In the second epistle to the Thessalonians St Paul writes of a 'strong delusion' that God will send to those who refuse to love truth. This seems a little unfair. Why make things harder for those who are already erring? But it echoes Jesus's statement that more will be given to those who already have while those who do not have will lose even what little they do have.
What's going on here? I think Jesus is saying that the act of opening one's heart to God allows you to receive all kinds of spiritual benefits while closing your heart to God will cut you off from the spiritual world so you plunge further and further into darkness and delusion. Note that spiritual benefits does not mean the good things of life. It may entail suffering and hardship but you will be brought closer to truth and eventual release from the chains of this world. You will be led to liberation.
What St Paul says is something similar. Those who deny God are given what they want. Which is a lie. Their initial act is a rejection of the truth that is both within them and also proclaimed in both nature and scripture if we look with unprejudiced eyes. This rejection is caused by egotism. It is an act of will not intellect. They have chosen untruth so God sends them more of that, not to punish them but to give them the results of their decision. Obviously God does not punish in a mean, vengeful sense but acts and choices have consequences, and the strong delusion is the consequence of the denial of truth. You might say that God gives you enough rope to hang yourself with if that's what you want to do. You have a test of your spiritual integrity and if you are not equal to that because of what ultimately amounts to a moral failing (yes it does) then the strong delusion is provided for you to confirm you in your ignorance. Your heart could not be tested if there was not a plausible alternative to belief in God. The strong delusion is an (apparently) viable alternative that can be used to justify unbelief if that's what you want to do even if, when examined with honesty and clarity, it does not hold up.
So what is this strong delusion? Assuming we are living in the end times what could it be? By the way, it seems more and more likely that we are indeed living in something approximating to the end times since however far man has fallen in the past he has always known that he has fallen whereas now he likes to think he is progressing, so much has he lost sight of his origins and destiny. It is only recently that he has sunk so low from a spiritual perspective he believes himself to be higher than ever. Assuming, then, that these are the end times, what is the delusion? There are several candidates ranging from general atheism to materialism to Marxism (hard or soft) to Darwinian evolution which sees intelligent conscious life as arising from dead matter through random mutation of its component parts. It could be any of these but today there is actually something that combines them all and that is Leftism, the popular belief system of the modern world.
The strong delusion must be shared by many, if not most, people. It must be the accepted wisdom of the worldly elite. It must be anti-Christian in spirit. It must corrupt nature. And it must be thought of as good in the light of how we see the world. All these things apply to Leftism. Leftism is the strong delusion of the modern world.
So what is this strong delusion? Assuming we are living in the end times what could it be? By the way, it seems more and more likely that we are indeed living in something approximating to the end times since however far man has fallen in the past he has always known that he has fallen whereas now he likes to think he is progressing, so much has he lost sight of his origins and destiny. It is only recently that he has sunk so low from a spiritual perspective he believes himself to be higher than ever. Assuming, then, that these are the end times, what is the delusion? There are several candidates ranging from general atheism to materialism to Marxism (hard or soft) to Darwinian evolution which sees intelligent conscious life as arising from dead matter through random mutation of its component parts. It could be any of these but today there is actually something that combines them all and that is Leftism, the popular belief system of the modern world.
The strong delusion must be shared by many, if not most, people. It must be the accepted wisdom of the worldly elite. It must be anti-Christian in spirit. It must corrupt nature. And it must be thought of as good in the light of how we see the world. All these things apply to Leftism. Leftism is the strong delusion of the modern world.
This leads us to the question in the title of this piece. What is spiritual awakening? And the answer to that, or a good part of it, surely is awakening to the truth that modern Leftist thought is a 'strong delusion'. This doesn't mean abandoning the humanitarianism that is the supposed justification of the Leftist claim to truth but seeing that in the light of the reality of God not man.
For the religion of Man, which is what Leftism is, is a false religion that steals concepts relating to the spiritual plane and misapplies them to worldly levels without acknowledging the higher world from whence they derive and without which they have no meaning.
To take just one example, pertinent at the moment, Leftism sees it as the right thing to do to help a man who wants to become a woman to do so because a person has the right to be what he wants to be. But the spiritual view sees this as a rebellion against God's will for you and a refusal to live your life as intended. In terms of Hinduism it is rejecting your karma (destined path) and your dharma (duty in life). And, as it is said, it's better to do your own dharma badly than somebody else's well.
Furthermore to fight nature is to fight God who made nature. Nature is meant to be transformed by grace not deformed by man.
So we must awaken from the false idea that man is meant for man and see men and women as meant for God which means see them in the light of the reality of God not the false reality of their own light. Spiritual awakening means acknowledging the reality of the vertical axis which we have completely lost contact with, seeing everything as only existing on a horizontal plane. It means acknowledging transcendence. The strong delusion is the denial of transcendence.
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