FAQ 6.9

 

How did prophets experience ‘God’, and did they understand God as Integrative Meaning?

 

The following are some questions sent in by a reader: “I am wondering if Jeremy Griffith believed that Christ thought of God as being a mind, and did Christ or any of the prophets from monotheistic religions view God as being a metaphor for Integrative Meaning, and how did someone like Christ conceptualise and experience God in their mind, and what did God feel like to Christ?”.

 

Jeremy Griffith’s response:

As I’ve mentioned a number of times in my writings, Integrative Meaning, the development of order of matter into ever larger and more stable wholes, is actually a very obvious truth. Everywhere we look we see hierarchies of ordered matter, such as a tree which is composed of parts, etc, etc. The problem, as I also emphasise in my writings, is that it is a seemingly condemning and thus very confronting truth because it implies that our competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour is out of step with this integrative meaning of existence. It follows that extremely nurtured cooperative, selfless and loving prophets who don’t suffer from fear of the integrative meaning of existence are the ones who can, and have been able to throughout history, acknowledge the truth of Integrative Meaning—the truth that there is this ever-developing underlying order of matter in existence. In my case, before I learnt about the law of Negative Entropy I worked out that there was this integrative theme to existence. You will see in Part 8:1 of Freedom Expanded a drawing I made back in 1977 of dots linking up to portray the integrative process that I could see, as well as a description of the significance of the drawing.

Able to recognise this integrative process, prophets were also able to recognise the insecure, human-condition-afflicted state of almost all humans.

So, as I’ve explained in my writings, denial-free thinking prophets recognised that there weren’t all manner of ‘Gods’, a god for war, a god for rain, etc, etc, but one fundamental, underlying truth about the nature of our world, which is the integrative meaning of existence. As described in Part 10:1 of Freedom Expanded, they were supporters of monotheism.

In Part 8:1 of Freedom Expanded I point out that: “Around 360 BC the denial-free-thinking prophet, Plato, also recognised that God is Integrative Meaning, writing that ‘God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other’ (Timaeus, tr. Benjamin Jowett, 1877). But until we could explain why we humans have been divisive and not integrative, until we could explain the human condition and explain in first-principle-based, scientific terms who, or more precisely, what God is—namely our personification of the Negative Entropy-driven integrative theme, purpose and meaning of life—we had no choice but to leave the religious concept of God in a safely abstract, undefined state.”

And in Freedom Essay 39 I write: “Plato’s clarity of insight into the human condition was so great that he too belongs in the same category as Abraham, Moses and Christ as being one of the greatest prophets in recorded history, and Plato himself understood perfectly how living in his metaphorical ‘cave’ of denial (see Video/​F. Essay 11) rendered people incapable of thinking truthfully and thus effectively, writing that ‘when the soul [our instinctive orientation to cooperative, loving, Integrative Meaning—how we developed our loving instinctive orientation is explained in F. Essay 21, and Integrative Meaning is explained in F. Essay 23] uses the instrumentality of the body [uses the body’s intellect with its preoccupation with denial of such fundamental truths as Integrative Meaning] for any inquiry…​it is drawn away by the body into the realm of the variable, and loses its way and becomes confused and dizzy, as though it were fuddled [drunk]…​But when it investigates by itself [free of intellectual denial], it passes into the realm of the pure and everlasting and immortal and changeless, and being of a kindred nature, when it is once independent and free from interference, consorts with it always and strays no longer, but remains, in that realm of the absolute [Integrative Meaning], constant and invariable’ (Phaedo, c.360 BC; tr. H. Tredennick, 1954, 79). Plato also wrote that the ‘capacity [of a mind…​to see clearly] is innate in each man’s mind [we are born with an instinctive orientation to Integrative Meaning], and that the faculty by which he learns is like an eye which cannot be turned from darkness [the state of living in denial] to light [the denial-free truth] unless the whole body is turned; in the same way the mind as a whole must be turned away from the world of change until it can bear to look straight at reality, and at the brightest of all realities which is what we call the Good [Integrative Meaning or God]’ (The Republic, c.360 BC; tr. H.D.P. Lee, 1955, 518). (see par. 679 of FREEDOM)”

Certainly, since there was no science back in the time of the prophets of old, they couldn’t know about the physical laws of our universe like Negative Entropy’s development of order of matter, so they were limited to recognising this integrative, cooperative, selfless and loving theme of existence as a metaphorical ‘God’.

Also it follows that not knowing what the physical law was that caused this integrative process, some of them may have come to think of what was causing the integrative process as some sort of a cosmic ‘mind’, although not the sort of conscious mind that we humans have, just some all-pervading, omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (all-present) and omniscient (all-knowing) force.

It also follows that exceptional denial-free-thinking prophets would come to view themselves as being associates of God, the integrative process, individuals who I describe in my books as being unafraid of the ‘fire’ of Integrative Meaning, unlike the great majority of people who live in terrified fear of the ‘fire’ of Integrative Meaning. For example, Moses described how ‘The Lord spoke to you [the Israelite nation] face to face out of the fire [as explained in pars 331-332 of FREEDOM, fire is a metaphor for the condemning, searing, painful truth of Integrative Meaning that was also used by Plato and appears in many mythologies] on the mountain. [This was only possible because] At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire’ (Deut. 5:4-5). Yes, Abraham was, as I refer to in my writings, able to ‘walk before me [God] and be blameless’ (Gen. 17:1) and to be ‘blessed’ ‘in every way’ by God (Gen. 24:1) and to accept God as his ‘shield’ (Gen. 15:1). In Freedom Essay 53 I quote this reference from Richard Heinberg to human-condition-avoiding, resigned humans’ recognition of the separateness of their divisive state to Integrative Meaning: ‘For whatever reason, the hearts and minds of human beings became separated from the source of their own being, and shame, fear and greed appeared in consequence. Humans began to conceive of God as an imaginary separate entity.’

It further follows that prophets’ association or friendship or oneness with Integrative Meaning would have comforted and strengthened them, such as, which I mention in my writings, Christ saying, ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30), and ‘The Father is in me, and I in him’ (John 14:10, 10:38), and ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does [Christ is saying there is nothing—no alienation—standing between his conscious self and his integratively-orientated instinctive self]…I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life [If you defer to Christ rather than live through your upset self you will be a force for good instead of bad in the world and that will bring you such relief you will feel like you have been reborn]. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead [the alienated] will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man [because he is not alienated from our truthful, integratively-orientated, all-sensitive soul]…By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me [I am not an upset angry, egocentric and alienated resigned person]’ (John 5:19-30).

And, as I also point out in my writings, being such denial-free, truthful thinkers, prophets were able to realise that in time, with the gradual accumulation of knowledge, the human race would eventually be able to scientifically explain and demystify ‘God’—at which time the metaphorical language that prophets of old were restricted to using would be replaced by clear, non-metaphorical, non-abstract, first principle, scientific understanding. See paragraph 1217 of FREEDOM for lots of anticipations by prophets of the time when understanding would be able to replace dogma, such as Moses anticipating a time when we ‘will be like God, knowing’ (Gen. 3:5), and Christ looked forward to the time when ‘another Counsellor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth [the denial-free, truthful, first-principle-based, scientific understanding]…​will teach you all things and will remind you of everything [all the denial-free truths] I have said to you’ (John 14:16, 17, 26).