Epistle of 2 Peter and Jude
Lorin Friesen, August 2019
The previous essay on 1 Peter interpreted the epistles of Peter from the viewpoint of Peter being given the keys in Matthew 16. This essay will be looking at 2 Peter from a similar perspective of developing Perceiver thought in order to interact with heaven. If this concept is unfamiliar, then please read the explanation in the essay on 1 Peter.
I have appended an analysis of the book of Jude to this essay on 2 Peter. That is because Jude is a single chapter and its content is very similar to the second and third chapters of 2 Peter.
My general hypothesis is that Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 are describing what I refer to as the theoretical return of Jesus. Instead of Christians being raptured to heaven, a rational concept of God and incarnation will be revealed to human society, resulting in what I call spiritual technology, in which existing technology will become spiritually empowered. 1 Peter describes a society that is looking forward to this event, while 2 Peter portrays a society that is living in the midst of spiritual power.
As usual, we will be quoting from the NASB. I used to think that the NASB accurately translated the original Greek. The NASB is more accurate than the NIV, the Living Bible, or the Message. However, I have repeatedly found the NASB mistranslating Greek words in order to conform to standard Protestant thinking. I am not suggesting that the NASB teaches heresy, because these mistranslations do not affect any primary Christian doctrines. However, the NASB does obscure the meaning of the original Greek text when attempting to do the level of analysis that we are doing in these essays. When the NASB adds a word to the English translation, it usually puts this word in italics. We will put such words in [square brackets], and if the NASB adds a word that is not in the original Greek, this may also be put in square brackets. The NASB often indicates a more literal translation in a footnote. We will always be using these literal translations, and we will often use the optional renderings. Therefore, if a quote from the NASB does not appear to match the NASB, please check the footnotes of the NASB first before concluding that there is a typo in this essay.
Table of Contents
1:1-4 Receiving Gifts
1:5-7 Developing Character
1:8-11 Growing versus Backsliding
1:12 Being Reminded
1:13-15 Peter’s Transformation
1:16-18 The Transfiguration
1:19-21 Prophetic Logos
2:1 False Prophets
2:2-3 Misusing Spiritual Technology
2:4-5 Sinning Angels
2:6-8 Sodom and Gomorrah
Ark Noah’s Ark
2:9-10 Godly versus Unrighteous
2:10-13 Mentally Stained
2:13-14 Co-existence
2:15-16 Balaam
2:17-19 Preserving Humanity
2:20-22 Being Overcome after Escaping
3:1-2 The Second Letter
3:3-4 Playing Games
3:5-6 Theory before Application
3:7 Quantum Field Theory?
3:8-9 God’s Plan
3:10-11 The Coming Judgment
3:12 A Coming Day of God
3:13-14 New Heavens and Earth
3:15-18 The Limitations of Technical Thought
1-3 Introduction to Jude
4 Holy versus Common
5-6 Abandoning the Teacher Source
7-8 Following Strange Flesh
9-10 The Body of Moses
11 Cain, Balaam, and Korah
12 Implicit Barriers
13 Revived Intuition
14-15 Enoch
16 Responding to Heavenly Intervention
17 Remembering Past Advice
18-19 Misusing Virtual Reality
20-21 Godly Virtual Reality
22-23 Saving Others
24-25 Reaching the Goal
The general context of 2 Peter can be seen in the first three verses of the epistle. Verse 1 opens by describing the relationship between Peter the Perceiver person and Jesus Christ the Contributor person. (The description of Jesus in the Gospels is consistent with Jesus being a Contributor person.) “Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.” Peter describes two facets to his relationship with incarnation. On the one hand, he is a bond-servant of Jesus Christ. This means that he has no option but to submit to the thinking and methodology of incarnation.
Summarizing very briefly, technical thought is a way of using the mind that is controlled by Contributor thought. A concept of incarnation is based in the combination of abstract technical thought and concrete technical thought. Abstract technical thought uses precise definitions to develop theories in Teacher thought. Math and logic are examples of pure abstract technical thought. Concrete technical thought uses a knowledge of cause-and-effect to pursue goals in Mercy thought. Business and sports are examples of concrete technical thought. Incarnation goes beyond abstract technical thought by being guided by a concept of God rather than by some paradigm of technical specialization. And incarnation goes beyond concrete technical thought by saving people rather than just improving things and experiences. Being a bond-servant of Jesus Christ means submitting to this form of thinking. This means coming up with rational explanations rather than claiming that God transcends rational thought in some mystical manner. And it means taking steps to solve problems rather than believing that God will step in with some magical solution. God may intervene in some divine fashion. But divine intervention always seems to be accompanied by some corresponding human action.
On the other hand, Peter also describes himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle comes up with some major breakthrough that extends the message of Incarnation. Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between Peter and Jesus Christ. On one hand, Peter submits to the Contributor-controlled technical thinking of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Peter is using Perceiver thought to expand and unfold the specialized thinking of technical thought. This summarizes the description of the keys of Peter in Matthew 16: Perceiver thought recognizes the supremacy of Contributor thought; Contributor thought recognizes that Perceiver connections make it possible to escape the limitations of specialization.
Receiving Gifts 1:1-4
Verse 1 continues: “To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” The word faith actually means to ‘be persuaded’. Received is only used four times in the New Testament and actually means ‘to obtain by lot’. (The Greek word inheritance means ‘apportioned inheritance by the casting of lots’.) Of the same kind is found once in the New Testament and means ‘equally privileged, held in equal honor’. (Notice how in the very first verse we find two examples of the English totally failing to convey the sense of the original Greek.) Verse 1 is not saying that everyone has received the same kind of faith. Instead, Peter is saying that he has received an inheritance of faith, and he is addressing this epistle to others who have also received an inheritance of faith by lot from God—which may be different that the faith of Peter but is equivalent in value. This does not fit into the normal evangelical framework, but it is consistent with the idea of God giving spiritual power to individuals in order to enable spiritual technology. Hebrews 2:4 describes something similar: “God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by distributions of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.”
These distributions are “in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ”. In means literally ‘in the realm of’. And righteousness describes behavior in Server thought that is guided emotionally by the TMN of a concept of God. I have suggested that spiritual technology will be preceded by a theoretical return of Jesus in which a rational understanding of God and incarnation becomes widely known. Verse 1 describes precisely this by saying that the various gifts of faith are functioning within the realm of being guided by God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Verse 2 emphasizes this relationship: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” The word knowledge is a strengthened term that means ‘contact-knowledge that is appropriate to first-hand, experiential knowing’. Thus, both God the Father and incarnation are being known in an experiential manner, but this experiential knowledge is also appropriate. This is consistent with the idea of a theoretical return of Jesus leading to spiritual technology. The result is grace, which describes help from God, and peace, which means ‘wholeness’. This is not just being added but rather multiplied, which means that it is being extended in a new direction. (That is how multiplication works.)
Verse 3 explicitly describes spiritual technology based in a new understanding of God. “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” The word translated seeing is actually a comparison which means ‘as, like as, even as’. Thus, verse 3 follows the pattern that was described in verses 1-2. Granted means ‘to give as a gift’. It is only used three times in the New Testament, twice in verses 3-4. This means that something is being given permanently as a gift. The source of this gift is ‘His divine power’. Power can refer either to natural or to supernatural power, but power goes beyond strength. Strength involves Server actions, while power uses Perceiver thought to multiply the effectiveness of Server actions. The word divine is also used only three times in the New Testament, with two of these times in verses 3-4. It means ‘manifesting the characteristics of God’s nature’.
Putting this together with verse 1, gifts of divine power that express the power of God are being given through divine choice (i.e. by lot). Pertaining actually means ‘motion towards’. Thus, this gift of divine power is heading towards the direction of life and godliness. Life refers to both physical and spiritual life. Godliness describes ‘someone’s inner response to the things of God which shows itself in godly piety (reverence)’. The mind uses mental networks to represent life, and living beings are driven by core mental networks. The purpose of these gifts of divine power is to demonstrate that there is a form of life that is related to God which is different and more special than normal physical life.
This concept of reverence for God has essentially been lost today. Acts 5:11-13 describes this sort of reverence. After Ananias and Sapphira died as a result of lying to God, “great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things. At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico. But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem.”
This gift of divine power comes through the ‘fitting experiential knowledge’ of ‘Him who called us’. Call implies that this process started with words in Teacher thought. This calling involves ‘His own glory and excellence’. Glory refers to an external expression of internal character. (The meaning of glory is discussed in another essay.) Excellence is another word that is found primarily in 2 Peter, which means ‘virtue (moral excellence) which is displayed to enrich life’. Both of these terms describe something internal that is good being displayed externally. In other words, God has a good character but it is hidden. God is giving gifts of divine power so that people can generate visible expressions of God’s invisible character.
Verse 4 goes even further: “Through which He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.” The word promise ‘focuses on the results of God’s promise’. And ‘granted’ is the same word that was used in verse 3, which means to give freely as a gift. Precious means ‘having recognized value in the eyes of the beholder’, and magnificent means ‘large, great, in the widest sense’. The English translations give the impression that God has given great promises but has not delivered anything yet. This is consistent with how Christianity is currently experienced. But the word ‘promise’ focuses upon the results of the promise, and ‘granted’ implies that something has been freely given. Similarly, ‘precious’ suggests that it is possible to see the value, and these promises have been given ‘through’ glory and excellence, which both indicate that something internal has become visible. The implication is that God has given gifts of divine power which are capable of generating amazing results but these results still need to be made real by the individuals who have received these gifts. Using an analogy, this is like giving the tools that are required to make useful gadgets instead of giving the gadgets themselves. (Notice the combination of divine intervention and human participation.)
This idea of potential reality can be seen in the next phrase of verse 4: “so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” By is literally ‘through’. A partaker is ‘a participant who mutually belongs and shares fellowship’. Nature means ‘inner nature, the underlying constitution or make-up of someone’. And divine was seen in verse 3 and means ‘manifesting the characteristics of God’s nature’. Putting this together, God is a universal being who lives within universal laws. But God is also an infinite being who is aware of all specific situations. People are being given gifts of divine power which can be expresses in many specific ways. For instance, I can plug many different kinds of devices into an electric plug. Electricity is a general power can express itself in specific ways depending upon the design of the specific object that is being plugged in. Giving humans an ability to transform general power into specific situations would allow humans to grasp how God functions. They would then start to have fellowship with the characteristics of God’s nature. Theology and Christian doctrine would stop being abstract facts and would turn into principles that resonate with personal experience.
Verse 4 finishes by describing the personal background: “having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” Escaped ‘emphasizes separation – a full breaking away from the previous situation’. Corruption describes ‘destruction from internal corruption’. Thus, two internal motivations are being contrasted. On the one hand, there is the internal Teacher-based concept of God and incarnation which is expressing itself through spiritual power. On the other hand, there are the MMNs of the childish mind, which is referred to as the lust in the realm of the cosmos. Cosmos summarizes the mental networks that one acquires from living in the physical universe. Lust refers to ‘passion built on strong feelings’. Thus, living in the physical world programs the mind with core mental networks that lead to corruption and destruction. That is because living within physical reality will lead to the general conclusion that the end justifies the means; achieving some physical end justifies following a shortcut that avoids internal character or expertise. For instance, if I want some object, I can steal it from my neighbor instead of acquiring it legitimately for myself. In contrast, a spiritual gift from God would only function effectively to the extent that a person had internal character and expertise.
Verse 4 is used by many as a proof text for mysticism. But that violates the context in two ways. First, the basic premise of mysticism is that one has a direct emotional interaction with God which bypasses the content and structure of incarnation. 2 Peter 1 in contrast is talking about an interaction between God and humanity which includes the content and structure of Jesus Christ the incarnation. Second, mysticism does not provide any basis for character, because mysticism asserts that God transcends all human character. In contrast, verse 4 talks about divine gifts that have moral implications.
Developing Character 1:5-7
Verses 5-8 summarize how one should respond to these gifts by developing moral character. Verse 5 begins “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge.” Diligence means to ‘move quickly, speed on’. Applying is only used once in the New Testament and combines ‘from close-beside’ with ‘bring into’. And all means ‘each part of a totality’. In other words, these steps will hit close to home emotionally, and they will have to be taken quickly in all areas.
The first step is literally ‘in the realm of your faith’. Remember that faith means to ‘be persuaded’. This means being guided by rational thought—acting as if some rational principle is true. Moral excellence was seen two verses earlier, and means ‘moral excellence which is displayed to enrich life’. This means making it obvious to everyone that this gift of power has a moral component which is designed to improve life. One does not downplay the moral implications, and one does not judge others with some moral code. Instead, one shows that the morality is required to make the gift helpful for humans. Technology is inherently amoral because it is based in an objective understanding of the physical universe. For instance, one can use the Internet either to facilitate commerce or to make it easier for governments and companies to spy on people. Spiritual technology would add a moral component, and it would be important to add this moral component as quickly and as pervasively as possible.
The verb supply is an unusual word that combines ‘appropriately on’ with ‘richly supply everything needed for an ancient chorus to be a grand production’. This verb is used five times in the New Testament, twice in 2 Peter 1. In ancient Greece, rich patrons would put on lavish religious and theatrical productions to be performed in the local theatre. As far as I can tell from the grammar, this verb ‘supply’ applies to all of the steps in verses 5-8. In other words, the moral component needs to be added in a big way. One can interpret this in two cognitively related ways. First, this could refer to the typical multimedia extravaganza that one sees in rock concerts and Olympic ceremonies. Second, it could also refer to focusing upon large issues and major topics. These two are related because a regime or society will often put on major productions in order to convey large messages. The point is that God deals with generalities and God is a universal being. Therefore, this concept of universality and generality needs to be conveyed. A regime will put on an extravaganza (such as the Nuremburg Rallies of Nazi Germany) in order to spread its moral message. Similarly, the larger-than-life rock concert is also often making a moral statement, which tends to be the amoral message that one should question moral standards of society. Spiritual technology needs to start by conveying the inherent morality at a large scale.
I am not promoting televangelism, because the average televangelist has little actual spiritual power and most of the magnification of the message comes from the use of amoral scientific technology. A religious message is being made to feel larger-than-life through the use of multimedia technology. Occasionally the real Holy Spirit shows up, but this often does not last for very long. Verse 5 is describing a future time after the theoretical return Jesus when people would have real, lasting access to spiritual power.
The second step is ‘and in [your] moral excellence, knowledge’. In means ‘in the realm of’ which indicates that knowledge is being added in the realm of virtue. Knowledge describes ‘experiential knowledge’. The NASB adds ‘your’ but this is not in the original Greek, implying that Peter is talking about a general principle. Morality applies universal principles to personal identity. The first step focused upon universality. If spiritual technology has moral implications, then people need to learn personally about these moral implications. This is quite different than the typical multimedia church service, where everyone is allowed to observe passively so that those who are watching from the sidelines do not feel morally condemned and decide to leave. Being ‘seeker friendly’ is a natural option when one only has a little spiritual power. But if spiritual power were to appear in force, then the crowds would gather in order to experience the emotional kick of a dopamine high (which activates Exhorter thought). This attractive force of having a spiritual high could then be combined with a repulsive force of adding personal implications. The end result would be like a moth drawn to flame, unable to get too close and yet unable to stay away. Such a juxtaposition of desires is cognitively significant because it enables free will.
Verse 6 continues with the third step: ‘and in [your] knowledge, self-control’. (The same Greek sentence structure is used in the second to seventh steps. In each case ‘your’ is not present, and ‘in’ means ‘in the realm of’.) Self-control is used four times in the New Testament (twice in this verse). It is the final trait in the list of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:23. And it means ‘dominion within, i.e. self-control – proceeding out from within oneself, but not by oneself’. This meaning is significant given the context. A rock concert sometimes releases moral inhibitions and leads to a lack of self-control. Similarly, the purpose of a mass rally is often to release personal inhibitions in order to whip up a crowd frenzy. But if the mass message has inherent personal implications, then the greater the spiritual power, the more terrified one will be of violating moral norms. Remember that the goal was to show that submitting to the rules had personal benefits. One is not following some set of rules being imposed by some authority, but rather following the rules in order to experience personal well-being. For instance, electricity is dangerous but useful. If one follows the rules when using electricity, then there are major personal benefits. But if one violates the rules when using electricity, then one can end up electrocuted and/or start a destructive fire.
The electrician who is working with high-voltage wires exhibits great self-control. This self-control is ultimately not being imposed by some authority but rather being motivated by an understanding of how electricity works and how to deal safely with electricity. Using cognitive language, the self-control is not being imposed by MMNs of personal status but rather by the TMN of a rational understanding, which leads to a form of self-control that ‘proceeds out from within oneself’.
The fourth step is perseverance. This is a fairly common word which means ‘remaining under’. In other words, the self-control needs to be exhibited for an extended period of time. This extended time is needed to transform emotionally driven self-control into self-control based in confidence. For instance, the first few times that an electrician handles high voltage, his actions probably will be dictated largely by fear: ‘I do not want to make a mistake and get killed’. In contrast, Perceiver thought and Server thought gain confidence in facts and skills through repetition. This repetition can only occur as one experiences similar situations repeatedly over time.
The fifth step is godliness, which ‘naturally expresses itself in reverence for God’. This word was seen back in verse 3 when describing the gift of divine power. Looking at this cognitively, learning a skill goes through the three stages of beginner, technician, expert. Perseverance is needed to become a technician. But if a technician repeats a skill for long enough, then he will start to apply this skill intuitively. Expert intuition is both fast and accurate; it is a gut response that can usually be trusted which is open to rational correction. Godliness describes following the TMN of a concept of God at the level of expert intuition. One naturally and intuitively thinks and behaves in a manner that expresses reverence for God. This level of expertise is impressive when dealing with normal skills and technology; it would be awe-inspiring when applied to the realm of spiritual power and spiritual technology. Those who reached this stage would become moral super-heroes who would provide positive role models for the rest of society. (I do not know if these moral super-heroes would qualify as comic book level superheroes, but it is possible that some of them might.)
The sixth step is brotherly kindness. The Greek word is philadelphia, which combines ‘loving friend’ with ‘from the same womb’. This term describes the emergence of a new meta-culture. A normal culture is formed by people who grow up in similar surroundings. A meta-culture emerges when people go through a similar kind of transformation. A third culture kid is an example of a meta-culture, because third culture kids share the common transformative experience of growing up in a country that is different than the country of their passport. Similarly, people who reached the fifth step of expert intuition would find themselves attracted to others with similar experiences. The specific spiritual power would be of secondary importance. Instead, what would matter is the struggle of learning to cope with this power and develop it in a moral manner. Agape love is guided by the morality of God. Philos love is more accurately ‘like’, in which one wants to be with one’s companions. Philadelphia describes wanting to be with people who have been spiritually reborn from the same womb. This kind of attraction can be found to some extent between Christians today, but feelings would run much deeper if one had to learn how to master a divine gift of spiritual power.
The final step is agape love, which is defined as ‘love which centers in moral preference’. Looking at this cognitively, when people with similar transformative experiences get together and start interacting socially, then what will emerge is an interdisciplinary concept of a God of morality. Each person who has gone through this process will acquire some of the pieces of the puzzle, and when these puzzle pieces are put together, they will form a big picture of love which centers in moral preference. This is what real church is supposed to achieve, and one occasionally encounters this in practice.
Growing versus Backsliding 1:8-11
Verse 8 says that what matters is the direction in which one is heading: “For if these [qualities] are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Useless adds a negative prefix to ‘a deed that carries out an inner desire’ and is defined as ‘inactive or idle’. This is like a car in which the motor is idling and the car is not travelling anywhere. If God is giving gifts of spiritual power to people, then an idling car is an accurate analogy of not using one’s gift. In contrast, a car that is in gear and driving is carrying out the inner desires of the driver.
Unfruitful adds a negative prefix to ‘fruit’. A fruit is alive, it grows, and it is eaten to sustain life. Here the connection is with mental networks. The mind uses mental networks to represent life, and the spiritual realm empowers mental networks. These two terms put together convey the sense of spiritual technology. Render means to ‘put in charge’ and is usually translated in the NASB as ‘put in charge’ or ‘appoint’. It occurs 22 times and is only translated as ‘render’ in this one verse. ‘Put in charge’ suggests that one has been given a gift and one is taking a mastery over this gift. Using an analogy, one has been given a car, one has taken driven lessons, and one is actually driving the car. At this initial stage, the temptation will be to not use one’s gift, because one is trying to cope with an unfamiliar power and one has not yet learned where this power can lead.
The word in actually means ‘to or into’. True knowledge was seen back in verses 2 and 3 and combines ‘fitting’ with ‘experiential knowledge’. Putting this together, Peter is saying that taking mastery of the gift will lead to gaining appropriate experiential knowledge of what it means to follow an integrated concept of incarnation. Using the car analogy, a car is a physical example of technical thought, because many parts that carry out specific actions of cause-and-effect have been assembled to form a general structure of order-within-complexity. Saying this another way, car parts that illustrate concrete technical thought have been assembled using abstract technical thought. Gaining mastery of the gift of a car will teach what it means to follow technical thought in an appropriate manner. Similarly, gaining mastery of one’s gift of power will teach what it means to follow incarnation in an appropriate manner.
Verse 9 describes the opposite: “For he who lacks these [qualities] is blind [or] short-sighted, having forgotten [his] purification from his former sins.” The two Greek words translated lack are ‘not’ and ‘to sit constantly beside’. ‘Lacking’ implies the absence of some object or skill. In contrast, Peter is saying that one has to continually sit beside the gift and not pull back from it. Thus, translating this as ‘lacking’ is actually an example of not ‘sitting constantly beside’, because one is reducing the need for close personal involvement to some abstract condition. In other word, the spiritual gift needs to be regarded as some sort of pet that needs to be continually fed, watered, and given close attention. That is why I mentioned that the temptation at this point will be to set one’s gift aside.
The person who does not ‘sit constantly beside’ is literally ‘blind, being short-sighted’. Blind means ‘blind’ and comes from a word that means ‘darkened by smoke’. Short-sighted is used once in the New Testament and means ‘shortsighted’. Presumably, this combination means that everything is dark and fuzzy, and only what is up close can be seen at all. One can understand what is happening by examining the idea of mental confidence. Perceiver and Server thought both use confidence, which I define as the ability to handle emotional pressure without falling apart. For example, I may have sufficient Server confidence to walk on a log without falling off, but not have enough Server confidence to walk on the same log if it is on top of a chasm. Gaining mastery of a gift of spiritual power would require considerable confidence. Confidence can only be gained by surviving exposure to emotional pressure, similar to the way that one becomes physically stronger by lifting weights. This confidence will grow if one is ‘sitting constantly beside’, which means surviving exposure to the emotional pressure of the gift of power. If one does not do this, then clear thinking will become overwhelmed by the power, leading to mental blindness. Saying this another way, one will become ‘drunk with power’. A person who is in such a state of mental blindness will attempt to cope by focusing upon the next step and the immediate surroundings, leading to mental shortsightedness.
Moving on, the phrase ‘having forgotten’ is literally ‘having receiving forgetfulness’. The noun forgetfulness is used once in the New Testament and comes from a verb that means ‘to escape notice’. And receiving means ‘to lay hold by aggressively (actively) accepting what is available ’. ‘Having forgotten’ implies that some piece of information has slipped the mind. Peter, in contrast, is talking about actively choosing to follow a path of ‘escaping notice’. One is deliberately choosing not to think about certain things. This is the opposite of ‘sitting constantly beside’. Using the analogy of a pet, one is choosing to ignore the pet when it comes up and wants to play; one is locking the pet in the garage and pretending that the pet is not there. This is easy to do when faced with strong emotions. For instance, when I taught high school, what made me tired was not the teaching itself but rather the emotional incidents that I had with students and parents. Teaching would have been much easier without these incidents. Similarly, the political correct notion of a safe place is an example of ‘aggressively laying hold’ of ‘escaping notice’, because one is deliberately choosing to avoid emotional encounters. When one follows such a path, then one’s level of mental confidence will drop, just as physical muscles tend to atrophy when they are not used. Thus, the more one retreats to a safe space, the more one will require safe spaces.
What is being deliberately forgot is “purification from his former sins”. Purification means ‘removing undesirable admixtures (eliminating impurities)’. Former means ‘long ago, of old’. And sin means to miss the mark. Peter said in verse 1 that he is addressing this epistle to those who have received gifts of spiritual power. Over the years I have observed the character of those who have spiritual ministries, and they all seem to have the common trait of being driven by some obsession. Paul talks about being obsessed in 1 Corinthians 9:16: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel”. Similarly, I am obsessed by the goal of pursuing mental wholeness. A person with an obsession is being driven single-mindedly to head in a certain direction. Using the language of mental networks, thinking and behavior are being driven by some set of core mental networks. This describes purity, because everything is made out of the same stuff. Pure water, for instance, contains only water molecules. A person with a pure mind will appear to others as obsessed, and this could be good or bad, depending upon the nature of the obsession. A person who willfully sets aside a spiritual power will become mentally impure, because the mind will no longer be motivated by this power in a single-minded fashion.
Verse 10 concludes, “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you.” The first two words in the Greek are ‘therefore’ and ‘rather’. What one should do instead is be diligent, which means ‘to move speedily by showing full diligence’. This verb was seen in noun form back in verse 5, where Paul talked about applying all diligence. Looking at this cognitively, one cannot sit back and treat the gift of power in a passive manner. One is either growing in mastery over this gift or else one is becoming mentally impure by avoiding the gift. This is a universal cognitive principle that applies at all times, but it would be especially applicable if one were trying to master the gift of some spiritual power. Certain means ‘solid enough to walk on’. Thus, one is not just becoming certain of some abstract fact but rather gaining sufficient confidence to handle the weight of personal identity. Using an analogy, one is learning to walk on the log, even when it is on top of a chasm.
This certainty involves calling and election. Calling means ‘to call, summon’. Election means ‘a (divine) selection’. Verse 1 provides the context for this election. God is not choosing who will go to heaven. Instead, God is choosing to give gifts of power to people. But this gift will not lead automatically to success. Instead it is a calling that has to be followed by a diligence and a ‘sitting constantly beside’ in order to build confidence that is ‘solid enough to walk on’. Using the car analogy, people who buy a supercar will often crash their multimillion dollar vehicle within a day of purchasing it. That is because they have bought the vehicle without building driving skills that are ‘solid enough to walk on’, or in this, solid enough to drive with. This confidence has to be made, which means ‘to make, do’. This refers to Server confidence, which carries out actions, and not to Perceiver confidence which believes in facts. Thus, the illustration of walking on a log or driving an exotic supercar is appropriate. In simple terms, can one drive the spiritual power without crashing?
This emphasis upon Server thought is brought out by the rest of verse 10: “For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.” Practice is the same word ‘to make, do’ that indicates Server actions, and it is in the form ‘practicing’, which means that one is continually performing Server actions and not just occasionally doing something. Thus, ‘as long as you practice these things’ is more accurately ‘practicing these things’. Using the pet analogy, one is taking the dog out for a walk every day and not just occasionally petting the dog when one feels guilty. Stumble is used five times in the New Testament and means ‘to cause to stumble, to stumble’. ‘Never’ in Greek is the two words ‘not’ and ‘at one time or other’. In other words, as one is carrying out the Server sequence, one will not stumble at step three or at step seventeen. Using the log analogy, one will to be able to walk along the entire log without stumbling, including the slippery section where the bark has come off the log.
Verse 9 talked about being short-sighted. Verse 11 turns to the long-term. “For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” Supply is the same verb that was seen in verse 5, which means to ‘richly supply everything needed for an ancient chorus to be a grand production’. And richly means ‘much in quantity’. In verse 5, the person with the gift was doing the supplying. In verse 11, the supplying is being done to this person. These two are related by in this way, which means ‘in this manner, in this way’. Thus, the manner in which one treats the gift of power from the Teacher perspective of a grand production will determine the manner in which one ultimately receives a reward from the Teacher perspective of a grand production.
This Teacher perspective can be seen in the phrase ‘eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’. Earthly kingdoms use grand productions to promote the Teacher grandeur of their regimes. God is giving gifts of power to people in order to see if they are capable of using this power to promote the Teacher grandeur of his eternal regime. Verse 9 talked about gaining appropriate experiential knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The emphasis there was upon submitting to the technical rules and procedures of incarnation. Verse 11 adds ‘and savior’. This is actually a duplication because the name Jesus means ‘savior’. One is submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ in the present in order to experience the salvation of Jesus Christ in the future.
Going further, the word entrance means ‘an entrance, a means or place of entering’. Thus, if one has used God’s gift to promote Teacher generality, then one will enter God’s kingdom in a position of Teacher generality. I should add that this does not mean acting arrogant or grandiose. Instead, it means treating the character and message of God as general principles in Teacher thought that apply universally. Doing this usually requires adopting an attitude of humility, because one is submitting to a universal law in Teacher thought rather than imposing one’s person in Mercy thought.
Being Reminded 1:12
Verse 12 emphasizes the need to continually remind oneself of these principles. “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things.” Ready means ‘at the very point of acting’. And always means ‘always, unceasingly, perpetually; on every occasion’. In other words, this is the topic that Peter will continually be returning to; it will always be on the tip of his tongue, waiting to come out. There is a cognitive reason for this. Peter was a Perceiver person, and a Perceiver person is consciously aware of the confidence that is required to handle emotional pressure, because Perceiver thought in the mind is continually being threatened by emotional Mercy experiences. The Server person is not as aware of the need for confidence, because one can build Server confidence by merely repeating some action. Perceiver confidence, in contrast, can only be gained by facing some emotional situation and choosing to hold on to the facts in the middle of the emotions. I know what that means because I am a Perceiver person.
The word remind means ‘to remember because prompted’. Emotions drive the mind. Mercy thought and Teacher thought with their emotions determine the focus of attention and behavior. Therefore, the default is to follow emotions without thinking about the need for confidence. However, the Perceiver person is aware of the need for confidence, because conscious thought is continually being threatened as emotions drag the mind willy-nilly in one direction after another. Conscious thought for the developing Perceiver person is like riding a wild horse while continually being aware of the possibility of being thrown to the ground. Therefore, Perceiver thought will always be on the verge of prompting the rest of the mind to remember the need to follow steps that build confidence. (The Contributor person approaches confidence somewhat differently. He will ride the wild horse with the certainty that nothing could go wrong, because he has worked out beforehand how he will respond to each possible circumstance. This total confidence will crack when some new factor emerges for which Contributor thought has no solution.)
Verse 12 continues “even though you [already] know [them]”. The original Greek uses two words: Even though, and know, which means ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. This is a different word for knowing that has not been used so far, which will be repeated in verse 14. This kind of knowing describes empirical evidence; one observes situations in the external environment and determines the facts. This is not the same as having internal confidence in facts.
For instance, dire warning messages are printed on cigarette packages in many countries. As of November 9, 2019, “Tobacco products in Canada must be sold in packages that are brown, devoid of all colours and logos and feature large, graphic health warnings, according to new federal rules that health experts say are the toughest in the world.” When one holds an ugly package with a picture of a diseased lung accompanied by the statement in large letters that ‘smoking causes emphysema’, then the result is ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. But people will still smoke because they do not have sufficient confidence in Perceiver facts to handle the emotional pressure of wanting a cigarette. Similarly, many people will know objectively of the need to gain mastery over spiritual power, but they will not have the internal confidence that is required to gain actual mastery over their spiritual power.
Verse 12 concludes, “and have been established in the truth which is present with [you].” The NASB gives the impression that people are internally believing in truth. But the Greek says something slightly different. Truth means ‘true to fact, reality’. Present with is the same word ‘to sit constantly beside’ that was seen in verse 9. And in actually means ‘in the realm of’. Thus, people are now living with truth that is backed up by reality which remains inconveniently close. This is like being surrounded by high-voltage power lines. Established means to ‘solidly plant (which eliminates vacillation)’. If one were surrounded by high-voltage power lines, then it would be very important not to vacillate, because one wants to move carefully and deliberately and know exactly where one is at all times. The Greek is ‘having been established’, which means that one has learned through practice how to move in a safe manner. This is a necessary skill, but it is also a short-term skill that focuses upon the immediate situation. One has learned how to stay in one piece right now without getting fried by spiritual power, but this does not necessarily mean that one has learned how to apply this power effectively over the long-term.
Peter’s Transformation 1:13-15
In verse 13 Peter refers to his own mortality: “I consider it right, as long as I am in this [earthly] dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder.” Looking at this literally, Peter was writing this shortly before he was martyred by Nero in 68 AD. But one can also regard this cognitively as a transformation of Perceiver thought.
Looking at the Greek text, consider means ‘to lead the way (going before as a chief)’. Right means ‘righteous’. In other words, Peter is not just relating some personal opinion which he considers to be correct. Rather, he is focusing upon righteousness as the leading concept. Righteousness describes Server actions that are guided by the TMN of a concept of God. Using an analogy, technology is guided by the righteousness of building devices that behave in a manner way that expresses a Teacher understanding of the laws of science. Everything in the physical universe obeys the laws of nature. But if one understands the laws of nature in Teacher thought, then one can design and build gadgets that behave in a manner that takes advantage of these laws of nature. For instance, one can channel electricity by purifying a metal such as copper or aluminum, drawing it into a wire, and then coating this wire with insulation. Peter has talked so far about learning how to build the mental equivalent of electrical wire, which means learning how to handle spiritual power without being overcome by this power. Focusing upon righteousness as the leading concept is like thinking about how one can use these newly developed electrical wires to implement the laws of nature.
A dwelling is ‘a pitched tent’. Physically, Peter is referring to his physical body as a tent. Cognitively, Peter is talking about Perceiver thought occupying some temporary location. As long as this is the case, Peter will stir up, which means to ‘wake out of sleep, arouse in general’. This waking out of sleep is happening ‘in the realm of’ reminder, which is the noun form of ‘to remember because prompted’, which was used in verse 12.
Looking at this personally, the development of Perceiver thought in my mind went through two primary stages. The first stage could be summarized as waking up from sleep. Perceiver thought begins life in a mesmerized state which I refer to as emotional ‘truth’. That is because strong emotions in Mercy thought have overwhelmed Perceiver thought into ‘knowing’ what is ‘true’. Something will be regarded as ‘true’ if it comes from an important source, or if it was imposed upon the mind by some defining experience. For the Perceiver person, escaping from this initial mental state means waking up out of sleep. And the Perceiver person who is mentally waking up will also try to prompt others to remember the need to evaluate the facts and not be overwhelmed by emotions.
But the goal of waking up is not to hold on to isolated Perceiver facts but rather to make a mental transition from absolute truth to universal truth. Universal truth is based in Perceiver repetition. A connection will be regarded as true if one can see this connection repeated in many places and at many times. For instance, the law of gravity is true because objects consistently fall to the ground when they are dropped. Absolute truth is an intermediate form of truth which is between emotional ‘truth’ and universal truth. Absolute truth is based in the words of some holy book or textbook. On the one hand, the book is being believed because of its emotional status in Mercy thought. On the other hand, the structure of a book encourages the development of Teacher understanding. One could describe absolute truth as a tent for Perceiver thought. Perceiver thought is awake but it has not yet made a transition to universal truth and Teacher understanding.
Verse 14 describes the departure of Peter. “Knowing that the laying aside of my [earthly] dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.” Peter is referring to John 21:18-19, where Jesus predicted the way in which Peter would die. This is normally interpreted as predicting that Peter would be crucified, and this is a historically accurate assessment. However, the language of Jesus is somewhat unusual and conveys a different image when interpreted cognitively. (This passage is analyzed cognitively in the essay on the Gospel of John.)
The focus of John 21 is upon how Peter’s death will ‘glorify God’. If God resides in Teacher thought, then one glorifies God by extending and expanding a Teacher concept of God. The word what kind means ‘of what sort’, which means that John is not just predicting that Peter will die but rather is focusing upon the sort of death that will glorify God.
John 21:18 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” The word gird means to ‘gird, put on the girdle, especially as preparatory to active work’. Thus, the emphasis is not upon dying or suffering but rather upon useful, productive activity. Going further, the word translated walk is an intensified version of the verb that means ‘walk, conduct my life, live’. And wherever means ‘where, whither, in what place’. Putting this together, Perceiver thought thinks in terms of facts and place, and Perceiver thought functions associatively, jumping mentally from one place to another guided by Perceiver connections. This kind of thinking is most useful in areas where Perceiver thought has many connections. For instance, I like to think about computers and can do useful work with computers because I have many mental connections involving computers. Therefore, if I ‘gird myself and conduct my life wherever I wish’, then I will probably think about computers and work with computers, because I am trained as an electrical engineer and I know about computers.
Continuing with verse 18, Jesus says to Peter that when “you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish [to go]” (‘to go’ is not in the original). Looking at this cognitively, Perceiver thought will lose control to another mental strategy, because Peter is being ‘girded by another’. Some other cognitive strategy is guiding the productive activity of Perceiver thought. And this is bringing Perceiver thought where it does not want to go. Going further, hands represent Perceiver and Server thought. Therefore, ‘stretching out your hands’ would represent extending Perceiver thought to new areas. This describes what it feels like to a Perceiver person when Teacher thought develops a theory and starts to direct the mind.
Returning now to 2 Peter 1:14, the verb knowing describes ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. This tells us that Peter knows rationally what is about to happen but he has not yet experienced it personally. Similarly, I consistently find that when I use Perceiver thought to follow some step of cognitive growth, then this is followed by the hand of providence imposing this step of cognitive growth upon me. The word imminent is a variation of an adjective that means ‘without unnecessary delay’. Looking at this personally, I find that there is seldom any gap between me choosing to follow some step and circumstances forcing me to follow this step.
What is imminent is the ‘laying aside my [earthly] dwelling’. (Remember that any word in italics in the NASB is not in the original Greek. The NASB adds the word ‘earthly’ here guided by the implicit assumption that the passage is only talking about Peter’s physical death.) Dwelling means ‘tent’. Laying aside is only used twice as a noun in the New Testament, both times in the epistles of Peter. It means ‘a putting away’ and implies ‘a resignation from a previous obligation’. So far, Peter has focused on the existence of Perceiver thought as a cognitive strategy; how can one protect Perceiver thought from being overwhelmed by the emotional pressure of spiritual power?
This is a temporary obligation for Perceiver thought, because as Perceiver thought continues to function, it will start to notice connections being repeated in different areas. This will lead to the development of Teacher thought, which will come up with theoretical explanations for these repeated connections. If the resulting Teacher theory turns into a TMN (any general theory that continues to be used will eventually turn into a Teacher mental network or TMN), then Perceiver thought will find itself with the new obligation of serving Teacher understanding. Cognitively speaking, this is a form of ‘dying to be with God’, because the attention of Perceiver thought will change from gathering facts while living in concrete existence to developing a theory in abstract thought.
The verb made clear supports a cognitive interpretation because it means ‘make evident (clear), especially the inner sense of something with its viable inferences’. Plus, as means ‘according to the manner in which’, which tells us that the focus is upon the general pattern and not upon the specific situation. Literally speaking, ‘as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me’ is looking back at the incident in John 21 when Jesus told Peter how he would die. Cognitively speaking, the reference to incarnation is also significant. That is because Perceiver thought can organize concrete Mercy experiences into facts by itself, but Perceiver thought works together with Contributor-controlled technical thought when developing Teacher understanding.
For instance, abstract technical thought is based in precise definitions. These essays on the New Testament are only possible because of the precise definitions provided by the biblehub.com website, which itself refers to definitions from other sources, such as J. Thayer, or Strong’s Concordance. Those precise definitions were probably worked out primarily by Contributor persons. Looking at this more generally, the theory of mental symmetry uses Perceiver thought to build connections between one technical specialization and another. But this is only possible because abstract technical thought has been used for centuries to develop various technical specializations.
Peter continues in verse 15, “And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.” Diligent is the familiar word that means ‘to move speedily by showing full diligence’. Any time is only found once as an adverb in the New Testament and means ‘each separately’. Departure is literally ‘exodus’ and is found three times in the New Testament. Jesus uses it once in Luke 9 to talk about his impending death after the Transfiguration, the author of Hebrews uses it in Hebrews 11 to refer to the impeding Exodus of Israel, and Peter uses it in this verse to describe his impending departure. Peter then talks about ‘making or doing a remembrance’, using a word that is only found once in the New Testament. (The NASB says ‘able to call these things to mind’ but that does not accurately reflect the original Greek.)
Looking at this literally, Peter is making a remembrance by writing this epistle. But the term ‘Exodus’ implies a grander meaning. In the Exodus, the children of Israel left Egypt with its worldly mindset to experience the power of God in the wilderness. Similarly, if enough people gained confidence in using their gifts of spiritual power, a new integrated expression of the power of God would start to emerge in Teacher thought. This is similar to the way that the development of electricity with its electrical wiring has given rise to an entirely new integrated structure of electric power. This illustration also suggests that kind of lasting remembrance that might emerge. When one is studying some normal Teacher theory, then those who develop this theory may have to develop Perceiver confidence, but those who learn the theory can then forget about the need to develop confidence and simply learn the theory as an abstract arrangement of facts that have nothing to do with personal identity. This is not the case with electricity, because one is dealing with structures of actual power that are capable of killing people. Similarly, learning to use Perceiver thought to construct general Teacher structures of spiritual power would also have to include the need to build personal confidence. And the adverb ‘each separately’ suggests that this lesson will have to be relearned whenever entering some new context.
The Transfiguration 1:16-18
One can tell that this transition to a new form of Perceiver thought is leading to a new integrated expression of the power of God because the next section refers explicitly to the glory of God being revealed. Verse 16 begins, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” Power can refer either to natural or to supernatural power. Coming is ‘used in the east as a technical expression for the royal visit of a king, or emperor’ and is used in the New Testament to refer to the second coming. Thus, Peter is definitely referring to a major coming of Christ.
This verse is typically interpreted as referring to a future second coming of Jesus Christ, with the reference to being eyewitnesses describing the Transfiguration. But Peter does not talk about this as if it is happening in the future. Instead, the word made known refers to experiential knowledge and is in the past tense.
Verse 16 opens with Peter saying what was not his starting point: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales”. A tale is ‘a fabrication (fable) which subverts (replaces) what is actually true’. Cleverly devised means ‘to render wise’. And follow means to ‘completely follow’. This gives the impression that using spiritual power is being reduced to carefully following a set of fables. A similar transition has happened with postmodern theology, because the Bible has been reduced to a collection of wise myths which one follows in order to experience spiritual growth. The problem is not with ‘following myths’ but rather with ‘completely following myths’. When we analyze some biblical story from a cognitive perspective, we are treating it as a kind of wise myth—an illustrative story that conveys a deeper general meaning. However, this cognitive analysis occurs within the context of a rational theory of the mind and the recognition that the Bible really is divinely inspired at a detailed level. In contrast, postmodern theology thinks in terms of myths without going any further. There is nothing but myth, and one gains insights about biblical myths by comparing them with the myths of other civilizations as well as examining how ancient civilizations viewed myths. The idea of an intelligent God who can speak the incarnational language of technical thought is not present.
Looking at this more generally, verse 16 is describing an attempt to explain the spiritual power. So far, the focus has been upon mastering gifts of spiritual power. This power then needs to be placed within some sort of theoretical framework. One natural alternative will be to place this power within a framework of myth. The problem with is that it is based in MMNs of culture and personal experience rather than in the TMN of God. This leads to a concept of the supernatural that is basically an amplified version of human strengths and weaknesses, similar to the Greek gods.
Verse 16 finishes with Peter describing what was his starting point: “but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty”. The word eyewitness is only used once in the New Testament and means ‘a looker-on, a spectator’. Majesty means ‘magnificent, splendid’ and comes from an adjective that means ‘large, great, in the widest sense’. The word his occurs 244 times, and this is the only time that it is translated as ‘his’ by the NASB. Instead, it means ‘that, that one there’. Finally, were actually means ‘to come into being’. Putting this together, Peter saw something large and amazing from a distance. This seeing did not occur instantly but rather came into being. This is quite different than the mystical encounter in which one feels united with God. Saying this more clearly, mysticism uses Teacher overgeneralization to create the Teacher feeling that ‘all is one’. It then uses Mercy identification to connect personal identity with this Teacher overgeneralization. Perceiver confidence, in contrast, maintains that I am not God; I am not the same as the universe. Thus, it is important for Peter to emphasize that he saw something large and amazing from a distance.
Cognitively speaking, Peter is describing the emergence of a Platonic form. A Platonic form is an internal image of perfection that forms within Mercy thought when Teacher thought comes up with a general theory. Putting this into the context, Peter has just talked about starting to use Perceiver thought in a new way to build Teacher understanding. This will cause Platonic forms to emerge within Mercy thought, which Perceiver thought will view from a distance. (Perceiver thought has some conscious awareness of Mercy thought, as shown by the arrow from Mercy to Perceiver on the diagram of mental symmetry.) Presumably, something similar but much stronger would happen with gifts of spiritual power.
Verse 17 emphasizes this path through Teacher thought to Mercy experience: “For when He received honor and glory from God the Father”. Peter specifically refers here to God the Father, emphasizing that the source is God in Teacher thought. Honor means ‘perceived value’, while glory describes internal character being expressed externally. Thus, God in Teacher thought is leading to awe-inspiring results in Mercy thought.
When one moves from Teacher theory to Mercy Platonic forms, then it is tempting to forget about the Teacher theory and focus on the Platonic forms. People in modern society often do this by emphasizing technology while ignoring the science that is responsible for this technology. Instead of focusing upon understanding the laws of science, what is remember is iconic myths, such as Galileo dropping two spheres from the top of the tower of Pisa (which probably did not happen), or Newton getting hit on the head by an apple (which might have happened). This illustrates the path of following wise myths mentioned in the beginning of verse 16.
Verse 17 continues describing what happened: “such a voice as this was brought to Him by the Majestic Glory”. Voice means ‘voice, sound’. And brought is an accurate literal translation. Such is only found once in the New Testament and means ‘of this kind, such, such as follows’, and by means ‘under authority of someone working directly as a subordinate’. Majestic is also used once in the New Testament and means ‘befitting a great one’. Putting this together, Peter just described the vision as something that he viewed as a spectator. But this vision of glory exhibited Teacher generality; it was ‘befitting a great one’. This brought close the sound of a voice. Thus, the attention turned from seeing some awesome vision to realizing that some great being in Teacher thought wanted to communicate. This may sound obscure, but it reflects the idea of going from specific gifts of spiritual power to an intelligent understanding of God in Teacher thought. In other words, instead of living in technology, copying others, and thinking in terms of foundational myths, one is trying to understand the Teacher structure behind this technology. This distinction already exists today with technology that has no voice. In contrast, spiritual technology would acquire some kind of voice.
Mysticism makes a similar transition, because the person who has a mystical experience often feels emotionally driven to talk and write about this experience. But this leads to an inherent contradiction, because one is being driven by Teacher thought to use words with rational meaning to describe a feeling of Teacher overgeneralization that was achieved by transcending all rational meanings.
Verse 17 finishes by describing what this voice said: “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”. Looking at this literally, Peter, James, and John first saw Jesus becoming transfigured on the mountain, and then when Peter made an inappropriate comment, the vision disappeared and a voice was heard, and what the voice said in Matthew 17:5 is almost identical to what Peter relates here in verse 17.
This voice directs the attention to incarnation, describing Jesus Christ as the beloved son. The word beloved is derived from agape, which describes ‘love which centers in moral preference’. A mystical experience, such as seeing the Transfiguration, will normally lead to the concept of a transcendent God based in Teacher overgeneralization. That is because the emotions of the experience will overwhelm Perceiver thought, and when Perceiver thought stops functioning, then Teacher is free to overgeneralize. This will lead to the conclusion that God in Teacher thought transcends the technical thinking of incarnation. Incarnation will not be viewed as the Son of God but rather as something with a totally different nature than God. Verbally speaking, the Christian mystic may still assert that Jesus is the Son of God in some mysterious manner, but this mysterious son of God will have no connection with the technical thinking which forms the basis of a concept of incarnation. In a similar manner, mysticism has no place for God the Father loving the Son in a moral manner. That is because morality implies content, and a God of mysticism transcends all content.
This may sound like an extreme statement, but consider the following quote describing Orthodox Christianity: “In Orthodox theology, redemption is not seen in juridical terms, whereby one is simply redeemed from the wrath of God and granted an extrinsic justification as a result of the fall. Whilst the consequences of the ‘fall’ must not be downplayed, redemption, nevertheless must not to be understood merely as forgiveness of sins and humanity’s reconciliation to God. Eastern theology sees redemption in positive terms whereby one is actually called to really participate in the personal and divine energies of the Trinity as a result of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ... In the East, therefore the fact that the Word became flesh and died for us has not meant that humankind has simply been justified from God’s anger, but rather that it has assumed an intimate and hypostatical unity with divinity itself. The essence of our redemption lies in the lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communion with the divine life which was realized by Christ’s redeeming work... The hypostatic union of divine and human accomplished in Christ, was the very foundation of the deification of humanity. Since Christ took on human nature and bestowed upon it the fullness of grace, He made humanity capable of ascending to God.” Notice how the moral element of redemption is being replaced by mystical union with God, and how incarnation is being defined in terms of this mystical union. I should add that Orthodox Christianity is correct in stating that there is more to atonement than having one’s sins forgiven. Instead, the goal is to become transformed into a person who is a friend of God, who behaves in a manner that is consistent with the character of God. But being a friend of God presupposes moral content, while hypostatic union of divine and human ultimately eliminates moral content.
Applying this to the context of 2 Peter, the emphasis so far has been upon gaining the confidence that is required to gain mastery over spiritual power. This same confidence will also make it possible to encounter the glory and majesty of God without slipping into the mindlessness of mysticism. Mindlessness may seem like a strong word, but any system which insists that the ultimate answer transcends rational thought is by definition mindless, because it has turned mystery into the TMN of a universal theory that will impose mystery upon the mind.
In contrast, the voice in verse 17 refers to the Son as ‘with whom I am well-pleased’. Well-pleased combines ‘well’ with ‘forming an opinion (a personal judgment)’. The phrase is more literally, ‘towards whom I have formed a good personal opinion’. God the Father is not just looking at God the Son with approval but rather forming an emotional opinion that it is good to head in the direction of God of the Son. Saying this cognitively, Teacher thought has become emotionally convinced that developing technical thought will create good Teacher emotions. This is precisely the opposite of what mysticism says, because mysticism insists that developing too much technical thought will lead to bad Teacher emotions. Mystical experts consistently say that too much technical analysis will ruin the mystical experience. For instance, this is reflected in the saying that mystical writings are ‘like fingers pointing to the moon’. Rational analysis can point in the direction of the moon, but one must not confuse the fingers that are pointing with the moon.
In contrast, science has discovered that technical thought increases Teacher understanding because it adds details to the general statements of Teacher thought, increasing their order-of-complexity. Similarly, these essays hopefully demonstrate that analyzing Christianity and the Bible cognitively leads to a superior concept of God in Teacher thought. I suggest that the same principle would apply with spiritual technology. The primary difference is that the emotions would be more intense and the struggle would extend beyond thinking to reality.
Verse 18 describes this new perspective: “and we ourselves heard this voice brought from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” The Greek starts with the phrase ‘and this the voice we heard...’ which means that the focus is upon describing the nature and source of the voice in Teacher thought.
In verse 17, the voice was brought from grandiose glory in Mercy thought. In verse 18, the voice is brought out of heaven. Heaven describes a realm of Teacher thought populated by angels and human souls. Mysticism leads to a concept of Nirvana which has no place for individual created beings. In fact, when Buddha was asked if the human soul becomes annihilated when it unites with God, he sidestepped the question and compared it with a candle being blown out. One dare not sidestep the question of personal annihilation. That is like describing some marvelous upcoming trip and neglecting to mention that everyone will get killed on the trip. In contrast, heaven described a realm in which created beings live in the presence of God—without getting snuffed out. A mystical God cannot be the source of anything. In contrast, one can bring things out of heaven.
At present, these statements regarding mysticism are primarily questions of cognitive wholeness and religious emotion. If spiritual power became developed, then these statements regarding mysticism would turn into questions of personal existence. It would no longer be possible to sidestep the question of whether becoming united with God leads to personal annihilation, because those who followed a path of mysticism would start to experience personal annihilation. (It appears that God finally defeats mysticism in the seven bowls of Revelation 16 by turning up the heat of mysticism until it is too hot to bear.)
Verse 18 then turns to the concrete side of incarnation: ‘when we were with him on the holy mountain’. Literally speaking, Peter is referring to accompanying Jesus up the mount of Transfiguration. Cognitively speaking, a mountain represents a pragmatic form of general Teacher theory, a high point from which one gets a big picture of the surroundings. This pragmatic general theory is ‘with him’, which means that it is accompanied by the technical thinking of incarnation. This mountain is also described as holy, which means ‘set apart by (or for) God’. Thus, Peter is describing two different perspectives which lead to the same conclusion. One can start with words emerging from the heavenly realm of Teacher thought, and one can also start by constructing a Teacher understanding of experiences in Mercy thought. Both are accompanied by incarnation and they will lead to similar conclusions. One will hear the voice of heaven while one is on the holy mountain.
As I mentioned in previous essays, one of the deep mysteries of science is that one can start from the heavenly words of mathematics in Teacher thought, or one can start by building a pragmatic understanding of natural cause-and-effect, and these two paths will lead to similar conclusions. In a similar manner, these essays demonstrate that one can either start with a technical analysis of the Word of God as revealed in the Bible, or one can start with a pragmatic theory of mental wholeness based in cognitive styles. These two approaches will lead, in detail, to similar conclusions. If this is true now with natural science and technology, and if this is true now with theology and cognitive theory, then presumably it will also be true in the future with heavenly power and spiritual gifts of power given to humans.
Bringing these two streams together requires Perceiver thought, because Perceiver thought has to point out that the conclusions of abstract theory are similar to the conclusions of pragmatic understanding. Thus, it is cognitively significant that Peter talks about being brought with Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration.
When these two streams combine, then a new source of stability emerges, which is the technical paradigm. This is described in the next section. Verse 19 begins, “We have the [even] more sure prophetic word”.
Prophetic Logos 1:19-21
Word is logos, which these essays have been interpreting as the Teacher theory that lies behind some technical paradigm. This is consistent with the definition on biblehub, which describes logos as ‘a word (as embodying an idea)’, ‘a broad term meaning reasoning expressed by words’. In addition, John 1 specifically refers to Incarnation as the Logos of God. Verse 17 talked about God the Father finding delight in the Son. This Teacher delight is found in a logos or paradigm. Those who use technical thought typically assume that they are using pure logic and reason. But this technical thinking is being emotionally guided by a general theory in Teacher thought, and the technical thinking will be guided by the emotional goal of expanding the Teacher order-within-complexity of this paradigm. Going further, any attack on a technical specialization will typically trigger an emotional response because the paradigm will feel emotionally threatened, and this emotional response will usually expressed as sarcasm or belittlement.
Prophetic means ‘prophetic, uttered by a prophet’. This adjective is used twice in the New Testament. One normally associates prophecy and prophets with biblical prophets, and the other reference to ‘prophetic’ in Romans 16:26 does talk about ‘the Scriptures of the prophets’. However, verse 19 refers to something different, which is a prophetic logos. This type of prophecy is discussed in the essay on 1 Corinthians 14, the chapter which talks about prophecy. The Greek verb translated prophesy combines ‘before’ with ‘bring to light by asserting one statement (point of view) over another’. And the noun prophecy is used in Romans 12:6 to describe the cognitive style of Perceiver.
Putting this all together, I suggest that prophecy describes how Perceiver thought manipulates Teacher theories. If one thinks of Teacher thought as a number of flowing streams, then Perceiver thought can predict what will happen in the future by focusing upon some of these streams instead of other streams. For instance, this describes how experts try to predict the future. They will focus upon certain trends and then predict where these trends will lead society. Similarly, one can determine the direction that society will take by choosing to pursue certain trends in Teacher thought while ignoring other trends; the type of theoretical research that is done today will have a major impact upon the technological breakthroughs of tomorrow. Thus, a ‘prophetic logos’ describes using Perceiver thought to connect, emphasize, or downplay the paradigms of various technical specializations. For instance, the car industry is now starting to move away from internal combustion engines, primarily because Elon Musk of Tesla performed the prophetic function of emphasizing electric vehicles.
In a future society of spiritual power, Perceiver thought would be manipulating Teacher streams of supernatural energy. As far as I can tell, this describes normal behavior for an angel. In other words, humans would start to behave like angels. Thus, it makes sense Peter to talk in verse 18 about hearing a voice from heaven. (Going further, chapter 2 will describe how humans will respond when they encounter the angelic realm.)
Returning to 2 Peter, this prophetic logos is described as more sure, which means ‘solid enough to walk on’. This goes beyond making prophetic statements and beyond gifts of spiritual power to something that can provide stability for personal movement. The emphasis upon walking is significant because Teacher thought deals with processes and not with static situations. For instance, science analyzes how the natural world behaves; it examines natural processes. Similarly, I have been deliberately referring to streams of spiritual power. If these streams became solid enough to walk on, then this would mean that Teacher streams are becoming connected with Server actions. This relationship describes the essence of righteousness. In verse 13, Peter said that he was heading in the direction of righteousness. We are now starting to see this righteousness emerge.
Verse 19 continues by describing how one should treat prophetic logos: “to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place”. Do refers to physical action, good means ‘winsomely attractive’, and pay attention means ‘to hold to, turn to, attend to’. The NASB conveys the impression of staring at some light. The Greek, in contrast, talks about holding to behavior that people find attractive. One can understand what this means by looking at technology. Modern science violates common sense. In fact, physicists will tell you that quantum mechanics is alien to normal, human experience. Why would one want to think in such an alien matter? One of the major reasons is that the strange behavior of quantum mechanics makes electronics possible, and electronic gadgets are winsomely attractive. Similarly, when spiritual technology develops to the point of providing a glimpse of heavenly existence, many will be asking why one should embrace heavenly thought?
Verse 19 indicates that human society will be going through a major paradigm shift. When one is in such a transition, then Teacher understanding is incomplete: “as to a lamp shining in a dark place”. ‘As’ means that Peter is giving an analogy of what it will feel like. A lamp is ‘an oil-fed portable lamp’. The word dark is only used once in the New Testament and means ‘dried out from strong heat, producing dust’. This does not describe the absence of light. Instead, what it describes is an excess of incoherent energy. There is strong heat from all of the spiritual power. But this heat is leading to the dust of fragmented Perceiver facts which is blocking the light of a Teacher sun.
A similar mental condition can be found in infoglut, which one dictionary defines as ‘Masses of continuously increasing information, so poorly catalogued or organized (or not organized at all) that it is almost impossible to navigate through them to search or draw any conclusion or meaning’. In fact, the webpage on which this definition is found is itself an example of infoglut. The definition itself takes up four short lines. Above, to the right, and below this definition are three pictures of car ads (probably because I was watching youtube videos of cars). The rest of the webpage is taken up by a pop quiz, another picture ad, and four more articles that ‘you also might like...’ If the spread of normal technology has led to such infoglut, imagine what the spread of spiritual technology would generate.
It is possible in such an environment to be guided by the lamp of some specialization and focus upon producing results that benefit people. That is how the average person survives infoglut today: specialize and use technical skill to help people in some specific way.
This period of infoglut will be followed by the development of a new Teacher understanding. “...until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts”. The word dawn is found twice in the New Testament and means ‘to shine through at dawn’. The other occurrence is in Revelation 21:21, which talks about the streets of gold in the holy city being as pure as ‘shining through’ glass. In other words, this is not a dawn of light from darkness but rather a dawn of clarity in which daylight starts to shine through. Morning star is used only once in the New Testament and literally means ‘light-bearing’. (The Latin word for morning star is Lucifer.) Looking at this cognitively, verse 19 is not referring to a day that is lit by the sun of some universal Teacher understanding. Instead, it is talking about gaining some light and clarity in an environment of infoglut. Arises means to ‘rise up after completing a necessary process’, which is consistent with the idea of following processes and being guided by streams.
Verse 19 clarifies that ‘the morning star arises in your hearts’. Heart means ‘the affective center of our being’, which refers to personal identity in Mercy thought. This is the first mention of ‘heart’ in 2 Peter, which implies that something new is happening at a personal level. So far, the focus has been upon God, incarnation, and gifts of spiritual power. Personal identity in Mercy thought has not been mentioned, similar to the way that normal science and technology tends to forget about the individual. Personal identity is finally being internally affected. This is not happening to everyone but rather ‘in your hearts’, which presumably includes those who are gaining mastery over spiritual power.
The reference to Lucifer may be significant. That is because all the scriptural references to spiritual technology indicate that there will be an initial flourishing followed by the backlash of the Kingdom of the Beast (i.e. the Kingdom of the Antichrist that is normally associated with the Great Tribulation). Chapter 2 will talk about using spiritual power in an improper manner. One of the crucial factors will be where the morning star arises. Will it arise in people’s hearts after completing the necessary internal process, or will it rise externally as a Mercy idol as a result of avoiding personal development by not ‘sitting continually beside’?
Verse 20 is normally viewed as a guide to interpreting the Bible: “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one’s own interpretation.” Know here refers to experiential knowledge. Scripture means ‘writing’, and it ‘is used 51 times in the NT – always of holy Scripture’. Thus, we will assume that Peter is referring to prophecies of the Bible, as opposed to the prophetic logos mentioned in verse 16. The word interpretation is found once in the New Testament and means ‘unloosing (unpacking) in an apt (appropriate) manner’. The original Greek refers to any prophetic writing, and any means ‘each part of a totality’. Thus, Peter is making a statement that applies to each and every prophetic passage of the Bible.
Commentators argue over the exact meaning of the final phrase. A literal translation would be that ‘prophecy of Scripture does not become its own private interpretation’. This could mean that a person who is reading the Bible should not come up with a private interpretation that differs from what others are saying. I hope that is not the primary meaning because these essays present a rather private interpretation (I agree that anyone who comes up with a new interpretation of Scripture needs to provide extraordinary evidence. However, I suggest that using a meta-theory of cognition to analyze entire books as connected sequences based upon the original Greek qualifies as extraordinary evidence.) It could also mean that one should not interpret Scripture out of context. This is a valid conclusion, but it tends to be rejected by the commentators because it does not seem to fit with verse 21, which is talking about prophets being moved by the Holy Spirit. This leads then to the interpretation that those who wrote Scripture did not come up with the words themselves but rather were moved by the Holy Spirit. I think that one can conclude that this statement is true beyond any reasonable doubt, because the Bible is simply too clever to have been written by humans living 2000 (or more) years ago. But I am not convinced that this is what verse 20 is saying.
Instead, the focus of verse 20 is upon ‘unpacking the text in an appropriate manner’. What is the proper way to analyze the Bible? I have now gone through about 40% of the New Testament in detail, looking at the original Greek text. I can state with certainty that someone who studies only the Bible will not unpack the text in an appropriate manner. Instead, I have found that the Bible only makes sense because of what I have learned about other subjects, such as cognitive styles, neurology, computers, artificial intelligence, linguistics, technology, physics, and history. I had to develop a general theory of cognition by examining all these various areas in order to develop the tools that are required to unpack the biblical text. In other words, I suggest that ‘prophecy of Scripture does not become its own private interpretation’ means primarily that one cannot analyze the Bible by studying only the Bible. I know that this is the case because theologians and fundamentalists who focus upon studying only the Bible have major problems unpacking the biblical text. One can conclude this simply by looking at books written on the topic of prophecy.
The typical theological belief is that the Bible contains primarily abstract doctrine, historical accounts, and parables which are interspersed by the occasional prophetic passages. In contrast, I keep finding that entire books of the New Testament (including 1 Peter and 2 Peter) appear to be describing connected prophetic sequences. That is mind-blowing. In fact, this has happened now for so long that I consider it normal for the meaning of the Biblical text to fall out effortlessly when I look at the original Greek. And most of the time it does. I seldom have to struggle intellectually. Instead, I typically read the next verse, look up the meanings, and immediately start typing. That is beyond mind-blowing, and I suggest that this type of flow can only happen if one is unpacking the text in an appropriate manner.
Verse 21 continues, “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The word will is more accurately ‘to desire, wish’. And human refers to ‘one of the human race’. Made by an act is actually ‘to bear, carry (bring) along’. Looking at this cognitively, Peter is making a general statement that applies to both scriptural prophecy and prophetic logos. Neither is based in mental networks of normal human existence. That is because a human viewpoint cannot see around the corner. It can predict what will happen until the next corner, but not what will happen after. If one wants to look further, then one must take a larger perspective.
This larger perspective is under the authority of the Holy Spirit. This is the first mention of either spirit or the Holy Spirit in 2 Peter. A holy mountain was mentioned in verse 19, but verse 21 talks about the Holy Spirit. Cognitively speaking, a concept of the Holy Spirit emerges when Platonic forms come together to form what Plato called a form of the Good. Verse 19 talked about a morning star arising in people’s hearts. In verse 21 this morning star is growing into something larger and more divine.
Two emotional forces in Mercy thought are being contrasted, because Peter is comparing two kinds of ‘carrying along’. On the one hand, being carried along by human MMNs will not lead to prophecy. On the other hand, being carried along under the authority of a Holy Spirit will lead to prophecy. When that happens, then humans will chatter words from God. In other words, normal human speech will express the character of God in Teacher thought. This principle would apply to the writers of the Bible, it would apply to anyone who is trying to predict the future, and it would also apply to those of the future who are trying to predict where spiritual technology is leading.
False Prophets 2:1
Chapter 2 continues with the theme of prophecy, focusing upon those who are using prophecy incorrectly. Verse 1 begins, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you.” The first phrase is in the past tense, and the term is literally pseudo-prophet. The second phrase is in the future, and the term is pseudo-teacher, a word found once in the New Testament. A teacher is ‘a teacher, an instructor acknowledged for their mastery in their field of learning’. Looking at this literally, Peter is comparing the Jewish false prophets of Old Testament times with the false teachers of his early Christian era.
But why do the false prophets come before the false teachers? Looking at this cognitively, the Teacher overgeneralization of mysticism functions best in the absence of facts, but if one wants to build a valid Teacher understanding, then one must start by collecting facts. Using an analogy, Perceiver facts are like bricks and a Teacher understanding is like the building that one constructs out of these bricks. A similar progression exists with absolute truth. Prophets proclaim truth from God, this is written down, and then later generations study what was written and teach the material.
One can gain a further clue by looking at where these false experts arise. The false prophets are ‘among the people’, while the false teachers are ‘among you’. Looking at the example of academia, the average person on the street can be fooled by false facts, because he lacks the knowledge to evaluate information. In contrast, I have found over the years that the facts of academia can almost always be trusted. Instead, the error within academia lies in how these facts are put together and how these facts should be packaged when teaching them to others. Applying this to a future time of spiritual power, those who do not have gifts of power will probably teach false facts about what it means to have spiritual power. In contrast, those who do have power will know from personal experience what it means to direct streams of power in a prophetic manner. But as the end of chapter 1 indicated, there will be a lot of heat and dust but no sun of Teacher understanding. The false teachers will arise within this theoretical vacuum.
The next phrase tells us the approach that will be used by these false teachers: “who will secretly introduce destructive heresies”. The word secretly introduce is found once in the New Testament and means to ‘introduce from close beside’. A heresy is a ‘self-chosen opinion’. Destructive means to be ‘cut off (entirely) from what could or should have been’. Putting this together, these false teachers will be driven by subjective MMNs. When one has a collection of disconnected facts, one can either organize these facts around MMNs of personal experience or around the TMN of some theory. These teachers will set themselves up as ‘masters in their field of learning’ because of their personal experience. (I know that this is somewhat different than ‘secretly introducing destructive heresies’, but I think that it fits the Greek text and the context better.)
I am not suggesting that it is wrong to learn from personal experience. One must include personal experience when analyzing the Bible because biblical truth applies to personal experience. And personal experience will be important in the future when attempting to understand gifts of spiritual power. However, MMNs of personal experience must be placed within the framework of the TMN of some rational understanding, and one must go beyond one’s own personal experience to include the experiences of others. (We saw a similar situation with the ‘clever myths’ of 1:16.) The problem here is that an integrated TMN does not yet exist. Instead, there is only a ‘morning star in people’s hearts’.
The next phrase addresses this question of personal authority: “even denying the Master who bought them”. A master ‘wields unrestricted power’. This is significant within the context of spiritual power. These experts may have some spiritual power, but there is a greater divine master who wields unrestricted power. Bought ‘stresses transfer – i.e. where something becomes another’s belonging’. And denying means ‘refuse to affirm or to confess’. Peter says that the experts are denying the ‘having bought them master’. Looking at this cognitively, the Contributor person is naturally good at business, in which one buys and sells merchandise. Incarnation, who uses Contributor thought, is buying and selling people, because that is an aspect of what it means to save people. This sounds bad because one normally interprets buying and selling people from the Mercy perspective of being owned by some person with Mercy status. That describes slavery. But incarnation is based in a Teacher concept of God, which transforms buying and selling people into being transferred from one Teacher domain to another. That kind of buying and selling of people is described in Colossians 1:13-14 and related to the process of salvation: “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Denying is something verbal which involves Teacher thought. When one bases one’s expertise as a teacher primarily in MMNs of personal experience, then one is denying that one’s power actually comes as a result of having been transferred into the Teacher domain of incarnation.
Verse 1 finishes by saying that where this leads: “bringing swift destruction upon themselves”. Bring upon is a single word in the Greek, emphasizing that these experts are doing it to themselves. Destruction is the same word that was used earlier in the verse, which means to ‘cut off from what could or should have been’. And swift means ‘without unnecessary delay’. Using an analogy, these experts are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting. Using another analogy, this is like a robot that is plugged into some source of power deciding that it does not need to be plugged in. Eventually the internal batteries will die and the robot will cease functioning. And I suggest that an electric power analogy is appropriate because 1:3 referred to these gifts as ‘divine power’.
Misusing Spiritual Technology 2:2-3
Verse 2 describes the next problem. “Many will follow their sensuality.” Follow means to ‘completely follow’, and the same verb was used in 1:16 when talking about following clever myths. The word sensuality actually means ‘outrageous conduct, conduct shocking to public decency, a wanton violence’. This goes beyond hedonism to behaving publicly in a way that deliberately violates MMNs of social convention or personal sensitivity. Here again, the problem lies in the focus of attention. Applying spiritual power will by its very nature end up violating MMNs of social convention. One will be doing things that have never been done before, and this will end up violating cultural taboos. But the purpose is not to violate social norms but rather to follow mental wholeness at a higher level. One is must always submit to a higher power in Teacher rather than rebel from existing powers in Mercy thought. That was the lesson of the previous verse. Someone who is ‘completely following outrageous conduct’ has changed the focus of attention from following God in Teacher thought to violating social standards in Mercy thought. This principle is already cognitively true. In the future it would be literally true.
The end result is that “because of them the way of the truth will be maligned” (v.2). Maligned is literally blaspheme which means ‘to speak lightly or profanely of sacred things’. Way means ‘a way, road’, and truth means ‘true to fact’. A ‘way of truth’ means following a path that is consistent with how things really work. This principle also applies to normal technology. When some new technology is introduced, then using this technology will often violate social norms.
For instance, a cell phone network requires a network of antennas, and these antennas may look unsightly. Therefore, cell phone antennas are often designed to look like trees. The point is that social convention has to be violated because of how a cell phone network works.
Looking at this in more detail, a higher antenna has a greater range, and electromagnetic waves travel further if they are not blocked by objects. Therefore, artificial antenna ‘trees’ must be made higher than any surrounding real trees, which means that these fake trees will stick out. If normal technology violates social norms, one can imagine that spiritual technology would violate social norms more deeply and more extensively. These social violations need to be viewed as expressions of the Teacher character of God, just as the social violations of cell phone antennas need to be viewed as expressions of the Teacher laws of electromagnetism. However, remember that the end of chapter 1 described an environment which lacks such an integrated Teacher understanding. Therefore, most people will not know why the cell phone antennas are being erected. Instead, all they will know is that antennas are being erected and that they stick out and look ugly.
This gut reaction will be intensified if those who are applying spiritual power deliberately focus upon putting up antennas that stick out and look ugly. When the average person looks at such an ugly antenna, the primary reaction will not be to think of the power of electromagnetic theory in Teacher thought but rather to focus in Mercy thought upon how social norms are being violated. Using the language of Peter, the way of truth will be blasphemed, because people will be focusing upon the outrageous behavior of those who have spiritual power rather than the kingdom of God in Teacher thought that lies behind the spiritual power.
Verse 3 describes how these people will behave and what will happen to them. “And in [their] greed they will exploit you with false words”. Greed means ‘the desire for more (things)’. The NASB adds ‘their’, giving the impression that people are behaving in a greedy manner. The Greek is more literally ‘in the realm of greed’, which means that people are functioning with a certain mindset. This mindset is a desire to gain more stuff in Mercy thought rather than acquire greater understanding in Teacher thought. Going further, word is logos, which we have defined as the TMN of some technical specialization. False is used once in the New Testament. It is the root of the English term ‘plastic’ and comes from a verb that means ‘to mold by using clay, wax, etc.’ Finally, the word translated exploit does not really mean ‘exploit’. It is the source of the English word ‘emporium’ and means ‘doing business by trading; to make a gain by exchanging’.
One can illustrate this with another example involving antennas. It is currently possible in many locations in North America to receive several high-definition television channels over the air for free. But in order to do this, one must purchase an antenna. I recently put up an antenna on the roof of my local apartment building which can pull in a number of stations from nearby Vancouver and Seattle. I discovered when searching for a good antenna that there are many companies making cheap antennas with outrageous claims that violate the laws of physics, such as claiming that some small rectangular antenna placed on an inside wall has a range of ‘up to 100 km’. Even established companies are fudging on the specifications of their products. Notice how the logos of electromagnetic theory is not being attacked. Rather, it is being regarded as plastic, something that can be molded to fit the needs of marketing. The underlying problem is that the goal is to gain more stuff in Mercy thought through commercial activity rather than extend the realm of God in Teacher thought.
Spiritual technology would make the plasticity of logos more personal. Thus, medicine would probably be a better analogy than antennas, because medicine affects people more personally. I live in Canada near the border. Therefore, I can watch both Canadian and American television channels. One big difference between these two is that American television is full of advertising for prescription drugs and other medical products, while such advertising is non-existent on Canadian television. When the medical industry focuses more upon selling drugs than promoting human well-being, then many people will get hurt. One current example is the Sackler family, which sells the drug OxyContin. Quoting from a Guardian article, “Some of the Sacklers wholly own Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, the company that created and sells the legal narcotic OxyContin, a drug at the center of the opioid epidemic that now kills almost 200 people a day across the US... Prosecutors in Connecticut and New York are understood to be considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against leading family members over the way OxyContin has allegedly been dangerously overprescribed and deceptively marketed to doctors and the public over the years, legal sources told the Guardian last week.”
Verse 3 finishes by describing the end result: “their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” Judgment means ‘judgment, emphasizing its result’. From long ago combines ‘from out of’ with ‘long ago’. It occurs twice in the New Testament, both times in 2 Peter. Idle is found once in the New Testament and means ‘motionless; doing nothing’. Destruction is the familiar word which means cut off from what could have been. And slumbers means ‘to nod in sleep’. This is a strange verse. What judgment could exist from out of long ago?
I suggest that one can gain a possible meaning by looking at the next verse as well as the context. The very next phrase is “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned”. 2 Peter has been talking about spiritual power but this is the first reference to angels, and they will be mentioned again in verse 11. My general hypothesis is that the spiritual realm is distinct from the angelic realm, and that one travels through the spiritual realm in order to reach the angelic realm. This distinction can be seen in the biblical description of spirits (and demons) and angels. Spirits empower mental networks, as illustrated by spirits possessing humans in the New Testament. The spiritual realm does not appear to have its own structure but rather acquires its structure from the human and the supernatural realms. In contrast, angels in the Bible never possess humans and always come to deliver some specific message, which implies that angels live in a realm of living messages (the word angel means ‘messenger’).
So far, the spiritual power has been treated as an extended version of electrical power. One simply exercises the power without thinking about any sort of non-human beings. Such a fiction could be maintained as long as one were accessing only the spiritual realm, because the spiritual realm has no inherent content of its own. But probing the spiritual realm would eventually end up contacting angels, and the kind of angels that one contacts would depend upon how one has probed the spiritual realm. Those who used spiritual power in a morally corrupt manner would ultimately encounter morally corrupt angels. They would discover beings who are awake who live in a realm of Teacher sequences that is not motionless. And this encounter of living, moving, morally corrupt angels would bring the spiritual exploitation to an abrupt end. Using an analogy, this would be like some local thug trying to extort the local neighborhood, being successful for a little while, and then coming into contact with the Mafia.
Speaking from personal experience, for many years I felt as if I was walking a narrow path with malicious aliens on either side. I sensed that as long as I stayed on the narrow path of following mental maturity these beings would not bother me, and they have not bothered me. I now increasingly feel as if I am entering a realm that is populated by good beings who are also following a path of reaching mental wholeness. But I also sense that it is vital to continue walking a path of wholeness. All of this is based purely on gut feeling and internal conversation, but this gut feeling has been consistent over the years and it is also consistent with the explanation that I just mentioned.
Sinning Angels 2:4-5
The next section will describe three kinds of judgment from old. Peter takes two verses to talk about the angels of Noah’s time, one verse to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, and then devotes two verses to discuss the somewhat obscure example of Lot.
Verse 4 begins, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned”. Spare means ‘to spare, abstain’. In other words, God is not ignoring the behavior of angels who ‘missed the mark’. Literally speaking, Peter is probably referring to Genesis 6:1-4, which appears to be talking about angels having sex with human women. This is cognitively similar to the mindset described in verse 3, because in both cases supernatural power is being used in order to gain emotional results in Mercy thought.
Going further, I strongly suspect that some of the commercialization of verse 3 might involve combining spiritual power with sexual activity in an inappropriate manner. Sex is actually an intimate form of economic exchange; one is exchanging life with another human being. In verse 3 the focus was upon doing a lot of business. If one views sex as a form of economic exchange, then this describes promiscuous sex. If this connection is valid, then it illustrated the principle that one will connect with angels who behave in a similar manner. Those who use spiritual power in a sexually promiscuous manner will encounter angels who used spiritual power in a sexually promiscuous manner. That is as far as we will take this subject, because we want to focus upon building a Teacher understanding and not upon violating social norms.
Verse 4 continues by describing how God responded to these angels: “but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment”. The verb cast into hell is found once in the New Testament and means ‘sent to Tartarus’. This is the only mention of Tartarus in the New Testament. Quoting from Wikipedia, “Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans”. Thus, whatever Tartarus is, it is not Gehennah and it is not Hades. The rest of the verse clarifies the nature of Tartarus. The word pits is found once in the New Testament and actually means ‘chains’. Darkness refers ‘to darkness so dense and foreboding it is felt’. Finally, committed means ‘to deliver over with a sense of close involvement’ and can mean either deliver or betray. Putting this all together, a literal translation would be ‘having cast down with a sense of close involvement to Tartarus in chains of foreboding darkness’.
One can work out a possible meaning by attempting to understand the cognitive effects of having spiritually enhanced promiscuous sex. Sex creates a deep emotional connection between one person and another. Cognitively speaking, it emotionally chains one person to another. Monogamous sex between a man and a woman forms an emotional chain that is cognitively beneficial, because mental wholeness involves a deep relationship between male thought and female thought. Promiscuous sex, in contrast, builds many emotional chains that connect in incompatible and incomplete ways with many other people. This could be described emotionally as being chained to foreboding darkness. One knows that people are there, and one is chained to these vague concepts of people, but there is no light of integrated understanding or experience. This already happens cognitively. Presumably, it would happen at a much deeper level if promiscuous sex were enhanced by spiritual power, and presumably it would come into contact with angels who behaved in this manner in the past. Promiscuous spiritually enhanced sex is an extreme example. A similar principle would apply to any form of spiritually-enhanced economic exchange which did not take personal integrity into account.
Verse 4 says that they are ‘reserved for judgment’. Reserve means ‘to watch over, to guard’. The word judgment in verse 4 is slightly different than the word ‘judgment’ in verse 3, and means ‘to separate, distinguish, judge’. And for actually means ‘to or into’. Looking at this cognitively, these beings are in a state of utter mental darkness, chained to personal chaos. They are being guarded until it becomes possible to separate this foreboding darkness into distinct categories. This is like seeing everything vaguely in the twilight as opposed to being able to distinguish one object clearly from another.
Verse 5 looks at the larger picture: “and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness”. Spare is the same verse that was used in verse 4. What is not being spared here is an ‘ancient cosmos’. Ancient means ‘original, ancient’. Cosmos means ‘an ordered system (like the universe, creation)’ and refers to the mental networks that are associated with living in a physical universe. We currently live in a materialistic universe. Genesis 6 implies that before the flood, the physical universe was not sealed off from the supernatural realm. This would have resulted in a different cosmos—a different worldview. Verse 5 says that this ancient cosmos was not spared. The general implication is that if the misuse of spiritual power extends to a societal level, then another form of feedback will occur.
The name Noah means ‘rest’ in Hebrew. A herald is ‘a herald, a town-crier’. And righteousness describes behavior that is guided by a TMN of God. (The dictionary defines it as ‘what is deemed right by the Lord’.) Thus, Noah is proclaiming that following God in righteousness will lead to rest. This would be a significant message in an environment of spiritually empowered semi-chaos. This is similar to the way that many people are turning to meditation today to find rest from the flood of infoglut. (Meditation will deliver a feeling of peace, but at the cost of creating a concept of God that is incapable of interacting with human existence. This is not a major problem as long as one remains alive and healthy within a materialistic universe.)
Preserved ‘emphasizes the needed vigilance to keep what is entrusted’. This is similar to ‘reserve’ in verse 4 but suggests a form of vigilance that is more active. One can see why this would be the case by comparing the two situations. The path of verse 4 essentially imprisons itself. One simply has to ensure that this imprisonment does not spread. In contrast, Noah would require more active preservation because he is swimming against the stream of society. I am not sure why it says that Noah is one of eight. One implication is that rest does not involve solitude but rather requires some interaction. Looking at this in terms of cognitive styles, each person is conscious in only one of the seven cognitive modules, which means that reaching the rest of mental wholeness requires help from other cognitive styles.
Verse 5 finishes “...when He brought a flood upon [the] world of [the] ungodly”. (I have put the two ‘the’s in brackets because they are not in the original Greek.) In the original Greek, there are only four words. Flood means ‘deluge, flood’, and all four instances in the New Testament refer to the flood of Noah. World is cosmos. This world is of the ungodly, which means ‘a lack of reverence’. Verse 2 talked about the way of truth being blasphemed. Verse 5 describes an entire world system of blasphemy, in which there is no respect for what is sacred. Brought means ‘to bring upon’ and was seen in 2:1 when talking about false teachers bringing a dead end upon themselves.
One can understand what it means cognitively to have a cosmos of irreverence by looking at current society. All major sources of authority and reverence have been belittled by the questioning of modern thought followed by the deconstructionism of postmodern thought. The result is not chaos, but rather a world order of exalted lifestyles and personal tastes, with the system itself being manipulated to impose personal tastes and opinions upon society at large.
Verse 5 seems to be saying that Noah himself is bringing a flood upon the cosmos of the ungodly. One can understand how this might work by looking at the effect of a disruptive technology. For instance, in the early 20th century people would cross the Atlantic Ocean in ocean liners. However, airplanes eventually became capable of flying such distances nonstop, and now almost everyone flies across the ocean.
Two paths are being compared in these verses. On the one hand, those who emphasize spiritual exchange without preserving personal integrity are reaching a dead-end, tied in chains of ominous relationships, reinforced by angels who were similarly tied in chains. On the other hand, following spiritual technology in a righteous manner would eventually lead to a new, Teacher-guided realm of spiritual expression, similar to the manner in which the understanding of electricity and electronics has opened up a new kind of society which is both literally and figuratively a quantum leap from the previous world. Going further, if those who violate standards of righteousness are being stopped in their tracks by encountering rebellious angels, then presumably those who are following standards of righteousness would be assisted by righteous angels. This explains why Noah and a handful of individuals would be capable of bringing a flood upon an entire world system.
But it would take significant time and effort to construct this positive alternative, as illustrated by the building of an ark. And because one becomes righteous by following a TMN of God rather than MMNs of human approval, those who were seeking Noah’s rest would have to follow God rather than humanity for a considerable time in many areas, in an environment of people who are not following righteousness.
Sodom and Gomorrah 2:6-8
Verse 6 moves forward to the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: “and [if] He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing [them] to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly [lives] thereafter”. This is the only time that the word ‘city’ is mentioned in the epistles of Peter. The word city means ‘a city, the inhabitants of a city’, and in Greek and Roman times, the city was the fundamental political unit as well as an outpost of civilization. Greek and Roman society built cities as self-contained units of civilization. Cities did interact politically and economically, but the fundamental political, economic, and cultural unit was the city. The city has lost its significant in today’s world of international trade. My guess is that the local community would become more significant in a future time of spiritual technology, because of the fundamental connection between people and spiritual power. The mention of cities also implies that the ‘disruptive technology’ of Noah is leading to outposts of a new kind of society.
The meaning of the name Sodom is uncertain, but could be burnt, or flaming. Gomorrah might mean ‘to grip or bind’. Thus, we will not build anything upon the meanings of these names. But one can understand what is happening by looking at the second half of the verse, which gives the reason for this judgment. Example means ‘a figure, copy, example’. Ungodly means ‘lack of reverence’. Made means ‘to place, lay, set’. And the Greek adds the word ‘at the very point of acting’. Putting this together, the final phrase is ‘having set an example of what is on the verge of happening to those who lack reverence’. This describes a mindset which is blissfully ignorant that possible disaster lies right around the corner.
The type of disaster that lies just around the corner can be seen the beginning of the verse. The verb reduce to ashes is only found once in the New Testament, and means ‘to burn to ashes’. Using the analogy of electricity, this describes being fried to a crisp. If normal electricity is capable of doing this to the human body, one can imagine what spiritual power would be capable of doing to the human soul. Such a mindset of blissful ignorance about power can be seen in squirrels. Many power outages are caused by squirrels short-circuiting power lines. One moment the squirrel is cavorting from one wire to another, and the next moment all that remains is a charred body.
This implies that one would not want to get ‘slain in the spirit’ in a future realm of spiritual technology. Getting an electric shock was regarded as entertainment in the 18th century. Quoting from the abstract of one scientific paper, ‘Electricity was the craze of the eighteenth century. Thrilling experiments became forms of polite entertainment for ladies and gentlemen who enjoyed feeling sparks, shocks and attractions on their bodies. Popular lecturers designed demonstrations that were performed in darkened salons to increase the spectacle of the so-called electric fire.’ That is because no one in that century had access to large amounts of electric power. Similarly, being slain in the spirit today is regarded as religiously therapeutic because no one has access to large amounts of spiritual power.
Going further, condemned means ‘to judge someone decisively as guilty’, and destruction means ‘an overthrowing’. The irreverent person thinks that spiritual power is a joke. God is overthrowing this mindset of frivolity by judging it decisively as guilty. And he is replacing Mercy feelings of irreverence with a decisive example of being fried to a crisp. This is not because God demands respect but rather because God does not want people to fry themselves spiritually as a result of ignorance.
Verse 7 discusses Lot: “and [if] He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men”. Noah was described in verse 5 as a herald of righteousness. Lot is described in verse 7 as righteous. Lot is not carrying out the task of building an ark. Instead, the response of Lot can be seen in the meaning of his name, which comes from a Hebrew word that means ‘to wrap closely or tightly, enwrap, envelop’. In other words, Lot has wrapped himself in all sorts of defense mechanisms in order to protect his mind from the surrounding chaos. This response is elaborated in the rest of verses 7-8. He was ‘oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men’. Oppressed means ‘to wear down’. Sensuality was seen back in verse 2 and means ‘conduct shocking to public decency’. Unprincipled is used twice in the New Testament, both times in 2 Peter, and means ‘not in acceptable order (out of place)’. And conduct means ‘behavior, conduct’. Putting this together, Lot is getting worn down from continually observing people around him behaving in a manner that deliberately violates social norms and has no order or place of its own. The original Greek talks of being ‘under the out of place in the realm of shocking public behavior’. This type of behavior comes naturally to those who think that everything is a joke, because such a mind has no deep feelings or long-terms plans. For such a person, the easiest way to generate a dopamine kick or adrenaline rush is by doing something outrageous.
I know what it feels like to be a Lot. I keep thinking that people could not possibly get any more insane, and then I encounter new examples of outrageous, rebellious stupidity. I have found that the only way that I can cope is to wrap myself up tightly with the fabric of politeness and social distance.
Going further, the word rescue means to ‘draw (pull) to oneself’. The same verb is used in Matthew 6:13 in the Lord’s Prayer in the phrase ‘deliver us from evil’. I also know from personal experience what that means. On the one hand, one feels increasingly distant from the society in which one lives. On the other hand, one feels drawn to a higher realm. Looking at this cognitively, when one practices righteousness for a long time, then one’s personal identity itself changes. One is not just doing acts of righteousness that reflect the character of God but actually being drawn to God as an entire person.
This must be a significant point because verse 8 describes the mindset of Lot in more detail. “For by what he saw and heard [that] righteous man, while living among them, felt [his] righteous soul tormented day after day by [their] lawless deeds”. What he saw is literally ‘a look’, and this noun is only found once in the New Testament. It comes from a common verb that means ‘to see something physical, with spiritual results (perception)’. In other words, Lot visually observes, he draws spiritual conclusions, and then he turns away, resulting in ‘a look’. I know exactly what this means. I look, I notice the underlying insanity, and then I turn away because I cannot handle looking any more. Heard is a fairly common word that means ‘hearing; used of inner (spiritual) hearing’. In other words, one also draws spiritual conclusions when listening to the words of others, but this is not followed by a gut reaction of being unable to listen any further, because insane words are not as painful as insane visual images.
‘That righteous man’ is more literally ‘the righteous’. Therefore, the emphasis is not upon Lot as a person who is righteous, but rather upon a specific example of righteous thinking. Righteous thinking does not conclude in a personal manner that ‘this bothers me’. Instead, it concludes in a general manner ‘this is insane because it violates how things work’. Living is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘in the realm of’ with ‘settle down as a permanent resident’. Why would Lot settle down permanently in such an unpleasant society? I suggest a possible reason based on personal experience. I have gone through enough cultural shifts and have visited enough countries to know that all cultures fall short of mental wholeness in major ways. And I also know that the world as a whole is heading in a direction of deep, growing insanity. Therefore, the best option is not to waste time trying to run from one place to another, but rather to devote one’s energy to trying to survive, in the hope that being drawn to God will eventually lead to rescue.
Verse 8 says that Lot lived ‘in the realm of them’ day after day. This could be interpreted as a long period of time, or it could also be interpreted as one paradigm shift after another. Each time that society has gone through some paradigm shift, I have hoped that people might now be receptive to a message of righteousness. And every time I keep finding that the same insanities have simply taken another form and are now accompanied by a new set of insanities. I am not suggesting that everyone around me is insane. There are always exceptions as well as positive trends. And when it comes to professional skills and knowledge, there are many people who are far more talented than I am. But even with many of the people with whom I do have social interaction, I still do not probe too deeply for fear of uncovering some undiscussable insanity.
Verse 8 continues by referring to a ‘righteous soul’. This is the first mention of a soul in 2 Peter. (The second and final reference is in 2:14.) I interpret the soul as referring to the integrated mind, in which the various mental networks and technical specializations are tied together by normal thought. A righteous soul would be an integrated mind based in the TMN of a concept of God. This describes the kind of rescuing that is happening. The repeated experiences of being repelled by society and drawn to God are gradually assembling an integrated mind that is held together by an understanding of the character of God. The NASB refers to ‘his righteous soul’, but ‘his’ is not the original Greek. ‘His’ gives the impression that this kind of soul is the result of self-effort. But that is not how it feels. One seldom feels superior to others: ‘I have a righteous soul and others do not’. Instead, one feels as if one is finally starting to have an integrated understanding of what it means to be sane.
This focus can be seen in the final phrase, which is literally ‘with lawless deeds tormented’. The NASB adds ‘their’, giving the idea that one is focusing upon the person who is acting lawlessly. But the person is irrelevant. It is the lawless deed itself that causes the torment. Lawless means ‘no-law’. This is not just breaking some law but rather having no grasp of the very concept of law. A deed is ‘is a deed that carries out an inner desire’. Thus, one observes some behavior and one concludes that it is being motivated by an inner desire that lacks the concept of law. Discussion is not possible with such a person because nothing exists within the mind of such a person with which one could discuss. How does one discuss moral guidelines with a person who has no concept of morality? And one cannot appeal to such a person’s better nature, because their behavior is already being motivated emotionally by their true nature.
Going further, torment means ‘a touchstone (a dark stone used in testing metals), hence examination by torture, torture’. This summarizes how I try to respond to others. Dealing with insanity is painful. But every time I encounter another episode of insanity, my deepest motivation is to treat this incident as a test of how I respond under emotional pressure—a sort of dark touchstone that tests what I am made of. How will I respond to the insanity? Will I react in a way that reflects a righteous soul? The behavior of others may be emotionally tormenting, but my deepest emotional torment comes when I cannot live with myself. It bothers me deeply whenever I do not respond in a gracious, righteous manner, and when this happens, then I find that I have to take the steps that are necessary to address my attitude.
Summarizing these three illustrations, the first situation dealt with those who used spiritual power to seek inadequate Mercy goals. The judgment came from encountering angelic beings who stopped progress in its tracks. The long-term solution was to follow righteousness long enough as a group in order to lay the foundation for a new society based in Teacher understand that would replace the existing society with a cleansing flood of new experiences. The second situation dealt with those who approached spiritual power with a lack of respect. This led to the hooligans who were one short step away from getting spiritually zapped. The long-term solution was to bring an end to this casual behavior with an example that no one would forget. The third situation involved individuals attempting to pursue righteousness in the middle of an unrighteous society. The immediate response was to hold back from society and draw near to God. The long-term solution was to see the surrounding insanity as an opportunity to build a righteous soul.
Noah’s Ark
Before we continue, I would like to look at a more general question involving Noah’s and the ark. 2 Peter mentions Noah and Lot in a passage that supposedly will happen after the theoretical return of Jesus and the introduction of spiritual technology. In contrast, Matthew 24 and Luke 17 mention Noah and Lot in a passage that presumably is describing the events leading up to the theoretical return of Jesus. Going further, Noah is also mentioned in 1 Peter 3:20, and I suggest that 1 Peter is referring to the period before the theoretical return of Jesus. (Noah is only mentioned two additional times in the New Testament.)
My best guess is that the references to Noah’s Ark are not referring to some single event but rather to a drawn-out process with several stages. Matthew 24 opens by describing the destruction of the Temple, and Jesus says that “not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down”. Stones represent Perceiver truth. Therefore, Jesus is predicting that the entire edifice of absolute religious truth will be dismantled. That process is now essentially over because we currently live in a post-Christian world. This is then followed by building a new religious structure, and I suggest that the ark represents this alternative. I will refer to this alternative structure as a new Ark. There is a biblical reason for making this connection, because the same Greek word is used to refer to both Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. Going further, Noah’s Ark is described in the New Testament using the language of atonement while the Ark of the Covenant is taken on several journeys of salvation. This connection is explored in another essay.
In Genesis 6, Noah builds the ark following instructions from God. Similarly, building the new Ark starts with a rational understanding of God and Incarnation in Teacher thought. This Teacher understanding is first developed in Revelation 10, which talks about a strong angel giving a little book to John to eat and declaring that the mystery of God is finished. This Teacher understanding is then imposed upon society by the theoretical return of Jesus. Therefore, the building of the new Ark could start after Revelation 10 before the theoretical return of Jesus, while the theoretical return of Jesus will force the building of the new Ark to commence. The big difference between a book and an Ark is that a book is a theory composed of words, while an Ark expands that theory into a structure into which all kinds of life can be placed.
This idea of building an Ark over time can be seen in 1 Peter 3:20, which says that “the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through [the] water.” Notice how God is waiting while Noah is constructing the Ark. This describes a period leading up to the theoretical return of Jesus. My general hypothesis is that 1 Peter is describing ways in which Perceiver thought can extend the salvation of incarnation, as symbolized by Jesus giving Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 16:19. Thus, 1 Peter 3 is talking about choosing to cooperate with God by starting to build the Ark before the theoretical return of Jesus.
Turning now to Matthew 24, the reference to the ark of Noah actually happens after the description of the theoretical return of Jesus. Verse 30 describes “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Verses 37-39 then refer to Noah. “For just as were the days of Noah so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Notice the reference to marrying and giving in marriage, which describes an emporium of the subjective. This is consistent with 2 Peter 2:2-3 which says that many will commercialize spiritual technology. Commercializing spiritual technology is not inherently bad. The problem arises when the primary bottom line becomes accumulating some sort of wealth in Mercy thought rather than extending the kingdom of God in Teacher thought. This kind of mercenary mindset already exists today, and it is cognitively and socially damaging. However, extending this mindset into spiritual technology would be personally and socially damning. The general principle appears to be that God usually (always?) judges people by blessing everyone and then those who are incapable of handling this blessing end up damning themselves.
Notice also that the coming of the Son of Man is being compared with the days of Noah, which implies a process occurring over time. Similarly, the description of the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 is typically interpreted as referring to a single event, but that passage actually describes a sequence of events. (Those who are alive will not precede those who fall asleep. The dead in Christ will rise first, then those who are alive will be caught up.)
Going further, these days of Noah came to an end on ‘the day that Noah entered the ark’ (Matt. 24:38). Thus, the triggering event in this passage is not the coming of the Son of Man but rather Noah entering the ark. Cognitively speaking, entering the ark means building an integrated Teacher understanding of God and incarnation, extending this understanding until it is capable of sustaining many kinds of life, and then personally stepping into this understanding. When that happens, then God will shut the door (Genesis 7:16) and the flood will start.
When exactly will this happen? That is difficult to answer. But one can say what will force this to happen. The spread of spiritual technology will force people to extend a theoretical understanding to include the spiritual realm with its mental networks of life. Going further, the end of Hebrews 2 indicates that the backlash from the kingdom of the beast will force people to enter the ark for their personal survival. It seems to be a general principle that God first gives people an opportunity to voluntarily cooperate with him in carrying out some step. If this does not happen, then God manipulates history to force people to carry out this step. For instance, humans could have discovered science in Alexandria before the time of Christ but did not. Therefore, God manipulated history to ensure that science did emerge during the Renaissance.
The passage in Luke 17 starts with Jesus saying that the coming of the Son of Man will take a long time: “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it” (v.22). Notice how people are not longing for some event, but rather for some period of time. The word day literally means ‘a day, the period from sunrise to sunset’. Thus, a day of the Son of Man could refer to a period of time that is illuminated by the sun of a Teacher understanding of incarnation. The reference to Noah also compares days with days: “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man.” This continues “until the day that Noah entered the Ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all” (v.27). Again, the triggering event is Noah entering the Ark.
Luke 17 then talks about Lot. Here too, buying and selling is happening over time, and it continues until Lot leaves Sodom. “In the same way as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all” (v.28-29). Verse 27 talks about marrying and being given in marriage in connection with the ark of Noah. However, marriage is not mentioned when talking about Lot. Instead, what is described is a lot of peripheral activity, like squirrels jumping from one electric wire to another. This is brought to a sudden end by a deadly zap of heavenly power. Brimstone refers to smoking, burning, sulphur-smelling rocks. A rock represents a solid Perceiver fact. Smell relates to mental networks. Thus, brimstone would represent unpleasant facts of conscience. Using an analogy, when the squirrels get too close to the wires, they smell something unpleasant that is solid and unforgiving and they run away.
Verses 30-33 then talk further about Lot leaving Sodom. One can tell that this is the topic because verse 32 adds a short reminder to “Remember Lot’s wife”. Remember means ‘to recall by memory (without implying anything was previously forgotten)’. Lot’s wife infamously looked back when fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s wife represents the mental networks driving the mindset of a righteous Lot (because female thought emphasizes emotions and mental networks). Saying this cognitively, when Lot finally decides to leave the existing inadequate system, does he emotionally look back—as the Israelites looked back longingly at Egypt when following God and wilderness? Salt represents the preservative effects of truth and conscience. If Lot emotionally looks back, he will get a strong conscience but he will become emotionally stuck. This interpretation is clearly supported by the surrounding verses. Verse 31 warns that one should not turn back in order to retrieve any personal possessions within a ‘house’ or hold on to any ‘field’ of expertise.
Verse 33 then repeats this in more general terms by saying that those who investigate trying to fully acquire their soul will be cut off entirely. On the other hand, those who are cut off entirely will bring to birth. I hope that this does not mean that one should never investigate trying to fully acquire one’s soul, because I have been doing this for years. But I have also found over the years that my attempts to become mentally whole have repeatedly encountered dead ends. And when I have accepted these dead ends, then I found that a new form of life comes to birth within. However, it is a struggle not to look back like Lot’s wife and bemoan what one has lost. The solution is to become driven by an internal vision of God’s kingdom that is more attractive than what one has lost.
I suggest that this relates to the flip side of Peter and the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Right after Peter receives the keys from Jesus, Jesus starts to say that he must go through death and rebirth. When Peter questions this, Jesus turns on Peter, calls him Satan, and then says that Peter is setting his mind on human interests rather than God’s interests (Matt. 16:23). Putting this together, Perceiver thought can extend the salvation of Contributor thought, but Perceiver thought still needs to go through death and rebirth guided by Contributor thought.
Looking at this more technically, concrete technical thought brings salvation to Mercy thought guided by connections of cause-and-effect, while abstract technical thought uses precise definitions to add details to Teacher theories. When these two come together—when Jesus becomes Jesus Christ—then concrete technical thought can accomplish far greater feats of salvation by taking a detour through abstract technical thought, similar to the way an airplane can travel much farther than a car by leaving the human realm of earth in order to fly through the air. Fixating upon preserving mental wholeness is like refusing to leave the ground, and this will have fatal effects if the ground is about to be submerged by some flood of Noah (in this case the metaphors mixed together fairly well).
One can also see this relationship in the building of an Ark. When one is building an Ark, then one is searching for mental wholeness because one is trying to build a solid structure which is capable of containing the mental networks of life. But when the Ark is finished and one has entered the Ark, then the time for building is over. It is then time to allow present existence to be cut off entirely in order to give birth to new life. And one will only be able to do this if building the Ark included episodes of being cut off totally to existing forms of life in order to bring something new to birth. I have had several of those episodes over the years, and they were traumatic. For instance, when I was in grade 12, I was assistant concertmaster of the Saskatoon Symphony. For reasons of conscience, I chose not to join the musician’s union. As a result, I was kicked out of the Symphony and never played another professional gig in Saskatchewan.
Moving on, Hebrews 4 appears to be describing God’s ultimate purpose for building an Ark, because that chapter talks about entering God’s rest, and the name Noah means ‘rest’.
Godly versus Unrighteous 2:9-10
Returning now to 2 Peter 2, verse 9 provides a summary. It begins, “[then] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation”. The difference between temptation and testing was discussed in a previous essay. In brief, we have seen that Perceiver and Server thought need to build confidence by holding onto facts and sequences in the middle of emotional pressure. This emotional pressure can come from temptation or it can come from testing. Temptation is a negative force that aims to attack and destroy, but if one does not succumb to temptation, then one will gain confidence. In contrast, the purpose of testing is to prove that something is genuine. Thus, the goal of testing is to pass and not fail. Verse 9 talks about rescuing the godly from temptation. Rescue is the same word ‘draw to oneself’ that was applied to Lot in verse 7. From is more accurately ‘out of’. And godly means ‘respectful (showing due reverence)’. Lot was surrounded by those who did not show reverence. Such a mindset will naturally view moral restrictions as rules imposed by others which can be ignored because nothing bad will happen if one violates the rules. Obviously, such a mindset will surround a righteous Lot with temptation: ‘Why are you hanging on to your old-fashioned rules? Nothing will happen if you violate the rules. Be free.’ Lot, in contrast, fears God and is scared of the consequences of violating God’s ways. God rescues Lot out of this environment by drawing Lot to himself. Being scared of violating God’s rules gradually turns into being attracted to the personal and societal benefits of following God in righteousness. The word know means ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. Thus, this process is actually driven by empirical evidence. One observes the physical behavior of surrounding people and this leads to a deep sense of internal knowing. In my case, this started with my mother, who encouraged me to watch others and learn what happened to those who violated biblical standards.
The next phrase looks at the opposite result: “and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment” (v.9). Unrighteous means ‘unjust, unrighteous’ and is the only time this word is used in 2 Peter. This term implies that one is now thinking in terms of righteousness; one is making a mental transition from temptation to testing; one has become drawn to God to the extent of having an understanding of God’s ways. Instead of thinking that ‘they are crazy’, one’s primary thought is that ‘God is righteous’. Punishment is a strong word that is only found twice in the New Testament, which means ‘to dwarf, mutilate (curtail); used of punishing slaves to incapacitate them’. The other occurrence is in Acts 4:21 where the Sanhedrin decided that they had no basis to punish Peter and John after they healed a man in the Temple. Bringing this together, there is a short-term and a long-term solution. The short-term solution is to curtail the unrighteous by keeping them incapacitated in some manner. This is heading towards the long-term solution of a day of judgment.
Verse 10 says that this principle applies to “especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.” Flesh refers to the mental networks that one acquires from living in the physical body (1 John 2:16 describes the cosmos as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful vaunting of biological life. Thus cosmos includes flesh but goes beyond it to include the natural structure of the physical world with its biological life.) After literally means ‘back, behind, after’. Thus, the flesh is leading and one is following behind. Go means ‘to transport, moving something from one destination to another’. In other words, following after the flesh causes a person to transport from one location to another. This transporting is happening in the realm of the ‘passion built on strong feelings’ of defilement, which means ‘to stain (with paint or dye)’. In addition, ‘everything passing through it also becomes stained’. This summarizes what was stated earlier regarding spiritually enhanced promiscuous sex. The physical desire of the flesh is pulling in a certain direction. One is following after the flesh and one is being transported into a different location in which one is becoming mentally stained with strong passions and this stain then spreads to the rest of the mind.
I should emphasize that the problem is not with adding spiritual power to sex, if this sex occurs within a framework of preserving wholeness and integrity. That is because righteousness is based in wholeness and integrity, and the relationship between male and female thought is a core element of wholeness and integrity. The problem comes from following after the physical flesh, which means mentally divorcing the physical act of sex from the spiritual and cognitive implications of the physical act. One will then be transported into a different location of spiritually-enhanced hedonism, and that location will stain the mind.
Mentally Stained 2:10-13
The next section describes the way in which the mind will become stained. We have looked at the specific cases of inappropriate sex and marketing. I suggest that the upcoming verses describe various ways of responding to—and coping with—encounters with angelic power. These next verses were not pleasant to analyze, and they are normally viewed as an overloaded list of human depravity. Instead, I suggest that one should treat them as an accurate description of how the mind becomes stained when angelic power is added to normal human depravity.
Verse 10 continues by adding “and despise authority”. Authority means ‘lordship’. This term occurs four times in the New Testament and the other three references refer to angelic authorities. Despise means ‘holding someone in contempt, deeming them unworthy and hence despised’. In other words, spiritually-enhanced hedonism is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, the spiritual enhancement is actually coming from a realm of existing spiritual powers. Submitting the spiritual enhancement to the hedonism of flesh implies that one is disregarding these authorities. This would be like taking some object out of a museum and then using it as a toy.
The rest of verse 10 expands upon this attitude (and angels are explicitly mentioned in verse 11): “Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic glories.” Daring is used once in the New Testament as a noun and comes from a verb which means to ‘courageously venture forward by putting fear behind’. Self-willed actually describes ‘a person who gratifies self’. In other words, these people know that they are doing something dangerous, but they choose to pursue hedonistic self-gratification.
One can already see this trend in extreme sports. The Wikipedia article says that extreme sport combines two traits: “The participant has to dispose of considerable skill and/or physical ability to avoid poor execution of the activity; poor execution of the activity has to result in considerable risk of serious physical harm to the participant.” Thus, extreme sport is dangerous and it focuses upon the physical body. Quoting further from Wikipedia, “In outdoor adventure sports, participants get to experience the emotion of intense thrill, usually associated with the extreme sports. Even though some extreme sports present a higher level of risk, people still choose to embark in the experience of extreme sports for the sake of the adrenaline.” One can easily imagine that spiritual power would lead to new versions of extreme sports.
Continuing with verse 10, the word angelic glories is actually just ‘glories’. Revile is literally blasphemy and means ‘to speak lightly or profanely of sacred things’. And tremble means to ‘shake and quiver from fear’. The only other use of this verb is in the Gospels where the lady who touches the hem of Jesus’ garment and is healed comes before him trembling when he notices that power has gone out of him. Glory describes the direction from internal to external—from spiritual to physical. This path of glory is being belittled in Teacher thought by blasphemous speech. And it is being physically belittled by having physical confidence in the face of spiritual power.
Verse 11 describes how real angels behave: “whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.” These angels are greater in strength and in power. It is unclear who ‘them’ is, but that does not really matter because verse 11 is describing the attitude of the angels and not attempting to describe some angelic hierarchy. Reviling is a version of ‘blasphemous’ used in verse 10. Judgment is derived from a verb that means ‘to separate, distinguish, judge’ and this kind of separating and distinguishing is a characteristic of abstract technical thought. ‘Before the Lord’ is literally ‘in the presence of Lord’. Putting this together, angelic beings have greater strength and power than any humans who are using spiritual power to enhance the physical body. Despite this, angels do not take an adversarial approach of belittling the opposition in the presence of authority.
This belittling of the opposition can often be found in technical specializations today, because technical thought will behave rationally when function within the specialization while responding with belittling when encountering anything that threatens that specialization. At the most basic, this describes a mindset asserting supremacy of human materialism. ‘Stand up for humanity. Humans can take over the universe. Make humanity great again.’ I suspect that this sort of response would be common if humans ever became aware of other intelligent life in the universe.
Verse 12 continues: “But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed.” Like means that these people are not animals, but they are acting like animals. Unreasoning is literally without logos. A logos refers to the paradigm of some technical specialization. Without logos means that there is no emotional motivation to use abstract technical thought. A creature means ‘a living creature’ and would refer to any sort of being—natural or supernatural—driven by mental networks. Born is the word that is used in all the New Testament genealogies (...and Abraham begat Isaac...) And natural is the source of the English word physical and means ‘natural, according to nature’. Capture is used once in the New Testament and comes from a verb that means ‘to be taken, conquered’. And killed is actually ‘destruction from internal corruption’.
Putting this all together, every human being is ‘natural born’. Most modern civilized humans have learned to become professionals who are emotionally driven by the logos of some technical specialization. When a mental network is threatened, then it will generate a hyper-pain that is greater than normal pain. If a core mental network is threatened, then a person will be driven emotionally to do anything to restore and protect that mental network. We have talked about humans meeting angels. My best guess is that angels normally function in terms of logos; what we consider abstract thought, they consider normal concrete activity. Therefore, humans would initially find angels reasonable beings: ‘I know how to get along with angels. Just think of a professional without a physical body who always lives within that profession.’ This will work for a while until it becomes apparent that the angel really does not have a physical body and that when an angel makes a physical appearance, that angel is temporarily putting on a physical body. At this point, core mental networks of what it means to be a human being will start to scream. And this human angst will drive supposedly rational humans to throw professionalism out the window and focus upon preserving human existence in the face of an existential threat.
Something similar happened when African tribes were colonized by European forces. Initially, the Africans adopted Western science, technology, and behavior. But when core elements of African culture started to be threatened, then this accommodation turned into open warfare. White colonists may have considered blacks to be subhuman, but both whites and blacks were still humans in physical bodies. Thus, this rebellion was at the level of cultural imposition: ‘Stop opposing the MMNs of your culture upon me. I reject your culture.’ A human rebellion against angels and aliens would be at a deeper level of humanity versus professionalism. (My hypothesis is that both angels and aliens come from the same supernatural realm. Thus, encountering either angels or angels over a period of time would eventually trigger the same gut response of human versus angelic.) This anti-intellectual rebellion would lead to ‘destruction from internal corruption’, and the only option would be to capture and quarantine such individuals. One might think that I am overstating the case, but remember that we are talking about a future society in which spiritual technology has become widespread. Thus, the very use of science and technology will be viewed as having become tainted by ‘them’.
This adds a twist to my antipathy to warfare. Anyone who has read my essays will know that I am a pacifist Mennonite who finds the idea of killing another human to be abhorrent. But how would a professional soldier behave in the situation that we have just described, because a professional soldier has learned how to apply professional skills in the face of physical danger? It is possible that the professional soldier would end up being more sane than the average citizen.
Verse 12 continues, “Reviling where they have no knowledge, will in their destruction also be destroyed.” No knowledge is actually without experiential knowledge. And reviling is the familiar word blaspheme, which means to profane sacred things. One might think this verse is referring to those who have not ‘asked Jesus into their hearts’ blaspheming God. That may be true. But I have visited churches in a number of countries over the years, and I have discovered that culture usually runs at least as deep as the Christian belief. If humans were to come into contact with real angels, then deeper forces of human existence itself would come into play. Free will becomes maximized when a person choose between conflicting mental networks. For instance, it is usually much easier to kill an enemy if I have no personal interaction with that enemy. Firing an artillery shell at an unseen enemy is easier than plunging a bayonet into his chest. This may explain why the blasphemy is coming from those who lack experiential knowledge. They have no alternate mental networks to choose when their humanity feels threatened.
Normal technology is impersonal. Spiritual power would add a personal, experiential component to normal technology. Those who treated spiritual power merely as an extension to normal technology would lack this experiential knowledge. Therefore, when their humanity started to feel threatened, they would be driven at a gut level to curse angelic power. For instance, the Left Behind series is a set of 16 novels about the rapture and the Great Tribulation. Total sales have surpassed 80 million copies. These books are basically technical thrillers with spiritual overtones. Quoting from the Wikipedia article, “One reason often cited for the books’ popularity is the quick pacing and action, and reflects the public’s overall concern and fascination with the Apocalypse as portrayed in the Biblical Book of Revelation. Michelle Goldberg has written that, ‘On one level, the attraction of the Left Behind books isn’t that much different from that of, say, Tom Clancy or Stephen King. The plotting is brisk and the characterizations Manichean. People disappear and things blow up.’” This illustrates what it means to treat spiritual power as an extension to normal technology. The popularity of these books leads me to conclude many evangelical Christians would be part of the crowd in verse 12 who blasphemes based upon a lack of experiential knowledge.
The second phrase contains the same word twice, first as a noun and then as a verb. A literal translation would be ‘in their destruction from internal corruption, they will waste away and deteriorate’. The point is that a mindset of internal corruption will feed upon itself. That is because the logos of some professional skill is the primary emotional difference that distinguishes the average civilized human from a brute animal. Every child today is expected to go to school to the extent of gaining some professional skill that can be applied in the real world. Rejecting professional thought would be self-reinforcing, because the more one rejected professional thought, the less one would have emotionally in common with ‘those angels and aliens’, and the more strongly one would feel driven to protect one’s humanity against aliens with their alien thought.
Verse 13 describes this self-reinforcing cycle, “suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong.” Suffering wrong comes from the word ‘unrighteousness’. Thus, these people are experiencing unrighteousness as the wages of doing unrighteousness. Righteousness describes behavior that is guided by the TMN of a general understanding. True righteousness is guided by the TMN of an understanding of the nature of God. But professionalism is also a limited form of righteousness because a professional is behaving in a manner that is guided by the TMN of some technical specialization. Therefore, rejecting professionalism in an attempt to preserve humanity would be an example of ‘suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong’.
One might think at this point that I am going too far in my interpretation by connecting this passage with a human response to aliens. But there is a parallel passage in Jude 1:8-15 that contains almost identical language. And Jude 1:14 explicitly says that this passage is describing humans from the generation of Enoch, and those humans lived during the period of Genesis 6 when angels made extensive contact with humans. I am not saying that these verses only apply to such a situation. But when one reads these verses in a normal context they feel over the top. One instinctively thinks that these words are too extreme to be applied to normal civilized human beings. Therefore, I suggest that it is both appropriate and scripturally accurate to apply this passage to the unusual circumstance of humans contacting angels and/or aliens.
Summarizing so far, the previous verses describe an attempt to maintain a sense of humanity in the face of alien contact. The primary goal is not to follow hedonism but rather to hold on to humanity as opposed to being an angel or alien. But holding on to humanity rather than angelic existence will turn into a rejection of professional thought and a pursuit of unrighteousness. The next verses will describe a new kind of response, which is accommodation and coexistence.
Co-existence 2:13-14
Verse 13 continues. “They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.” The word pleasure is hedonism, which means ‘sensual pleasure’. This is actually the only time that this word is used in the epistles of Peter. Count it refers to ‘the leading thought in one’s mind’. Thus, hedonism is the leading idea in their mind. This could mean that they are party animals, and that is how this is translated into English. But it could also mean that they are pursuing hedonism in a desperate attempt to maintain feelings of humanity. Revel means ‘softness, daintiness, luxuriousness’. It is found one other time in the New Testament in Luke 7:25 where Jesus says that those who live in luxury are in royal palaces. This goes beyond having a wild party to trying to create some sort of elegance out of hedonism. This is being done ‘in the realm of a day’. And the word day refers to ‘the period from sunrise to sunset’. This gives the impression that interaction with angels is causing the ‘sun’ of a general Teacher understanding to become apparent. Thus, humans are now trying to show that they also are civilized, leading to luxurious hedonism.
Notice how the emotional focus has now shifted from human existence in Mercy thought to angelic elegance in Teacher thought. The idea of nouveau riche provides a possible illustration. A nouveau riche is someone who has just acquired wealth and does not know how to behave in a cultured manner. The typical human is a nouveau riche in the sense of having acquiring the trappings of rational thought without having a core nature that is driven by a TMN of rational understanding. In contrast, someone who has become righteous will naturally behave in a cultured and civilized manner.
One could also view this as an inferior civilization meeting a superior civilization. I know that the very idea of a ‘superior civilization’ has become politically incorrect, but we are talking here about such feelings of political correctness being replaced by the emerging realization that angelic existence really is a superior civilization. Those who are part of an inferior civilization will feel driven to prove that they are just as good as the members of the superior civilization. But what is being forgotten in such an encounter is that all cultural distinctions, including distinctions between human and angel, are secondary. Instead, my hypothesis is that all created beings are the same inside with similar minds, and all are following—from different starting points—the same path of reaching mental wholeness.
Verse 13 continues: “They are stains and blemishes”. A stain is ‘a spot, stain’. Blemish is used once in the New Testament and means ‘a blemish’. Presumably, a stain is some impurity that cannot be removed, while a blemish is some inherent imperfection. This same concept of stain was seen back in verse 10 when referring to those who were becoming mentally stained by following after the flesh. The implication is that preserving humanity as opposed to being an angel will warp the mind with core mental networks of impurity. ‘Blemish’ implies that being human rather than angelic would lead to an inherent imperfection in the mind. I suggest that this is because both humans and angels express part of what it means to be mentally whole. Humans live within concrete thought. Angels live within abstract thought. A person who is avoiding angelic thought is actually shutting down part of his mind, similar to the manner in which a person who hates another cognitive style is also shutting down part of his mind.
Verse 13 finishes, “reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you”. Reveling is found once in the New Testament and adds ‘in the realm of’ to the verb form of ‘softness, daintiness, luxuriousness’ seen earlier in the verse. Deception means ‘a false impression, made to deceive or cheat’. In other words, the hedonistic luxury is becoming increasingly hollow and deceptive. Those who try to create Teacher structure out of physical human existence are increasingly deceiving themselves. Carousing with is a single word which means to ‘feast sumptuously with’. This phrase gives the impression of the nouveau riche, who desperately want to be considered civilized but lack the internal concept of what it means to behave in a civilized manner.
Verse 14 continues: “having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin”. Eyes implies a focus upon physical objects of human experience. Adultery is literally ‘an adulteress (that is, a married woman who commits adultery)’. This could refer literally to internally lusting after married women, but why would Peter emphasize lusting after married women? Cognitively speaking, a married woman refers to mental networks that express some system of thought. Thus, lusting after married women would mean wanting the mental networks that belong to some other system of rational thought. Eyes full of adultery would mean wanting the visual expressions of these mental networks.
This type of mindset happens naturally with normal technology. The male technical thinking of science and technology is used to construct some gadget that is visually appealing. This object is then taken from the context of male technical thought in which it was constructed and brought home to be enjoyed as an object of lust and beauty. Presumably, a human mindset would want to treat angelic elegance in the same manner. One can see a similar response in the nouveau riche, who typically surround themselves with the physical trappings of cultured civilization.
This is combined with “never cease from sin” (v.14). Never cease is used once in the New Testament and means ‘incessant, not ceasing from’. Sin means to miss the mark, which means following a wrong path. Righteousness views sin as not behaving in a righteous manner—not following the right path. Symmetry suggests that righteousness would actually relate to the ‘objects’ of the angelic realm, just as truth relates to the objects of the human realm. (Mental symmetry suggests that aliens/angels existence is the mirror image of human existence: Teacher and Mercy are mirror images, as are Server and Perceiver.) In the previous phrase, humans were focusing in a human manner upon visual objects. In this phrase, humans are avoiding the ‘objects’ of the angelic realm by continually sinning.
The next phrase is “enticing unstable souls”. Entice means ‘to bait a hook or set a trap with bait’. Unstable describes ‘someone who (literally) does not have a staff to lean on’. An unstable soul would refer to a mind that lacks any solid reference points. People naturally feel this way when their culture is experiencing upheaval, especially if this uncertainty is being caused by the encroachment of a superior civilization. For instance, a person from the country who moves to the city is vulnerable to being exploited by corrupt people from his culture.
This is followed by “having a heart trained in greed”. Trained means ‘to train with one’s full effort’. Craving means ‘the desire for more (things)’. This goes beyond consumerism to becoming an intuitive expert in the skill of being a consumer. This conveys the impression that humans are learning the skill of going into an angelic environment and acting as human consumers. One wants the new spiritually enhanced gadgets, but one wants to continue thinking and feeling like a human consumer. Consumerism today is acquired passively because technology is amoral. Being a normal consumer in a future world of spiritual technology would take practice.
The final phrase is “accursed children’. A child is ‘a child living in willing dependence’. Curse combines ‘according to, down’ with ‘a prayer for evil’. This summarizes the juxtaposition. On the one hand, a consumer is ‘a child living in willing dependence’, because a consumer only knows how to consume goods that are produced by others. But this consuming is combined with a downward heading prayer for evil, because the consumerism is leading away from healthy interaction with the heavenly realm in which God dwells.
Summarizing, one can see a new mindset emerging, in which humans are learning how to interact at a commercial level with angels while maintaining human emotions, similar to the way that a person from one culture will temporarily interact with individuals from another culture in order to purchase goods. This method worked reasonably well in the past when exchanging physical objects, but it no longer fully works with today’s electronic gadgets because using a gadget implies adopting a mindset. Going further, this method would fail in the future when dealing with angelic streams because angelic ‘objects’ are composed out of the ‘stuff’ of ‘righteousness’. (Humans live in a world of solid Perceiver objects while angels would live in a ‘world’ of ‘solid’ Server sequences.) This limitation can be seen in the next phrase.
Verse 15 continues, “forsaking the right way, they have gone astray”. Forsaking means ‘to leave, leave behind’. Way means ‘way, road’, and straight means ‘straight, without unnecessary zig-zags’. Righteousness describes Server actions that are guided by Teacher understanding. Teacher thought likes simple explanations. Thus, righteousness is actually simple and straightforward. But what would happen if righteousness became associated with angelic existence? Remaining human would then imply leaving the straight and simple path. For instance, part of being an advanced society means coming up with more efficient and elegant ways of doing things. This turns protecting some inferior culture into doing things the old, complicated way. Moving on, have gone astray is a single word that means ‘to deviate from the correct path (circuit, course), roaming into error’. When one abandons the Teacher thinking that leads along the correct path, then one will naturally drift off the path into some form of error. Using an analogy, this is like traveling without a compass.
Balaam 2:15-16
Verse 15 then says which path will be followed: “having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” Follow was seen back in verse 2 when talking about many following sensuality and means to ‘completely follow’. Thus, straying away from a straight path will turn into completely following the path of Balaam. Balaam means ‘not of the people’. Presumably, Balaam was given this name because he was a prophet who was not Jewish. Bosor means ‘a burning’. The word ‘love’ here is agape, which means ‘love which centers in moral preference’. One can already see from these words that a twisted path is being followed. Agape indicates that Balaam is being emotionally driven in a moral fashion by a concept of God. But this emotional drive is occurring one step removed. Balaam is the son of ‘a burning’, which indicates being driven by strong mental networks, but he himself is not people. In contrast, what Balaam loves is the wages that result from not following righteousness.
This describes a further stage in coexistence. Humans have learned how to play by the rules of angelic righteousness, but they are still being motivated by childish, human MMNs. Something similar sometimes happens when an immigrant from another culture learns how to ‘use the system’. Proper official procedures are being followed, but the system is actually being abused for personal gain. (In contrast, the wealthy typically get the rules of the system to be adjusted to benefit them and hinder others. However, in the future, angelic righteousness would be shaping the system.)
The original story of Balaam is three chapters long (Numbers 22-24). Summarizing, the king of Moab is scared of the vast horde of Israel and calls upon Balaam to curse Israel. In other words, the king of Moab is trying to use spiritual power to attack the group of people who are being guided by spiritual power. When the king of Moab sends representatives to Balaam, God tells him that he cannot curse Israel because they are blessed. The king of Moab responds by sending more important representatives who promise more money to Balaam. God then gives Balaam permission to go but warns him only to say what God tells him to say. Thus, at the Teacher level of God and angels, Balaam is very careful to play by the rules, and nowhere in these three chapters does Balaam actually violate these rules. (The donkey talks when Balaam is on his way to help the king of Moab.)
Balaam then tries three times to curse Israel but ends up blessing them each time because he can only say what God tells him to say. Therefore, at a non-verbal Mercy level, Balaam is following a path that opposes what God is doing. He is saying only what God tells him to say in Teacher thought, but he is going along with the enemies of God in Mercy thought in the hope that he can find some way of attacking the people of God. And Numbers 25 describes Moab successfully cursing Israel in a non-verbal manner, because the Moabites invite the Israelites to participate in their religious ceremonies. “The people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel.”
Summarizing, a literal reading of Numbers 22-24 leads to an interpretation that is similar to our symbolic and angelic interpretation of this section of 2 Peter. Balaam has learned that spiritual power cannot be used in an amoral fashion. Instead, he is using spiritual power in a manner that is consistent with the angelic righteousness of God’s ways in Teacher thought. But Balaam is still trying to find loopholes in this righteousness that make it possible for him to use angelic power to satisfy inadequate human goals.
Using an analogy, Balaam is like a modern weapons manufacturer. Modern technology is based in science, which studies the Teacher structure of the universe. Modern weapons require technology. Thus, weapon design is a ‘son’ of science. But it is not ‘of the people’ who love Teacher order and structure. Instead, it makes money by using an understanding of how things work to stop things from working. And it wraps itself in moral language: ‘we are protecting our country; we are exporting democracy’. This kind of twisted thinking can survive to some extent in today’s world of normal technology, because technical gadgets can be separated from the ordered process by which they were created and used to inflict disorder on opposing forces and countries.
Looking forward to the future, I am sure that the weapons industry would view spiritual technology as a way of supercharging existing weapons. (And if hearsay evidence is to be believed, the weapons industry is already trying to use alien technology to supercharge existing weapons and invent new weapons.) But the spiritual realm is intrinsically related to life, because the spiritual realm empowers mental networks, which are the core of cognitive life. Similarly, the angelic realm is intrinsically related to righteousness. Thus, if spiritual, angelic technology were used to build better weapons, then the weapons themselves would rebel.
That may sound like a wild interpretation, but it is precisely what the next verse says: “but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, [for] a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.” The word translated donkey combines ‘under authority’ with ‘a yoke’, which implies a beast of burden. The word ‘donkey’ is not actually in the original Greek. Instead, something that is presumably alive is being placed under a yoke of authority in order to carry out some function. Mute means ‘without a voice’. Voice means ‘a voice, sound’. Speaking means ‘to make a generic or unintelligible sound’. And man means ‘human’. Peter is not saying that the donkey started to carry on an intelligent conversation. (In Numbers 22:28-30, Balaam does have a conversation with his donkey.) Instead, the beast of burden is making humanlike noises; it is communicating in a way that enters the realm of human Teacher thought.
I have read several times in the UFO literature about alien ships being alive, similar to the way that animals are alive. I also remember reading once (I cannot recollect where) the statement that flying such a ship requires a pilot who is morally good. Spiritual technology presumably adds spiritual power to existing human technology. This goes one step further by harnessing ‘animals’ of the spiritual realm in order to use them as beasts of burden. Verse 16 seems to be saying that these spiritual ‘beasts’ will balk at carrying out tasks that are inherently unrighteous.
Turning now to the beginning of verse 16, rebuke comes from a verb that means ‘to convince with solid, compelling evidence, especially to expose’. Transgression is used once in the New Testament and means literally ‘beside the law’. In other words, the spiritual animal is noticing a cognitive disconnect and is using logic to point this out. This type of thinking emerges naturally from mental networks, because whenever two mental networks are triggered the same time, then each will attempt to impose its structure upon the other. TMNs of angelic existence would focus upon functioning and righteousness. (Hence the connection with professionalism, because a professional behaves in a righteous manner that reflects the knowledge and skills of that profession.) If two incompatible TMNs were triggered simultaneously, then mental gears would jam and the mind would cease to function, which would express itself spiritually as a beast that balks. Balaam is trying to follow righteousness and violate righteousness at the same time, as shown by the term ‘beside the law’.
This spiritual balking can be seen in the end of verse 16, which says that the donkey “restrained the madness of the prophet”. Restrain means ‘to hinder’. Madness is found once as a noun in the New Testament (and once as a verb in 2 Corinthians 11:23) and combines ‘contrary-beside’ with ‘inner perspective regulating outward behavior’. This second word ‘is difficult to translate into English because it combines the visceral and cognitive aspects of thinking.’ Cognitively speaking, this describes thinking that is backed up at a gut level by core mental networks. Madness would then describe a person who is mentally split at this gut level of core mental networks. A spiritual animal would naturally sense this attempt to serve two emotional masters and attempt to hinder it.
Looking at this more generally, I suggest that internal consistency is a powerful spiritual weapon. The most effective way to defeat an evil spiritual power is by showing how that spiritual power contradicts itself. But one can only wield this weapon to the extent that one is practicing purity and consistency oneself in this area.
Preserving Humanity 2:17-19
The next verses describe a mindset that has become internally jammed. Verse 17 begins: “These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm.” A spring is ‘a spring (of water)’. But this spring is waterless. Water represents Mercy experiences, while the earth represents rational thought. A spring would represent Mercy experiences flowing out of rational thought. This is illustrated by technology, which generates a flow of new experiences out of the rational thinking of science. But the spring of verse 17 is not generating any water, because a deep internal cognitive disconnect is preventing the water from flowing. Mist means ‘mist, dimness, darkening’. A storm is ‘a whirlwind, tempestuous wind’. Driven means ‘to drive or push (as wind, oars, or demoniacal power)’. Air represents Teacher thought. Ferocious activity is happening in Teacher thought which is driving people but the only result is vague clouds and a darkening of understanding.
Verse 17 adds, “for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved.” Blackness was seen in verse 4 when talking about the angels who sinned and ‘refers to darkness so dense and foreboding it is felt’. Darkness means ‘darkness (obscurity)’. And reserved means ‘to watch over, to guard’. We interpreted verse 4 as applying to those who practice spiritually enhanced promiscuous sex. Verse 17 indicates that those who try to straddle the fence by being consumers of spiritual technology will eventually end up in the same place. That is because attempting to serve two incompatible emotional masters at a gut level will lead to a state of being emotionally chained, surrounded by incoherent, foreboding, living mental networks.
The word ‘flesh’ is used twice in 2 Peter. It was used in verse 4 and it is used in verse 18, suggesting that these two paths are leading to the same final state. Verse 18 begins, “For speaking out arrogant [words] of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality.” ‘Words’ is not in the original Greek. Instead, speaking means ‘to make a generic or unintelligible sound’ and was used in verse 16 with Balaam’s beast of burden. Arrogant means ‘oversized, greatly swollen (bloated)’. And vanity means ‘aimlessness due to lacking purpose or any meaningful end’. This is like technobabble, which uses meaningless words to convey the emotional impression of generality in Teacher thought. For instance, Wil Wheaton of Star Trek provides the following example: “ I’d detected anomalies in the starboard neutrino emitter, and instead of adjusting the warp plasma induction subroutine to compensate for multiadaptive fluctuations, like you’d usually do, I thought about it, and equalized the portable phase transmission with a self-sealing warp core transmuter.” The individual words make sense, but they are being assembled in a way that is intellectual garbage. However, for those who do not understand science, these words convey an air of Teacher generality—they are ‘oversized and bloated’ with Teacher ‘air’.
Moving on, entice means ‘to bait a hook or set a trap with bait’ and was used back in verse 14 where unstable souls were being lured. Desire means ‘passion built on strong feelings’ and this word was seen in verse 10 when referring to those who were following after the flesh. And the ‘flesh’ is also in verse 14. In verse 10, people were following after the flesh in a passion of defilement. In verse 18 the passion itself is of the flesh. And this is being used to bait people to sensuality, which means ‘outrageous conduct, conduct shocking to public decency’.
Looking at this cognitively, when one is faced with two incompatible sets of core networks, then one must choose between the two; one must decide which of the two animals will get fed. Verse 18 talks about feeding the animal of human existence. But this is not where it ends. Instead, protecting human existence is a hook that leads to socially outrageous behavior. What starts as ‘protecting my lifestyle’ is turning into ‘how can we shock the population’. Something similar has often happened in countries that were colonized by Europe. The previous sections talked about a form of accommodation, in which local individuals learn to think and behave like the colonizing powers, while still being motivated by local customs. However, a point will eventually be reached where the remaining fragments of local custom become threatened. When core mental networks are threatened, then they will generate a form of hyper-pain that overrides normal discomfort. This feeling of cultural angst will cause conforming to the colonial overlord to be replaced by rebelling from the colonial overlord in order to preserve local culture. But what started as preserving the local culture will often end up as perpetrating atrocities upon the innocent population.
Those who get drawn in to this rebellion are “those who barely escape from the ones who live in error”. Barely means ‘few, little, small’. Escape is only used in 2 Peter and means ‘to flee from’. Error means ‘a wandering’ and was seen in verb form in verse 15. And live means to ‘turn myself about; I sojourn, dwell’, which implies a form of existence that is not really going anywhere. In other words, some people are starting to run away from the mental split in the thinking of Balaam, but they are being baited by the need to protect humanity. Using the language of Balaam, ‘I agree that the Israelites are the people of God and one cannot oppose God. But we are also a people who descended from righteous Lot’. (Genesis 19:30-38 says that the Moabites were descendants of Lot.) Translating this into possible future language, ‘Yes, the angels are beings from God, but God also created humanity and humanity is being threatened.’
Verse 19 compares what the liberators promise with the reality: “promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption.” Freedom means ‘freedom, liberty, especially: a state of freedom from slavery’. And promise means ‘to declare a promise that is fitting, i.e. legitimately applies’. This suggests that people really will be viewing their predicament as bondage to some colonizing force and will be saying ‘We need to become free from slavery, and this is a legitimate goal’.
But the reality is different. A slave is ‘someone who belongs to another’. And being means ‘what exists, especially what pre-exists’. Corruption was seen twice in verse 12 and means ‘destruction from internal corruption’. Thus, what really drives these people is the pre-existing condition of being driven by childish human MMNs. That is why the attempt to preserve humanity turns into passion of the flesh.
Verse 19 summarizes, “for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved”. Overcome means ‘I am defeated, am overcome, am made inferior’. And enslaved means to ‘become enslaved’. Verse 19 obviously applies to the process of personal transformation. The childish mind is driven by inadequate MMNs acquired from living in a physical body. The childish mind thinks that freedom means rebelling from others, not realizing that it has grown up in a state of being enslaved by internal corruption.
But the same principle would apply at a deeper level if humans met angels and/or aliens. What does it really mean to be human? Does one define humanity as being a childish, fallen human? If so, then defending humanity would inevitably turn into preserving a lifestyle of sin. A similar question arises whenever an inferior culture is invaded by a superior culture. No culture is totally bad. Every culture has at least some good features. But one culture can only become massively superior to another by following principles of mental wholeness to a greater extent. Therefore, preserving the inferior culture will turn—at least to a certain extent—into preserving the sin nature. This happens to some degree when human cultures collide. It would happen to a much greater extent if the righteousness of God collided with humanity, because preserving humanity would ultimately turn into preserving the human sin nature. For instance, ‘Humans have a right to have armies and conduct wars. Destructive competition is an essential characteristic of human existence. Humans combine intelligence with animal drives. That is what it means to be human.’ No, no, no, and no. Traits such as these are characteristics of what it means to be a sinful, fallen human, and that kind of so-called humanity needs to stop.
Before we continue, I would like to address the issue of being human. What is required to really protect humanity? The first step is obviously to provide the basic physical needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter, as described by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But how should this be done? As far as I can tell, most sins of the flesh can be defined as taking some shortcut to meeting a legitimate human need. Therefore, is it enough to meet the physical need, or must one meet this need in the ‘normal’, sinful manner of the flesh?
Going further, human ideals and values should be not just acknowledged but valued. In other words, there should be shared Platonic forms. If some alien recognizes my values in a begrudging or clinical manner, then I will suspect that the same alien who feeds me today may eat me tomorrow. But which human ideals should be valued? Qualities such as truth and justice are obviously universal traits that would apply to both humans and aliens. But what about the Platonic form of the ideal soldier? For instance, the Iliad is the closest thing that the ancient Greeks had to a holy book and it is primarily a story of soldiers killing one another—observed and helped by the gods. Is that an essential part of being human that needs to be preserved? Looking at another emotional topic, what kind of human religion should be preserved? That is the question which we have been attempting to address in these essays by translating the human religion of Christianity into a form that could survive interaction with angels and aliens.
Our discussion of preserving humanity has looked so far at mental networks. Human thought also uses technical thinking. I have suggested that human professions with their technical specializations are compatible with alien behavior. This would provide a major area of commonality, making it possible for humans and aliens to work together and interact at a professional level. But should all human professions be protected? The development of modern technology caused many professions to become obsolete. Spiritual technology would also cause many existing professions to become obsolete. Would this massive disruption be blamed upon aliens and angels?
Finally there is normal thought with its analogies and connections. This tends to be ignored, but it is actually the form of thought that is used most of the time, which is why I refer to it as normal thought. The impact of incompatible normal thought is illustrated by movies in which some foreign person continually messes up clichés and sayings. More generally, one can tell that someone speaks a language like a nature speaker when they are able to interpret and generate idioms. Similarly, I suggest that interaction with aliens would feel normal (notice that word again) to the extent that aliens were able to comprehend the human patterns and analogies of normal thought.
Being Overcome after Escaping 2:20-22
Verse 20 returns to the big picture: “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” Flee was seen in verse 18 and means ‘to flee from’. Defilements comes from a verb that means ‘to stain (with paint or dye)’. And world is cosmos. A person can flee to some extent from the cosmos when becoming personally transformed, but truly fleeing the naturalistic world system of the cosmos would only become possible if one gained access to spiritual and supernatural realms. Knowledge refers to appropriate experiential knowledge. And this knowledge is of ‘the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’. The average Christian today has some experiential knowledge of Jesus as a Lord and Savior, but this is describing accurate experiential knowledge of an integrated concept of Incarnation, which would only be possible after a theoretical return of Jesus. Thus, verse 20 is describing something which can become partially true today but would only become fully true if a theoretical return of Jesus was followed by the spread of spiritual technology.
Verse 20 continues by saying that “they are again entangled in them and are overcome”. Entangled means ‘to weave in, to entwine’. Overcome was seen in verse 19 and means ‘defeated, am overcome, am made inferior’. Verse 15 talked about going astray from a straight road. The end result of following many crooked paths is to become entangled. Righteousness describes following Server paths that head in similar directions guided by a general Teacher understanding. Loving the wages of unrighteousness, in contrast, will entangle the mind with many Server paths leading in various directions. A mind that has become tied up in such a manner has been made inferior.
Verse 20 concludes that “the last state has become worse for them than the first”. Worse means ‘worse, more severe’. There is a cognitive reason why the end is worse than the beginning. The average person today assumes that only the physical universe exists. This may be official dogma, but in most people’s minds, this dogma is not backed up by mental confidence. In contrast, the people at the end of this progression have gained sufficient mental confidence to act as if only the physical universe exists in the presence of both the supernatural and the spiritual. Something similar happens when there is a polarization and opposing parties become more set in their ways. But we are talking here about a polarization which extends far beyond the normal divisions of human society.
Verse 21 describes the two alternatives: “For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.” Better is actually the comparative form of ‘dominion’, which describes having greater Teacher generality. Known is ‘appropriate experiential knowledge’, and ‘the way of righteousness’ is more literally ‘the way of the righteousness’. Righteousness is a path, as described in Psalm 23:3: “he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” It is a path in the sense that one is adding Server actions to Teacher understanding, and it is also a path in the more general sense that one follows a path of personal transformation in order to become righteous.
I have suggested that angels live within a realm of Teacher streams. These would acquire stability by being organized into Server paths. Something similar happens when learning a new language, because what started off as merely a stream of verbal noise eventually turns into the Server path of a sentence with words and grammar. Thus, encountering angels would qualify as having an experiential knowledge of the path of the righteousness. This is different than merely encountering the spiritual realm, because the spiritual realm does not have any inherent structure of its own. In contrast, the angelic realm has a structure of righteousness.
Saying this more theoretically, angelic righteousness is the analog of human objects, because Server thought takes the place of Perceiver thought and vice versa. A good human accepts the truth of internal Perceiver facts, while an evil human lies about internal Perceiver objects. (John 8:44 describes Satan as a father of lies who has no truth in him, while John 16:13 describes the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth.) However, when it comes to Perceiver facts about physical objects, then even evil humans must accept the truth in order to function within the physical universe. By symmetry, evil aliens would ‘lie’ about internal Server paths of righteousness while good aliens/angels would acknowledge internal paths of Server righteousness. However, even evil aliens would have to acknowledge their external realm of righteousness in order to continue functioning within the supernatural realm. Therefore, connecting with the supernatural realm would lead to a deep experiential knowledge of righteousness—even for those who interacted with evil aliens.
Verse 21 continues by talking about those who “turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them”. Turn away means ‘to turn back, return’. The word commandment focuses ‘on the end-result (objective) of a command’. And handed on means ‘to deliver over with a sense of close (personal) involvement’. Putting this together, this is not a case of telling a person what to do, but rather giving commands that are designed to reach some desired goal. And these are not just random commands but rather commands that are holy, which means set apart to God. And delivering these holy commands required significant personal involvement.
To some extent this description applies to the preacher or missionary who is telling others about Christianity. But most Christians today have no concept of a path of righteousness. Christianity does have wisdom and knowledge, similar to the way that pre-scientific society had significant pragmatic knowledge. But what is missing is the idea of a coherent path of righteousness guided by the TMN of a concept of God. For instance, verse 21 used the word ‘better’ and I mentioned that this refers to greater Teacher generality. A physicist knows what this means. Most Christians do not.
In a similar manner, holy means ‘different from the world because like the Lord’. First century society regarded temples as holy, because gods were believed to live in temples. That definition of holiness distinguishes between normal and special MMNs. The average Christian today no longer regards specific locations as holy. Instead, holy is usually defined as submitting fully to absolute truth rather than following MMNs of personal desire. In contrast, a future society would define holiness as thinking and behaving the way the angels of God do. Peter is saying that there is greater Teacher generality in having incomplete concepts of righteousness and holiness than in grasping experientially the meaning of righteousness and holiness and then choosing not to be governed by them.
Verse 22 finishes with two proverbs. “The thing of the true proverb has happened to them”. Happened describes ‘two things moving side-by-side’ and ‘chiefly refers to God’s providence’. This describes a form of righteousness because human Server sequences are ‘moving side-by-side’ the Teacher character of God. True means literally ‘what can’t be hidden’ and this is the only time that this adjective is used in 2 Peter. And a parable is ‘a byword, a parable, an allegory’. In other words, Peter is using a proverb to illustrate how things really work.
The first parable is “A dog returns to its own vomit”. Vomit is only used once in the New Testament and comes from a verb that means ‘to evacuate’. The emphasis is upon the dog returning to what it has previously eliminated. Cognitively speaking, this means that familiarity runs deeper than pain and pleasure. Familiarity is based on the existence of a mental network, while pain and pleasure come from the memories that are within the mental network. It feels bad to hurt, but it feels worse when a mental network falls apart, and continuing to experience something unfamiliar will cause a mental network to fall apart. The dog initially vomited because the food tasted bad. The dog returns to its own vomit because the vomit is familiar. This is similar to the way that an abused spouse tends to return to abusive situations because they are familiar. It may be vomit, but it is my vomit. Applying this to the context, humans are ultimately holding on to humanity because it is familiar. Angelic assistance and spiritual power may be better, but they are not familiar. We saw this in the drive to preserve humanity.
The second parable is “A sow, after washing, [returns] to wallowing in the mire.” This is the only use of the word sow in the New Testament, and it refers to a female pig. Washing means ‘bathing the whole body’. Wallowing is also found once in the New Testament and means ‘a rolling’. Finally, mire is also found only once in the New Testament and means ‘dung, mire’. Behaviorally speaking, “All pigs wallow in mud whenever they have the chance, as it helps them to regulate their body temperature and discourages parasites.” Thus, wallowing in the mire satisfies a deeper need for a pig than staying clean. Similarly, humans have developed a way of living that satisfies the deepest needs of what it means to be human, and this runs deeper than being cleansed from sin. For a pig, regulating skin temperature and removing parasites are deeper needs than staying clean. Similarly, for a human, regulating societal interaction and eliminating societal parasites are deeper needs than avoiding sin. For instance, armies may be evil, but they regulate social interaction. Bureaucracies may be unpleasant, but they keep social parasites under control.
The Second Letter 3:1-2
Chapter 3 opens with a comment from Peter. “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.” Looking at this literally, Peter is telling us that this is his second epistle. But why is this comment inserted at the beginning of chapter 3, and is there any deeper significance? Addressing this question cognitively, Perceiver thought has now returned to the level of working with Teacher words. This sounds trivial, but it is not. That is because spiritual power would completely disrupt Perceiver thought. The first chapter dealt with Perceiver thought struggling to gain the confidence that was required to function in the midst of spiritually amplified emotions.
Encountering angels would overwhelm Perceiver thought from a new direction. In the human mind, Server thought controls the body through physical actions while Perceiver thought can only observe and classify experiences. In contrast, the angelic mind uses Perceiver thought in an active manner to guide various streams in Teacher thought, while Server thought would be reduced to the passive role of observing and classifying these streams. Chapter 2 has focused upon describing some of the major streams along which society would flow if angels and/or aliens showed up. Now finally at the beginning of chapter 3, Perceiver thought can finally stop reacting and start communicating again at the level of intelligible Teacher thought.
Looking more closely at verse 1, stirring up means ‘to arouse completely’, in the sense of waking a person up from sleep. This same verb was used in 1:13 just before Peter said that he was going to ‘leave his tent’. We can now understand what it means for ‘Peter to leave his tent’. It means that Perceiver thought stops merely classifying Mercy experiences and starts working with general Teacher theories. I know what it is like to go through this shift cognitively. I started my research by poking holes in the theories of my Teacher brother and I thought that Perceiver thought was only capable of using facts to question or support Teacher theories. It was a huge revelation when I realized that Perceiver thought can also build Teacher theories by finding connections between one context and another. Perceiver thought would have to make a similar but more extensive shift if the angelic realm were encountered, because Perceiver thought would no longer simply observe and classify physical experiences but also be capable of connecting and guiding angelic streams. I am just starting now to get an inkling of what this would entail. Going further, we can also understand why Peter emphasizes waking up completely. Perceiver thought has to stop being passive and start functioning in active manner.
The word mind is found once in 2 Peter and means ‘movement from one side (of an issue) to the other to reach balanced-conclusions; full-orbed reasoning’ and is ‘used of reasoning and speech between characters in ancient dramas’. Notice how streams of intelligence are being connected and guided. Pure is found twice in the New Testament and combines ‘shining of the sun’ with ‘to pick out (choose) by separating’. Chapter 1 finished by talking about the dim light of the morning star. ‘Pure’ describes Perceiver thought helping abstract technical thought by connecting and clarifying in the light of a general Teacher understanding.
For instance, I am using Perceiver thought to point out and clarify connections in these essays. But I am doing this guided by the ‘sun’ of the theory of mental symmetry in a manner that is consistent with the definitions of Greek words determined by abstract technical thought. Using religious language, I am using Perceiver thought in an active manner guided by God the Father in Teacher thought combined with a concept of Christ in abstract technical thought. (Notice how the previous sentence connected religious with cognitive language, which itself is an example of a ‘pure mind’ as defined in this verse.)
Finally, reminder means ‘a reminding, reminder’ and the phrase is literally ‘in the realm of reminder’. This same word was also used in 1:13 just before Peter left his ‘tent’. A reminder brings back to mind a memory that is already within a person’s mind. The cognitive principle here is that Perceiver thought can only build connections between items that exist. One cannot build a connection between something and nothing. For instance, these essays build many connections between Scripture and the thinking of science. Jesus could not build such connections because scientific thinking did not exist in his time. This inadequacy can be seen in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3. Similarly, one of the books I analyzed was written by a physicist and a theologian who attempted to come up with an explanation of incarnation based upon the Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. Their end result was not an integrated concept of incarnation in which Jesus and Christ are revealed to be two sides of the same person, but rather a strange connection between ‘Jesus as interpreted by Kierkegaard’ and ‘the mystical nothingness of a singularity’. This is like a bridge from somewhere-else to nowhere. Such a connection cannot exist.
Peter says in verse 2 what he is connecting to: “that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior [spoken] by your apostles.” Remember means ‘actively remember’ and this verb is used once in 2 Peter. This focuses on the need to use Perceiver thought in an active manner. Two things are being remembered.
The first is “the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets”. Word here refers to ‘a spoken word’. Spoken beforehand is a single word that combines ‘in advance’ with ‘speaking to a conclusion’. This refers to the normal human speech that is used today. These words were spoken by ‘the holy prophets’. Thus, Peter is presumably referring primarily to the verbal prophecies of the Bible.
The second is ‘the commandment of the Lord and Savior [spoken] by your apostles’. The NASB adds the word ‘spoken’ but this is not in the original Greek, which means that Peter is not necessarily talking about normal human speech. An apostle is someone who extends the message of incarnation in a major new way. This is discussed in the essay on 1 Corinthians 9. Peter described himself as an apostle in the opening verse of both 1 and 2 Peter, but this is the only other time that the word ‘apostle’ is used in these epistles.
Peter refers to ‘your apostles’ and ‘your’ is in the original Greek. The implication is that apostleship is something that occurs in some context. It is not just a label applied to the authors of the New Testament. Instead, it describes others moving forward in a major way from some existing context: your apostles. But these apostles are not functioning in a vacuum. Instead they are being guided by ‘the commandment of the Lord and Savior’. This is curious because the functions of incarnation are mentioned but the name ‘Jesus Christ’ is not. This implies that people in various contexts are moving forward in a manner that is consistent with incarnation but not under the direct leadership of incarnation. This same kind of indirect following of incarnation can be seen in the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17.
Putting this together, Peter is using Perceiver thought to connect with the verbal theories and holy books of the past as well as connect with the advances being made in the present (which would be our future). We are doing something similar in these essays by using cognitive theory to connect with the verbal revelation of the Bible as well as connect with the advances being made in the present by scientific thought.
Playing Games 3:3-4
The next section is typically interpreted as referring to the second coming of Christ, but the language is unusual. Verse 3 talks about ‘the last days’: “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts.” Know refers to experiential knowledge. ‘Will come’ implies that something will come which was not previously present. Last means ‘last, final’. And we have been defining a ‘day’ as a period of time that is ruled by the ‘sun’ of some general Teacher theory. Thus, verse 3 is talking about a mindset that will finally emerge after all of the transitions of chapters 1 and 2 have finished and things have settled down. The word ‘mockers’ is used twice, once to refer to mockery, and once to refer to a mocker. These come from a verb that combines ‘in the realm of’ with ‘to play as a child’. This is different than the blaspheming of chapter 2. Instead, one might compare this with the way that the average person today spends much of their time playing games on smart phones and computers. Except, in the future this would be more like spending time on the holodeck of Star Trek, in which one lives within virtual reality—and even today some people think that physical reality is merely an artificially generated matrix or a virtual reality.
The verb ‘mocking’ is fairly common in the New Testament and is used primarily to describe Jesus being mocked in his trial. However, the noun ‘mocker’ is only found twice in the New Testament: here, and in the parallel passage in Jude 1:18. A ‘mocker’ is a person who has the character of ‘mocking’. This goes beyond playing the occasional childish game to living within a world of childish games. One can see why these ‘mockers’ come in the last days by looking at the computer games of today. The computer was a disruptive technology that created major dislocations within society when it was being developed. But today’s generation has grown up in an environment of being surrounded by computers. Similarly, encountering spiritual power and supernatural beings would create major disruptions to human society. But eventually a new generation would grow up (I suspect that people would live a lot longer in the future) that would consider the combination of natural, supernatural, and spiritual to be normal.
These ‘mockers’ are described as ‘following after their own lusts’. Following means ‘to transport, moving something from one destination to another’ and was seen in 2:10 which talked about following after the flesh. The word lust means ‘passion built on strong feelings’. The word own means ‘uniquely one’s own, peculiar to the individual’, and this word was seen in 2:22 when talking about a dog returning to its own vomit. This phrase is not talking about following hedonism or about following the desires of the flesh. Instead, it implies that everyone is becoming emotionally involved in their own virtual reality and that these virtual realities are drifting apart. One can observe what this means simply by looking at today’s typical crowd. Most of the people are staring at their own smartphones, emotionally immersed in their own realm of childish games. (A lot of social media would also qualify as a childish game because people are projecting a persona or pretending to behave in some manner.)
Verse 4 describes the underlying assumption: “And saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For [ever] since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” A father is ‘one who imparts life and is committed to it’. And fall asleep often refers to the sleep of death. In other words, Peter is referring to the next generation which is living after those who have gone through the transitions of chapters 1-2 have passed away. Notice that the reference is to fathers and not to mothers. Male thought emphasizes technical thought, while female thought emphasizes mental networks. The mental networks are still awake because people are becoming emotionally involved. But the male technical thought has fallen asleep. One can see this with computers. My first computer was an Apple II and I actually assembled an Apple II clone from a kit, burning the EPROMs with an EPROM burner that I assembled from scratch. Everyone who used computers at that time had to have a technical understanding of how computers work. Today’s average computer user knows what buttons to press but does not understand at a technical level how a computer functions. Similarly, the next generation of the future would be very fluent at pressing the right buttons of a holodeck but would no longer have a technical understanding of how a holodeck functions. (I suspect that the holodeck of the future would not have any physical buttons or even reside within physical reality, but the cognitive principle would still remain, which is that female mental networks would remain while male technical thinking would atrophy.)
The first assumption is “where is the promise of His coming?” The word promise means ‘an appropriate promise’. And coming ‘is a technical term with reference to the visit of a king or some other official’ and is the word that is normally used to describe the second coming of Christ. This is not referring to the theoretical return of Jesus (commonly referred to as the rapture) but rather the personal return described in Revelation 19. In other words, God’s plan of history is being questioned. I suggest that this is because the next return of Christ is being viewed as a repeat of the previous return. The theoretical return of Jesus will happen within existing physical reality. Therefore, the growth of virtual reality would be viewed as something that that would lead to a questioning of the second coming—because it is separate from existing reality. In a similar manner, the average Christian today thinks that the rapture will be a repeat of the first coming. Therefore, science and technology are viewed as something different which have nothing to do with the rapture, and these Christians are waiting for science and technology to come to a dead end so that God can finally get on with the rapture. But science and technology are actually laying the mental foundations for a theoretical return of Jesus Christ. Similarly, I suggest that future virtual reality will be laying the mental foundations for a final return of Jesus Christ. This is related to my general hypothesis that the current system of matter-over-mind will eventually be replaced by a new cosmic system of mind-over-matter.
Looking briefly at the Ascension, in Acts 1:10-11 the angels ask, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” This seems to say that the return of Jesus will be just like the ascension. But the angels are specifically instructing not to ‘stand looking into the sky’. And the word way actually means ‘a new direction from taking a turn or adopting a new manner’. Similarly, Jesus just took a turn in a new direction because they were asking him in verse 6 when he would set up his physical kingdom and he responded by vanishing up into the sky. In other words, one should expect a twist and not expect a continuation of the previous coming. After all, the very nature of incarnation is to save with a twist. Jesus brings the salvation while Christ adds the twist that leads to greater salvation.
That brings us to the second assumption which is that “all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation”. Continue means ‘to continue on completely’. Creation means ‘creation which is founded from nothing’. And as it was means ‘in this way, thus’. Notice the reference is not to people but rather to creation. The focus is not upon the flesh but rather the cosmos. Presumably, chapter 2 will lead to a personal breakthrough, which is why I suggested that people will probably be living longer at this time. And the other passages that refer to this period imply that there will be considerable personal prosperity and well-being. When one’s physical needs are being met, then it is possible to play games. This is similar to the manner in which modern civilization provides most physical needs, giving the average person enough leisure time to play games. But the physical creation is continuing to function the way that it always has. People may be spending their time in virtual reality, but this virtual reality exists as pockets with an unchanging physical universe.
Looking at this cognitively, virtual reality is parasitic upon real reality. For instance, suppose that I am growing virtual crops in some app on my smartphone. The pretense of growing imaginary grain is only emotionally significant because real grain exists that grows within the real world, and this real grain can be turned into real bread that can be eaten as real food. If the picture of grain on my computer screen were to be replaced by some random shape, then this emotional significance would no longer be present. Thus, the only reason that people can become emotionally driven by virtual reality is because virtual reality is copying a real world with real objects that have real significance. Verse 4 implies that people are aware of the relationship between normal reality and virtual reality.
Theory before Application 3:5-6
But verse 5 points out that something deeper is being ignored: “For they are willfully ignorant of this fact, that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.” Ignorant means ‘hidden (concealed), lie hid, escape notice’. And willfully means ‘to desire’. Therefore, the first phrase appears to be saying ‘For this escapes the notice of their desires that...’ Saying this cognitively, they are so immersed emotionally in their virtual realities that they are ignoring something.
The first ignored fact is that “[the] heavens existed long ago”. Heavens refers generically to the supernatural realm. Long ago is used twice in the New Testament and combines ‘out of’ with ‘long ago’. The other occurrence was in 2:3 which said that the judgment of those misusing supernatural power was from long ago. Exist means ‘to be’.
The second ignored fact is that “[the] earth was formed out of water and by water”. Earth refers to ‘the arena we live in which operates in space and time’. It is a common word but it is only found in Peter’s epistles in this section, and it is used four times in verses 5-13. Water means simply ‘water’. Formed means to ‘stand together, referring to facts lining up with each other to support something’, and this word is only used once in Peter’s epistles. The earth is described as being formed ‘out of’ water and ‘through’ water.
Putting this together, Peter is pointing out that the angelic realm is the source while the physical universe is secondary. For instance, computers can now be controlled by a GUI (graphical user-interface) in which one manipulates imaginary objects on a screen. However, computers were initially controlled by typing textual commands. (For instance, ‘del *.* /s /q’ will delete all files and subfolders in some folder.) In other words, computers were initially controlled using the Teacher realm of technically defined speech and they are now controlled by using the Mercy metaphor of virtual objects. That is because a computer is actually a physical expression of abstract technical thought—a machine that is capable of performing logic. Early computers had limited power. Therefore, they had to be controlled directly at the level of abstract technical thought. Computers are now far more powerful, but most of this extra power is usually being used to create the illusion that one is manipulating virtual objects on a screen.
The average computer user today thinks of computers in terms of virtual Mercy objects, not realizing that a computer actually functions within the ‘heavenly’ realm of abstract technical thought with its Teacher words. This ‘escapes the notice’ of average computer users because they are too immersed emotionally in the virtual reality of Mercy experiences. Similarly, the virtual realities of the future would function by using angelic streams to generate artificial human environments, but it would escape the notice of the average user of virtual reality that this was the case.
One implication of this principle is that a theory of cosmology must start with the Teacher ‘heaven’ of mathematics. Going further, it also means that any theory of cosmology which considers only the physical universe without including the supernatural realm is incomplete.
This may sound like science fiction (because it currently is science fiction), but Jesus says the same thing in John 14:1-3. “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” The word place is a generic term that refers to a physical location. The word dwelling places is found twice in the New Testament and means ‘an abiding dwelling-place (i.e. not transitory)’. (The other instance is in John 14:23 where Jesus says that he and the Father will make a dwelling place with those love him and hold on to his logos. My hypothesis is that that verse refers to the theoretical return of Jesus.) Notice that Incarnation is going to the Teacher realm of the Father in order to create places of virtual reality in which humans can live, and because of this humans do not have to be personally troubled in Mercy thought. (Thus, one could more accurately define current heaven as the aspect of the supernatural realm which has been made compatible with human disembodied souls.) Using computer language, Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t worry. I know how to program computers. I will program the computers to create a GUI that you will find comfortable to operate.’
That brings us to the phrase ‘out of water and through water’. Water represents Mercy experiences. Looking first at ‘out of water’, a computer carries out the logical thinking of abstract technical thought. But a computer is still constructed out of physical matter. Similarly, creation started with the Teacher thinking of God the Father but these Teacher equations were then applied to physical matter created by God the Holy Spirit. This order is reflected in the mathematical structure of the physical universe. Similarly, in Genesis 1:1 God creates the heavens and the earth, while in Genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God moves over the surface of the waters. God the Father set up the initial cosmic framework, and then God the Holy Spirit filled this framework.
Verse 5 then finishes with the phrase ‘by the of God logos’. In other words, God the Father in Teacher thought did not just create by using vague, handwaving pronouncements. Instead physical creation was put together using the logos of technical thinking. Similarly, the GUI on a modern computer has been made to look intuitively obvious, but behind this apparent simplicity lies incredible programming complexity. Applying this to the future, virtual reality will probably be intuitively obvious to use, but it will harness supernatural streams in a very complex and intricate manner.
The phrase ‘through water’ is explained by verse 6: “through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.” Verse 6 starts with ‘through’ and talks about water. The word flooded is the verb form of the noun cataclysm that was used to describe the flood of Noah in 2:5. This noun is used four times, each time to refer to Noah’s flood, but this is the only use of the verb. Thus, the focus is upon the flood as a process in Teacher thought rather than as a state experienced in Mercy thought. Destroyed means to ‘fully destroy, cutting off entirely’. I mentioned earlier that this section is talking about ge or earth. However, what is being destroyed by the flood is the cosmos, and this is the only use of cosmos in chapter 3.
Putting this together, we have talked about flesh and cosmos and we have looked at preserving humanity. Human existence at its most basic combines Teacher generality with Mercy specifics. We live in a physical universe of Teacher order while physical sensations of pain and pleasure from the physical body program Mercy thought with specific Mercy experiences; living in the physical universe leads to the mental content of the cosmos, while the physical body programs the flesh. A flood uses many specific Mercy experiences to wipe out Teacher order. In a cataclysmic flood, the entire local Teacher order is wiped out by raw Mercy experiences. (The flood of Noah destroyed the Teacher order of the earth, but this flood was limited to the planet earth.) What survives a flood is an Ark of localized Teacher order, and this Ark is constructed by humans. Noah built a physical Ark, which went through a flood of physical water. In a flood of experiences, the Ark is primarily cognitive, because one survives being inundated by Mercy experiences by holding on internally to the Teacher structure of some mental Ark in which one has placed all of the mental networks of life.
The purpose of a flood is to wipe out the inadequate Teacher structure that comes from building upon the external environment and to force people to hold on to an internal Teacher understanding. That is why it talks about the flood destroying the cosmos. The cosmos refers to the external Teacher order of the physical environment together with the associated mental networks within peoples’ minds.
A similar transition will happen during the theoretical return of Jesus. The inadequate structure that is being flooded away is the temple built upon its Perceiver stones of absolute truth. As Jesus said in Matthew 24 when his disciples marveled at the temple: No stone will be left standing on another, and that describes the state of current post-Christian society. The Ark that goes through this flood starts with the book of a general Teacher theory that is given by the strong angel in Revelation 10. This book provides the plans for building the Ark. This is followed by the theoretical return of Jesus and spiritual technology. Spiritual technology is then supposed to be assembled into the protective structure of an Ark, guided by this integrated Teacher understanding. Eventually everything becomes flooded with the backlash of the kingdom of the beast, and one survives this flood of evil Mercy experiences (as described in chapter 2) by living within an Ark of spiritual technology held together by an integrated Teacher concept of God and assisted by the angels who live with God in Teacher thought. This flood is then followed by the flourishing of a new society which eventually leads to the situation of 2 Peter 3.
Before we go on, I would like to address a more general question. Why would God impose a flood? Is it only to judge evil people? I suggest that the solution lies in recognizing that existence is more basic that pain and pleasure. This principle can be seen in a mental network, because threatening the existence of a mental network will provoke a hyper-pain that is deeper than normal pain. This principle was seen in the parable of a dog returning to its own vomit: the dog is returning to what is familiar even though it is unpleasant. Applying this to God and creation, God must first ensure that people—and creation—will continue to exist independently of him before trying to eliminate suffering in the world. (This is explored in the essay on physics.) This explains why God must eliminate mysticism, because mysticism tries to return back to the womb of being united with God. It also explains why a flood of physical experiences is required, because the physical universe was created to exist independently of God, and humans live an existence that is largely independent of God—to the point where humans can live their physical lives believing that God does not exist. Therefore, a flood of experiences forces humans to live independently of God, held together only by internal concepts of order and civilization within minds that function independently of God. Stated simply, a flood is like a parent telling a child ‘I have taught you enough. Now it is time for you to leave home, go out into the world, be an adult, and apply what you have learned’.
Going through a flood is a general principle in Teacher thought. But this divine principle of ‘going through a flood’ can be satisfied in many different specific ways within the human realm of specific Mercy experiences, and some of these ways are much less painful than other ways. The flood of Noah was the worst kind of flood because the society of Noah was totally ungodly. (Jude 1:15 uses the word ‘ungodly’ four times in one verse to describe this society.)
Quantum Field Theory? 3:7
Verse 7 moves forward from the flood to the next major transition. “But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” The NASB says ‘by his word’, focusing upon the source of truth in Mercy thought. The original Greek says ‘by the same logos’, emphasizing the continuity in Teacher thought. The reference to logos indicates that one is dealing with a continuity in abstract technical thought. Logos was mentioned one time previously in this chapter in verse 5, where it said that the earth ‘stands together’ out of water and through water by the logos of God. Verse 5 emphasized that Teacher heaven is the source of Mercy earth. Using the computer analogy, DOS came before Windows. In verse 7, both heaven and earth will go through a major transition. Biblically speaking, this corresponds to the new heaven and earth of Revelation 21:1.
‘By the same logos’ means that there will be no paradigm shift at the most general level of ‘the logos of God’. Among other things, this explains why we can use a cognitive meta-theory of God and Incarnation to analyze predicted events that are far in the future. We are examining the topic at the general level of ‘the logos of God’, and at that general level the paradigm of technical thought will not change.
Reserved is a neutral term that means ‘to put away, store up; lay aside treasure’. The NASB connects ‘for fire’ with the first phrase, but the original text, the KJV, and the commentators suggest that ‘fire’ should be connected with the second phrase. Thus, the KJV renders this verse as “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”. This is better than the NASB, but the middle phrase is most accurately ‘by the same word having been stored up exist’, and ‘exist’ was last used in verse 5 to talk about the heavens existing before the earth.
Quantum field theory provides a possible physical explanation. I barely understand the general thrust of the math of quantum field theory but I am confident about the concepts being mentioned here. (I have a Master’s degree in electrical engineering.) One implication of this theory is known as symmetry breaking, and one can use this concept to explain the idea (mentioned in verse 5) that God the Father created the laws of the universe and then God the Spirit filled this with physical matter that exists independently of God the Father. Another implication of this theory is referred to as a false vacuum, which is a direct result of symmetry breaking. This predicts that there is a finite probability that the physical universe could start to vanish at some point in space and that this destruction of the universe would then propagate at the speed of light to the rest of the universe. The probability of this happening is extremely low but it is not zero.
Explaining this as simply as possible, symmetry breaking says that the universe began like a ball at the top of a hill. Any random shaking will cause the ball to start rolling down the hill into some valley. The false vacuum states that the ball has settled into a depression that is not at the bottom of the hill. Because the ball is not at the bottom of the hill, this has created a Higg’s field (related to the infamous Higg’s boson) and this field literally makes it possible for the physical universe to exist. (Look up ‘electroweak symmetry breaking’ for more information.) One of the basic principles of quantum mechanics is that a particle can tunnel through a barrier. This means that the ball could tunnel through the wall that is holding it in place and end up at the bottom of the hill. If this happened at some point in the universe, then the universe would cease to exist at that point, and the non-existence of the universe would then spread inexorably to the rest of universe. I should emphasize that there is no actual ball and no actual hill. But the metaphor of a ball rolling down a hill and stopping in a depression partway down the hill is the easiest way to illustrate the mathematics.
Verse 7 is consistent with these two concepts of symmetry breaking and false vacuum. Symmetry breaking is consistent with the statement that ‘the present heavens and earth by the same logos having been stored up exist’. In other words, creation exists because of a storing up that has happened as a result of the abstract technical thinking of God and incarnation. Using the language of quantum field theory, the physical universe exists because of the non-zero resting value of the Higg’s field. Quoting from the linked article, “What gives mass to the other known particles of nature is the non-zero equilibrium constant value for the Higgs field, H(x,t) = H0, all across the universe.” False vacuum is consistent with the next phrase that the universe is being ‘kept for fire’. (The description of this fire in verses 10-12 conveys the idea of the universe itself ceasing to exist.)
I should clarify that a distinction needs to be made between the implications of quantum field theory and the interpretations of this theory. The two concepts that I have mentioned of symmetry breaking and false vacuum are solid implications of the mathematics of quantum field theory. In contrast, much of the Big Bang theory is an interpretation of this math guided by the two assumptions of 1) the Copernican principle, which asserts that any theory of the universe must not regard humanity as significant, and 2) materialism, which insists that only the physical universe exists. These essays utterly violate these two assumptions. First, we are assuming that the personal transformation of human minds has an impact upon the course of the physical universe. Saying this more generally, I suggest in other essays that the current regime of matter-over-mind will eventually be replaced by God by a new regime of mind-over-matter, which means that people with transformed minds will actually be capable of altering the laws of nature within their immediate neighborhood. Second, we are assuming that the physical universe is only one of three realms created by God and that there is also a spiritual realm and a supernatural realm. (It is curious that theoretical physics currently believes that the physical universe is overshadowed by vast amounts of dark matter and dark energy for which there is no direct physical evidence or theoretical explanation. Thus, current theoretical physics states that there are other realms of existence besides the physical universe, consistent with the idea that there is also a supernatural realm and a spiritual realm.)
Looking at this cognitively, there appears to be a principle of existence that is deeper than the principle of righteousness. Righteousness means performing Server actions that are consistent with the character of God in Teacher thought. The flood of water verse 5 imposes righteousness by forcing people to recognize mentally that physical existence in Mercy thought is governed by general laws in Teacher thought. It appears that the flood of fire in verses 7-13 will impose the principle of existence upon people. Existence is based upon righteousness but goes further. Existence continues to follow God in a righteous manner even when there is no immediate benefit. Instead, one follows righteousness because of who one is: ‘I have become a righteous person, and I will follow righteousness because I have become the kind of person whose behavior is guided by how things work.’ Righteousness is guided by a Teacher understanding that God behaves in a certain manner. Existence is guided by a Teacher understanding that God creates out of nothing to make things behave in a manner that is consistent with his character.
The final phrase of verse 7 says, “reserved unto fire against [the] day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (KJV). The KJV and NASB add ‘the’ giving the impression that a specific event of judgment is being described, but the original Greek merely refers to ‘a day of judgment’. Judgment is derived from a word that means ‘to separate, distinguish, judge’. Verse 7 does not say that God will judge. Instead, it describes a day of separation and distinguishing, and we have been interpreting a day as a period of time illuminated by the ‘sun’ of some general Teacher theory. Verse 7 also refers to this day of judgment as happening in the future, because it says that the current heavens and earth exist being stored, they are being kept for fire, and this is heading towards a day of separating.
Destruction means ‘to be completely severed – cut off from what could or should have been’, and was last seen in 2:1 when talking about the destruction of those practicing spiritually enhanced promiscuous sex, and in 2:3 to refer to the destruction of those building a consumer society out of spiritual technology. Thus, this conveys the idea following a strategy which is emotionally attractive in the short-term but leads to a complete dead in the long-term. Ungodly means ‘lack of reverence’ and was used to describe the society of Noah and Lot in 2:4-5. Men is the generic word for ‘mankind’. Applying this to the context, this would refer to humans who are treating virtual reality as a child’s game. The lack of reverence describes an attitude of neglecting to respect God in Teacher thought; being unwilling to recognize that the personal benefits in Mercy thought are the result of an understanding in Teacher thought. One can see this currently in computer users who have no concept of how computers work, and one can also see it more generally in those who enjoy the benefits of modern technology without having any kind of scientific understanding, or in those who pursue Christianity spirituality without recognizing that Christianity is based in theology. In the future, all three of these attitudes would be combined within some kind of immersive virtual reality.
I should emphasize that the problem is not with experiencing personal benefits, enjoying technology, playing computer games, or even spending time on a holodeck in the future. Instead, the problem lies with doing all these activities while lacking any Teacher understanding of the universal laws that make these benefits possible. I am not suggesting that everyone has to become a theoretical physicist. But it is possible for everyone to have some kind of Teacher understanding of fundamental principles and to be guided internally by this understanding rather than inhale Mercy experiences direct from the environment. (For instance, many computer users have no concept of file structure and have no idea where their information is being stored.) If the physical universe started to unravel, then it would be imperative to be able to create virtual realities of personal safety. But this personal safety would only be available to those who were held together internally by some kind of Teacher understanding of God’s eternal principles. The separating or judging would happen by distinguishing between those who had internal character and those who were mainly consumers of childish games.
I should also add that not all computer games are mentally healthy. It is not mentally healthy to immerse oneself in a computer game in which people and objects are being destroyed. (I am very careful about which computer games I play.) But that does not seem to be the emphasis of chapter 3. Instead, the focus appears to be upon existence itself.
God’s Plan 3:8-9
Verse 8 mentions another basic principle: “But do not let this one [fact] escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” Escape your notice was seen back in verse 5 and means ‘to escape notice’. In verse 5, people were so busy immersed in the Mercy experiences of childish games that it escaped their notice that these Mercy games were based in Teacher structure. Here the principle involves timing. One day in the presence of the Lord is like a thousand years. This phrase ‘thousand years’ is found eight times in the New Testament: twice in verse 8, and six times in Revelation 20:2-7 to refer to the Millennium. Nowhere else does one find ‘χίλια ἔτη’. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that ‘thousand years’ is referring to the Millennium. Verse 8 does not say that ‘one day’ is the Millennium, but rather that it is like the Millennium. We have been interpreting a day as a period of time lit by some ‘sun’ of Teacher understanding. This implies that one should be comparing the paradigm of that time with the Millennium. Revelation 20 makes it clear that the Millennium will be populated by resurrected people who followed God and then died before experiencing any personal benefits. Going further, my best guess is that the Millennium is a practice run for the new heavens and earth. Hebrews 9 appears to say that Christ will eventually turn over the running of the universe to created beings. In the Millennium, people will be ‘priests of God and of Christ’ (v.6) who ‘reign with Christ’ (v.4) by learning how to run the fragment of the universe to which they have been assigned.
Verse 8 says that the current day should be viewed as similar to the coming Millennium. Instead of merely playing childish games of virtual reality, these games should be viewed as simulations that teach skills which will be required later in the Millennium. Notice that Peter is not addressing this warning to those who are rebelling from God but rather to ‘beloved’ who are living in the agape of God. This is like saying that one should view flying an aircraft simulator as practice for flying a real airplane later. This does not mean that is wrong to enjoy computer games or that it will be wrong to enjoy virtual reality. Instead, it means that this enjoyment should always happen in the light of knowing that the childish games of the present will turn into the adult responsibilities of the future. This is a general cognitive principle which applies at all times. However, existence itself would depend upon applying this principle in a future time of virtual realities.
Verse 9 points out that what matters to the Lord is not how long something takes in clock time but rather how many people are ready for the next transition. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Slow means to ‘loiter, be unduly slow’, and ‘slowness’ is a variation of ‘slow’. Promise means ‘an appropriate promise’ and was seen in verse 4 when talking about ‘the promise of his coming’. Patient means ‘long-tempered (to defer anger)’. Looking at this cognitively, the typical human response is to think in terms of reaching some goal in Mercy thought, as illustrated by the child who says ‘Are we there yet?’ Peter says that God thinks in a different way, and explains that God is exhibiting patience towards humanity.
The way that God thinks is explained in the next phrase. Wishing means ‘to plan with full resolve (determination)’ and this is the only time that this word is used in the epistles of Peter. This goes beyond merely wishing to carrying out a plan. Any is a generic pronoun that can refer to anyone or anything. Perish does not mean ‘to reach a dead end’ but rather ‘implies permanent (absolute) destruction’. The only other occurrence in 2 Peter was in verse 6 which talked about the existing cosmos perishing. Putting this together, God is carrying out a plan that functions at the level of existence; God is not planning for anything to cease existing. Applying this to hell, those who end up in hell will be experiencing discomfort, but they will continue to exist. Jesus states this principle in Mark 9:47-48: “It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell, where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.” (However, Luke 12:48 implies that everyone in hell will not receive the same level of punishment.)
Instead, God’s plan involves “all to come to repentance”. All means ‘each part of a totality’. Repentance means ‘a change of mind’ and is used once in Peter’s epistles. Come is also found once in Peter’s epistles and means ‘to make room’. My guess is that the NASB translates ‘plan’ as ‘wish’ because it does not want to teach the doctrine that everyone will eventually end up in heaven. I also do not think that everyone will end up in heaven. But verse 9 seems to be saying something more subtle, which is making room for a change of mind. This does not mean following God totally, or even following God at all. Instead, it describes the concept of changing one’s mind existing at least within some fragment of the mind, making it possible to consider the idea that change might happen. For instance, the average person today does not know how to generate change, and many people are quite resistant to change. But what is present within the minds of essentially everyone in modern society is the idea that change can happen. Such an idea has to exist somewhere within a person’s mind or else change will destroy that mind. Most of the references to repentance in the New Testament talk about repenting to something, repenting from something, or behaving in a way that expresses repentance. In contrast, 2 Peter 3:9 merely talks about coming to make a place for repentance.
In other words, the Lord (which usually refers to Incarnation) is planning at the level of existence, and Incarnation can only institute a radical shift if created minds are capable of conceiving of the possibility of change. Philippians 2:10 suggests something similar, saying that every knee will bow at the name of Jesus. Jesus means salvation, and salvation implies change. Philippians does not say that every person will experience salvation, but rather that the name of salvation will be acknowledged within Teacher thought and that the rule of Incarnation will be verbally recognized.
The Coming Judgment 3:10-11
Verses 10-13 then describe the radical shift that Incarnation will institute. Verse 10 says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up.” The ‘day of the Lord’ is often interpreted as a specific event happening at a specific time. But, as usual, we will interpret a day as referring to some period of time guided by some paradigm. A day of the Lord would describe a period of time guided by a paradigm of Incarnation.
A thief refers to ‘a thief who steals by stealth (in secret)’. ‘Come like a thief’ implies that this day will begin quite silently without anyone noticing that anything has happened. Roar is a bad translation. Instead, it is found once in the New Testament and is an ‘adverb from rhoizos (the whistling of an arrow)’. An arrow travels through the air of Teacher thought. Therefore, the whistling of an arrow would indicate Teacher thought noticing something happening at a theoretical level. Pass away means ‘pass by, pass away, pass out of sight’. This is not referring to sudden destruction, but rather describes something slipping away. What will pass away is ‘the heavens’. In other words, one will notice at a Teacher level that general laws are no longer working. I do not know exactly what this means but it sounds like the erosion of a coastline, with solid ground gradually slipping into the ocean.
This is followed by a ‘then’ and “the elements will be destroyed with intense heat”. Elements means ‘fundamentals, like with the basic components of a philosophy, structure, etc.’ It is used twice in 2 Peter: here, and in verse 12. Intense heat is found twice in the New Testament: here, and also in verse 12. It means ‘to burn with great heat’. Finally, destroyed actually means to ‘release (unbind) so something no longer holds together’. This relates to verse 5, which talked about the earth ‘standing together’. Putting this together, what held the earth together will be released. A lot of energy will be released, and this will happen at an elemental level. This sounds very much like atomic bonds falling apart, similar to what was mentioned earlier with reference to the false vacuum. Verse 10 concludes by saying that “the earth and the works in it will be burned up.” The word earth here is ge which refers to ‘the physical earth; (figuratively) the arena we live in which operates in space and time’. A work ‘is a deed that carries out an inner desire’.
A less radical view would be to interpret this as global thermonuclear warfare, but I question that idea for four reasons: First, I think that human civilization will extend far beyond earth by this time. Second, one gains the impression from UFO stories that nuclear explosions attract the attention of aliens and may even open doors to the supernatural realm, but this is describing something larger that extends beyond the physical to include the supernatural. Third, verse 11 says that all things will be dissolved in this way, and in a nuclear explosion, only a small fraction of the atomic bonds are transformed into energy. Fourth, this destruction is followed by a new heavens and earth, which implies the demise of at least some parts of the existing physical universe. It is also possible that future society may discover something that is bigger than an atomic explosion and smaller than the destruction of the universe. However, based upon current theories of physics, quantum tunnelling through the false vacuum seems to fit this passage the best.
The final word ‘destroyed’ is uncertain in the original Greek. The interlinear uses the word find, which means ‘discover, especially after searching’. The NASB mentions this possibility in a footnote but the commentators reject it as meaningless. However, let us assume that this suggestion is accurate. This same concept can be found in Revelation 20 in the description of the Great White Throne. In verse 11 the heavens and the earth are fleeing away from the presence of the one sitting on the throne and it says that no place can be found for them, using the same Greek word. This also lines up with 1 Peter 3 talking about the heavens and the earth passing away. Revelation 20 then talks about many books being opened, which implies theoretical research. The final standard in verse 15 is whether or not one is found in the book of life. I do not want to build too much structure upon a variant reading. Instead, the primary point I want to make is that 2 Peter 3:10 seems to be describing a process of the existing heaven and earth passing away which is happening over time and is being accompanied by extensive research. One of the byproducts would be that everyone would become mentally aware of the fact that a major transition is about to happen. This process seems to involve a slipping away in the angelic realm accompanied by a dissolving of the elements in the physical universe.
This conclusion is backed up by verse 11 which describes how a person should respond: “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.” One is not normally instructed to live a godly manner when disaster is about to strike. For instance, it does not make sense to say ‘An asteroid is about to smash into the earth. Live in a godly manner.’ But such instructions do make sense when one is searching for a better theoretical foundation for personal existence, which is what Revelation 20 describes: many books are opened; the book of life is then opened; anyone who is not found in the book of life is cast into the lake of fire.
Looking at verse 11 in more detail, in this way means ‘in this manner, in this way’. Thus, Peter is focusing not upon the fact that the earth is being destroyed, but rather the manner in which this is happening. And destroyed does not mean ‘destroyed’ but rather is the same verb used in verse 10 which means ‘to release (unbind) so something no longer holds together’. (The KJV translates this as ‘dissolved’.)
If this refers to tunneling through the false vacuum of the physical universe, then I am presuming that it will become possible to travel faster than light through the physical universe by hyper-jumping through the angelic realm, making it possible for humans to have substantial advance warning of any elemental dissolving. At present, anything that propagates at the speed of light will arrive without any advance warning. The speed of light is very fast, but something that propagates at the speed of light would still take a long time to spread throughout the universe. However, one does not get the impression that people will be able to escape to some far corner of the universe and manage to postpone this crisis for several million years. Instead, one gets an image of trying to outrun an approaching tsunami wave. My guess is that this will be because this destructive power will accompany people wherever they go. This would be a natural byproduct of mind-over-matter. Wherever minds went, existing matter would start to disassemble. In other words, the universe as a whole would continue to exist for a long time, but it would eventually start to dissolve wherever it came into contact with humans.
And this may be related to the idea of tunnelling through a false vacuum because a mindset of mind-over-matter would increase the probability of such a tunnelling event happening. For instance, some people were scared that the CERN atomic accelerator might trigger such an event, but scientists concluded that such energy levels already exist within Nature and nothing catastrophic has happened. However, extensive interaction between the natural and supernatural would presumably create energies that are much larger, leading to different conclusions. Thus, wherever humans spread with their virtual realities, some tunneling event would eventually follow. For those who are currently worried, the probability of such a tunnelling event is infinitesimal at the moment, and energy levels would have to be raised far, far beyond the level of the most powerful current atomic accelerators to increase the probability to any significant level.
What sort means literally ‘from what country?’ Thus, the focus is not just about developing character traits, but rather finding a new regime in which one can exist. In essence, everyone is becoming refugees who will have to settle in a new ‘country’. The word translated ought means ‘what must happen, i.e. what is absolutely necessary’, and this fairly common word is only used once in 2 Peter. ‘Ought’ implies a moral obligation. In contrast, the Greek word indicates that one has no physical choice, consistent with the idea of physical reality dissolving. Be refers to ‘especially what pre-exists, i.e. is already under one’s discretion’. This word was last seen in 2:19 which talked about humans already pre-existing as slaves of corruption. In other words, one will have to change one’s basic nature before the unloosing strikes.
This change is ‘in the realm of’ “holy conduct and godliness”. Holy means ‘different from the world because like the Lord’. In the Roman era, this referred to a holy building that was set apart to some God. In the future, it might describe being able to exist physically out of nothing the way God that created the universe, rather than being dependent upon the existence of physical reality. Conduct means ‘behavior, conduct’. In other words, occasionally behaving in a holy manner will not be enough. Instead, one will have to live within normal life with such an attitude of holiness. Today this is interpreted as acting like a Christian all of the week and not just on Sundays. In the future, this would be a requirement for personal existence itself. Godliness is the positive side of ‘ungodly’ which was last seen in verse 7, and it means an ‘inner response to the things of God which shows itself in godly piety (reverence)’. This is currently interpreted as having respect for Christianity, the Bible, and the moral rules of the Bible. In the future, this will mean being emotionally guided by the concept of a God who creates out of nothing, which is related to the principle of existence that was discussed earlier. This positive reference to godliness was last seen in 2 Peter in the list way back in 1:3-7 which talked about applying spiritual technology.
A Coming Day of God 3:12
Verse 12 describes the underlying motivation: “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!” Verse 12 is a little different than verse 10. Both verses contain the same two words ‘elements’ and ‘burning heat’. But in verse 10 the heavens were passing away with the swish of an arrow, while in verse 12, the heavens are being set on fire. In verse 10, the elements were being unloosed, while in verse 12 the heavens are being unloosed and the elements are ‘melting’. Melt is used only once in the New Testament and means ‘to become liquid, to melt; to perish or be destroyed by melting’. I do not know what this distinction means from the viewpoint of physics.
The advice given in verse 12 is strange. Instead of running away from this cosmic cataclysm, one is supposed to hasten the demise of the universe. Looking for means ‘to await, expect’. This means planning ahead for the coming crisis. Hastening means ‘to hasten, urge on’. The previous verses referred to the ‘day of the Lord’. Verse 12 talks about ‘the coming of a day of the God’. The word coming is found 24 times in the New Testament and refers about 15 times to the coming of Christ (or the Lord). But this is the only reference to the ‘coming of a day of the God’. God the Father uses Teacher thought to come up with general theories. If God the Father is being revealed, then this means that a new Teacher theory will apply.
Based upon the context and other passages, I suggest the following interpretation. At some time during this period God the Father will make a silent shift from matter-over-mind to mind-over-matter. This will be like a watershed where the initial impact will be imperceptible, as suggested by the reference to a thief in verse 10. The impact of this shift will gradually grow until it because obvious that the universe is being ruled by a new general theory.
Any major paradigm shift goes through two major stages. In the first stage, the new paradigm will be applied tentatively in a way that does not upset the existing structure. Once the new paradigm has become entrenched, then a second stage begins in which everything that violates the new paradigm will be eliminated. For instance, post-Christian thought initially entered Western society as a force of tolerance, promising to respect all points of view. It has now turned into an active force that is rooting out all remnants of Christian thought from every corner of society. This second stage is driven by Teacher emotion, because Teacher thought feels bad whenever it encounters an exception to the universal rule.
My best guess is that mind-over-matter will initially be introduced by God in a tentative manner which does not upset existing structure. This new cosmic paradigm of mind-over-matter will then spread from one aspect of existence to another, and the various virtual realities described in verse 3 describe aspects of this spreading of mind-over-matter. However, eventually there will be a ‘coming’ of the day of God, in which the royal presence of the new paradigm of God becomes locally present—the king will visit us.
These two stages can be seen in the distinction between verses 10 and verse 12. Verse 10 describes the first stage in which the new regime gradually displaces the old, as illustrated by the heavens passing away with the sound of an arrow. As a new regime takes over from the old, the old connections of existing society will gradually become unloosed, which will express itself as societal unrest. This portrays Western society during the second half of the 20th century. Verse 12 describes the second stage in which the new regime actively eliminates any remaining elements of the old. This active change will cause connections to break within the heavenly realm. Using the analogy of a change in government, during the first stage most existing government officials will remain in power. During the second stage, there will be government purges and existing government officials will be eliminated en masse. The earthly results in verse 12 will be more intense, because it describes the elements as melting into liquid. Using the government analogy, government purges will be accompanied by massive government orchestrated riots among the people. One can see these stages illustrated by the spread of communism in Russia after World War 1.
We have looked at this shift from the viewpoint of theoretical physics as possibly corresponding to tunnelling through the false vacuum. (But this does not explain the difference between elements dissolving and elements melting.) And we have also examined the shift from a cognitive political viewpoint. If mind were to start ruling over matter, then these two viewpoints would overlap.
New Heavens and Earth 3:13-14
Verse 13 says that this is all looking forward to a new heavens and earth. I do not think that this means that the entire existing physical universe will be destroyed. I say this because of another aspect of Teacher thought. A Teacher theory will feel universal to Teacher thought as long as Teacher thought is not aware of any exceptions to this rule. For instance, a human ruler can claim to be ‘lord of the entire world’ as long as this ruler rules over the entire known world. A theory of mind-over-matter would feel universal as long as it applies whenever minds come into contact with matter. Thus, a new heavens and earth does not necessarily mean that the existing heavens and earth will be utterly destroyed. Instead, it is sufficient if the existing heavens and earth are subject to created minds wherever people come into contact with existing creation. Thus, the transformation might initially be limited to a few galaxies. This is implied by Revelation 20:11, which talks about the existing heaven fleeing from the face of the one sitting on the Great White Throne. In contrast, verse 12 talks about people standing before the throne. The final standard in verse 15 is the book of life, and life implies people with minds. In other words, God is judging the universe through people. The universe will still exist but it will become distant from the mind of God who will interact with the universe through the minds of created beings.
This explains the instructions to ‘look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God’. A system of mind-over-matter will only spread to the extent that minds actively take mastery over matter. Therefore, God the Father can only make the transition to a new heaven and earth if created minds extend the rule of God to enough aspects of existing creation.
Verse 13 says “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” Looking for means ‘to await, expect’ and this same verb was used in verse 12 and will be used again in verse 14. ‘Looking for’ implies that nothing can be done to cause this transition to happen. Instead, this waiting is being motivated by ‘his promise’. That is because all of this preparation will be followed by some creative act that only God the Father can do, which will lead to a ‘new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells’. This divine creative act is different than the silent shift from matter-over-mind to mind-over-matter which happened earlier. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 talks about an instantaneous change happening within the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, and Revelation 21:1 talks about a new heaven and earth. Both 1 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1 apply the same adjective new to both heaven and earth, which means ‘new in quality (innovation)... because not found exactly like this before’. (The other version of new means ‘new in time’.) This makes it clear that the new heavens and earth will be governed in some way by a novel set of universal Teacher laws.
The word dwells means to ‘settle down as a permanent resident’. The current physical universe is righteous in the sense that natural processes always behave in a way that expresses the universal Teacher laws of nature. But a mindset of righteousness cannot ‘settle down as a permanent resident’, because the unchanging natural righteousness of physical matter means that human minds do not have to think or function in a righteous manner. Saying this more simply, the world will continue to function properly even if I am an idiot; my gadgets continue to work even if I have no clue about how they function. In contrast, a mindset of righteousness could settle down as a permanent resident if a righteous mindset was required to keep the physical world functioning. This implies that the local environment would obey laws in a righteous fashion as long as the people within that environment thought and behaved in a manner that was righteous.
Verse 14 says that one should prepare for the new heavens and earth by developing personal integrity: “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” The verse begins with a therefore, which tells us that verse 14 is an implication of verse 13. One should apply verse 14 because of verse 13. Verse 14, like verse 8, is addressed to ‘beloved’, which means that these are instructions that should be applied by those who are following God. The familiar word ‘looking forward’ is repeated one more time. Diligent means ‘to make haste, to give diligence’. This implies that it may be possible to get stuck or run out of energy. Looking at this personally, I found that I have enough energy to continue developing mental symmetry as long as I continue to work diligently.
This diligence is heading towards a goal. Spotless adds ‘without’ to ‘spot’, and ‘spot’ was seen in 2:13 in the painful description of people responding to angelic intervention. Cognitively speaking, a spot is an exception to the general rule of cleanliness. If one is to live in an environment where the righteousness of God rules without exceptions, then one must become a person who follows godly rules without any exceptions. Blameless means ‘without blemish’ and is a negative of the word ‘blemish’ that was used in 2:13. The idea here is that there is no structural flaw that ruins the general pattern, which is another aspect of a universal rule applying without exception. The connection with Teacher thought is shown by the phrase ‘found by Him’. Find means to ‘discover, especially after searching’. Thus, God is looking down from Teacher thought and finding no exceptions to the universal rule. This would be imperative in a realm of mind-over-matter, because God would be expecting minds to function in a righteous manner. The final phrase is ‘in the realm of peace’, and peace means ‘wholeness, i.e. when all essential parts are joined together’. Thus, being without spot or blemish does not mean acting like a perfect robot. Instead, it means always thinking and behaving in the light of wholeness. And if mind ruled over matter, then what would be significant would be mental wholeness. As far as I can tell, the theory of mental symmetry describes what it means to be mentally whole. It means that all seven cognitive modules are functioning together in an integrated manner.
Verse 15 adds “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” Patience means ‘long-passion, i.e. waiting sufficient time before expressing anger’. The patience of the Lord was mentioned in verse 9, which said that the Lord was not delaying his promise but rather waiting patiently for all to come to repentance. Salvation means ‘to save, rescue’ and the name Jesus means salvation. Regard ‘refers to coming first in priority such as: the leading thought in one’s mind’. Putting this together, when one is waiting for salvation to arrive, one should not interpret this waiting as Incarnation doing nothing. Instead, one should interpret this as Incarnation saving people as completely as possible, which means looking for examples where salvation is happening. I know from personal experience that this is significant, because it is easy to focus on the problems and conclude that God is doing nothing. Instead, one needs to focus in a positive manner upon what God is doing. Interpreting this in terms of verse 9, concluding that God is doing nothing leaves no mental place for repentance, because one is placing everything within the general Teacher theory that ‘God does nothing’. In contrast, focusing upon what Incarnation is doing leaves a mental place for repentance, because one is continually finding illustrations where change is happening. This does not mean ignoring the problems. Instead, it means holding the right idea as the leading thought in one’s mind.
The Limitations of Technical Thought 3:15-18
Verse 15 then turns to the writings of Paul: “just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you.” Historically speaking, Peter is referring to all of the epistles of Paul. Prophetically speaking, the second half of 2 Corinthians describes in detail the path which Paul himself is following as an apostle in this prophetic sequence, and 2 Corinthians 13 suggests that Paul will be doing things that have cosmic significance in the future. Thus, it is appropriate for Peter to mention Paul within the context that we have been discussing. One of the things that Paul that describes in the second half of 2 Corinthians is the many long stages that an apostle has to go through to make the transition from being a source of law to being a fellow citizen who can experience the benefits of these laws. Thus, Paul’s writings in 2 Corinthians (and other books) describe a process of salvation that involves a lot of patience and long suffering.
Verse 16 is often read with a snicker, because Peter seems to be admitting that he also finds the epistles of Paul difficult to understand. “As also in all [his] letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” One could state this attitude more generally in terms of cognitive style. Paul was a Contributor person who emphasizes Contributor-controlled technical thought. Peter, in contrast, was a Perceiver person who emphasizes the analogies and patterns of normal thought. Technical thought is more rigorous than normal thought. As a Perceiver person, I find it difficult to grasp all of the subtle nuances of some technical field, especially technical fields such as math and physics. In a similar manner, Peter refers to the writings of Paul as hard to understand. This word is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘difficult’ with ‘apply mental effort needed to reach bottom-line conclusions’. Stated simply, Peter finds the technical thinking of Paul mentally strenuous.
As a result, “the untaught and unstable distort” this technical thought. Untaught is found once in the New Testament and adds a negative prefix to ‘learning key facts’. One of the shortcomings of technical thought is that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees; one can get bogged down in technical details because one has not learned key facts, or more likely, one has not learned which facts are key. Unstable was seen in 2:14 and describes ‘someone who (literally) does not have a staff to lean on’. This describes another characteristic of technical thought, which is that it reasons logically step-by-step, and when doing so it treats each step as totally solid. If enough steps are taken, then the conclusion will still seem solid to technical thought, but one will probably end up in a final state that is actually not very solid. One will no longer have a staff to lean on, because one will have logically reasoned one’s way out onto the end of a thin twig, assuming at each step that the branch is sufficient to hold one’s weight.
In contrast, the normal thinking of Perceiver thought is always aware of which key facts can provide a mental staff to lean on. The word distort means ‘to twist, causing torture’. This relates to the concept of ‘twisted logic’ which follows logical progressions but ends up with a conclusion that twists and tortures the original premise. For instance, when I studied engineering, I was taught that one should always check detailed calculations with a ballpark solution. One should perform the mathematical calculations but then use common sense and professional instinct to check the reasonableness of these answers. Peter is describing something similar. Using technical thought appears very educated and profound, but it can lead to logical conclusions that are unreasonable. (And theoretical physics has shown that these unreasonable conclusions are sometimes consistent with reality.)
Verse 16 concludes: “also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” Destruction means ‘cut off from what could or should have been’. And own means ‘uniquely one’s own, peculiar to the individual’. Saying this another way, each person ends up stuck in their own prison. I have analyzed a number of systems of technical thought and I have come to the conclusion that a paradigm will eventually turn into a mental prison. The technical specialist starts by using technical thought in some specialization, and this technical thinking will be emotionally guided by the Teacher theory of some paradigm. As the technical thinking continues, this paradigm will turn into a TMN (because any theory that continues to be used will eventually turn into a mental network). And this TMN will then drive the technical specialist to emotionally attack and/or belittle anything which lies outside the paradigm. The end result is a mental prison that is unique to that technical specialist. And that prison will cut the specialist off from making any further progress.
Such a prison becomes self-contained when one is working with words and written material, because words can be discussed and analyzed in an isolated manner that is separate from the rest of existence. In our current society, continuing to studying books in a technical manner leads to a cognitive prison.
I do not know what form books would take in the future. But if technical thought were used to analyze word-based theories in an isolated fashion then the part of the mind that makes it possible to escape situations would become divorced from the rest of the mind. The word-based theories might predict what could happen, but there would be no way of translating these theories into application, leading to a mindset that is ‘cut off from what could or should be’. For instance, the average theologian today studies the Bible in an isolated verbal fashion and would never think of connecting biblical concepts with scientific and social progress the way that we have been doing in these essays.
Verse 17 then turns back to the beloved: “You therefore, beloved, knowing [this] beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled [men] and fall from your own steadfastness.” ‘Therefore’ tells us that verse 17 follows logically from verse 16. Knowing beforehand is a single word that combines ‘before’ with ‘experientially know’. It is used five times in the New Testament, three times to apply to the foreknowledge of God. Applying this to the context, factual knowing is not enough to avoid the trap of verse 16. I have encountered many technical systems that describe accurate facts which the author does not apply to himself. Instead, one needs to know beforehand at an experiential level that this can happen, because the fundamental problem is a lack of experiential knowledge; people are studying the abstract words of letters and books. And this experiential knowledge needs to be acquired beforehand. One needs to approach the books with an attitude that knowledge needs to be applied experientially in order to avoid being emotionally trapped by a TMN of verbal understanding. The NASB adds ‘this’, assuming that the passage is referring to knowing certain facts. But the original Greek is simply ‘you therefore beloved knowing-beforehand, beware’, suggesting that the focus is upon adopting an attitude of experientially knowing beforehand. Be on your guard means ‘Personally be on guard against, stressing the constant, personal interest involved with the guarding’. Thus, retreating into verbal theory is a long-term problem that can only be overcome by continuing to proactively adopt an attitude of knowing experientially.
Unprincipled was seen in 2:7 to describe the people surrounding Lot, and it combines ‘not’ with ‘set in place’. Error means ‘an error (deception) which results in wandering’. And carried away means ‘to be carried away with’. In other words, it is easy to be dragged along by the technical experts if one does not have something solid to hold on to. Moving on, fall from means to ‘be driven out of one’s course’. And steadfastness means ‘firmly set, fixed, established’. For instance, during the modern era of the 20th century, technical specialists convinced the rest of society that technical thought was the only valid form of thinking. Other forms of thinking were belittled as insufficiently rigorous. The end result was that modern society became carried away into numerous technical specializations, each wandering off into some facet of knowledge.
It may be possible to interpret this passage another way, but I suggest that applying it to technical thought is appropriate for the following reasons: 1) The passage does not say anything about strong desires or emotional fixations. This means that Peter is not talking primarily about mental networks. 2) The passage talk about letters and books, indicating a focus upon intellectual and academic thought. 3) Peter as a Perceiver person would naturally see the limitations in the thinking of a Contributor person such as Paul. Peter does not question Paul himself, but rather points out that those who study Paul will tend to fall into these problems. Hence, the discussion about the limitations of technical thought. 4) Perceiver thought evaluates facts by comparing new information with what is known for certain. Peter is emphasizing the need to evaluate new information in the light of solid truth. 5) The Perceiver person is naturally aware of hypocrisy in which the verbal meaning does not match experiential facts. Hence, the need to approach abstract facts with an attitude of experiential knowledge. 6) It is easy for a Perceiver person to become intimidated by the aura of professionalism that is exuded by the technical specialist. That is because Contributor thought can act totally certain of information that is known with sufficient confidence, while Perceiver thought is never 100% certain of anything but always struggles with some doubt. Thus, the Perceiver person observes the confidence of the Contributor person and concludes that the Contributor person must have done extensive homework to achieve such a high level of confidence. This may be the case. But in many situations the Contributor confidence is either a façade or else a result of mental blindness.
Verse 18 concludes by focusing upon an integrated concept of incarnation: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory.” Growing implies life, and life was not mentioned in verses 16-17. Technical thought naturally tends to focus on objective information while ignoring life. Grace means receiving help from God, and grace also was not mentioned in the previous two verses. Technical thought naturally tends to specialize while ignoring a concept of God. Knowledge refers to experiential knowledge, as opposed to abstract knowledge based in words and books.
Lord and Savior refer to two aspects of incarnation which tend to be ignored by those who study written theory. ‘Lord’ means allowing abstract understanding to rule over personal behavior. Knowledge that is limited to words will not affect personal behavior. Savior means believing that abstract understanding will help personal identity. Knowledge that is limited to words is incapable of saving people. Jesus Christ means combining the two sides of technical thought. In contrast, abstract verbal knowledge focuses upon Christ while ignoring Jesus. Putting this all together, incarnation uses abstract technical thought, but goes beyond specialization to getting grace from God. Incarnation uses concrete technical thought, but goes beyond improving things to saving people.
Verse 18 finishes, “To Him [be] the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” Glory describes internal character being expressed externally. Book knowledge is incapable of generating glory but instead becomes ‘cut off from what could or should have been’. This principle is true in the present with physical books and verbal speech. It will also be true in the future in the realm of mind-over-matter.
The final phrase implies that there will be a final paradigm shift into ‘a day of an age’. We have just looked at the limitations of using technical thought. Other New Testament books also seem to indicate that there will be an inappropriate focus on technical thought right before the final shift. One sees this in 2 Corinthians 11, Hebrews 13, and when comparing Revelation 21 with Revelation 22.
Introduction 1-3
The book of Jude is similar to 2 Peter 2-3. Therefore, I have appended a discussion of Jude to the essay on 2 Peter.
Verse 1 can be viewed as just an introduction, but the meanings of the names also set a context for placing this short letter: “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” ‘Jude’ is a variant of Judah which means ‘praise’. ‘James’ is a variation of Jacob. Looking at this symbolically, Jacob represents the third stage in the three stages of personal transformation symbolized by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, because Jacob returns from Teacher thought to transformed Mercy identity in order to receive his birthright. Jude is a brother of James, which implies that the personal birthright has now turned into a system of praise. A bondservant of Jesus Christ tells us that this has happened as a result of submitting to an integrated concept of Incarnation. This all implies that Jude is describing a period of time after the theoretical return of Jesus, when society as a whole is starting to experience the benefits of individuals going fully through the path of personal transformation.
This is backed up by the next phrase which talks about being beloved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. My hypothesis is that the theoretical return of Jesus will be based in a general understanding of God the Father and Incarnation. One sees this combination described in John 14:23, which I suggest is referring to the theoretical return of Jesus: “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”
Verse 2 then adds “May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.” This seems fairly generic and I am not quite sure what to add.
In verse 3, Jude says why he is writing: “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” The word common actually refers ‘to what is defiled (stripped of specialness) because treated as ordinary (common)’, and it is usually translated as ‘unholy’ or ‘unclean’. What is common is ‘our salvation’. This implies that the salvation of spiritual technology has been reduced to the level of something common that is no longer regarded as holy. This is a contrast from the word beloved, which is based upon ‘agape’ and refers to the moral love of God. Every effort actually means ‘swiftness to show zealous diligence’.
Putting this together, spiritual technology will begin with gifts being given by God in a moral fashion. But as this becomes commonplace, it will become corrupted. Presumably, James initially was praising what was happening, but now he is following a new direction of making haste to restore Teacher understanding. James emphasizes this need by repeating that “I felt the necessity to write to you”. And necessity means ‘a compelling need requiring immediate action’.
James says that his readers need to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” Contend earnestly is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘focused on’ with ‘a contest, competition’. ‘Faith’ could refer to the Christian faith, but this same word ‘faith’ was used to describe the gifts of spiritual technology in 2 Peter 1. The word handed down means ‘to deliver over with a sense of close (personal) involvement’. This delivering has happened once for all to the saints. This language is consistent with gifts of faith being given at the beginning of 2 Peter 1. Putting this together, there is now a competition over how these spiritual gifts will be used.
Holy versus Common 4
Verse 4 describes what is happening: “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.” Crept in unnoticed is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘from close beside’ with ‘enter’. And person is the generic word for ‘humankind’. Putting this into context, supernatural power is currently regarded as something holy and special that is different than normal human existence. However, spiritual technology would question this distinction at a very basic level by making supernatural power common. When spiritual power starts to be regarded as commonplace, then it will start to be misused. This misuse will not come from those who are distant to spiritual technology but rather will enter primarily from those who are ‘close beside’. Looking at this more generally, religious corruption tends to start with religious leaders who have close access to religious truth, because they are usually the first to view it as commonplace. And this corruption often comes from new leaders who lack the respect of the original leaders, who therefore approach the subject with a new mindset.
However, this problem is actually an old one. Long beforehand means ‘long ago, of old’. Marked out means ‘to write before’, and writing describes solid verbal content in Teacher thought. Condemnation means ‘judgment, emphasizing its result’. Looking at this cognitively, one needs to view understanding in Teacher thought as more ancient than human existence in Mercy thought. An attitude of holy versus common actually regards common human experiences in Mercy thought as normal and holy experiences as the exception to human normality. This is, by definition, not a holy perspective. Instead, one needs to view the words of Teacher thought as the original source and human Mercy experiences as the result of this source. This is a holy perspective because it is thinking in terms of God’s realm of Teacher thought. For instance, Jesus is typically viewed as being different than normal humans. However, John describes Jesus as the Word of God made flesh. Applying this to Jude, the crisis that has drawn the attention of Jude is not something new and unexpected in Mercy thought. Instead, it is an expression of universal principles in Teacher thought which were originally described a long time ago.
The rest of the verse describes the result: “ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Ungodly means ‘failing to honor what is sacred’. This is consistent with the idea of ‘common’ mentioned earlier. Turn means ‘to transfer, change’. Licentiousness means ‘outrageous conduct, conduct shocking to public decency’. Putting this together, bringing supernatural power into normal existence is causing respect for God and the supernatural to turn into violating social norms.
What is happening is that cause and effect are being exchanged. Following God in a new way will cause existing cultural MMNs to be questioned. For instance, one sees this in Peter’s vision about eating unclean animals in Acts 10. But this does not mean that the goal is to violate cultural MMNs. Instead, one must always maintain an attitude of submitting to the law of God rather than one of rebelling from human culture. One should obey God rather than men.
This sequence of Teacher first and then Mercy appears to be a general principle which expresses itself in various ways. Way back in Genesis 6, the problem started with angels in the Teacher realm of heaven finding human females attractive. The end result was that “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Thus, supernatural help turned into outrageous conduct. A similar transition happened with early Christianity. Christianity started as spreading a new religion based in the Teacher realm of theology, and this new religion was persecuted because it violated official societal norms of idolatry. When official persecution stopped, then the monastic movement started as Christian believers went to the desert to torture themselves, feeling that being a Christian meant violating human sensibilities. Similarly, absolute truth is cognitively viewed as coming from important sources in Mercy thought, and those who proclaim absolute truth go to great lengths to associate absolute truth with Mercy experiences that are different than the experiences of common life. But the Bible is a book composed out of Teacher words, and we are seeing in these essays that these words contain deep Teacher structure.
Looking at this from another perspective, whenever there is a major technological breakthrough, then actions that used to be impossible or unthinkable will become possible. (This is another example of Teacher first and then Mercy.) Exhorter thought will find excitement thinking about new possibilities which were unthinkable, while existing social conventions will become questioned by the new possibilities. For instance, when the nuclear bomb was developed, it became possible to destroy the whole world, forcing people in the 1950s to start thinking about what was until then unthinkable. As a result, fundamental social conventions had to be rethought, because they were based in the assumption that human society would always continue to exist somewhere on earth. But rethinking social conventions in the light of new technology turned in the 1960s into rebelling from social convention.
Similarly, “Pornography has had a significant role in the promotion and diffusion of new communication technologies. New technologies have also altered the nature of pornography in the last few decades. These technologies include VCRs, camcorders, Minitel, computers, and the Internet. Pornographic products have served to stimulate interest in these new technologies, despite their higher initial costs. The attractions include greater perceived privacy and easier access.” This is also an example of the unthinkable and the impossible becoming doable, leading to moral confusion.
Returning to verse 4, deny means ‘to deny, say no’. Master ‘implies someone exercising unrestricted power and absolute domination’. And only means ‘only, solitary, desolate’. Incarnation is carrying out a plan of salvation that is leading society from its current state to a better state. The key to surviving the current confusion is to submit to this plan of incarnation, which means being internally guided by an integrated concept of Incarnation.
This means that the solution is to replace walls of physical impossibility and taboos of social convention with Contributor thinking of moral cause-and-effect. Just because one can do something does not mean that one has to do something. Instead, it is possible to be guided by the goal-oriented behavior of avoiding what is painful and seeking what is beneficial. For instance, nations have chosen so far not to destroy the world using nuclear weapons because there are better alternatives.
Abandoning the Teacher Source 5-6
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the three stages of personal transformation at a personal level. Egypt, the wilderness, and the promised land represent the same three stages being followed at a corporate level. Verse 5 emphasizes that this corruption is happening to those who left the Egypt of the world to follow a God of supernatural power in the wilderness: “Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, the second time destroyed those who did not believe.” This is consistent with the suggestion that Jude is describing a corruption of spiritual technology that will start with those who are acquainted with spiritual technology.
Remind means ‘to remember because prompted’. This implies that the larger picture will tend to get forgotten. The word desire ‘is a strong term that underlines the predetermined (and determined) intention driving the planning’. This tells us that something potent is needed to overcome the attitude of rebellion, something solid that can be kept in mind to provide stability during the period of confusion. The word know means ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. Thus, it is possible during this time to learn from empirical evidence, if one maintains the right internal mindset. And once indicates that this knowledge needs to be placed solidly as a fixed reference point within the mind.
I suggested earlier that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the path of personal transformation applied to the individual. Egypt, the wilderness, and the promised land represent the path of personal transformation applied to a group of people. Spiritual technology is a version of leaving the Egypt of the world in order to follow a God of supernatural power in the wilderness. This focus upon the group is brought out by the word people, and this people is being saved out of the land of Egypt.
Moving to the next phrase, believe means to ‘be persuaded’. And destroy means to ‘fully destroy, cutting off entirely’. The point to remember is that there actually two stages to this salvation. Being saved out of Egypt is only the first step. If this step is not followed by ‘being persuaded’, then a person will come to a dead end. First, God blesses people as an inheritance for their faith. Second, God cuts off those people who misuse their inheritance. (This two-step process can also be seen several times in Hebrews.) The first step involves primarily Contributor cause-and-effect: one sows to the spirit and then reaps from the spirit. The second step involves primarily God the Father in Teacher thought. God is lifting up those who are reliable while setting aside those who are not reliable.
Both of these steps relate to the general principle of Teacher first and then Mercy. When one is in Egypt waiting to be saved by God from Egypt, one needs to build Teacher understanding and submit Mercy identity to this Teacher understanding. When one is experiencing the supernatural power of God in the wilderness, one needs to recognize that the Mercy experiences come from Teacher understanding and that the Mercy experiences will only last as long as one continues to be guided by Teacher understanding.
Verse 6 then applies this principle to angels and the supernatural realm: “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” The problem with the angels is that they left their source in Teacher thought. They forgot the general principle that Teacher comes before Mercy. But this was experienced by angels as something personal, because angels live within Teacher thought.
Notice that angels are not mentioned at the beginning of Jude. Instead, Jude starts by describing cognitive principles that need to be remembered and then makes reference to angels. This is consistent with my suggestion that it will initially appear that one can use spiritual technology in an amoral fashion, and that angels will only show up after a while. Keep means ‘to watch over, to guard’. Domain actually means ‘from the beginning (temporal sense)’. Thus, a more accurate translation would be ‘angels who did not hold on to their own starting points’, reflecting the general principle that the angelic realm in Teacher thought is the starting point. On the one hand, angels need to hold on to their starting point. On the other hand, long before humans started to encounter the angelic realm, this realm was already populated by beings who were placed there by God.
Abandon means ‘to leave, leave behind’. Thus, the problem does not lie with using Teacher thought or with supernatural power but rather in using this power in a way that abandons one’s starting point in Teacher thought. Abode is used twice in the New Testament and means ‘a habitation’. The other instance is in 2 Corinthians 5:2 which talks about “longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven”. (Notice that the dwelling is from heaven, consistent with the idea that Teacher thought is the source.) And proper actually means ‘uniquely one's own, peculiar to the individual’. Putting this together, the angels abandoned their ‘supernatural bodies’. The implication is that one must apply supernatural power in a way that includes one’s own physical body.
We have looked so far at the principle of remembering that Teacher comes before Mercy. Verse 6 introduces the related principle of holding on to one’s physical body. This is currently a limited problem. People can immerse themselves mentally into theoretical or imaginative realms, but human minds still remain trapped within physical bodies. This problem would become much greater if it became possible to move between human and angelic realms, because humans could then pursue angelic power in a way that ignored the physical body, similar to the way that angels in Genesis 6 pursued humanity in a way that ignored their angelic bodies.
The rest of the verse warns what will happen if one splits between physical and supernatural. A chain is a band, bond’. This bond is everlasting. Darkness means ‘darkness so dense and foreboding it is felt’. ‘Keep’ is used twice in verse 6. It was used earlier in the verse to describe what the angels did not keep. If one does not keep the starting point of one’s body, then one will become kept by lasting chains of vague, incompatible mental networks. In other words, one can choose between two kinds of keeping, one voluntary and the other involuntary.
Looking at this cognitively, every human being grows up with a ‘flesh’ of core mental networks acquired from living in the physical body. Presumably, every angel also develops with a mind based upon core mental networks acquired from living within some ‘supernatural body’. When one encounters some new realm, such as humans encountering supernatural power, or angels encountering human substance, then any interaction must be done in a way that includes one’s body and recognizes the limitations of that body.
For instance, one of the basic limitations of a human body is that it has a specific shape and appearance. Therefore, if I have sex with one person and then have sex with another person, then I have mentally connected the mental networks of my flesh with incompatible mental networks of people. That is because every person has unique physical attributes and skills based upon his or her physical body. Anyone who violates this principle ends up acquiring what is commonly known as emotional baggage.
Going further, verse 6 says that this bondage is “for the judgment of the great day”. Judgment comes from a verb that means ‘to separate, distinguish, judge’ and ‘stresses the results that go with a particular judgment’. Great means ‘large, great, in the widest sense’. This term ‘great day’ is used twice in Revelation, once in 6:17 to describe the wrath of the Lamb, and once in 16:14 to refer to Armageddon. Thus, we can conclude that ‘the great day’ is not a reference to the Great White Throne of Revelation 20.
Interpreting this cognitively, a day refers to a period of time illuminated by the sun of some general Teacher theory. A ‘great day’ would refer to being illuminated by the sun of a truly universal Teacher concept of God. In Revelation 6:17 the specialized technical thinking of incarnation is becoming universal, while in Revelation 16:14 a universal concept of God is blinding those who pursue mysticism. When one is trapped in chains in darkness, then great illumination is needed to ‘separate, distinguish, and judge’. In other words, it will take great understanding to resolve the various issues that are created when people abandon their natural realm in order to live within the opposite realm. For instance, promiscuous sex creates major emotional confusion, but it does not lead to chains of total darkness. However, supernaturally enhanced promiscuous sex would lead to chains of total darkness, because one is embracing supernatural power in a manner that violates the constraints of the physical body at the deepest emotional level.
Summarizing, we see that abandoning the starting point of one’s body is another case of forgetting that Teacher comes before Mercy. For angels in Teacher thought, abandoning the body means leaving their starting point in Teacher thought. For humans in Mercy thought, abandoning the body means exploring the supernatural in a way that ignores the functioning of the human body and mind, and functioning is an example of Teacher order-within-complexity. Unraveling the resulting bondage will require the Teacher understanding of a ‘great day’.
Following Strange Flesh 7-8
Verse 7 turns to Sodom and Gomorrah: “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after different flesh.” When looking at 2 Peter 2, we interpreted Sodom and Gomorrah as a mindset which ignores moral restrictions as being inconsequential. Jude mentions gross immorality. This word is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘from out of’ with a word ‘which is derived from pernaō, to sell off’. (This is the source of the English word pornography.) The basic idea is that one is ‘selling off’ something valuable and personal in order to acquire peripheral gain. If one is operating ‘from out of’ this mindset, then this describes an economy in which one sells one’s soul or body in order to gain material wealth.
Unfortunately, much of today’s modern economy falls at least to some extent into this category. This ‘gross immorality’ is only partial, because technology is currently limited to the realm of physical objects while social convention and taboos are usually used to prevent the subjective ‘selling off’ from going too far. However, spiritual technology would question these taboos, making it possible to extend commerce to the subjective realm of the spiritual. A mindset which ignores moral restrictions as inconsequential would naturally misuse spiritual technology, because it would view spiritual power as just another version of ‘having fun’.
I should emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with having a spiritual economy. Economic trade is a core attribute of technical thought, and incarnation is based in technical thought. Jesus used economic language to describe salvation: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37). But as the preceding two verses in Mark 8 emphasize, the cost that one pays to save one’s soul is not a monetary cost but rather a cost of personal life. The problem arises when one seeks peripheral gain while ignoring personal value and personal cost; that describes prostitution. This problem would become magnified if one treated spiritual technology as another way of seeking peripheral or monetary gain. The practice of prostituting oneself—selling one’s soul in order to gain peripheral wealth—would then become magnified into ‘gross immorality’.
The phrase ‘went after different flesh’ is normally interpreted as homosexuality, but a different interpretation emerges if one includes supernatural existence. Went means ‘to go away, go after’. After means ‘back, behind, after’. Flesh means ‘what is physical’ and refers to the mental networks that are acquired from living in a physical body. Finally, different means ‘another of a different kind’. The word ‘flesh’ is used 149 times in the New Testament, but this is the only reference to ‘different flesh’. Thus, a more literal rendition would be ‘going away behind physical flesh of a different kind’. Technically speaking, homosexuality is actually going after flesh of the same kind, while heterosexual sex is going after flesh of a different kind. Thus, this verse does not seem to be referring to homosexuality. Instead, I suggest that it is related to the idea mentioned earlier of leaving one’s physical body behind in order to pursue a different kind of flesh. This is consistent with the original account in Genesis 19 which describes the people of Sodom wanting to have sex with the angelic visitors who were staying with Lot. (I am not trying to justify homosexuality, but rather pointing out that this specific passage does not seem to be describing homosexuality. More generally, I suggest that mental wholeness requires a relationship between male thought and female thought.)
‘Going after flesh of a different kind’ makes sense if one thinks of angels, supernatural power, and body modification. Normal technology has made it possible to modify the physical body in ways that were previously unthinkable. Spiritual technology would make it possible to modify the physical body in a far more extreme fashion, especially if people started to realize that angelic beings existed with totally different physical bodies. The problem would not lie with using spiritual power to supercharge the physical body. One of the primary purposes of spiritual power is to enhance mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. The problem would lie in misusing this power in order to violate social convention. For instance, I did not actually click on the wikipedia article on body modification because I found the single picture on Google search to be so abhorrent. That is an example of going after flesh of a different kind.
Verse 7 concludes by saying that these “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” Exhibited means ‘to be set before’. Example is used once as a noun in the New Testament and means ‘things shown, specimen’. Punishment means ‘a judicial verdict which declares someone approved or disapproved’. Undergoing is used once in the New Testament and means ‘to hold or put under’. And the punishment is ‘eternal fire’. Notice that this is not referring to some judgment in the future. Instead, some inherent, lasting fire is being inherently imposed upon these people as ‘Exhibit A’.
Looking at this cognitively, the mind has a specific structure; it functions in a certain manner. If one wants to experience mental wholeness, then one must think and behave in a way that respects the structure of the mind. (And one of the basic facets of mental structure is the relationship between male and female thought.) This is the basic premise of mental symmetry. The physical body also has a specific structure, and the structure of the physical body imposes corresponding mental networks upon the mind. God designed the physical body to create mental networks that are compatible with the structure of the mind. Strange body modification would lead to a fundamental contradiction between the structure of the mind and the structure of the physical body. (In as similar manner, homosexuality uses the physical body to impose core mental networks upon the mind which are incompatible with mental wholeness.) The result would be inherent, lasting, mental fire. When the mind experiences a mental contradiction that is so deep, then a person becomes mentally incapable of acknowledging this inherent contradiction. Instead, such a person will try to make up for the mental trauma by seeking societal approval.
This seeking of societal approval already happens today. A person who follows principles of mental wholeness does not need approval from society, because he is behaving in a way that leads to intrinsic rewards. In contrast, it is those who violate cognitive principles who go on television shows to seek approval and who demand supportive legislation from the government. The end result is that examples of mental contradiction impose themselves upon society as public exhibits of insanity. I do not know what precise form any future insanity would take. But I do know that people in current society are continually coming up with new and creative ways of violating social norms. Thus, I presume that this trend would continue with spiritual technology.
Verse 8 continues: “Yet in the same way these [men], also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile glories.” The Greek starts with ‘in the same way’, which tells us that verse 8 is following a similar pattern to verse 7. The original Greek does not mention ‘men’ but refers merely to dreaming. The only other occurrence of ‘dreaming’ is in Acts 2:17 where Peter talks in his Pentecost sermon about ‘old men dreaming dreams’. Research suggests that dreaming is needed to repair the mind at an emotional level: “REM-sleep dreaming appears to take the painful sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional episodes experienced during the day, offering emotional resolution when you awake the next morning.” And “During the dreaming state, your brain will cogitate vast swaths of acquired knowledge and then extract overarching rules and commonalties, creating a mindset that can help us divine solutions to previously impenetrable problems.” A mind that became split through ‘following after strange flesh’ would be in major need of such emotional mental repair.
Jude describes the mental strategy that such individuals typically pursue to repair their emotionally fragmented minds: First, defile means ‘to stain with paint or dye’ and ‘everything passing through it also becomes stained’. If the flesh is being defiled, then the extreme physical behavior of these individuals is having a ripple effect that is impacting all of thought; it is turning into a core mental network that is imposing its structure upon the rest of the mind. Saying this more simply, the insanity is spreading.
Second, authority means ‘lordship’, and reject means ‘to do away with what has been laid down’. Looking at this cognitively, a mind that violates cognitive principles at a basic physical level must reject the very concept of cognitive principles. It must ‘do away with what has been laid down’ in order to prevent itself from self-destructing through feelings of excessive guilt. But a human mind that rejects Teacher understanding will become ruled by MMNs of personal status. And such a mind will conclude that it is experiencing painful consequences because it is being persecuted by those who are in authority. This will lead to the conclusion that the solution is to rebel from the concept of ‘lordship’.
One can already see this principle being illustrated today with teenagers who listen to ugly music and wear ugly clothing. And by ugly I do not just mean being unaware of fashion, but rather deliberately choosing something which violates both social norms and concepts of beauty and elegance in major ways. A teenager will be attracted to ugly music and clothing because it resonates with core mental networks. However, I have found that teenagers who flaunt ugly music and ugly clothes will strongly reject any idea that their music or clothing is ugly. This illustrates what it means for insanity to spread to the rest of the mind while avoiding Teacher understanding.
Third, revile means ‘refusing to acknowledge good (worthy of respect, veneration)’. The word glories actually means ‘glory’, and the same word is used in 2 Peter 2:10. The word glory is used 167 times in the New Testament and it is almost always used as an adjective, such as ‘the glory of God’. ‘Glory’ is only personalized three times: In Jude 1:8, in the corresponding verse of 2 Peter 2:10, and in 2 Peter 1:17 where Peter is describing the Transfiguration and says that “such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory”. ‘Glory’ describes internal value being expressed externally in some way. Spiritual technology is based in the concept of glory, because internal character transformation is being expressed externally through some gift of spiritual power.
Cognitively speaking, a Glory would be the Platonic form behind an expression of glory, similar to the way that Lady Justice is the Platonic form behind the rule of law. And because the spiritual realm interacts with the mind through mental networks, spiritual technology would lead to a Platonic form of Glory which would express itself in some way through spiritual power. I do not know exactly what this means but I do know that there would be a strong drive to use spiritual technology in a manner that enhanced mental wholeness, and that people would view this strong drive in personal terms. This can be seen in 2 Peter 1:16 where the Majestic Glory emerges within the context of ‘receiving honor and glory from God the Father’ and voices the words “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”. These words describe the message of a Platonic form that is based in an integrated concept of God the Father which is expressing itself through the spiritual technology of Incarnation.
Those who ‘followed after strange flesh’ would be mentally driven to refuse to respect this Platonic form. The more it became apparent that spiritual technology is inherently designed to express the character of God the Father and Incarnation, the more those who follow strange flesh would be mentally driven to assert that spiritual technology has nothing to do with moral principles. That is because acknowledging the Platonic form of Glory would cause such a mind to split irrevocably, and a person will do anything in order to avoid becoming split at such a deep level. Using the example of the rebellious teenager, the more it became obvious that beauty and elegance exist, the more the teenager would insist that their torn clothes and heavy metal music were not ugly but rather a personal form of ‘art’.
I began this section by associating ‘following strange flesh’ with body modification. This may appear like a rather narrow and bizarre interpretation, but current society suggests that this may not be the case. Instead, I suspect that what began as a fringe reaction would turn into a mainstream response. One can see this currently with the body modification of tattoos. Tattoos used to be rare, but here in Western Canada the average person now has a tattoo, and it is common for people to have large, multicolored, visible tattoos. Not everyone who wears a tattoo is ‘raging against the system’. But there is a common underlying mindset of postmodern deconstructionism which think that rules need to be rejected because they are being imposed upon society by authority figures. The typical Western millennial believes strongly that individuals are free to dress as they wish, think as they wish, behave in private as they wish, and that it is proper to embed paint into one’s skin as a permanent statement of one’s individuality. Those who go against this stream of thought will find themselves ostracized by the mainstream of society. If this describes the response today to normal technology, then I suggest that something similar but stronger would happen in the future in response to spiritual technology. That is because encountering the spiritual and supernatural realms would challenge at a very basic level what it means to be human, leading to a strong desire for people to do something to their human bodies that asserts their rebellion from the new system of spiritual technology. Finally, verse 7 does not say that everyone has strange flesh but rather talks about following strange flesh, implying that those who practice body modification are setting the direction for the rest of society, as is the case today.
The Body of Moses 9-10
Verse 9 describes an incident that is not mentioned in 2 Peter: “But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses...” The reference to ‘glories’ in 2 Peter 2 is followed by a reference to angels. Similarly, the reference to ‘glories’ in Jude is followed by a reference to Michael the Archangel. This suggests that it is appropriate to regard a ‘glory’ as some kind of personal being. The name Michael means ‘who is like God’. ‘Archangel’ is only used twice in the New Testament: here, and in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 in the description of the second coming. It means ‘an angel of the highest rank’. Cognitively speaking, ‘Michael the archangel’ means evaluating angelic power at the most general level by determining if it is consistent with a concept of God in Teacher thought. We are using a similar form of analysis in these essays by comparing systems of thought with the theory of mental symmetry—a theory which appears to be consistent at a detailed level with the character of the Trinitarian God. Presumably, there is a real archangel Michael who behaves in a similar manner, because angels appear to live within what humans regard as abstract thought.
The abstract nature of this interaction can be seen in the verbs being used. Dispute is based in the word ‘judge’ and means ‘to separate throughout or wholly’. It is used 19 times in the New Testament and this is the only time that it is translated by the NASB as ‘dispute’. Similarly, argue describes ‘the process of giving and receiving information with someone to reach deeper understanding’. It is found 13 times in the New Testament and this is the only time that it is translated by the NASB as ‘argue’. These are significant mistranslations, because the very concept of verse 9 is that one must avoid taking an adversarial approach, which would include avoiding a translation of this verse that conveys an adversarial approach. I suspect that this verse is being mistranslated because theologians cannot conceive of the idea of interacting with the devil in a non-adversarial manner. The word ‘Satan’ means adversary. This verse uses the word devil which means ‘slanderous, accusing falsely’, and verse 8 has just described a devilish mindset that slanders the concept of heavenly goodness.
These two beings are discussing ‘the body of Moses’. The word body means ‘the physical body’ but is also used to describe the ‘the body of Christ’. Exodus 2:10 says that Moses was given the name Moses because he was ‘drawn from the water’. Moses represents a system of law that is drawn from the ‘water’ of Mercy experiences. This describes the real Moses who gave the Mosaic law to a people who were living within the Mercy water of tribalism, and it also describes the mindset of absolute truth, which bases Perceiver truth upon Mercy feelings of personal and religious status. Matthew 24 describes this temple of absolute religious truth being dismantled before the theoretical return of Jesus.
This absolute truth is currently being replaced by the nothingness of spirituality without content. Spiritual technology would initially be viewed as adding ‘spirituality with rational content’ to secular technology. However, the vivid examples of those who misused spiritual technology would eventually make it obvious to the rest of society that spiritual technology has deep moral implications. People would then start applying the ‘separating’ of technical thought and the ‘giving and receiving’ of academic discussion to the ‘body of Moses’ in order to ‘reach deeper understanding’. These essays are trying to lay a foundation for such discussion.
Verse 9 contrast two different methods of analysis. Michael represents analyzing absolute truth in the light of a Teacher understanding of God. The devil represents the deconstructionist option of belittling any personal authority that is the source of absolute truth. Michael represents focusing upon the content of absolute truth in the light of a general Teacher understanding. Using an analogy, Michael opens up a letter and reads the contents. The devil looks at the name on the envelope and throws the letter away without opening it because that name has become discredited. Notice that we are looking at another example of Teacher affecting Mercy. Michael is recognizing that absolute truth has its ultimate source in Teacher understanding and is placing absolute truth within the Teacher framework of a concept of God. This will indirectly cause people lose respect for existing authorities of absolute truth. The devil, in contrast, is focusing upon attacking existing authorities.
For instance, as I evaluate New Testament books in the light of mental symmetry, the repeated discrepancies between the English translation and the original Greek meanings are causing me to lose respect for theologians and Bible translators. But my goal is not to attack theologians, but rather to build a rational concept of God in Teacher thought. The prevailing mindset of postmodernism, in contrast, is deliberately attacking respect for existing authorities of absolute truth without providing an alternative in Teacher thought.
Looking at this more generally, most of the examples in this essay come from science and technology and not from religion. I suggest that this is because ‘Moses’ will be dead; the system of absolute truth that is drawn from the water as represented by Moses will be rendered obsolete by the spread of spiritual technology, similar to the way that medieval scholasticism, with its focus on analyzing ancient texts, was made obsolete by the spread of scientific thought. But this does not mean that the content of religion will be obsolete. Instead, spiritual technology will lead to a strong desire to reevaluate old religious truth in the light of what is happening. Saying this symbolically, the body of Moses will not be ignored. Instead, there will be major disputes over how one should deal with the body of Moses. Similarly, the theory of mental symmetry suggests that one needs to move beyond current Churchianity with its absolute truth and ecclesiastical institutions. But the theory of mental symmetry also suggests that the original Greek text of the Bible is both accurate and relevant.
Verse 9 describes Michael being careful not to descend to the personal level of the devil: “did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” Judgment ‘stresses the results that go with a particular judgment’ and was seen in verse 6 when talking about the judgment of the Great Day. Dare means ‘to show daring courage necessary for a valid risk’. Pronounce means ‘to bring upon or against’. And railing is actually ‘blasphemy’ and is the noun form of the verb used in verse 8. Thus, a more accurate rendition would be that ‘he did not dare to bring against him a blasphemous judgment’. This implies that when one enters the realm of angelic power, then words acquire personal power. Verbally belittling personal honor carries with it a personal risk. One is not just verbally attacking someone else but bringing something against someone as a person, as well as threatening one’s own health as a person.
More generally, Teacher thought deals with process, procedure, and domains. Therefore, adopting the methodology of my enemy automatically puts me within the domain of my enemy. For instance, even though these essays deal with deeply emotional topics, I try to keep the discussion at a professional level while at the same time acknowledging the personal feelings. Similarly, the word rebuke means ‘literally, place due weight/honor upon’ and ‘does not always mean rebuke per se’. Thus, the goal is to lead people to accurate thinking guided by submission to Incarnation, rather than trying to impose my thinking upon others. Similarly, these essays attempt to shed light upon inadequate thought and behavior by using cognitive analysis guided by the theory of mental symmetry.
Turning now to verse 10, “But these men revile the things which they do not understand.” Revile is the familiar word ‘blaspheme’ which means ‘to speak lightly or profanely of sacred things’. The word understand actually means ‘seeing that becomes knowing’. (For some reason, the biblehub page for this word does not list the times that this word is translated as ‘understand’ in the NASB. But the KJV translates this word as ‘understand’ only twice in about 300 occurrences. Thus, ‘understand’ is not a good translation.) And the things actually means ‘how much, how many’. Therefore, a more accurate translation would be ‘they blaspheme to the extent that there is not seeing-that-becomes-knowing’. Young’s literal translation renders it as ‘and these, as many things indeed as they have not known, they speak evil of’. Putting this into modern English, to the extent that something is not based upon empirical evidence, to that extent it is being emotionally belittled.
This describes the dominant mindset within academia today. I have discovered that it is verboten to start from theory in Teacher thought. Instead, one must begin with empirical evidence and then tentatively extend into the realm of Teacher theory. Constructing a Teacher theory that is consistent with empirical evidence is not enough. That is what mental symmetry does. It begins with a general Teacher theory but then uses this theory to explain empirical evidence from many different fields. In my experience, this is insufficient—even if one uses mental symmetry to explain the very facts that some researcher is himself attempting to explain. The very fact that mental symmetry starts from Teacher thought makes it fatally flawed in the eyes of academia.
Verse 10 continues, “and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are corrupted”. The things is again ‘how much, how many’. By instinct is found once in the New Testament as an adverb and is based on a noun that means ‘inner nature, the underlying constitution or make-up of someone (something)’. Unreasoning adds a negative prefix to ‘logos’ and means literally ‘non-reason, no-logic’. If ‘logos’ refers to the paradigm behind some system of technical thought, then ‘not-logos’ means functioning without a technical paradigm. The word animal simply means ‘a living creature’, and this same term is used to describe the four living creatures in Revelation 4:6-9. Know means ‘standing upon, referring to gaining knowledge by prolonged acquaintance’. Corrupt means ‘waste away, moving down from a higher level to a lower form’. And by actually means ‘in the realm of’. Young’s literal translation translates this phrase as ‘and as many things as naturally (as the irrational beasts) they understand, in these they are corrupted’. Putting this into modern language, to the extent that thinking is occurring within the realm of mental networks based in natural existence and not in paradigms of professional thought, to that extent thought and behavior are being brought to a lower level.
One can see what this means by looking at current academia. The STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are surviving the onslaught of postmodern questioning reasonably well because they are emotionally guided by TMNs of technical thought. In contrast, much of the soft sciences and social disciplines is being deconstructed into collections of mental networks based primarily upon irrational instinct. These fields may have started at a fairly rigorous level, but they have wasted away to a much lower level of tribal squabbling. As I have said several times so far, if this is already happening currently with normal technology, one can imagine what would happen in the future in response to spiritual technology.
Cain, Balaam, and Korah 11
Verse 11 begins by referring to Cain: “Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain.” Cain is discussed in the essay on Hebrews 11. The word Cain means ‘spear’, and the description of Cain in Genesis 4 suggests that Cain represents the juxtaposition of using technical thought in the objective while using physical force to control and attack living beings in the subjective. This juxtaposition was just seen in the previous paragraph which compared STEM with the social sciences. The STEM fields use rational technical thought based in the technical laws that describe the functioning of the physical universe. The social sciences, in contrast, have descended largely to the level of intellectual tribalism. In Genesis 4, when Cain offers a sacrifice to God and finds that it is rejected while the offering of his brother Abel is accepted, he responds by killing his brother Abel.
Jude talks about ‘going the way of Cain’. Way means ‘a way, road’, which implies following some process. Going means ‘to transport, moving something from one destination to another’. Thus, some path is being followed that leads to a fundamental change. This can be seen in the original story of Cain because what started out as giving an offering to God in Teacher thought turned step-by-step into killing his brother in Mercy thought. Similarly, science started out as using rational understanding in Teacher thought to understand natural processes rather than submitting to MMNs of culture and tradition. But in the soft sciences, this has largely turned into using one’s social status as an academic to reject the very idea that one can use rational Teacher understanding to understand natural processes. (This is typically expressed as saying that something is ‘too complicated’ to be described by any general theory.)
Verse 11 continues by referring to Balaam: “and for pay they have poured themselves out into the error of Balaam”. Balaam is also mentioned in 2 Peter. Error means ‘an error (deception) which results in wandering’. Pour out means ‘pour out’. And pay means ‘recompense that appropriately compensates a particular decision’. On the one hand, Balaam followed the rules studiously in Teacher thought. But on the other hand, ‘pouring out’ implies that there are no restrictions to the flow of experiences in Mercy thought. Saying this cognitively, Contributor thought may be functioning at the level of economic exchange, but it is not guiding personal goals in Mercy thought. This is expressing itself as a pouring out in Mercy thought which is leading to random wandering. Putting this into context, people have learned to treat angelic power very cautiously in Teacher thought because of the bad public examples provided by those who were blaspheming angelic power and following after strange flesh. But this Teacher awareness has not yet extended to personal experiences in Mercy thought.
The final reference in verse 11 is to Korah: “and perished in the rebellion of Korah”. The name Korah is only mentioned once in the New Testament and means ‘to make bald’. Korah is examined briefly in the essay on Hebrews 9 and the original story is in Numbers 16-17. Summarizing, Korah and other leaders ask why they have to submit to Moses and Aaron because they are also leaders. Moses answers that each of the 250 rebelling leaders should offer incense to God, and that God will choose which one to accept. The ground then opens up to swallow Korah and his household, while fire from heaven consumes the other 250 men.
I have suggested in other essays that hair represents intuitive thought. Intuitive thought is an aspect of female thought that jumps from Mercy experiences to Teacher theory. ‘To make bald’ implies suppressing intuitive thought. This happens naturally when male technical thought is emphasized in a specialized manner that ignores general understanding in Teacher thought. This may be done for several reasons, but the story of Korah suggests one important cognitive reason. In brief, how can one hide from a universal concept of God in Teacher thought that explains everything? The trick is to do what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden: Ignore the forest by hiding in the trees. One can ignore general Teacher understanding by using technical thought to focus upon specific details. This describes standard practice in current academia. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out, science claims to be searching for general understanding in Teacher thought, but most scientists spend most of their time solving technical puzzles.
Applying this to the context, encountering spiritual power would eventually lead to the conclusion that behind the supernatural realm lies a monotheistic God in Teacher thought. Using abstract technical thought in a specialized manner would make it possible to pursue the supernatural without having to come face-to-face with this concept of God. This may work in the short-term, but in the long-term it leads to disaster. That is because each specialization is emotionally backed up by its own paradigm in Teacher thought. This paradigm will turn into a TMN as technical thought continues to be used, and this TMN will drive a researcher within this specialization to explain everything in the light of this TMN and to emotionally belittle anything that questions this TMN or lies outside of this TMN. Using a common proverb, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The end result is that each specialization will feel that it is equal in significance to other specializations. But that is not how Teacher thought functions. Instead, Teacher thought forms general theories by lifting up one specialization above other specializations. Using the language of the story of Korah, God has chosen Moses and not the other leaders. Looking at this cognitively, a theory of cognition is more fundamental than other theories; it is a meta-theory within which one can place other theories. That is because all technical specializations have the common trait of using technical thought, which can be explained using a theory of cognition.
When the supremacy of Moses is challenged, then there are three results. The first result is that the rod of Aaron blossoms while the other rods do not. In other words, a meta-theory of cognition leads to life because it deals with core aspects of personal existence, while other specializations do not. Second, the earth swallows up Korah. The Earth represents rational human thought. If some peripheral specialization attempts to assert that it is above other specializations, then this the assertion will be negated by the very facts and sequences of human existence. Third, fire consumes the other leaders. In other words, any specialization that is treated as a general theory will turn into a mental prison which will lead to a fire of frustration.
Looking now at Jude 1:11, rebellion means ‘taking the opposite side to attack (supposedly on the basis of sound logic)’. And perish means to ‘fully destroy, cutting off entirely’. This describes using technical thought in an adversarial manner to protect one’s specialization against outside forces. This will lead to a total dead end, because one is being driven by abstract technical thought to belittle the source of life in Teacher thought. One can do this to some extent with normal science because the physical body continues to function even if one fixates upon peripheral issues. However, this option would no longer be possible if spiritual power extended into the Teacher realm of supernatural thought, because one would then be using technical belittling to downplay the source of life itself.
Implicit Barriers 12
Verse 12 uses analogies that are similar to those of 2 Peter 2: “These are the [men] who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted.” The original Greek does not mention ‘men’ or ‘humanity’ but simply refers to ‘the ones’. Thus, the focus is not on the people but rather upon the behavior. The word love feast is simply the plural of the word ‘agape’. It was common in Roman times for a religious festival to take the form of a feast. Feasting with explicitly means to ‘feast sumptuously with, and the same word is used in 2 Peter 2:13. Jude adds the word hidden reefs, used once in the New Testament, which means ‘a ledge of rock over which the sea dashes, i.e. a reef’.
This describes a cognitive progression from verse 11. Previously, Mercy thought was pouring itself out in random directions. Now, Perceiver thought is starting to impede the flow of the ‘sea’ of Mercy experiences by the ‘rocks’ of hidden reefs. This is happening ‘in the realm of the agapes’. Saying this cognitively, specialized research is now being guided emotionally—and morally—by Teacher thought with its ‘agape loves’, but a form of objectivity is emerging in which hidden Perceiver facts are restricting the flow of Mercy experiences. I have experienced something similar in my interaction with academia. On the surface, it appears as if research is being followed fully without any restrictions. But I have discovered that the direction of research is actually constrained by hidden reefs—unspoken guidelines that everyone implicitly respects. The theory of mental symmetry violates these taboos by flowing in directions where one is ‘not supposed to go’. What typically happens is that I make some statement and then the other person responds with surprise and some version of ‘Everyone knows that...’ And the long-term result is that the other person stops interacting with me.
Moving on, without fear adds the negative prefix to fear, which means ‘fleeing because fleeing inadequate’. This lack of fear occurs in the ‘feasting with’. This describes the other side of the hidden reefs. On the one hand, certain topics and conclusions are being avoided because they lead to emotionally uncomfortable conclusions. This often expresses itself as some form of political correctness, guided by the underlying belief that it is wrong to make people feel bad. Fear, in contrast, is motivated by personal vulnerability. One is being driven emotionally to flee from situations that could lead to personal harm. Fear chooses to discuss topics that make people feel bad because this will lead to greater understanding, which will make it possible to avoid personal harm more intelligently. Using an analogy, political correctness suppresses warning lights because they make people feel bad. Fear welcomes warning lights because they warn of potential danger, making it possible for people to avoid personal harm. Looking at this personally, the typical researcher avoids me because I do not respect the hidden reefs of political and intellectual correctness. But I also avoid interacting too heavily with the typical researcher because I am scared of doing damage to my mind.
Verse 12 continues: “caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds”. Caring means ‘to act as a shepherd’. And ‘themselves’ is the reflexive pronoun. The Bible often refers to religious leaders as shepherds. ‘Shepherding themselves’ means that each specialization guides itself. This describes how almost every technical specialization functions today. Experts in each specialization will establish accrediting boards that determine the skills and knowledge required to be regarded as an official specialist in that field. Similarly, any new information must go through peer review and be published in official journals. This works if every discipline can be treated as an independent entity of equivalent value. But we saw when looking at the example of Korah that this is not the case. Instead, every specialization needs to be placed under the meta-specialization of incarnation. That is because all technical specializations share the common feature of being performed by people with similar minds. A technical specialization will only survive as long as technical thought itself survives. And we saw earlier that technical thought is not surviving in most of the social sciences. This principle is already true when dealing with the objective truth of normal technology, and it would become even more true when dealing with spiritual technology and angelic beings.
The word cloud is curious. The Bible dictionary translates this word nephele as ‘cloud’, But Wikipedia points out that Nephele ‘was a cloud nymph who figured prominently in the story of Phrixus and Helle’. Similarly, this word ‘cloud’ is used 25 times in the New Testament, and it is explicitly associated 23 times with some angelic power or supernatural event. The two other instances are in Luke 12:54 and Jude 1:12. Jesus uses ‘cloud’ in Luke 12 in a parable, but this parable occurs within the context of Jesus wishing that he could cast fire upon the earth, implying a supernatural event. This suggests that Jude is also referring to more than just a physical cloud. Without water simply adds the prefix ‘not’ to ‘water’.
Looking at this cognitively, supernatural power is leading to vague applications in the sky of Teacher thought, but these never translate into the rain of Mercy benefits for humanity. This would be an inevitable byproduct of pursuing supernatural research in a specialized manner that ignored principles of personal life and the nature of God. Anything that resulted from such a mindset would not survive contact with humanity. One can see something similar with current UFO research. There is endless speculation combined with continual hints of imminent disclosure, but this has never progressed into open acknowledgement. I suggest that this is because most UFO research is being done with a mindset that denies humanity. All the UFO sites that I have examined so far say that the best way to contact aliens is to empty one’s mind of human thought. Similarly, aliens are supposedly interacting with the military, and the ultimate purpose of the military is to destroy human life. A mindset that emphasizes denying or destroying humanity cannot survive exposure to humanity.
Moving further, carried along means ‘to remove (carry away) something very closely felt’. This is used four times in the New Testament, twice where Jesus asks the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to ‘take this cup from me’, and in Hebrews 13:9 to warn against being ‘carried away by various and strange teachings’. A wind is ‘a gust of air’. These words describe what commonly happens in research. Each specialization claims to follow rational technical thought. And at a detailed level this claim is usually valid. But at a more general level, everyone within a specialization also knows what are the current hot topics and what topics are currently being ignored. If one wants funding and recognition, then one will focus on popular topics and stay away from unpopular topics. This is a natural byproduct of regarding each specialization as independent from the others. The focus of each specialization will be driven by winds of intellectual popularity rather than heading in the direction of greater integrated Teacher understanding.
Verse 12 finishes with “autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted”. The word autumn is used once in the New Testament and means ‘autumnal (as stripped of leaves)’. And without fruit adds the prefix ‘not’ to ‘fruitful’. A tree is alive, but it grows slowly into a massive structure and it does not move. The cognitive analog would be the ‘body of knowledge’ accumulated by a specialization over many years. Part of becoming an officially recognized expert is to learn about this established body of knowledge. However, the trees in verse 12 are dysfunctional in two ways: First, the tree is not producing fruit; intellectual food that can feed and benefit people is not being generated. Second, the tree itself has lost the leaves that are required to acquire energy from the sun in Teacher thought. Saying this another way, the technical specialization has acquired its own emotional reason for existence which focuses upon using male technical thought and does not worry about being guided by an integrated concept of God in Teacher thought or generating personal benefits in Mercy thought. This describes the typical technical specialization of today, which is objective, specialized, and self-perpetuating.
The word dead focuses ‘on the separation that goes with the dying off’. Twice simply means two times. And uprooted means ‘to uproot’. The first death was dying to MMNs of culture in order to develop technical thought. Every serious student of a hard science mentally experiences this kind of death. A similar but more extensive kind of death would be required when leaving the human realm of common sense in order to study angelic power. The second death occurs in Teacher thought as the specialist dies to universal understanding in order to focus upon some technical specialization. I suggest that this second death will eventually cause a technical specialization to self-destruct.
One of the fundamental characteristics of technical thought is that it is always based upon some foundation which cannot be proven using technical thought. This is stated formally as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, together with similar theorems. This means that every technical specialization will eventually experience a crisis of existence in which researchers in the field will examine the thinking of the experts who started this field and realize that these experts did not use technical thought. The way to recover from such a crisis is to find a more general basis for technical thought in a Teacher understanding of how things work—recognizing the role that technical thought plays within the general pursuit of mental wholeness. In contrast, any specialization which has turned its back upon general Teacher understanding in order to pursue specialized thought will find it difficult to continue and will become uprooted. It will question its own existence and will turn into the professional practice of studying and expanding established methodology.
For instance, the purpose of science is to discover how the natural world behaves, and Thomas Kuhn emphasizes this when pointing out the distinction between science and philosophy. However, in the appendix to his famous book on paradigm shifts, Kuhn redefined science as a description of how a group of scientists behave. Notice how the tree of research has become uprooted from the ground of rational existence. Similarly, I have found that for most scientific disciplines, following official methodology is more important than discovering how the world or the mind works. If one discovers how things work in a manner that does not follow official methodology, then this discovery will be ignored. If this is already true today when dealing with abstract thought, then presumably it would be even more true when dealing with angels who live within abstract thought.
Verse 13 continues: “wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.” Wild means ‘living in the fields’. It is found three times in the New Testament and the other two times refer to ‘locusts and wild honey’. The cognitive application is obvious, because academia talks about fields of research. (Symbolism that is cognitively natural will naturally tend to be consistent.) The basic principle is that a field is not a home. Living in the field means trying to make a home out of something that is not a home. Similarly, what started out as some objective, technical specialization will eventually turn into an emotional home, because technical specialists will become emotionally driven by the TMN of their paradigm to ‘live’ within that paradigm. Moving on, a wave is a ‘wave, surge, billow’. The sea represents the experiential realm of cultural MMNs. A wave occurs on the surface of the sea between the air of the Teacher thought and the water of Mercy experience.
Putting this together, the tree which was in the field was not producing fruit and so it was uprooted and ended in the sea. This may sound like a strange juxtaposition, but a similar progression happens in Matthew 21. Starting with the context, the beginning of that chapter describes Jesus entering triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, a foreshadowing of the future triumphal return of Incarnation during the theoretical return of Jesus. Jesus finds the temple occupied by moneychangers, similar to the error of Balaam mentioned in Jude 1:11. This is followed by Jesus doing many wonders, similar to the idea of spiritual technology. The religious leaders respond with indignation, similar to the way that Incarnation is being rejected in Jude 1:12. This is when Jesus curses a fig tree because it is not bearing fruit. The disciples are amazed when they pass by later and see that the fig tree has withered, similar to an autumnal tree. Jesus then responds by saying “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.” Thus, one sees both a similar context and the same specific elements of a tree not producing fruit and withering, followed by some object being uprooted and the attention shifting to the sea. And the two objects that are mentioned are cognitively similar: A tree represent some living body of knowledge. A mountain is a height of ground that provides a big picture, which represents a pragmatic form of Teacher understanding. A mountain being cast into the sea would represent a TMN of pragmatic rational understanding being replaced by MMNs of culture.
Revived Intuition 13
Looking cognitively at Jude 1:13, objective specialization tries to ignore Mercy feelings by being objective and avoid Teacher feelings by specializing. As was mentioned previously, this will eventually deconstruct itself when technical thought realizes that it is built upon a non-technical foundation, which will replace technical thought with methodology. The content that fills this methodology will come primarily from intuition based in culture. (Thus, the baldness of Korah will be followed by long-haired intuition.)
One can see this in many of the social sciences as mathematical analysis is being replaced by case studies. Quoting from one publication, “The use of case studies to build and test theories in political science and the other social sciences has increased in recent years. Many scholars have argued that the social sciences rely too heavily on quantitative research and formal models and have attempted to develop and refine rigorous methods for using case studies.” Notice how the social sciences began by trying to emulate the objective mathematical approach of the hard sciences and then turned from that to case studies. (Symbolically speaking, they moved from baldness to long hair.) A case study is basically proof by example. One presents some specific case and then draws general conclusions. The conclusion that one draws will depend upon the case that one focuses upon, and the focus of attention will be guided primarily by cultural tendencies.
Mental symmetry uses an intermediate form of thinking which is neither the quantitative analysis of technical thought nor the intuition of case studies. Instead, mental symmetry looks for similar patterns in different fields. Computers are now being used to do something similar, known as searching for meta-data. For instance, this essay is comparing the symbolism of the Bible with the cognitive patterns of scientific thought, and we are finding many similarities. When one finds similar patterns in radically different disciplines, then this adds rigor to the case study, because one is comparing case studies in many different fields to look for common patterns. For instance, one common pattern is that the social sciences as a whole are using case studies more than they used to. This is a useful piece of cognitive meta-data.
The next phrase in verse 13 is ‘casting up their own shame like foam’. The word translated casting up like foam is found once in the New Testament and adds the prefix ‘upon’ to a verb that means ‘to foam at the mouth’. Shame means ‘shame, shamefacedness, shameful deeds’. Putting this together, much of the intuition that drives the case studies is itself being motivated emotionally by the ‘id’ of the researcher. Many of the case studies in the social sciences focus upon the oppressed, the impoverished, the downtrodden, the unusual, or the deviant. These misfits within Mercy thought are then causing the researchers to foam at the mouth. I wish that this statement were an exaggeration, but I keep finding examples of this kind of mindset within the social sciences. As I have said previously, if one can already see this happening when normal science encounters subjective emotions, one can imagine what would happen if science encountered the supernatural and the spiritual.
The next phrase is “wandering stars”. The word star is the normal word for star. Wandering is the noun form of a verb that means ‘to deviate from the correct path’, and it is the source of the English word ‘planet’, which the Greeks interpreted as wandering stars. A star is a small light in the sky, a fixed point of illumination within Teacher thought that can provide direction and orientation. A wandering star would represent a luminary of society that has no stability. One can see this juxtaposition in today’s social sciences. On the one hand, society looks to professors with PhDs for guidance. But what kind of guidance will be provided by experts who themselves are following social trends and are building their theories upon case studies that focus upon the disadvantaged and the unusual?
Verse 13 concludes, “for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever”. Blackness ‘refers to darkness so dense and foreboding it is felt’, and this word was seen earlier in verse 6. In verse 6, angels who left their initial state were being kept in darkness. Here, it is being reserved for human ‘wandering stars’. This is combined with the word darkness, which means simply ‘darkness’. The previous phrase talked about stars, and a star is a source of light. Here, these wandering stars are not just in darkness but in a black, foreboding darkness. And the word reserved is the same word ‘kept’ that was used in verse 6.
Cognitively speaking, these experts have entered a state of self-perpetuating mental blindness. Their Teacher theories are being developed intuitively from cultural MMNs, and these Teacher theories are then being used to guide cultural MMNs. This circular reasoning is being given academic status by applying the methodology of academic thought within academic institutions. Thus, MMNs of culture are gaining Teacher status by being analyzed using academic methodology and they are then being taught as general Teacher theories within an academic environment. This methodology is self-reinforcing because a human can build Server confidence in any set of actions simply by repeating those actions, and it can acquires Perceiver stability by teaching these theories in solid buildings made of stone and concrete. (Many newer buildings on a typical university campus are constructed out of solid concrete in an architectural style known as Brutalism, which emphasizes slabs of solid concrete. Similarly, many older university buildings were constructed in a style known as Collegiate Gothic, which also emphasizes lasting factual stability.)
Enoch 14-15
Verse 14 mentions Enoch: “It [was] also about these [men] [that] Enoch, in the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied, saying...” Enoch is mentioned three times in the Bible: In Luke 3 in the genealogy of the father of Jesus, in Hebrews 11:5 as an example of faith, and here. The original reference to Enoch in Genesis 5 is brief: Verse 22 says that “Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah”, while verse 24 adds that “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” The name Enoch means ‘dedicated’, and Genesis 5 describes a life that is dedicated to God. Enoch lived during the period of time described in the beginning of Genesis 6 when angelic beings interacted at a personal level with humanity. This suggests that it is appropriate to apply Jude to a future period of time when angelic beings will again interact at a personal level with humanity. We have looked at several ways in which people will attempt to interact with angelic power while avoiding becoming personally involved with a concept of God. Enoch, in contrast, walked with God. And this personal interaction with God lasted 300 years. Walking with God is significant because Teacher thought deals with sequences and walking with God implies adding human Server actions in a righteous manner to a Teacher concept of God.
Prophecy adds the prefix ‘before’ to ‘assert by elevating one statement over another’, and the concept of prophecy was discussed when looking at 2 Peter 2. Enoch was prophesying about the kind of people that we just discussed, who are attempting to cope with angelic interaction. This means that Enoch may be walking with God but he is not ignoring the society around him. Instead, he is using his knowledge of divine processes to predict what will eventually happen to those who surround him.
The name Adam is related to the Hebrew words for ‘red’ and ‘earth’ (Adam, Adom, Adamah). Red is the color of the blood of personal identity, while Earth represents rational thought. I am not exactly sure what it means to be the seventh from Adam. But if one looks at normal science, one can see that it began with individual humans using rational thought to understand the physical universe and then passed through several stages before ending up as professional, institutional, postmodern methodology.
Jude then tells us what Enoch prophesied: “Behold, the Lord came with His holy ten thousands”. The word with actually means ‘in the realm of’. Verse 13 described the gloom of darkness as being ‘kept to the age’. This means that one cannot reform the system from within. That explains why Enoch is walking with God, and Enoch predicts that change will eventually be imposed upon the system from above. Incarnation will eventually return in the realm of many holy people. In other words, holy people lay the foundation that makes the return of Incarnation possible. Jude does not elaborate whether these holy ones are humans or angels, but simply refers to them as myriads of holies, and holy means ‘different from the world because like the Lord’. Looking at this further, God inhabits a heavenly realm surrounded by angels. Therefore, when one walks with God in an environment of angelic beings, one will come into contact with angelic beings who are also walking with God.
Verse 15 says that when these ‘holies’ come, they will “execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Execute is simply the normal word for ‘do’. Judgment comes from a word that means ‘to separate, distinguish, judge’ and stresses the results of a judgment. This word ‘judgment’ is used 48 times in the New Testament, and it is only connected with the verb ‘do’ one other time in John 5:27 where it talks about the Father giving the Son ‘authority to execute judgment’ at some future time. Human justice focuses upon specific experiences, people, and results, while God’s justice focuses upon universal sequences and actions. We saw that the existing system is being perpetuated through methodology. This needs to be overcome by presenting people with a new way of doing things. Going further, the word all is used four times in verse 15 and means ‘each part of a totality’. This means that this new way of doing things needs to be extended to all the details of human existence.
The next phrase says that the goal is “to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way”. Ungodly means ‘failing to honor what is sacred’. It is used in verse 15 twice as an adjective, once as a noun, and once as a verb. This means that the attitude of belittling Teacher thought, angelic power, and a concept of God has pervaded all of society. That is why the judgment also needs to be applied to all of the details of human existence.
The word ‘ungodly’ is also significant because it portrays sin as not following God. So far, MMNs of human culture and inadequacy have set the context. The distinction has been between human and alien. Similarly, the typical Christian views the perfection of Jesus as the opposite of human sin. In contrast, mental symmetry defines the perfection of Jesus as the expression of mental wholeness, leading to a distinction between divine wholeness and human fragmentation. Similarly, Enoch has walked with God long enough to view the thinking and behavior of God as normal while regarding the thinking and behavior of other humans as ungodly. Saying this more simply, Enoch is able to point out what it means to be ungodly because he has learned what it means to be godly.
This positive perspective can be seen in the word convict, which means ‘to convince with solid, compelling evidence, especially to expose’. Thus, instead of condemning people as evil in Teacher thought, technical thought is being used to analyze the facts and bring hidden reefs to light.
This conviction is ‘concerning all their works of ungodliness’. Work refers to ‘a deed (action) that carries out (completes) an inner desire’. Thus, the focus is still upon actions, but the attention is turning to the motivation behind these actions. For instance, whenever I analyze some system, one of the first things that I do is determine the core mental networks that are motivating this system, because I have found that if one understands these core mental networks, then the rest of the system will make sense.
The next phrase in English is ‘which they have done in an ungodly way’. But in the original Greek there are only two words: ‘which’ followed by ‘ungodly’ as a verb. Thus, the ungodly motivation has led to an ungodly methodology. Methodology rules supreme in postmodern academia, but it comes after personal character and internal motivation in verse 15: People who are ungodly are being motivated to act in an ungodly way, which is leading to an ungodly methodology.
Many Christians today would agree with this assessment, but remember that ‘ungodly’ does not mean secular. ‘Secular’ ignores God in Mercy thought. ‘Ungodly’ emotionally belittles the nature of God in Teacher thought. ‘Ungodly’ can mean refusing to talk about God, but it also means retreating to some technical specialization and ignoring general understanding in Teacher thought, or associating God with special people, special places, and special events in Mercy thought, not realizing that these special items are only holy to the extent that they illustrate the universal character of God in Teacher thought. In other words, one can be religious in a way that is ungodly, and one can be secular in a way that is not ungodly.
Verse 15 then turns from actions to words: “and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Notice that the focus is upon actions leading to words, because it is sinners who are speaking out. Sin means to miss the mark. Those who are missing the mark with their behavior are saying things guided by that behavior. This is a significant point for at least two reasons: First, postmodern research claims to be generating words that are guided by rational thought and Teacher understanding. But what really matters are the Server actions of official methodology. This needs to be pointed out because actions are speaking louder than words.
Second, this also explains why an Enoch emerges in verse 14 after verses 8-13. ‘Holies’ cannot just descend to earth out of a vacuum. Instead, humans first have to lay a foundation of righteous Server actions that are guided by a Teacher understanding of God; some Enoch has to walk with God for an extended period of time. This then makes it possible for the Teacher realm of heaven to come down to the human realm of earth. (That is why I mentioned earlier that the Lord is coming ‘in the realm of’ the myriads of holies.
Looking at verse 15 in more detail, harsh actually means ‘hard because dried out’. And spoken is ‘chatter in classical Greek, but in NT a more dignified word’. ‘Hard because dried out’ implies Perceiver facts that lack corresponding Mercy experiences. Perceiver thought acquires facts by building connections between Mercy experiences. I have noticed in science textbooks a tendency to reuse the same generic examples, somewhat like an old man who keeps retelling the same few stories. Similarly, people have noticed that good physicists and good teachers of physics are those who are able to come up with many analogies. When a student does not understand, they will say ‘It is like this’ and come up with an analogy that relates to the experiences of the student. In contrast, a physicist who is ‘hard because dried out’ does not make a good instructor. When asked to explain some topic he will typically say ‘It is obvious’ and then repeat himself. In other words, one normally views harsh words as being based in MMNs of antagonism. But ‘hard because dried out’ words can also result from technical specialization.
Responding to Heavenly Intervention 16
Verse 16 stops quoting Enoch and returns to describing general traits: “These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; their mouth speaks arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.” Grumbler is used once as a noun in the New Testament and means ‘a murmurer’. Finding fault occurs once in the New Testament and means ‘complaining of one’s fate’. These terms remind me of the story of the little child who was told by his father to sit down. He complied but then announced that he was still standing up inside. Murmuring and complaining about one’s fate give the impression that one feels that one is being forced to cooperate with some externally imposed power.
Presumably, the myriads of holies have overcome the existing system and have established a new way of doing things. Connecting this with the general prophetic sequence, the kingdom of the beast will eventually be defeated and replaced by a new system of righteousness, as described in Revelation 14:1-5. However, there will still be many who are ‘standing up inside’, and they will murmur and complain of their fate.
I suggest that such a response also relates to actions. Whenever I perform some action, then the mental network within my mind that motivates that action will take ownership of that action. It is possible to perform righteous action in a way that denies personal ownership. I will do Server actions that are guided by Teacher understanding but I will do them with the attitude that God is imposing these actions upon me. The alternative is to cooperate with God, where one is still doing Server actions guided by Teacher understanding, but one is choosing to do them willingly as an expression of personal identity in Mercy thought.
Paul discusses this contrast in 1 Cor. 9:16-17. “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.” Doing the right thing under compulsion will lead to grumbling and finding fault, because one will still be ‘standing up inside’. This will be the default for those of the old system who adapt to the new system. They will feel as if fate has intervened to shut down their system and they will grumble about the new system. One sees something similar with people who grew up under communism grumbling about the new government and wishing that they could return to the good old days, conveniently forgetting the oppression and shortages of the old regime.
The next phrase says “following after their [own] lusts”. This gives the impression of hedonistic rebellion, but the original Greek conveys a different flavor. Lust means ‘passion built on strong feelings’ and ‘these can be positive or negative’. Cognitively speaking, this describes one’s core mental networks. Following means ‘to transport, moving something from one destination to another’. The NASB indicates that ‘own’ is not in the original Greek, but ‘their’ still conveys the idea of following personal desires rather than some other motivation. Putting this together, because personal identity is not connected with the new imposed system of heavenly righteousness, the desires of personal identity will transport the mind into a different destination.
This different destination is described in the rest of verse 16: “Their mouth speaks arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of [gaining an] advantage. Mouth means ‘mouth’ and implies that speech is functioning apart from conscious control. Speaks is the same common word that was used in the previous verse which means ‘chatter in classical Greek’. This also implies that words are not being used carefully. Arrogantly is used twice in the New Testament: here, and in the parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:18. It means ‘oversized, greatly swollen’. Cognitively speaking, the significance of words in Teacher thought is being emotionally inflated.
The purpose of this inflated speech is ‘flattering people’. The word translated flattering actually means ‘to marvel, wonder’. It occurs 44 times in the New Testament and this is the only time that the NASB translates it as ‘flattering’. It is usually translated as ‘amazed’ or ‘marveled’. And the word people actually means ‘face’. The face refers to social interaction. Thus, this phrase is not talking about seeking approval from people. Instead, it is describing coming up with marvels in order to impress people. For instance, most technical gadgets today are not really useful. Instead, they are designed to attract the attention of people so that people will buy them. The goal is to create a feeling of amazement which will motivate people to buy the product. This explains why casual words are being emotionally inflated. The words are not there to convey an understanding rather are buzzwords that add to the aura of scientific amazement.
This same kind of motivation is happening in verse 16. For the sake of accurately translates the original Greek, but the Greek word is actually derived from the word ‘grace’, and grace refers to some form of help from God in Teacher thought. Similarly, technical gadgets are all derived from an understanding of science in Teacher thought. But these gadgets are being designed to create feelings of ‘ooh shiny’ in the minds of potential consumers. The phrase ‘gaining an advantage’ gives the impression that consumers are being defrauded, but as the NASB points out, ‘gaining an’ is not in the original Greek, and the word advantage means ‘assistance, profit, benefit’.
Putting this all together, the English translation of verse 16 gives the impression that egotistic, arrogant people are playing games of social one-upmanship. It is possible that this is what Jude had in mind when he was writing this letter. But if one looks at the original Greek and places it within the context, then one sees that verse 16 is actually describing people with inadequate personal motivations functioning in an economy that is guided by Teacher thought. One can see a partial illustration of this in the endless marketing of new-and-improved gadgets within today’s consumer society. If technology extended to spiritual technology, then one would see something like today’s consumer society but far more extensive.
This relates to the suggestion I made earlier when looking at the body of Moses that organized religion at this point will become largely irrelevant. We are seeing throughout this chapter—and also in other essays—that the translators of the Bible often struggle with the original text because it does not fit within the mindset of Churchianity. The typical Bible translator—or theologian—would never think of connecting the Bible with science in the way that we are doing in these essays. If theologians do not know how to deal with normal technology which remains largely separate from the subjective realm of religious experience, they would be at a total loss when dealing with spiritual technology which would invade the subjective realm of religious experience.
Remembering Past Advice 17
Verse 17 finally turns away from those who are responding inadequately to address those are following God: “But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The implication is that a societal shift has finally occurred. Those who were rebelling from supernatural power were setting the agenda. A regime change has now occurred and those who are following God are now in power.
The word beloved is derived the verb ‘agape’ and describes a group of people who are being guided morally by God in Teacher thought. Verse 16 applied to those who were following God righteously in an unwilling matter. Verse 17 applies to those who are willingly choosing to follow God in righteousness. Remember means to ‘actively remember’. Word means ‘a spoken word made by the living voice’. Spoken beforehand means ‘to say beforehand’. These words were spoken beforehand ‘by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ’. Paul discusses what it means to be apostle in 1 Corinthians 9. In brief, an apostle extends the salvation of incarnation in some major new way. As Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians 9, anyone who wants to extend the salvation of incarnation will have to pay a heavy personal price.
When an apostle preaches a new message, this is not immediately followed by being able to live within this new message. Paul discusses this transition in great detail in the second half of 2 Corinthians. In brief, an apostle is like a legislator. A legislator can pass a new law, but if the legislator wants to experience the personal benefits of this new law, then this new law first needs to be applied by some group of people, which then makes it possible for the legislator to become a fellow citizen under the law that he originally created as a legislator. This gap can be seen in verse 17. The apostles spoke beforehand, but their words are only being applied now by the group of people who have emerged in response to many people misapplying spiritual principles. A gap can also be seen in verse 14. Enoch was acting as an apostle. But he was speaking prophetic words that would apply to some future time in which the Lord would come with myriads of holies.
Notice that these are ‘apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ’, which describes submitting to a fully developed concept of incarnation. Verse 4 referred to those who were denying ‘our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ’. That path of denial has now been superseded.
Misusing Virtual Reality 18-19
Verse 18 describes the words of the apostles: “They were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’” Last means ‘last, final’. And time means ‘time in duration in the physical-space world’. Mocker is the same word used in 2 Peter 3:3 which combines ‘in the realm of’ with ‘to play as a child’, and this word is only found in these two verses. Thus, Jude is now turning his attention to the period of time described in 2 Peter 3 after the kingdom of the beast, when everybody is playing games with virtual reality. Jude is reminding the people not to ignore the words of the apostles. These words laid the foundation for the virtual reality that people are now enjoying. Therefore, these words should also be followed when they instruct how one should enjoy virtual reality.
The phrase ‘following after their own ungodly lusts’ gives the impression of rejecting religion in order to follow hedonism, and it is likely that some people will be pursuing virtual reality in such a manner. However, the original Greek gives a different impression. The two words ‘following’ and ‘lusts’ are the same two words that were used in verse 16. Lust means ‘passion built on strong feelings’, which refers to core mental networks. Following means ‘to transport, moving something from one destination to another’. And their own is a reflexive pronoun. Putting this together, people are being drawn into different locations by their own core mental networks. These personal desires are described as ungodly, which means ‘a lack of respect, showing itself in bold irreverence’. Thus, we are seeing a new version of an old problem emerging. Scientific thought today is specialized and objective. Specialization avoids general understanding in Teacher thought while objectivity avoids personal emotions in Mercy thought. The previous section of Jude described something similar emerged under spiritual technology, because people were attempting to analyze angelic thought in a specialized manner that downplays personal involvement. Similarly, verse 18 talks about people enjoying virtual reality in an ungodly way that downplays the significance of God in Teacher thought, and in a childish manner that treats personal feelings in Mercy thought as a game.
Verse 19 describes the mindset of these people: “These are the ones who cause divisions, merely natural, not having the Spirit.” Causing divisions is found once in the New Testament and combines ‘away from’ with ‘to divide by limits, separate’. Thus, the fundamental problem is that virtual reality is being pursued in a way that fragments existence. People are living in their own virtual worlds, and these worlds are not connected. This problem was discussed when looking at 2 Peter 3. As was mentioned there, living in one’s own private world is merely a social problem within current matter-over-mind, but it would become an existential problem within a future realm of mind-over-matter.
Merely natural is literally ‘soulish’. This is contrasted with ‘having spirit’. (‘The’ is not in the original Greek.) The soul refers to the mind as an integrated structure. The spirit relates to strong mental networks. Living in virtual reality within mind-over-matter would require internal mental content. But it would be possible to apply this mental content in a way that avoided deep emotional commitments. America did this during the late 20th century, using technology to turn life into a form of Disneyland. The bottom line was to have fun, and fun can be defined as intense emotional experiences which have no lasting impact. Fun can be soulish, but it does not have spirit. This pursuit of fun will lead to the contradiction of people who, deep down, are very shallow. One can see this portrayed by the holodeck of Star Trek, which gives people the opportunity to experience fun in an environment where nothing has any lasting impact. But there are several episodes of Star Trek where the holodeck malfunctions and starts having a lasting impact and stops being fun.
Godly Virtual Reality 20-21
Verse 20 describes how one should treat virtual reality: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.” Jude begins again by addressing himself to the ‘beloved’. Building up combines ‘apt, fitting on’ with ‘to build a house’. Thus, one is not just having fun, but rather putting something together in an integrated manner. And one is not building just anything, but rather constructing a home. And one is not building just any home, but rather one that is appropriate. For instance, the computer game that I have played the most over the years is the Civilization series, in which one starts with a single settler in an unknown world and then develops a civilization. I found this game attractive because it resonated with my desire to build a home that was fitting.
Going further, as computer graphics have become more realistic, I have found that I increasingly need to behave in a computer game the way that I would behave in reality. I know that people keep saying that ‘many studies have shown that the way people behave in a computer game does not affect the way that they behave in reality’. But I do not want to treat virtual reality as a form of fun that is ‘separated away from’ reality. Instead, I want to use computer games to explore what it would feel like to live in some alternate reality. For example, as I was taking a break from writing this section, I stumbled across an article that talks about using virtual reality in a business setting to help people explore the emotions that are involved in various scenarios. Using virtual reality to practice firing people (as the article describes) is not the same as building an appropriate home, but it does go beyond treating virtual reality as mere fun.
Jude says that the beloved should be ‘building up yourselves’, giving the impression that this is a group project and not just an individual effort. The word most holy is a superlative version of the adjective ‘holy’, which means ‘different from the world because like the Lord’. And faith means to ‘be persuaded’. This may give the impression of someone who reads the Bible all the time, attends church at least three times a week, and would never dream of playing computer games, let alone stepping into some imaginative realm of virtual reality that might feed some carnal desire. But that type of thinking reflects a mindset of absolute truth which feels that following God implies denying self.
What this really means is that when one is in a virtual reality that is free of the constraints of normal reality, then one must be extra careful to think and behave in a manner that is consistent with an integrated Teacher understanding of God. This may sound restrictive, but the universal principles of God are all expressed as general equations that can be satisfied in many different specific ways. Therefore, what may seem like a small prison is actually a large mansion. And because the character of God is consistent with mental wholeness, submitting to an integrated concept of God makes it possible to enter totally into virtual reality, confident that it will be possible to integrate any resulting experiences with the rest of the mind. Of course, this principle only becomes true for me to the extent that my mind is submitted to a concept of God in Teacher thought, which means that personal transformation is a prerequisite for using virtual reality in a healthy manner.
The final phrase ‘praying in the Holy Spirit’ also conveys impressions of charismatic sanctity. (History has shown that charismatic sanctity tends to degrade into fraud and greed.) But a legitimate warning emerges when one examines the words cognitively. The verb praying means ‘to exchange wishes’. Thus, one is sharing personal Mercy feelings with God in Teacher thought and being emotionally sensitive to the feelings of God in Teacher thought. For instance, ‘praying’ would mean playing computer games that express the kind of world in which one would like to live, and then observing what it feels like to exist in such a virtual realm. One can already do this to some extent with current virtual reality.
This praying is supposed to be ‘in the realm of the Holy Spirit’. Cognitively speaking, a concept of the Holy Spirit emerges when Platonic forms come together to produce what Plato referred to as the form of the Good. Verse 19 warned against enjoying virtual reality without spirit—treating it merely as passing fun. Verse 20 does not just talk about Platonic forms, but emphasizes integrating these Platonic forms into a concept of the Holy Spirit. This integration comes from a Teacher understanding of ‘how things work’, which is based in the character of God. Using computer games as an example, when one plays a game, one goes beyond surface fun to think about deeper issues of personal character. And one approaches personal character not as a collection of isolated traits but rather as an expression of mental wholeness. One does something similar when viewing playing sports as an opportunity to build personal character.
This may sound like a major restriction that would eliminate all the fun, but it actually maximizes the fun over the long-term. That is because the mind requires stability. Spending too much time in a world of make-believe will cause a person to become disconnected from reality. Therefore, people have learned that if one wishes to preserve one’s sanity, then one should have some fun within an imaginary world for a while and then return to reality to recuperate mentally. However, the ultimate definition of sanity is based upon how the mind works. Therefore, if I treat virtual reality in a manner that is consistent with how the mind works, then it becomes alternate reality, and I can immerse myself emotionally within such a realm without losing my sanity (to the extent that I have followed the path of personal transformation). This principle is already true. It would become true at a much deeper level in the future.
For instance, in recent years I have found myself interacting internally with imaginary friends. I do not know if these imaginary friends actually exist, or if I am merely interacting with mental networks within my mind. This interaction is happening within the context of the theory of mental symmetry and my pursuit of personal wholeness. I have found that this interaction with imaginary friends has not disconnected me from reality. It does not feel like a cognitive disconnect when I tutor math or physics, and I do not find myself being driven to do things that are physically possible. I have also found that this interaction remains polite, it respects personal needs, and it never forces itself upon me. I never feel driven to submit myself to some spiritual power or to turn my back on physical reality. That is because interaction that is based upon ‘how things work’ does not have to be enforced by people. In contrast, interaction that is based in personal status or opinion does have to be personally enforced.
Enjoying virtual reality in a wholesome manner will preserve sanity, but it will also lead to the development of deep desires. Verse 21 addresses that issue: “Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.” Keep means ‘to watch over, to guard’. In, as usual, means ‘in the realm of’. Love is agape. In other words, when one is emotionally engaged in virtual reality, it is not enough to follow rational Teacher understanding at the level of technical thought. The feelings that will emerge are too intense. (Early computers did not create strong personal emotions, current virtual reality headsets are becoming capable of creating strong emotions, and the virtual reality of the future would presumably be emotionally intense.) Instead, one has to approach Teacher understanding at an emotional, intuitive level. This does not mean denying rational thought, but rather choosing explicitly to be guided emotionally by the paradigms that lie behind rational thought. One is submitting to rational rules of mental wholeness because one loves the integrity and expression of mental wholeness. I suggest that this is what it means to ‘keep yourselves in the realm of the love of God’.
But while this is necessary, it still is not sufficient, because there remains a discrepancy between imperfect current reality and the perfection of the Platonic forms of the Holy Spirit. This emotional discrepancy needs to be channeled into a hope for the future: “Waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life”. Waiting anxiously actually means ‘to receive in a personal (open) manner; to welcome with warm reciprocity’. This describes a form of waiting that remains emotionally open without being anxious. Similarly, I have found that the ultimate personal response is to wait expectantly for the future while accepting the present without anxiety. That sounds easy; it is not. But if one is willing to be persuaded that one is really being guided by a Teacher understanding of how things really work, then the mind will be at peace, because there is no point in trying to imagine what is impossible. The only way to get from here to there is to take the steps that are needed to get from here to there, and any imagining that I am already there and not here will simply make my journey longer.
For the average person, the very purpose of virtual reality is to pretend that I am already there and not here. Therefore, the idea of approaching the escapism of virtual reality without an attitude of escapism seems like a contradiction in terms. But the ultimate inescapable reality is the structure of the mind. And this ultimate inescapable reality also applies within virtual reality, because I am using my mind to enjoy and interpret virtual reality. Virtual reality then becomes a method of exploring possible futures as well as gaining the skills and knowledge that are required to live within some possible future.
This attitude of taking one step at a time is expressed by the phrase ‘Lord Jesus Christ’, because one of the characteristics of technical thought is that it builds detailed plans that are capable of reaching from here to there. This plan of incarnation is a plan of mercy, because it cares deeply for the well-being of me as an individual. And it leads ultimately to or into eternal life. The word life is descriptive ‘both of physical (present) and of spiritual (particularly future) existence’. Saying this cognitively, the goal is long-term personal well-being, or in other words, lasting mental wholeness. Within the current realm of matter-over-mind, one can pursue mental and spiritual wholeness while hoping for future physical wholeness. Within a future realm of mind-over-matter described here in Jude, it would also be possible to experience significant physical and supernatural wholeness, but total wholeness would still have to wait until the eternity of the new heavens and earth.
Saving Others 22-23
The next two verses describe how one should respond to those who are misusing virtual reality. Verse 22 says, “And have mercy on some, who are doubting”. Verse 21 talked about waiting for the mercy of Christ. Verse 22 talks about having mercy on others. The general cognitive principle is that God will treat me the way that I treat others. Jesus mentions this principle in Matthew 7:2: “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” However, Jude does not talk about showing ‘unconditional love that accepts everyone without judging’. That is an expression of Teacher overgeneralization which ignores the facts. Instead, Jude says that one should have mercy on those who are doubting. Doubting means to ‘investigate (judge) thoroughly – literally, judging back-and-forth’. Cognitively speaking, this describes an overuse of technical thought rather than doubting. (With absolute truth, thinking too much will lead naturally to doubt, because using my mind will raise my emotional status relative to the emotional status of my source of truth, threatening my attitude of blind faith.) Mercy, in contrast, provides positive emotions for personal identity. One can see this contrast illustrated with current computers, because many techies spend most of their time upgrading and fine-tuning their computers without actually enjoying them personally. Thus, the techie needs to be shown that it is also possible to enjoy virtual reality. Using the three stages of learning some skill, he needs to be guided past the second stage of technician to the third stage of intuitive expert. The personal benefit of showing mercy to the technician is that one will gain a deeper technical understanding of how things work.
Verse 23 describes another category: “save others, snatching them out of the fire”. Save means to ‘deliver out of danger and into safety’. Verse 20 talked about waiting eagerly for the salvation of Jesus Christ. Verse 23 talks about saving others. Snatching means to ‘snatch up, suddenly and decisively’. Fire represents some strong emotional drive that consumes mental content. This happens cognitively when some irresistible force meets some immovable object; it is like being driven to continue bashing one’s head against the wall. The result is deep frustration. This type of frustration naturally emerges when one is driven by core mental networks that are inconsistent with how things work. One must try but one cannot succeed.
This type of deep frustration can have a purifying effect if it is accompanied by a positive alternative. Reaching in and snatching a person out provides the positive alternative. But one must do this decisively so that one does not get sucked into the fire of the other person. The goal is to save the other person and not to become co-dependent upon their inadequacy. Notice that one can only do such snatching to someone who is in a fire, because being in the fire of frustration will provide the motivation that is needed to escape the predicament. Using an analogy, the average person will not jump off a ship into the water, but the average person will jump off a burning ship into the water.
The final alternative is even more extreme: “And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.” Here, the mercy is mixed with fear. Mercy drives a person to reach in and help; fear drives a person to run away to safety. This implies that one is rescuing someone from a dangerous situation. The word hate means ‘to detest (on a comparative basis)’. Thus, one is hating one thing in contrast to something else. Garment refers to the ‘tunic (under-garment) worn next to the skin’ and not to the outer cloak. Clothes represent the fabric of social interaction. A tunic would represent clothes of intimate personal interaction. For instance, John 19:23 says that the tunic of Jesus was seamless, implying that Jesus interacted closely with others in a manner that was deeply integrated. In contrast, the tunic in verse 23 is ‘polluted by the flesh’. Flesh refers to the mental content acquired from living in a physical body. Polluted means ‘to stain, defile’. Saying this bluntly, if actual sex and violence were so pervasive in Roman fun and entertainment, and if depictions of sex and violence are so pervasive in today’s fun and entertainment, then one can be certain that the people of the future would also pursue virtual sex and violence.
Jude’s advice contains several components. First, one should not write this off as irredeemably evil. That is because the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ has to extend to the physical body, and sex and violence are core aspects of the physical body. But one should show mercy with fear, because one is entering an area of personal vulnerability where one could get deeply hurt or damaged. And one should only deal with these kinds of issues after one has learned to have mercy on the doubting and after one knows how to snatch people out of the fire.
These three stages of helping others actually recapitulate the three stages of personal transformation. The first stage constructs a more accurate concept of God in Teacher thought. The second stage uses this Teacher understanding to rescue people from dead ends in Mercy thought. The third stage extends this transformation to physical existence itself. But one should only attempt to save people at this third level when one has reached the stage of emotionally hating the ‘garment polluted by the flesh’. There must not be any remnant of regarding temptation as God trying to stop me from having fun. Instead, one must believe at the core of one’s being that one submits to a concept of God in Teacher thought in order to achieve lasting personal joy and happiness.
Reaching the Goal 24-25
Verse 24 provides a positive alternative to the fear: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling”. The word able means ‘to be able, to have power’. Humans have Server strength; angels have Perceiver power. Power uses Teacher understanding to multiply Server strength, as illustrated by powerful machines that multiply the physical strength of manual labor. The word keep is similar to the word ‘keep’ in verse 20 but is more active because it ‘emphasizes the needed vigilance to keep what is entrusted’. From stumbling is found once in the New Testament and adds the negative prefix to ‘cause to stumble, to stumble’. Thus, a more accurate rendition would be ‘to him who has the power to actively keep you not-stumbling’. Cognitively speaking, the plan of incarnation turns into an active force that keeps a person along the path. Even when one is in the midst of showing mercy on someone who is ‘polluted by the flesh’, one is accompanied by a stronger person who is actively making it possible to take one step after another towards the goal without stumbling.
Saying this more carefully, the average Christian has a concept of Jesus that is an extension of the historical Jesus. The Gospels describe a real person called Jesus, and the Christian internalizes this to become ‘Jesus in your heart’. But the Jesus of the Gospels is consistent with a mental concept of incarnation that emerges as one develops and integrates technical thought. Going further, the real Jesus Christ is described in John 1 as the living word who became flesh to live among people. Similarly, if one wishes to construct a mental concept of incarnation that has ‘power to keep one from stumbling’, then one needs to start with abstract technical thought that is guided by a concept of God and then descend to the level of concrete technical thought with its plans and bottom lines. (This is another example of Teacher coming before Mercy.) Such a concept of incarnation will be capable of keeping a person within a plan and will be viewed as an imaginary person by Mercy thought. Verse 24 is describing incarnation functioning at this level.
Verse 24 continues, “and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy”. The phrase make you stand is a single word in the original Greek. 1 Corinthians 10 talks a lot about standing. The basic idea there is that it is easy to fall down cognitively in the presence of supernatural power. Significant Perceiver and Server confidence are required to remaining standing when one becomes immersed in streams of supernatural power. This means that being slain in the spirit should be viewed as something bad and not good, because the ultimate goal is to be able to harness spiritual power and not be overcome by it, just as the goal is to be able to harness electrical energy and not be zapped by it. The word presence means ‘before the face of’. Thus, encountering spiritual power without being slain is an accurate example, because one is ‘standing before the face of his glory’.
This cannot be done with sheer willpower. Instead, it requires being ‘blameless with great joy’. Blameless means ‘unblemished, without spot or blot’, and this Greek word was used to describe ‘a fragrant plant of India, having the foliage of the white vine (elsewhere, ampeloleuce)’, which was used for ‘removing spots upon the face, moles and freckles, as well as scars and bruises’. In verse 23, the inner garments were stained. Here, the skin itself is unblemished, and the solution goes beyond washing clothes to eating some living plant. Jesus mentions this contrast in the Sermon on the Mount: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matt. 6:25). Applying this to the context, the solution to polluted social interaction is to become pure and unspotted at a deeper personal level. One will then view evil as a perversion of good. Saying this more carefully, the physical body and its desires are not inherently evil. Instead, most evil comes from taking shortcuts to satisfy legitimate physical needs. Pursuing legitimate physical needs in an integrated manner that preserves mental wholeness leads to a personal blamelessness that is deeper than any garment polluted by the flesh.
This deep wholeness is expressed by the word great joy, which comes from a verb that means ‘getting so glad one jumps in celebration’. The NASB uses the word ‘with’, but the Greek word is actually ‘in the realm of’. Thus, the great joy is not just being tacked on. Instead, one is existing within a realm of deep joy. This is what makes it possible to stand in the presence of his glory. Instead of being swept off one’s feet, one is jumping in celebration. Instead of feeling personally threatened by the streams of glory, they are reinforcing one’s deepest feelings of personal integrity.
Looking at this cognitively, there are two related kinds of general Teacher theory. Teacher thought wants order-within-complexity. One can achieve this by discovering the order that lies behind the complexity of the universe. God is an infinite being who exists at that level of universal order-within-complexity. But one can also achieve order-within-complexity by placing many related items within a small package. For instance, one can access an entire world of information using the small physical object of a smart phone. Mysticism attempts to achieve order-within-complexity by personally identifying with the infinite God of the universe. This is an utter contradiction, because humans are finite while God is infinite. If mysticism actually achieved its goal of becoming united with God, then this would lead to personal annihilation. Personal transformation, in contrast, achieves order-within-complexity by integrating everything within the mind, spirit, and body into a single unified package. Saying this simply, God is awesome; humans can be cute. I know that the word ‘cute’ sounds diminutive, childlike, and unimpressive. But compared to God, every creature is diminutive, childlike, and unimpressive.
Cuteness embraces this liability and turns it into a strength. That is because being cute is one thing that created beings can do better than God. This explains the scriptural statement that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Any attempt to be great or proud in the presence of God will not stand. But a perfection of cuteness can become immersed in the streams of divine glory and remain standing. That is because cuteness functions at an emotional level. The more one senses God’s eternal power, the more one is driven emotionally to be cute. Saying this another way, the more one senses God’s infinite order-within-complexity, the more one feels driven to express the order-within-complexity of being an integrated, finite creature. A similar imagery can be seen in the lamb of God of Revelation, who is described in 5:6 as being “in the middle of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the middle of the elders”. I should add that cuteness is relative. A baby elephant is large but it is still cute. In other words, cuteness does not mean being small and impotent. Instead, it means treating one’s position and power in a diminutive manner that focuses upon expressing wholeness, purity, and simplicity within a finite package.
Verse 25 concludes, “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and to all the ages. Amen.” Only means ‘only, solitary, desolate’. God is being described as only, and these two Greek words together are mono-theism. Christians claim to believe in a monotheistic God. Jude is talking about knowing at the deepest level of one’s being that the only way to tie everything together is with the concept of a monotheistic God in Teacher thought. For instance, I do not choose to follow mental symmetry because it is better than the alternatives. Instead, I choose to hold on to the theory of mental symmetry because I do not know of any alternative. The choice is between that and nothing. That is what it means to believe in a monotheistic God. There is simply no other alternative.
This monotheistic God is described as ‘our Savior’. Jesus Christ is usually regarded as the Savior, and Incarnation is the one and only intermediary between God and man. But when one follows the Teacher understanding of mental wholeness for long enough, one will end up with a Teacher concept of God as savior. This is significant because Teacher thought is usually regarded as alien by people in Mercy thought, and Teacher thought usually expresses itself in a manner that is alien to human MMNs of culture and personal identity. But passages such as Hebrews 8 talk about God instituting a new covenant in which God in Teacher thought interacts directly with people in Mercy thought. As far as I can tell, a key aspect to this new covenant is this idea of cuteness. As a finite human one abandons any thought of trying to be big or important in the presence of God. Instead, one focuses upon embodying the attributes of God in a manner that is complete and pure.
‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord’ tells us that one reaches direct interaction with God by going through incarnation. One does not jump directly to identifying with God through mysticism. Using the three stages of learning as a partial illustration, the beginner functions emotionally but inadequately. There is great emotional involvement but very little skill. A God of order-within-complexity finds such an individual repulsive. The second stage of technician uses the technical thinking of incarnation to add skill and knowledge. This leads eventually to the third stage of expert which returns to the emotional functioning of the beginner, but now expresses this as intuitive expertise. Using the language of Jude, the expert is recognizing God as Savior because he has gone through the stage of recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord. Such a person will express the character of God naturally and intuitively.
The final phrase is ‘be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and to all the ages. Amen.’ This may give the impression of bowing before God in endless worship as portrayed in Revelation 4. But Revelation 4 is the opening scene in heaven and many heavenly scenes follow, leading eventually to the new heavens and earth of Revelation 21-22. Glory describes some external expression of internal character. When people behave in a manner that expresses the character of God, they are glorifying God. Majesty means ‘greatness, majesty’. If all the Majesty goes to God, what remains is not being a worm who bows in eternal worship before the majesty of God, but rather being a cute, finite example of God’s order-within-complexity. Dominion means ‘dominion, exerted power’. Again, this does not mean viewing God as the ultra-Superman in Mercy thought and everyone else as nothing, but rather recognizing that all power ultimately derives from the general equations of divine authority in Teacher thought. Using normal technology as a partial illustration, if one wants to build powerful devices, then one must learn how to cooperate with the laws of nature. Authority means ‘conferred power; delegated empowerment’. The idea is that God is not acting as a cosmic bully who is imposing his nature upon creation. Instead, God is now functioning within a system of delegated authority; he is operating within the rule of law. Hebrews 9-10 appear to be describing some sort of future cosmic paradigm shift in which God fully interacts with creation within the rule of law.
The final words are more literally ‘before each eon, now, and to each of the eons’. I do not know what all of the eons are. But I have learned that the same meta-theory of mental symmetry can be used to analyze ages of the past, such as Roman times, the current age of science and technology, and future ages described in the New Testament. And I also know that the concept of God that emerges from the theory of mental symmetry is consistent in detail with the Trinitarian God described in the Bible. Thus, Jude is describing realizing at the deepest personal level that a single concept of God in Teacher thought rules over all ages. I do not know all of the philosophical implications of this statement. But I do know that it is possible to hold onto a single theory in Teacher thought while analyzing past, present, and future.
Amen comes from a Hebrew word which means ‘verily, truly’. In other words, this is not fantasy but really does describe how things work.
Conclusion
Wikipedia says about 2 Peter that “Most critical biblical scholars have concluded Peter is not the author, considering the epistle pseudepigraphical.” In contrast, I suggest that most critical biblical scholars are being led astray by their technical focus upon written knowledge.
It is quite possible that Peter did not understand what he was writing. But our analysis of 2 Peter shows that it is a technically detailed description of what it would be like to live with spiritual technology, and how humans might respond to the angelic realm. When biblical scholars belittle books such as 2 Peter, this indicates that they do not understand what it means to encounter the power of God. This is like the armchair expert who writes with great authority about some distant location that he has never visited. And many critical biblical scholars would probably argue that Peter (or whoever wrote 2 Peter) was writing about some imaginary location which does not actually exist. However, the very first verse of this epistle made it clear that Peter was not addressing his epistle to people such as these, but rather to those who have been chosen by God to receive some gift of divine power.
Similarly, I suggest that Jude should be viewed as a description of the stages that society would go through when receiving gifts of divine power and encountering the angelic realm.