We continue from yesterday’s part one of this series on Humanity’s Salvation. Reposted from Foundation.
Joseph George Caldwell, Ph.D.
Now, what started this focus was my reading Neale Donald Walsch and his Conversations with God series. For those unfamiliar with Walsh, you may want to read a brief summary of Walsch’s views on humanity’s crisis, and/or look at Walsch’s web site. If you are interested in this subject and have access to a bookstore, I suggest that you purchase the Conversations with God series, both Books 1-3 and The New Revelations. They are available in paperback, and are inexpensive. They are a quick, easy read, since they are in the form of a dialogue between Walsch and God. As you read the following several-page summary of Walsch’s work, keep in mind that the four books contain over a thousand pages, and so there is much detail that I am omitting.
At places in what follows I sometimes comment on Walsch’s views. In such cases, I make it clear what are his views and what is my commentary. Since Walsch’s views are based on revelation, not reason, I try to avoid criticizing them from a rational point of view. In cases in which his views seem at odds with his basic philosophy of “do whatever works to accomplish your objectives,” however, I do offer comments, observations and opinions. It should be kept in mind, however, that Walsch’s view and my view of what constitutes the world crisis are quite different, and so “what works” to achieve our respective objectives for solving that crisis will naturally differ. What criticism I make is generally relative to achieving my objectives, not Wasch’s. A naÔve revelation is more or less a “take-it-or-leave-it” sort of thing. NaÔve revelation almost always deals with subjective matters whose “truth” that cannot be established objectively, but the issue of “what works” to achieve a specified objective can certainly be addressed objectively.
In a nutshell, Walsch is an advocate of moral relativism (also called humanism, new spiritualism, New Age spiritualism, secularism, and other terms). Walsch’s view is that God created man—and all life—in order for him to enjoy (sense, realize, express, manifest—it is not clear what is the right word here) their experiences, in order to enjoy (etc.) the experience of being “not God.” The fundamental purpose of human life, and indeed of all life, is to experience and enjoy life to the fullest extent possible. “Celebrate! Play the game.” “Deny yourself nothing: self-denial is self-destruction.” “Need nothing, desire everything, choose what shows up.” As Jesus asserted, “I am come so that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Now, while we may truthfully, but rather vacuously, state that God created life for his own purposes, whatever they may be, we do not really know exactly why God created life in general, or human beings in particular. That is, we do not know the particular purpose or role or sequence of events that he may have had in mind. If we accept, as Walsch asserts, that nothing is against the will of God, it follows that he “wanted” to create life, or else he would not have done so. In this sense, he created man and life for his “pleasure,” i.e., for his own reasons, whatever they may have been. In simple terms, the purpose of life is to be lived, or experienced. From observation, it does not appear that life forms are endowed with capabilities that they do not ever use. It would appear, therefore, that the purpose of life is realized most fully when the life experience is realized to its fullest potential. That is Walsch’s view.
God created and is in complete control of the Universe, so nothing can be against his will. Nothing happens against the will of God. In other words, there is no sin. Actions are “right” or “wrong” only with respect to how useful they are in helping you accomplish a particular objective. An action that helps you accomplish a desired objective is “right,” one that does not is “wrong,” relative to accomplishing that objective. This way of determining the rightness or wrongness of an action—moral relativism—is contrasted with “moral absolutism,” in which actions are considered to be intrinsically right or wrong, independent of circumstances. For example, the Ten Commandments is an absolute moral code: under this code, it is wrong, for example, for people to commit murder, no matter what the circumstance. Jesus’ “Golden Rule” (love one another, love God, do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is a relative moral code, since it does not prescribe exactly what to do in all cases, but instead provides a guideline for judging the acceptability of a potential action.
Walsch’s three CWG books are long, and I will make no attempt to cover his material in detail. The essence of Walsch’s approach is to “know the truth, and then live it.” By “knowing the truth,” Walsch basically is referring to knowing yourself and what you want to do, and knowing what will be the likely consequences of a proposed action. By “and then live it,” Walsch is proposing that, as a guide to behavior, we do “what works.” The “rightness” or “wrongness” of an action is determined solely by whether it works to help us achieve our objectives.
I have some observations here. A major problem that one faces with this approach to life is that it is not possible to “know the truth.” For most of the significant situations and decisions that human beings face, it is not possible to know how things will turn out, and therefore it is not possible to know exactly what you really want. There are many dimensions to human feelings and emotions, and the problem of deciding what you want is formidable. Human beings are faced with incomplete and erroneous knowledge and stochastic outcomes. Even when a “correct” decision is made, the results may be unexpected and tragic (e.g., you have your child inoculated, and he dies of a reaction to the vaccine).
You may want very much, for example, to have an extramarital affair with someone, but if you do you risk losing your wife and family. The outcome involves risk, incomplete information and uncertainty; and costs and benefits. (This is the way Life has to be to make it an interesting Game: “The game would be over if you remembered (knew) everything.”) There is no way of “knowing the truth” of this situation or its outcome, and so it is very difficult to know what is the “right” thing to do. Avoiding risk is not satisfying, because then you deny yourself many of the tremendous rewards of life, including spiritual development.
As guidance in “knowing the truth,” Walsch advises one to let his feelings be his guide. “‘Feeling good’ is your way of telling yourself that your last thought was truth, that your last word was wisdom, that your last action was love.”
The general approach to Walsch’s moral relativism is reasonable in concept: understand the problem or challenge that you are facing, synthesize alternative solutions (this is a creative activity), evaluate them with respect to your feelings and knowledge, and pick the one that seems best. The difficulty is in the implementation. The devil is in the details!
Under the concept of moral relativism, what “works” best for a single person or family may be quite different from what “works” best for a large organization or for the planet (in mathematical terms, a “local” optimum may differ from a “global” optimum). To judge whether something is good for the human race, Walsch advises to ask yourself the question, “What would happen if everyone did it?”
It should also be recognized that what “works” for one person or culture may be quite different from what “works” for another. For Moslem nations, for example, it “works” to stone adulterous females. In Christian nations, they are simply “forgiven,” and death by stoning would not “work” at all. This is one of the tremendous advantages of moral relativism over absolute morality. The moral code is adapted to the situation and circumstances of the time and place. The difference between relative and absolute morality is somewhat like the difference between English common law and Napoleonic (French) law. The former attempts to set forth general principles of justice, whereas the latter attempts to write down laws for treating each specific instance.
The moral-relativism approach places much more responsibility on the individual than the moral-absolutism approach. For this reason, the former approach nurtures spiritual development to a much greater degree than does the latter.
Walsch’s view is that God needs nothing and demands nothing. God’s law is no law: he requires nothing. Nothing matters. People should “need” nothing, and enjoy everything. Follow your heart, listen to your soul, and hear your self. “Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It is the highest betrayal.” God does not want our worship, does not need our obedience, and it is not necessary to serve him or worship him or praise him, or even respect him or recognize him or accept him or acknowledge him.
“Self-interest is the highest interest. Everything you do, do for yourself. This is true because you and all others are One. What you do for another, you therefore do for you. What you fail to do for another, you fail to do for you. What is good for another is good for you, and what is bad for another is bad for you.”
It is not possible to destroy the spirit. Since survival (of the spirit) is guaranteed, the “basic instinct” of sentient beings is not survival, but fairness, oneness, and love. The basic instinct of all living things is to express uniqueness, not sameness. Change is the only constant. Impermanence is the only truth. The process of life is a process of re-creation. All of life is constantly re-creating itself anew in each moment of Now. In this process, identicality is impossible, since if a thing is identical, it has not changed at all. The Creator can only create, not duplicate. The Universe and everything in it exists in singular form.
Human beings are triune beings, made up of body, mind, and spirit. Upon physical death, the spiritual essence continues to exist, forever. The “soul,” or individualized manifestation of the Spirit, sees a “Life Review,” and has the option of remaining a disembodied spirit, returning to possess a new life, or merging/recombining with the rest of the Universe and ceasing to exist as a distinguishable entity. (These are my words and paraphrasing of Walsch’s exposition.) Regarding reincarnation: “You choose everything. Your parents, your country of birth. All the circumstances surrounding your reentry.”
Walsch’s “triune” paradigm of the nature of human beings (body, mind, spirit) is a traditional Christian paradigm, and somewhat simpler than that the long-established paradigms of Initiatic Science (e.g., physical body, etheric body, astral body, mental body, causal body, buddhic body, and atmic body). Walsch often does not distinguish between spirit and soul, but it is clear that the spirit, or “life force,” exists forever, whereas the “individualized” or “personalized” soul eventually dissolves, or melds together with the rest of the universal spirit. Life as we know it is God “physicalized.” No soul dies—ever, although it may change form. “The body never ‘dies,’ but merely changes form with the soul.”
Synonyms for God are Life, Love, Unlimited, Eternal, Free. Love has no requirements. All of the Universe, including God, is a single, interrelated entity. “God is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be. There is nothing that is not God, and God is therefore wanting and needing nothing at all.” “There is only one of Us.” “Every soul that was ever created was created At Once. We are all here Now.” “There is no place where another soul ‘ends’ and our ‘begins.’ It’s all the same soul.” Unity is the truth; separatism is the illusion. Life has no beginning or end; it merely extends, creates new forms. All caused effect is ultimately experienced by the Self.
The mind makes decisions and choices from one of at least three interior levels: logic, intuition, and emotion. There are five natural emotions: grief, anger, envy, fear and love. Fear and guilt are enemies—the only enemies—of man. Love and awareness are friends.
Sexual gratification is an end in itself. “Procreation is the happy aftereffect, not the logical forethought, of most human sexual experience.” Nothing is disapproved of by God.
Evil, as is it commonly understood as something “against the will of God,” does not exist (since nothing is against the will of God). Hitler did nothing “wrong” in a moral sense—only in the sense that his actions did not help him achieve his objectives. Hitler “went to Heaven.” There is no devil. What we call “evil” exists so that we may have a context within which to experience good. Nothing is evil or sinful or disapproved of by God—not stealing, or lying, or murder, or suicide, or abortion, or homosexuality / sodomy, or miscegenation, or adultery, or drug addiction, or suppression of minorities or women, or slavery, or child abuse, or religious persecution, or treason, or violence, or war, or killing the last tiger, or genocide, or mass species extinction, or destroying a planet. Not the development or use of weapons of mass destruction. As Shakespeare remarked, “Nothing is evil, but thinking make it so.” The only issue to address in deciding whether to do any of these things is whether doing so helps you achieve your objectives—”what works.” You may rape and kill a child. You may destroy all life on the planet. But nothing is against God’s law, because God’s law is no law. God does not punish. God is Love. You may be hanged or stoned or drawn and quartered by your fellow man for these acts (if that “works” for them), but God does not disapprove of any of them. In fact, since God is everything and creator of all things, he has in fact placed the desires and objectives that you feel in your mind.
My commentary here: Although God does not disapprove of, or punish you for, anything you do, you may yourself sincerely regret an action, if it turns out to be “wrong.” If you kill someone, you may spend the rest of your life in prison. If mankind continues to destroy species at the rate of 30,000 per year, it will inhabit a desolate planet for the next five billion years. By our current actions, we create our future, and then we live with it forever. It is indeed difficult to determine what “works,” and although God may not punish you or remand you to eternal suffering, you may do that to yourself. Walsch believes in reincarnation (as do many religions, including Christianity, until the Catholic Church decided against it). If mankind destroys the biological diversity of the planet, you and others may return to a ruined planet for the next five billion years. That is your / mankind’s choice, that is the future that you / mankind created for yourself.
Walsch asserts that “nothing matters.” Well, that may apply to God, who may simply create a new world or a new universe (a few billion years from now) if this planet we inhabit is ruined. But it certainly does not apply to mankind or any other life form. If you cut off your hand, you will suffer pain and inconvenience the rest of your life. If you murder someone, you may face the gallows, or spend the rest of your life on the run or in prison. If you ruin the planet’s biosphere, you (your soul and the body of your future incarnations) and any others who incarnate here will inhabit a ruined planet. It definitely does matter to you whether you spend the rest of your present life in prison, and all future lives (incarnations) on Earth are on a ruined planet. The future that you create—and it is created for all time—may not affect your spirit very much, but it has a definite effect on your body, and a very long-term effect on your soul.
If, as the song says, we are “making memories,” you may be creating some very bad ones, which will last for all time. On the other hand, if, as Walsch asserts, you may reincarnate at will in any other planet and civilization, you may simply leave the devastation you created on Earth behind and move on to another planet in this galaxy or another and ruin it, too. Or, if God continues to place the “veil of forgetfulness” over us prior to each new incarnation, it does not matter how much we mess up our past (although our futures may become more and more difficult). In that case, all that matters is that he does not require us to come back to Earth, if we totally trash it. If we are all the same soul, as Walsch asserts, then the ruined planet that you create will be experienced by you. These are very serious choices, and to make the right one it is necessary to know the “truth” about reincarnation (and sin and punishment and many other things). But Walsch does not address that.
Many people reading the preceding paragraphs may be surprised concerning the implications of the New Spirituality / New Age approach to morality and behavior. But it is not really “New” at all. These concepts (moral relativism) have been around for a long time. What is really different now is two things. First, the New Age writers are proposing that everyone apply these concepts as a guide to behavior, and that they be applied at an individual level. This is consistent with the radical individualism and radical egalitarianism that is sweeping the planet (see Robert Bork for more on this). What New Agers are proposing is the radical empowerment of the individual, for him to decide on his own morality. And there are some serious problems with that. Not everyone is ready for this, and the world is certainly not ready for it at all.
The second thing that is different now is that, because of the interconnectedness of the world, billions of people are hearing this message of “do whatever works,” and because of the spread of liberal democracy, billions of people now have the freedom to give it a try. New Age knowledge is just the latest version of what was previously called “Occult Knowledge.” But previously, very few people—Initiates—were exposed to it. Now, everyone is.
It is very unfortunate that the New Spiritualists almost always speak in platitudes and generalities, and provide examples that fail to show just where moral relativism can lead. New Spiritualism / New Age writers use as examples social problems and social situations that barely “push the envelope” of human behavior. They use moral relativism to attempt to promote human rights and decency (e.g., to discourage racial and gender discrimination, or homophobia, or violence), and do not point out the serious problems that may arise if an individual applies the approach in general. I wrote a piece (a short story) a few weeks ago exploring what could happen if a happily married couple applied moral relativism to add more excitement to their declining sex life. The results can be very unexpected! (The piece was too “strong” and disturbing, and my wife asked me not to even consider publishing it.)
Walsch and other New Spirituality writers castigate organized religion and nationalism, but they do not realize that most people are not ready for moral relativism applied at the individual level. In fact, it is the fact that each person and each nation on the planet is operating independently—”doing his own thing”—that is destroying the biosphere and causing mass species extinction. Moral relativism may work fine for a large group, such as a community, or even a planet. But for most individuals, it is better that the results of the community’s applying moral relativism be translated into an absolute moral code for the individual. (Some may charge me with élitism here, but I have no problem with that—I do, however, have a problem with where radical individualism and radical egalitarianism and national sovereignty are leading—a destroyed planet.) Ordinary people may be able to handle the moral-relativism approach in simple situations, but it is simply too demanding—and too dangerous—for general use by individuals. And it is here where governments and organized religion can play a vital role. They have the resources and the collective intelligence and judgment to apply these concepts in a prudent fashion. Most individuals do not.
But I have digressed too long hereÖback to the presentation of Walsch’s views.
Nothing in this universe occurs by accident. There are no coincidences. Nothing occurs at random. Life is not a product of chance. What you think is what you get. What you choose, you experience. All possibilities exist and have already occurred. Now you get to select which one you choose to experience. You don’t always get what you ask, but you always get what you create.
What you think, you create. What you create, you become. What you become, you express. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. What you are, you think. This is the cycle of life, the Path, the Process, the Cosmic Wheel.
Motive is everything. Objectives determine outcomes. Life proceeds out of your intentions. Your true intention is revealed in your actions, and your actions are determined by your true intention. As with everything in life (and life itself), it is a circle.
My comments: Once again, since the future that you create today lasts forever, you should take care to ensure that it is one that you really want. Do not delude yourself concerning what you can create. You may be part of God, but you are not God. You may be able to create many things, such as a novel or works of art or music or a family or a career or wealth or your future, but you cannot create life or planets or even rocks. Once you destroy a species, it is gone forever, and you cannot create it again. And once you create your future—your memories, your past—you (and the rest of the universe, since We are all One) are stuck with it forever.
The basic principles of life are functionality, adaptability, and sustainability. All of life exhibits these principles.
The world is full of contradictions. Lack of contradictions is not a necessary ingredient in truth. (This is reminiscent of Gˆdel’s theorem that a mathematical system of logic may be complete (able to determine the truth of all propositions formulatable within it) or consistent, but not both.)
A major aspect of Walsch’s characterization of God is as a God of Love. This viewpoint is a lynchpin underlying the concept that, as a God of Love, he would never punish us for “transgressions,” or create us to condemn us to eternal suffering. This view of God, of course, is quite different from the Mosaic view of God (Jehovah, who was adapted from a volcano god) as a God of Wrath, who would punish anyone who disobeyed the Ten Commandments with eternal damnation. While that view of God and the absolute morality of the Ten Commandments may have been appropriate for ignorant desert nomads, it was not at all appropriate for “sophisticated” man in an urban social context. That is, of course, why Jesus rejected this approach, threw out the (absolute) Ten Commandments, and issued the (relative) Golden Rule.
At times, Walsch seems a little contradictory. In a discussion about Highly Evolved Beings (“HEBs”), for example, he notes that they lose interest in sex, and they eschew violence and war. From the extreme and endless satisfaction that human beings derive from sex and war, however, it is very evident that God enjoys—loves—these pleasures very much. Apparently God does not qualify as a Highly Evolved Being.
At one point, Walsch asserts that God would never punish us for anything. But on the other hand, if we always “get what we create,” and “we are all one,” and we create a ruined planet and a living hell on Earth, we are all stuck with it for the next five billion years. While five billion years on a ruined planet may not qualify as “eternal damnation,” it is in fact severe punishment, even though it may be (unwittingly?) self-imposed.
In my own scheme of things, I identify seven major aspects of human existence into which I classify, or to which I relate, all human interest and activity: sex, war, exploration / discovery, creation (which includes building, the arts, and development in all sorts of areas), hunting and games (including sports), socializing, and work. Some of these pursuits, while ecstatic (sex, war), cannot continue without cease—Walsch observes this about sex. During periods of non-sex, human beings engage in other activities, such as hunting, games, socialization or work. During periods of non-war, society engages in many other creative activities, such as infrastructure development and the arts. Spiritual development falls into all categories.
One of the challenging features of moral relativism is that it places a lot of responsibility on the individual (for making his own decisions about complex matters), and thereby nurtures his spiritual development. If (and when, in the context of reincarnation) someone is ready for this, it is an excellent and necessary approach to life. The other night I was watching The Odyssey on television (the recent version, starring Armand Assante). At one point, there is an interesting exchange between the goddess Athena and Telemachus, Odysseus’ son. He has asked her for help in locating his long-absent father, and Athena reminds him, “Remember Telemachus, that the gods will not do for man what man can do for himself.” The gods are ready to help man with absolute moral codes when that is all he can handle, and the gods will help man with moral relativism when he is ready for that, too. But not everyone is ready for this at the present stage of his development. (There was another interesting quote in the movie, when Odysseus has finally realized and accepted and acknowledged, after sixteen years of suffering imposed by Poseidon, that he (Odysseus) alone was not responsible for his achievements (e.g., winning the war against Troy). Poseidon tells him, “Without the gods, man is nothing!”)
The above paragraphs have summarized the major points of Walsch’s moral relativism, and have presented a number of quotes from the CWG series. It should be recognized that Walsch is by no means the first person to promote the moral relativism approach to morality and human behavior. It has been and remains a centerpiece of New Age writings, and has been reflected in the writings of New Spiritualism authors since Madame Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Annie Besant (and by moral philosophers long before them). A recent writer on this topic is David Icke, in his book, And the Truth Shall Set You Free. While Walsch’s format (a dialogue with God) makes for interesting reading, the promotion of moral guidance and other subjective material as a revelation from God is not at all new (e.g., Moses), and has been employed through the ages.
Walsch spends no time in addressing deeper epistemological or metaphysical issues such as the nature of knowledge or truth, and how we can know or establish truth. Walsch provides no arguments to support his views. They are simply “revelations.” He simply states, for example, that reincarnation is a fact. Really? Why should we believe that? He simply states that we can choose all the circumstances surrounding our next incarnation. Why? With Walsch’s approach (naÔve revelation) there are no arguments, no justification. Walsch does not present a shred of justification why anyone should accept any of his “revelations.” They are simply “thrown on the table” to view, such as a painting on the wall. He does not present a single reason why anyone should give any credence to his revelations or to the proposals he derives from his revelations.
Walsch’s philosophy is existentialism (def: A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one’s acts). But he never uses this term. He emphasizes that we should “know the truth,” but he spends virtually no time addressing the sticky issue of establishing what is the truth and how we can know it (e.g., meditation, logic). These are the issues addressed by epistemology. Existentialism and epistemology and metaphysics have been around for a long time, yet Walsch does not ever use any of these terms, and he does not attempt to address any of the issues within those realms. But those issues are of vital importance if we are to consider accepting any of what Walsch has to say. (There is a massive amount of material available on the topics of epistemology, metaphysics, and existentialism. For example, see Rudolf Steiner’s works, and/or links to works on metaphysics (especially relating to Walsch’s assertion that we are perfect just as we are).
Perhaps I am being a little cynical here, but one has to wonder, since “knowing the truth” is so central to Walsch’s philosophy (“know the truth, and then live it”), why he never spends any time establishing how to do this. Since dealing with this problem is a major and long-established branch of human knowledge (epistemology), why does Walsch not even acknowledge it and refer to it? Is it because using those terms would “scare away” readers? Is it because he has no advice on how to “know the truth”? He calls his book, “The New Revelations,” but existentialism is not new at all (e.g., Sartre). Walsch states, “Motive is everything.” But what is Walsch’s motive? What is Walsch trying to accomplish? What are his objectives?