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Jesus came preaching the kingdom of Heaven or the kingdom of God. This kingdom was much more than a concept in the primitive
Christian Church. To break out of unhelpful tired conceptual religious paradigms, I
would like to put it to you that the Kingdom of God is the Virtue Matrix. Please test the hypothesis against the recorded
sayings of Jesus on the Kingdom. the Virtue Matrix is a realm or Node that is at once independent of the
earthly realm in which we live, yet also intersects with our realm
in certain points. the Virtue Matrix is a realm not of empty Space in
which separated entities exist, but a person realm, a fullness of a
fully aware potential goodness (in the form of love joy peace etc)
activated by mutually interactive person perception. The creative
perceptions of persons who know the virtues. These persons can be understood as words perceived or conceived
by wisdom. Songs as sung by Angels. These are the persons who are truly born of the Spirit to
restate a cliché badly damaged by Christian fundamentalism. An understanding of virtues requires a reversal of the
depersonalising 20th Century wiring pioneered by Nietszche (beyond
Good and Evil) to accept the Virtues as real entities, not merely
concepts, values or emotions. One of the reasons Nietszche fought
against Christianity was for its adherence in his eyes to a
Platonism that expressed the Virtues as real entities. Nietzsche was
profoundly successful in depersonalising the Virtues and replacing
them with arbitrary values in modern Western thought. Virtues are synonymous with the fruit (birthing) of the Spirit as outlined in the New Testament. If Virtues are birthed by the
Spirit and the Spirit is Person, they would also consequently be
personal. Virtues have traditionally been portrayed as spirits. They have
been named as one of the 9 Choirs of Angels in traditional Christian
Angelology. Virtues are the stuff of Spiritual Bodies. St Paul discusses
spiritual bodies in some depth. A Spiritual Body paradigm based on
Virtues requires a shift from understanding body in an
individualistic sense. We can be conditioned to assume this by the
fact that our physical body is individuated. However the principal
function of a body is to not only to define a person, but to enable
interaction with other persons. Virtues act as spiritual bodies in
the sense that they bridge between one person and another. Two
persons cannot touch without sharing some virtue. Short of such a
communion, persons only touch mechanistically. Christianity assumes that life can continue after physical death.
Christianity uses such terms as spirit and soul. It is important to
note that spiritual body is not a contradictory term. It only
appears such to a dualistic mindset which equates spirit as
something that lives in a (physical) body. There are no vices in the Virtue Matrix. Vices are not conducive to
true communion and short circuit any possible experience of
the Virtue Matrix. Christians who do not properly understand that God is
only Good, cannot appreciate the true Kingdom of God. If for
example, if there is wrath within God, there can be no true openness
in his Kingdom. Jesus came to show us the Father as Love. And to enable us to
participate in the life of the God by being united to Him in whom
there is no vice. If a persons physical body dies, and they have lived according to the
flesh they cease to have something to define them. If they
have relied purely on sensory and physical interactions, their
isolation would become tragically apparent. Hell. Old age and the
gradual fading of the physical body can be a blessing for those who
have wisdom. The soul must invest itself in something more abiding -
the Virtue Matrix. To enter the Virtue Matrix is in effect to allow oneself to be embraced
by the Love of God, and to come to know this Love. Love is of God.
Love is the principal fruit of the Holy Spirit who is God. Love is
if you like the white light that is composed of all the other
Virtues like the colours of the Rainbow. See a picture of Angels carrying a recently deceased soul to
heaven. Interpret this as a person who has in their earthly life
fully embraced certain virtues. These virtues were not embraced
physically or intellectually, although there may have been physical
and intellectual components. These virtues were embraced by
something other that the now deceased physical body, and
consequently can still be embraced. The virtues who proceed from God return to God and into his
realm. Heaven. the Virtue Matrix. Jesus taught there was both a future and a present component to
the experience of the Kingdom, the Virtue Matrix. Consequently the
Spiritual Body can be experienced now, even though this experience
is admittedly not perceived in the fullness of the hereafter. For the practical outworking of the experience of the Virtue Matrix,
one must be cleansed of all attachment to vice. This cannot be
achieved without God ñ the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
We cannot just decide to be Good. This state is a gift, it is not
earned. It comes from allowing God to do it. It comes from being
born of the Spirit and filled with the Spirit of God, the source of
the Virtues. Where a person does not rely on their physical body to define
them, they rely on a unique and distinctive relationship to the
virtues. Every person has a different Virtue Fingerprint, formed
both through their being sourced as a word conceived in virtue,
and their knowledge and preference for certain virtues, in
infinitely different permutations. In another paradigm this
spiritual body could be called character. If we are prepared to die to the flesh, we can experience a
communion on the level of the spirit with others. This has been
referred to as the Communion of Saints. It was celebrated in the
primitive Christian Church in such forms as love Feasts and the kiss
of Peace. I suspect that in all these
cases the physical body was perceived not as a dualistic separate
entity but as a sacrament for the spiritual body. This is also
perhaps associated with the early rites of Christian initiation. The idea was that
true clothing was to be the clothing of the Virtues would mean that
there was no place for the vice of lust. There is a sense in which we can find and interact with people
who inhabit certain virtues or combination of virtues, by embracing
those virtues or combinations of virtues. Not all who attempt to do this are necessarily honourable, Jesus
spoke of people forcing their way into the Virtue Matrix and of wolves in
sheep's clothing, i.e. clothed superficially in Virtues. |
