cure is death? Physical death shuts down the central nervous system, stops the electro-chemical impulses which make up thought, memory, emotion, and physical action, and begins to degrade and decompose the neurons of the brain thus destroying the person that once existed. From a purely human standpoint, physical death is irreversible. Furthermore, even if it was reversible by human technologies, the inherent psychiatric problem in the human brain would remain.

As Jesus said, however, what is impossible for a human being is possible for the Being I described in the first chapter.

Within the human brain and nervous system, information is carried through the firing of synapses between neurons (a neuron being the functional, biological equivalent of a transistor in a computer’s logic circuit, albeit far more complex). Synapses fire through a process of electro-chemical impulses. As every neural network is unique to the individual person, these electro-chemical impulses form a pattern within the brain and nervous system which is unique to the individual person. In order to preserve the human person after the physical death of the body, this pattern of the human person’s electro-chemical impulses (their neural energy, so to speak) would have to be preserved and maintained. In order for this to occur outside of the original neural network a virtual neural network would have to be created where those energies could continue to function.

A similar concept exists with different computer operating systems (OS) in what are called “virtual machines”, software meant to replicate the functions of computer hardware in order to run one OS inside of another without interfering with the computer’s base OS. This is often done to run old video games, for example, that were meant to run on consoles with completely different processors from a typical desktop computer’s. Software written for one type of processor will not run on a different type of processor. Virtual machines solve this problem by replicating the different processor. It is also done in order to provide an extra layer of protection against malware and viruses from affecting the base OS of a computer.

But even if the neural energy pattern of a human neural network is preserved virtually, the information that the neural energy carries, the “psyche”, will still be corrupted due to its corrupted or malfunctioning origins. The human psyche is a combination of biology, experiences, and the personal choices based on the two former. All of these things “program” the human psyche informing it of “who” it is supposed to be. If the biological part of the human being is corrupted, the human psyche encoded in that pattern of neural energy will be corrupted.

So, while the psyche of the human being may be preserved virtually, so to speak, that preservation does not repair it from the corruption caused by the flawed biology. How then might it be repaired either before or after the need for “virtualization”?

According to modern physics, all energy is transmitted through particles, this transfer being referred to as radiation (this is a simplistic statement but functionally accurate for this discussion, for further reading see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physics). According to quantum mechanics, the branch of science which governs subatomic particles, it is possible for two otherwise independent particles to become entangled in such a way that one cannot be observed or measured without a direct correlation or impact on the other even at great distances. It is an effect which Albert Einstein famously described as “spooky action at a distance” and attempted to disprove. This phenomenon however has been replicated under laboratory conditions with various kinds of particles associated with both matter and energy and even tiny diamonds (for further reading see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement). It stands to reason that it is also possible to entangle the particles which transmit human neural energy thus also opening the possibility of changing or “reprogramming” that information set conveyed by that neural energy to conform it to another as well as opening the possibility of external control through manipulation of the exterior entangled particles.

It would stand to reason, in my own opinion, that the ideal pairing for such an entanglement would be the particles from another human being’s own neural energy due to the extreme similarity there would be in neural patterns (as opposed to another species for example). In order to effect the necessary changes, however, it would have to be from an uncorrupted neural pattern. In other words, the “input” side of the entangled pair would have to come from a human being born without the genetic malfunction, Hamartia. As was previously discussed in chapter three, the only known human being born like this (possibly due to His parthenogenesis) is Jesus Christ.

It is the founding belief of the Christian faith that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and that belief in Him and in these truths effects salvation from one’s sin (Hamartia). Different denominations of Christianity hold different interpretations of what exactly is meant or undertaken by “believing”, but in general all hold to this basic understanding.

It is also the general understanding that Christ’s death on the cross was a substitutionary sacrifice similar to those sacrifices prescribed in the Torah, and in particular a kind of recreation of the Passover sacrifice, on which day that year (April 3^rd, 33 C.E.) He was actually executed. In other words, Jesus Christ died instead of those who were supposed to die due to their sin, the demand for one dying because of Hamartia being satisfied.

How then do you entangle the particles of neural energy between two human beings across space and time? One method of quantum entanglement which has been used to study entangled photons involves shooting a laser through a particular crystal, splitting the light and resulting in entangled photons. Obviously, this method cannot be used in this case, but Yahweh, being who and what He is, is not limited to such things. Since the beginning of the Christian faith, there have been rites performed where this appears to be the express intent.

According to traditional Christian belief and the Scripture I began this chapter with, those who are baptized “into Jesus Christ”, immersed into water during a specific ritual involving prayer and invocation of the Holy Trinity and the name of Jesus Christ, are joined or “grown together” with Him in this death as well as in His resurrection. Again, this interpretation varies by denomination, but in general most accept that it is by baptism that one first becomes “entangled” with Jesus Christ.

Notice in particular that in the traditional rite of baptism, the officiant prays over the baptismal water, asking the Holy Spirit to come and change or indwell the water itself. This prayer takes several forms, some longer, and some shorter depending on the denominational liturgy involved, but all include touching the water and praying something along these lines:

Now sanctify this water, we pray you, by the power of your
Holy Spirit, that those who here are cleansed from sin and
born again may continue for ever in the risen life of Jesus
Christ our Savior. (Book of Common Prayer, Episcopal Church)

Entanglement also appears to be the goal with another of the traditional, even foundational Christian rites, that of Holy Communion, also called Holy Eucharist. This is the Christian rite whereby, in the traditional “sacramental” denominations, the officiant or “celebrant” invokes what is commonly referred to as the “Last Supper”, consecrating a loaf or round of bread and (traditionally) a red wine in a chalice or cup. During this rite, in every denomination, the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25, known as the anamnesis, are repeated:

that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,“Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.” In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”(WEB)

In the sacramental denominations a further prayer, known as the epiclesis, is often added explicitly invoking the Holy Spirit to change the offered bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

From The Divine Liturgy of St. James (Public Domain), the oldest surviving liturgy of Eastern Orthodoxy and dating to at least the 4^th century:

The sovereign and quickening Spirit, that sits upon the throne with Thee, our God and Father, and with Thy only-begotten Son, reigning with Thee; the consubstantial and co-eternal; that spoke in the law and in the prophets, and in Thy New Testament; that descended in the form of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ at the river Jordan, and abode on Him; that descended on Thy apostles in the form of tongues of fire in the upper room of the holy and glorious Zion on the day of Pentecost: this Thine all-holy Spirit, send down, O Lord, upon us, and upon these offered holy gifts; that coming, by His holy and good and glorious appearing, He may sanctify this bread, and make it the holy body of Thy Christ+++. And this cup the precious blood of Thy Christ+++. That they may be to all that partake of them for remission of sins, and for life everlasting, for the sanctification of souls and of bodies, for bearing the fruit of good works, for the stablishing of Thy Holy Catholic Church, which Thou hast founded on the Rock of Faith, that the gates of hell may not prevail against it; delivering it from all heresy and scandals, and from those who work iniquity, keeping it till the fulness of the time.

A more simplified version that might be used could be:

We ask You Almighty Father that You would send Your Holy Spirit upon this bread+ and upon this cup+ that they might become for us the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the one sacrifice for the whole world.

Both of these aforementioned rituals were first referred to early on in the Eastern Orthodox rites as mysteries (From Greek “mysterion”, “mystery”), because they were connected with the “mystery” of God’s saving work through Jesus Christ and thus associated with salvation. In the western Roman Catholic rites and its descendants they became referred to in the third century by Tertullian as sacraments (from Latin “sacramentum”, “sacred oath”). A sacrament may be traditionally defined as “a visible sign of an invisible grace.” That is, through the participation in the visible actions of a sacrament, an unseen, beneficial action of a “spiritual” nature occurs. According to traditional sacramental theology, belief in the effect of the sacrament is required on the part of the one performing the sacrament as well as on the part of the one receiving the sacrament in order for it to take place.

This necessity of belief in the effect originated with Jesus Christ Himself as applied to the healings and demonstrations of power described in the Gospels, and is explicitly stated by Him as well as the Gospel narrators:

When he had come into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They told him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matthew 9:28-29, WEB)

Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.”His servant was healed in that hour. (Matthew 8:13, WEB)

Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.” Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:22-24, WEB)

Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says. Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them. (Mark 11:22-24, WEB)

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned. (Mark 16:16, WEB)

While he still spoke, one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house came, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead. Don’t trouble the Teacher.” But Jesus hearing it, answered him, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe, and she will be healed.” (Luke 8:49-50, WEB)

He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:58, WEB)

He could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people, and healed them. He marveled because of their unbelief. (Mark 6:5-6, WEB)

He said to them, “Because of your unbelief. For most certainly I tell you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20, WEB)

It should be noted while discussing the necessity of belief that there is a controversy within Christian theology concerning whether one is “saved” by belief or faith alone, or whether or not good works are required, both sides citing various passages from Holy Scripture to back up their claim. This controversy misunderstands the nature of belief. If a person believes something they will act as though that belief is true. If one believes a chair will hold their weight, they will have no qualms about sitting in it. If one does not, they will hesitate at the very least if not outright refuse. Actions follow belief or it is not belief. Jesus Himself was clear that it was the person who did what He said and not just the person who heard what He said who would be delivered. The person who did what He said was the person who actually believed what He said. One cannot have “belief alone” or it is not belief.

Returning for a moment to quantum mechanics, there are several principles which have been experimentally verified. The first is a unique phenomenon called the “observer effect”. Essentially the observer effect is where the mere observation of a phenomenon changes that phenomenon. A second is called the “uncertainty principle” which states that one cannot accurately measure both the position and the velocity of a particle at the same time. A third is called “quantum superposition” which states that “a quantum system such as an atom or photon can exist as a combination of multiple states corresponding to different possible outcomes” and “a quantum system remains in superposition until it interacts with, or is observed by the external world” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat). One of the more well known practical demonstrations of these principles is in experiments designed to determined if light, carried by the photon, is a particle or a wave. The result of the experiment is always determined by the expectation of the outcome. When an observer expects to see a wave, they see a wave. When an observer expects to see a particle, they see a particle. The state of the photon remains indeterminate until the observer decides what it is. In other words, the expectation of, or belief in, an outcome directly impacts the reality of the outcome.

In order for a human being to initiate and maintain the process of being delivered from Hamartia the quantum particles of that person’s neural energy must become entangled with Jesus Christ’s. The process of entanglement begins upon initial belief and baptism and continues with the reception of Holy Eucharist. According to Jesus’ own statements, this entanglement must be maintained through the physical death of the human being:

Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:4-6, WEB)

The person eating My flesh and drinking My blood remains in Me and I in him. (John 6:56, my translation)

This understanding of maintaining that entanglement through identification with Jesus Christ persists well into the writings of St. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament:

Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:11-13, WEB)

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2, WEB)

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20, WEB)

However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you. Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind. Brothers, be imitators together of me, and note those who walk this way, even as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:8-21, WEB)

If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry; for which things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. You also once walked in those, when you lived in them; but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator, where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do. Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord. Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him. (Colossians 3:1-16, WEB)

This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him. But whoever keeps his word, God’s love has most certainly been perfected in him. This is how we know that we are in him: he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked. (1 John 2:3-6, WEB)

I previously discussed the virtualization of the human neural pattern in order that the psyche of the human being encoded in that pattern may be preserved. But preserved for what? It is the express understanding of Holy Scripture that the intention of Yahweh towards the descendants of ‘adam is resurrection into a physical body similar to the one in which the psyche of the individual person originated. Jesus talked about this resurrection frequently, the New Testament authors assumed it, and it is explicitly described in the Book of Revelation:

But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage. For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.” Luke 20:35-38, WEB)

“Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Most certainly, I tell you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man. Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes, in which all that are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:24-29, WEB)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26, WEB)

Because if we have become grown together in the resemblance of His death, but also will we be of His resurrection. (Romans 6:5, my translation)

I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as didn’t worship the beast nor his image, and didn’t receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived, and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead didn’t live until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. … I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works.(Revelation 20:4-6, 11-13, WEB)

The question then might be asked, “why?” Why go to the trouble of creating or restoring a functionally similar yet otherwise immortal body to each individual psyche of every descendant of ‘adam who has ever lived?

To answer this question, we must return to the observation that Yahweh, for His own reasons, had taken a special interest in ‘adam to begin with. His goal after the malfunction was initially preservation and deliverance from it for as many as possible within the scope of what He would and would not do and the impact His actions would have on the final outcome. Virtualization of a human neural pattern, while preserving it in the short term, can never be considered a long term or permanent solution.

Also, as I previously stated when discussing virtualization, software written for one type of processor will not be able to run on another type. A program written for an x86 type processor will not run on a powerpc type processor. The reason for this is the configuration of the transistors which form the logic circuit of the processor. A piece of software is, essentially, a set of instructions to turn transistors either “on” or “off” in a particular sequence and is dependent on how the transistors are arranged and connected to one another within the circuit. Different types of processors arrange and configure them differently.

The neurons in the human brain are also configured in certain ways that are unique to the individual brain. As a result, a neural pattern which originated in one configuration will likely not run within another. This necessitates recreating the original neural configuration in order to restore the human person completely. I should note, that this necessity really would only extend to the brain and central nervous system. The rest of the human body technically only exists to service, maintain, and give functional form to the brain and nervous system wherein the psyche resides. Therefore, such restoration would not preclude the possibility of repair or other potentially beneficial changes to the skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, or other systems of the body.

As to the immortality of the restored body, I could not intelligently comment on that except to say it is likely that biological structures as we understand them would not be involved. According to Holy Scripture, after Jesus Christ was resurrected, He did consume food and liquids, although whether this was a necessity might be debatable. It is also recorded that the wounds which were inflicted on Him during the crucifixion, including the spear puncture in His side which had penetrated His heart, were clearly visible yet did not impede His function and apparently did not cause Him pain when He showed them to His disciples. It also does not appear that there was any other discernible degradation or decomposition of His body over the period of forty days between the resurrection and the ascension suggesting that such processes had been arrested regardless of the lack of blood flow (His heart had been punctured and so had His wrists and ankles, if the wound was still clearly visible in His side it is a safe assumption that the heart puncture had not been closed either). It might be safe to speculate from this that all regular biological processes within the resurrected body had been arrested in some fashion and that His body was operating due to processes not currently understood.

There is in traditional Christian theology (though rarely touched upon among modern, especially Protestant, theologians) a concept which in the Eastern Orthodox Church is called “theosis” and in the western Church, if it is discussed, is called alternately either “deification” or divinization. Theologically, it is a human being taking on the nature of God, sharing His life fully and completely in everything except His Essence or Substance. The Fathers of the Church wrote about it in explicit terms (citations are taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)):

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: “[God] became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.”

St. Clement of Alexandria: “he who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him … becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh.”

St. Athanasius: “God became man so that men might become gods.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria: “[we] are called 'temples of God' and indeed 'gods,' and so we are.”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus: “become gods for God's sake, since (God) became man for our sake.”

St. Augustine: “God was made man, that man might be made God.” ... “It is clear that he called men gods being deified by his grace and not born of his substance. For he justified, who is just of himself and not from another, and he deifies, who is god of himself and not by participation in another. … If we have been made sons of God, we have been made gods; but this is by grace of adoption and not of the nature of our begetter.” … “Our full adoption as sons will take place in the redemption of our body. We now have the first fruits of the spirit, by which we are indeed made sons of God. In other respects, however, since we are not yet finally saved, we are therefore not yet fully made new, not yet sons of God but children of the world.”

St. John of the Cross: “In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul... is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favour, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before.”

Orthodox Bishop Kallistos (Timothy) Ware writes, “By virtue of this distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies, we are able to affirm the possibility of a direct or mystical union between man and God—what the Greek Fathers term the 'theosis' of man, his 'deification'--but at the same time we exclude any pantheistic identification between the two: for man participates in the energies of God, not in the essence. There is union, but not fusion or confusion. Although 'oned' with the divine, man still remains man; he is not swallowed up or annihilated, but between him and God there continues always to exist an 'I—Thou' relationship of person to person.” (Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way, rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998)

One ancient writer uses the illustration of a piece of metal and a fire. If you place the piece of metal into the fire, it will eventually take on the properties of the fire’s light and heat. The metal still remains metal and yet it has all the properties of the fire as well. Here I can only speculate that this process believed and taught by the leaders of the Church may have something to do with how a physical body may be reformed and reanimated without the need for biological processes to maintain it.

Finally, as I have noted previously, the preservation of the human neural pattern has nothing to do with the correction of the human neural pattern. Yahweh has made it clear that the decision to be treated for Hamartia is left to the individual human being regardless of His decision to preserve every human being. Thus, restoration of the psyche to a physical body without entanglement with Jesus Christ will result in an immortal human being still afflicted with Hamartia. It stands to reason that such individuals will need to be contained in order to prevent them from causing harm to either themselves, others, or to the rest of creation.

This is not so different from the way human societies tend to operate today. If a person becomes a demonstrable threat to themselves or to others, they are contained. If they are deemed insane or psychotic, they are contained in asylums or treatment centers. Regardless of the level of care in such places, if the person’s mind is imbalanced or corrupted, it will be a hellish experience for them. The same is true of an immortal human being still afflicted with Hamartia and not able to function “normally”. If such a human being’s body is, like Jesus’ resurrected body, arrested in an unchanging state, then there is no possibility of removal from containment as there is no further possibility of treatment which requires the ability of the brain to change states. They will be trapped in immortal yet still flawed physical brains and bodies indefinitely. It should go without saying that there is no such need for containment or confinement of those who have submitted to treatment and have successfully completed it.