A MORE PERFECT MEMORY

MORE PERFECT MEMORY It strikes me as being not only incredibly unseemly, but also absurdly anomalous, that mankind, the created, would deign to ascribe imagined characteristics to God, the Creator of mankind, creator of life, time, space, energy, matter, all. The personification of God is even more daring than just ascription. For personifying God, in the form of man, as a messenger, a savior, avatar, makes God a man, a woman, with human beings' emotions! My personal quibbles aside, it is most clear that in past centuries, billions and billions and billions of people have not been uninhibited, nor unconstrained, in representing God: in ascribing characteristics to God, in graphically depicting God, in describing or in personifying, God,--as I have been, indeed as I now am. "God" is known to mankind by numerous names, by innumerable features, and is worshiped in many diverse ways—spiritual, material, technical, financial, philosophical. The Coronavirus covid-19 affords mankind another transit opportunity during this iconic, universal, event for the whole of mankind to test the truth of premises of prior philosophies, religions, scientists, against the facts on the ground in 2020. We are intrinsically in God, of God, in this dimension of life, as we are in death, as forbears, were, always and forever. Amen. Once we leave this world, this dimension of life, we likely recall nothing of this world. Indeed, we are not likely even “we" or “me” or "you" hereafter, but only inert spirits. Amen. "We" are defined by heavens above, by earth below, by nature, by environment, and by the spirit of divine life. At least these five facts define us: heavens, earth , nature, environment, spirit. Five fingers and five toes, doubled, tell us all. Connecting and imbuing all five factors is divine God. Nothing about our bodies is amiss. Our bodies are perfect, perfectly designed by a perfect God who designs everything. God commands perfection as our plumb line, as our horizon, as our true behavioral standard in relation to ourselves, relative to each other, to our environment, to our nation, to all! Perfection is our reasonable recompense to God for living. Jesus said, "Be you therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48. Perfect means complete as God has specially, particularly, made you to be in this life context. The 3rd century African philosopher, Plotinus, for example , in THE ENNEADS has written poignantly on man and God. As ancients are nearer to the sources of philosophy, astronomy, civilizations , their views are dearer to lovers of divine truth. Plotinus writes: “Now comes the question, equally calling for an answer, whether those souls that have quitted the places of earth retain memory of their lives —all souls or some, of all things, or of some things, and, again, forever or merely for some period not very long after their withdrawal ... “Now a memory has to do with something brought into ken from without, something learned or something experienced; the Memory-Principle, therefore, cannot belong to such things as are immune from experience and from time. “No memory, therefore, can be ascribed to any divine being, or to the Authentic -Existent or to the Intellectual Principle: these are intangibly immune ; time does not approach them; they possess eternity centered around Being; they know nothing of past and sequent; all is an unbroken state of identity not receptive of change. Now a being rooted in unchanging identity cannot entertain memory, since it has not and never had a state differing from any previous state, or any new intellection following upon a former one, so as to be aware of any contrast between a present perception and one remembered before. “But what prevents such a being (from possessing memory in the sense of) perceiving , without variation in itself, such outside changes as, for example, the cosmic periods? “Simply the fact of following the changes of the revolving Cosmos it would have perception of earlier and later: intuition and memory are distinct.... “For the same reason , memory, in its current sense, cannot be attributed to the Soul in connection with ideas inherent in its essence: these it holds not as memory but as a possession, though by its very entrance into this sphere , they are no longer the mainstay of its Act. “The Soul-action which is observed seems to have induced the Ancients to ascribe memory, and Recollection (the Platonic Anamnesis), ‘to souls bringing into outward manifestation the ideas they contain.’ We see at once that the memory here indicated is another kind; it is a memory outside of time.” p. 278-279, “Problems of the Soul,” THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (2001)