> From this.
In a passing moment in the Dreaming, once, outside of sleep and in my visions: I from this certain perch perceived the notion, conceived of a very curious thing. Originally not even put into words I could hear, but existing as a partially conceived cartoon and almost purely semantic in thought, thus no words enclosing: “the Tree of the Forgetting of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Has anyone else conceived of something that could be so wondrous? I cannot think that this idea has ever occurred to anyone ever before; such a thought in my reckoning would catch on in certain circles, would it not? Bottles of virginity? A lollipop of purity? Youth, just the good parts? The splash of being new again.
The claim of thus imagined is nothing less than the return to innocence, a return to Eden. When we were naked, and were not ashamed. Such fruit I imagined to be heart-shaped, and bright yellow — a fresh sweetness, no hint of sour at all. Almost as if skinless. And to eat of it, the sensation I cannot think of what it might be like. Better than childhood. Wider to the eye than an open sky.
> From this.
The following just came to me one sunny day, and the Lord remarked that it was the best thing I’d ever written:
There was a light, but it faded. It was not faith.
There were visions, but they twisted. They were not faith.
There was a feeling, but it was illusory. It was not faith.
Faith was to hold on, when all those things went wrong.
Because I saw that light, had those visions, felt what I felt.
The narrow way is a journey, and rest may only be momentary.
It is a life that leads to life.
It didn’t all make sense until later, for I had written it years before the War, and only leading up to and through the War did it completely make sense. It is a way to keep faith in this continually shifting sphere we call life, where nothing seems secure. You don’t have to discard the old things because you outgrow them in some way. You may believe in the same way as an angel, whose faith is constant in change, the flux of pure spirit, and is therefore touched of the eternal.
> From this.
If you believe, then you must believe this: that whatever evil, it will inevitably play into the purpose of God. This, I think, is the most difficult point to reconcile, and perhaps the key to the entire puzzle of existence. It is where, I think, we have the sticking point that people simply cannot reconcile, the point where some fall away from faith entirely. For it is a deep point of conviction in the greatness of God, and in His wisdom: that no matter how horrible, how horrific, that He can make of it right: if not in the immediate now, somewhere “in the end” (vague but sure). It is something we must believe, we of the faith, or the entire faith ceases to be nothing more than a band-aid on a sucking wound.
It may be that there are just too many things in the world that test this hypothesis. There are too many things that can shake this heart of belief. The true believer must be able not to turn away from the worst of the evil in the world, and still in his soul believe that God is good. Supremely good. For the greater the horror, the greater the God we must believe in — for only One greater than the evil can exist, if He exists at all. If making us believe that the Devil does not exist is Satan’s greatest trick, surely it is at least his secondmost favorite ploy to make of the world a playground of horrors. For anyone who feels, it makes faith need to explain itself. And God seems so silent on such things. But that is the test.
> From this.
It was during a discussion I was having with Einstein (about reasons why) that the question popped up, which I have mentioned before. We were talking about how “why this” begat “why that,” and “why that” begat another why. Both at the same time, we asked, “What if it keeps going?” Both from the opposite perspective on the question if God necessarily existed. When I asked the same question as he did, he knew that he had lost the argument. So, the point was, if there are always reasons why, what place is there for God? He seems unnecessary if we can always find the why of why. Which brings back the point of either it’s ultimately meaningless, or ultimately transcendent. If there is no God, it is the former: if there is no ultimate answer, then we are, at the final count, without mattering.
We can without God seem to live purposeful lives, ones with things like science at the helm to provide us with meaning, like to live for the preservation and furtherance of life. But if at every step in reasoning why, all we are left with is questions, there is no ultimate substance to all the reason. If, on the other hand, you begin and end with “God is love,” we then do have the beginning and end: of being itself. Albert seemed to have forgotten one thing he had said, while he was alive: “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” For really, any miracle is of God, however rationally you may comprehend its existence. And God’s omniscience: that is to know the answer to every question why, even if it keeps on going, before the question is ever asked.
> From this.
So as far as books and their titles go, we may reasonably claim that this one is a gospel, the word meaning, literally, “good news”. It was applied to the now normally termed Gospels because they proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ. If you haven’t noticed, this is one of those types of books. Now, the “according to Judas”. Well, if we take the most positive interpretation about the names of the four canonical Gospels, their “according to XXX” means according to what the author believes XXX would have us see things, there we have it. Because it is well known that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not, in fact, write their gospels. In a cynical interpretation about their names and their claims, their authors believed that using the names belonging to the “in group” would lend authority to the books that they were writing, apart from those in that group.
Perhaps not totally separate, though, if one can be a little kind. They who wrote the canonical Gospels obviously were members of the faith; these were definitely not written by atheists or non-Christian Jews, certainly not by the Essenes. Most likely, they believed that the writing of those Gospels was their mission, and perhaps their choosing of specific people to fill out their “according to” had special meaning to them. And so it is with me. A believer on a mission, who is telling the Good News of Jesus Christ, because perhaps the old Gospels need a little more help, these days, to be as enlightening as they used to be. And Judas? I certainly do have a special reason for using his name to fill out my “according to”. Judas is a friend of mine. And I know the truth of his name: no evil lies there.
For those who might be wondering about my motive for writing this book, ulterior or no, let me just say I am not trying to formulate an airtight argument for the existence of God or the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor am I trying to invent some simplistic mechanism for conversion, à la Pascal’s Wager. It is often fruitless to try and convert someone who does not actively seek after such an experience. I am trying to make it scientifically plausible that in fact, God does exist, and that Jesus Christ was Him. (To restate, being the Son of God does mean one is God. The elders at His trial say the blasphemy is that “this man says he is God.”) Note that I am not saying “possible”, but “plausible”. We’re trying to reach over the 50% line of probability, if we possibly can.
It is first to acknowledge that first, God may possibly exist. If you don’t even admit that possibility, you’re just as bad as the religious fundamentalists, and I bid you good day. Then, we talk about the prophets: these are the men (and women) who basically had God’s phone number. Why doesn’t God talk to us directly? The Bible actually addresses this question. Apparently, that is a terrifying experience (the Israelites beg Moses and God that He should speak only through Moses after they get a full on blast of Radio Yahweh). The prophets tell us that God does exist, though their picture of Him is necessarily incomplete, and their views of the “unseen” world are colored by their own imaginations.
Then we have Jesus Christ. Not to bad mouth Buddha or Muhammad, but neither of them claimed to be God, so they must be basically still be in the wading pool with the other prophets, no matter how far in the deep end of that they want to go. Jesus Christ was the Son of God. That means 1) He was perfect, 2) He was eternal, 3) He was, in fact, God. I cannot stress this last point enough. This means, being infinite, He could render Himself to be the only necessary sacrifice that covered the wrongdoings of all of humanity, through all of time. That He had a direct wire to the transcendent God — a line that death itself could not break — and therefore, He was able to come back from the dead on His very own. No one else had such a connection. How is this scientifically plausible? If we say that God is possible, then we are free to believe this man, who told us He was God. And because He did everything we might conceive such a being would do — by this evidence, it therefore becomes plausible, all the claims about Him. By Him and His actions we may indeed believe that God is love. 1… 2… 3… ∞.
For one, I can see what doubters see. Myself, I was a devout atheist for many of my days, earlier on. In college I debated believers into the ground. Why should we believe in a man in the sky, rather than, say, a flying spaghetti monster? What’s the difference between believing in God rather than believing unicorns? Are they not both far fetched? To them I say, God confounds the wise with what is plain to children. For true it is that nowadays the wisest among us just may be these atheists, and secular humanists. They who do not count on another, next world, and instead count on this as our only existence. (And shame on the “children of God” for not acting as some of those do, and smugly count on God to vindicate them.)
We must think that we are not so preposterous. Outrageous claims must evince outstanding evidence. We know there is no evidence that a flying spaghetti monster (FSM) had any hand in the creation of the universe. We do, however, have evidence that there is a God, whose name is Yahweh, who had a Son, whose name is Jesus Christ (by the way, that is correct to say “Christ” is part of his name). No one is supposed to believe in the FSM, but believing in the Lord: this actually gives one a clearer picture of WHAT IS ACTUALLY GOING ON. And that is why you should believe. As far as evidence, to a corrupt generation will only be given the sign of Jonah, who was three days in the belly of the whale. The evidence is Jesus Christ’s resurrection, which most would say is part of the claim. No, sir. If and when the Lord calls you to Him, your eyes will be opened. See if that doesn’t set you free, for no truth is truth that does not set you free!
> From this.
Philip K. Dick described God as being found in the trash layer of the world. This struck me as having a high content of truth. What are we to make of that statement? Why would this be? For is not God found above the highest heaven? Is not Heaven God’s throne, and earth merely a footstool? Yet I look back, when He visited this world, and showed His true nature. He came not to rule, but to serve, the reason why almost all the Jews rejected Him as the messiah. He was the opposite of what they were expecting — the Suffering Servant, not the conquering king. This, too, I find thinking has a significant quality of truth to it. In the very nature of nature we find the surprises that now we don’t think about, like the great dinosaurs all dying out and the lilliputian rodent-like mammal sweeping over as the victor of evolution (for now). Now we do not find it at all unusual that an image of a crucified man, we use to give us strength. Selah.
After the shouting as he rode on a donkey, “Hosanna in the highest!”, what happened then? This is God, your King, o people, come down from on high. This is God with us, our Immanuel. We have waited so long for our Savior to come, and now He comes in peace into the City of Prophets, the city of the Presence, the Temple. Do we make Him, then, King over all the earth? For God so loved the world, that He gave us this man, His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him, it is as if that soul were never to die, even if they were to leave this green world. What can we possibly do for such a man, who saves us even from our own selves? For being the Son of God means that He is God, for one God there is, and so the Son of God must share God’s very nature. God with us.
Must it be that the stone the builders rejected become the cornerstone? What is to be if He were given to the archons of the Temple, the elders? Will they not pay Him tribute? Or will they pass Him along to become like a curse, and “for the good of the many, is one sacrificed”? (I’m cold, I’m cold…) What do they say has the crowd demanded, if it can be believed? One thinks it no small thing that those who cheered this King of the Jews now turn away, afraid. Who are we, now, leading Him to His final fate, through the streets of Jerusalem? (I’m cold, I’m cold…) Who is it now, who asks for forgiveness for those who slay Him? Who is being raised upon a tree, upon a cross? Who have we crucified, for all of the world and people and eternity and angels to see? Who? (I’m cold, I’m cold…) It is God. And we have thrown him away….
