Sometimes I ask of myself "Who do you love?" when I am drawn toward something or someone other than God. Who am I putting first in my intentions and emotions? Who am I most committed to?
Sometimes I ask of myself "Who do you fear?" when I am afraid of some reality other than God. A reality might limit me, but I choose if the idea of a reality limits me, more than the reality itself does. What I fear is what I consider real. What I fear most is what I consider most real. So, who do I fear?
"You" can selflessly choose to become a "you" who selfishly desires the good. It's as though you choose to run software. You enter into the software with all of who you are, but ultimately it's something you chose to run, and maybe there are times where you become distant from that software and can face the choice once more, and unchoose it, or affirm it, consciously.
Sometimes we see people (or nations) doing evil. Why do they do that? Are they evil? (Aggressive, powerhungry, greedy, hateful.) Or is it because they are acting out of self-defense? (Out of fear, insecurity, weakness, desperation.) Sometimes an observer of them can make a case both ways.
Maybe what is going on is that the evil reality of them, who they really are, is choosing to install the insecure software, to justify its evil. Or maybe they aren't really evil, but their fears install the software of being evil. For instance, choosing to install the software of dehumanizing your opponents to allow you to do what you have to do to survive. Once your opponents are dehumanized, then it is natural to be evil to them. Or maybe they are simultaneously significantly evil and significantly insecure.
People can have significant evil in them and also significant non-evil (good, or amoral self-interest). But even purely evil people have to mind their own self-preservation. So they might act even more evil than they would just out of their own inherent evil, if you threaten their survival.
What's the right strategy with people like this? Are the people who seem evil to us often the people that we really understand? So, given cases in which we lack understanding, we bet -- either that our opponent is so evil that they will try to take over if given a chance, and we must "do what it takes to stop them", including threaten their self-preservation; or that they are not so evil and will content themselves with self-preservation if we leave them alone. Do we know what we're doing? We may think we do.
Perhaps this consideration of "software", insecurity, and evil is more often more usefully applied to ourselves, because of all people we know ourselves best. How often do we install "software" that justifies, motivates, or makes more feasible some kind of hostility (perhaps software of a kind of morality) primarily or significantly to serve our own self-preservation? How often do we emphasize our neediness (run a supercharged self-preservation program) because we want to be greedy? How often do we install software for reasons other than the truth of what the software states or is based on?
After posting Gating Off Voices; Especially Ones That Speak of ECT, I realized that there were some more things to say on the subject.
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One thing I could have cleared up, had I noticed it, relates to this passage:
If God doesn't exist, then hardening doesn't matter, so if hardening matters, it matters how we relate to God, and sometimes it is best to deliberately shut out some of the pathological voices in order to hear his better.
I think this is correct, if we take "hardening" in a narrow sense (only as that which is caused when we shut out the voice of God). But in a broader sense, deliberately shutting out a voice can be dangerous, whether God exists, or not. Could it be that by committing to God, or to a particular understanding of God, we are setting ourselves up for a bad outcome, perhaps the worst outcome possible? We might die young and in pain (the worst outcome according to materialism?) or we might go to a hell of annihilation or ECT (the worst outcome according to Christianity and Islam, assuming one of them is true and we are committed to the other). It might seem like the best position is to not commit to anything, but that is a kind of commitment in itself. It matters what we choose, so we should apply critical thinking, which can make various paths appear doubtworthy, and despite that tendency of critical thinking to produce doubt, we may choose a path. Even remaining in a state of "they're all doubtworthy so I won't choose" is doubtworthy.
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In the previous Gating Off Voices post, I laid out two approaches to bad voices: shut them down, or add other voices so that you have a better connection with the overall truth. Can these two be related?
Here's one account of belief: All we have access to are possibilities. That's what we see. But sometimes, as we add possibilities to our stock of things that we can imagine, simply to imagine a possibility causes other possibilities to seem untrue. It's like how God can't truly understand love and still choose to prefer evil.
So then, to know any truth, including by adding truths, could potentially shut out bad voices. I think that adding truths as a tactic is more trusting, because with it, as you stop trusting truths, you tend to trust more truths at the same time. In fact, it is only by trusting more truths that you can shut out any, on this model.
If you were in hell, God would feel it, just as you did. He would experience your firsthand experience, which would be of hell and nothing but hell. But God is aware of other experiences, some which are not hellish. So would God be able to bear eternal conscious torment, that which came from really knowing what it was like to be you-in-hell, simply by also experiencing all the non-hell experiences firsthand?
We might think about the analogy of a body. Maybe you have a severe chronic pain that affects one part of your body. But you are also undergoing a pleasurable experience in another part of your body. If the pleasurable experience is strong enough, and chronic, could it allow you to experience your pain forever? I think it could, but only by taking your awareness away from the pain. And in that respect, you wouldn't really be feeling the pain anymore, although in some sense it would still be there.
God would be aware of our pain, as fully aware of it as we would be. So if God really knows what it's like for us to undergo ECT, he does so without being able to rest, even if on some level he knows that there is much that is good.
Epistemic status: provisional in the sense that, I think somewhere in MSLN there is reason to not believe in eternal conscious torment, but these arguments in their exact form may need revision; and also that I can only provide natural theological arguments right now.
9 May 2021: small edit, and added a postscript.
27 May 2021: added a paragraph, rewrote postscript.
Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) is the doctrine that some people will go to hell, existing forever in a state of conscious torment. It is an offensive doctrine, but one which may yet be true. Ordinarily we look at the Bible as the source for this doctrine. In the future I may be able to consider what the Bible says, overall, but for now, I will consider natural theology: reasoning about God. Reason is used in interpreting the Bible, and many people find reason trustworthy in itself, perhaps more so than the Bible. Natural theology and the Bible talk about the same subject: God. So what does the natural theology of MSLN say about ECT?
One popular definition of hell is "separation from God".
God may be able to bear us for a long time, but what is unbearable at all can't be borne forever. Fundamentally, God is the way he is (he is the right way he should be from the beginning). We differ from God in some ways that he can't bear (we are "sinful"). So either we must change to fit God, or we must be separated from God. A separation into ECT? Or a separation that destroys us? (The latter view is called annihilationism; "Annihilation": to make nothing.) Presumably, no one can exist when completely separated from God.
The idea of the metaphysical organism is a hypothesis about the means by which otherwise separate consciousnesses connect. In it, a consciousness connects to another consciousness by being conscious of its exact consciousness. Further, whatever connects me to the outside world experiences exactly what I do. So that being would experience ECT as well as I would. If God is the being who connects all consciousnesses, he would have to experience the ECT of all those who made themselves enemies of him. Could God ever rest? He would experience the unbearability of their torment for all time. They might not have the ability to stop experiencing what they experienced, but he would. Arguably, unbearability can't be endured forever, not even by God, because God would experience the unbearability as unbearable. So then God would shut down their consciousnesses, and this would be like them being annihilated, rather than experiencing ECT.
However, maybe it is possible to think that God could cut himself off from these consciousnesses, and they could somehow exist apart from him. They would "speak" experience to themselves, in place of God, the Speaker. They would have a very limited simantic vocabulary compared to God. Maybe they could only speak the barest proto-conscious sense of will, preference, and trust. If he left them to an existence so minimalist that they couldn't torment themselves, it wouldn't be ECT, and it would resemble annihilation.
If they had a less-minimalist existence, could they torment themselves? Maybe, but not against their will, and though they might be the causes of their torment, the experience of the torment itself would be against their will. So it would be a case of them relating to what was not-them (simantism), and their torment would have to be spoken to them by another being. I have written in this paragraph as though it is possible to speak simantic words without God, but then, the simantic word of the entirety of reality, which is implied by a person's experience in the moment, would be spoken to them, and who can do that other than God? So God would have contact with them and would suffer as they did.
From the point of view of legitimism, whatever exists, in some sense should be, and should be absolutely. Absolute ought comes from a truly worthy will, is a truly worthy opinion. An opinion is conscious and personal, is part of a person. If God's opinion founds all of reality, he is conscious of all that is. Any lack of awareness on his part is of what does not yet exist. And what kind of opinion is so valid that it can found reality? The answer given in legitimism is that God is willing to take on the burdens he lays on others, and is maximally receptive to reality. So then, God would know of and directly experience the ECT of any who suffer it.
These considerations show that God himself can't escape ECT if any of us remain in it. It is reasonable to guess that God would prefer to rest than to suffer, and it seems that in the very nature of unbearability, there is the inability to willingly endure it forever. So these make a case against ECT.
On the other hand, do these natural theologies lend any weight in favor of ECT? Perhaps legitimism does. Legitimism says that there is an absolute ought, which can be violated by personal beings. The violations are an offense against what should be. We know as humans that sometimes exacting a just penalty from someone heals an injustice. And this may be a foundational principle of reality. So, when people do what is unjust, they must pay the penalty so that legitimacy can be healed, unless the penalty is paid for them. So if their injustices are infinite, they deserve infinite punishment, and this could lead to ECT. ECT as a means to justice.
Finite beings don't have the power to cause infinite injustice in a positive sense. So we wouldn't merit ECT. But perhaps by us turning away from helping others, we are willing to shut the door on potentially infinite numbers of people, for all we know or care about, in order to enjoy our small pleasures. This could be considered in some sense an infinite injustice for which we might have to pay eternally.
Counterpoint (27 May 2021):
Do people who neglect the well-being of others have hearts that truly intended to cause an infinite amount of suffering? Human beings are incapable of truly understanding infinity. It's not even clear that such a thing could actually exist. (In a sense, infinity is inconceivable, and normally, we think that that which is inconceivable can't exist.) I think a God who abides by the simantic word of "reasonable proportion" would say "their hearts were not infinitely bad -- finitely bad is bad enough". No one has a disposition sufficient to will infinity. And those who failed to will good (by turning away from the cries of others) did so at a finite, and not infinite, volume. Whatever concept they had of others suffering, from whom they turned away, was not actually infinite.
The past is broken, made illegitimate by our acts. To fix it, someone could pay the penalty. But we can't pay for all our acts -- we would all die, have to be destroyed. But God doesn't want us to be destroyed. So he created reality with a more-finite partner, who shares his character. The Father (the metaphysical organism and Speaker), creates with a Son. This Son is legitimacy, as much as the Father is, because they decided on reality together as beings who were disposed to experience the burdens they lay on us. So he can take on the penalty. He dies existentially alone, facing annihilation. He does this willingly. Because he is legitimacy, he does not deserve to die, and so in himself is able to pay the penalty. And so legitimacy is healed. (The penalty is paid once -- if the Son died again, that would create a new injustice, for which there could be no further healing. Having paid the penalty, the Son does not need to remain dead/destroyed, and so he is brought back to life.) This healing of the past of legitimacy, healing of justice, makes it so that the underlying issue of justice is not an obstacle to us avoiding hell.
Though God does not need to punish us for justice's sake, God may still find a kind of punishment useful. We sometimes forget that he loves foolish people and people with a certain amount of psychopathic traits, people who might only repent if they feared death and punishment. There is a place for death, and for suffering hell, in the plan of salvation. But the suffering need not be eternal in order to provide an incentive for the salvation of those who require it. On the other hand, the idea of ECT, in some cultures and time periods, might have been one we liked to believe as a civilization, and were benefited by, even if the reality is that there is no such thing. The stronger image of hell doesn't seem to have been as unacceptably scary in the past, and may have saved some people that the softer image would not have.
A parent might say, "The consequences for hitting your brother are that you don't get to play video games for the rest of the night." They don't want you to do that kind of thing or be that kind of person, and want to give you a reason to see things their way. Hitting your brother is replaying the story of Cain and Abel -- you should be cast out of your house with a mark on you for the rest of your life. But the pain your brother felt, and the pall you cast on the trust and trustworthiness of the house, only merit you missing out on your greatest pleasure for a few hours. So God as the parent can ordain consequences for injustice without them directly paying for the deeper, truer injustice. And like a parent, he would ordain these, one would think, in order to preserve the good of his children in the long run, not for justice's sake.
The natural theologies of MSLN say that ECT is unlikely (God wouldn't want to experience unbearability) and that the parts of legitimism that lend themselves to ECT don't have to (given the death of the Son).
However, this is only part of MSLN. What remains is the interpretation of the Bible (the New Wine System).
I may turn toward study of the Bible itself, for myself, at some point, in evaluating MSLN. It seems like something I should do at some point. Until then, I will appeal to a few outside perspectives: the developer of the New Wine System, Philip Brown, favors annihilationism (giving arguments for that position in New Wine for the End Times) and this article and this article give me reason to believe that there are valid arguments for annihilationism, and that there is a debate -- it's not like annihilationism is a strange thing that no respectable Bible interpreter espouses. So for now I can leave the question of what the Bible says undecided, allowing for the possibility that the annihilationist part of the New Wine System is biblical, so that the Bible agrees with MSLN natural theology.
Here's the strongest case I can make for ECT within MSLN terminology: God is legitimacy, and part of that is his justice. Now, you have to be careful how you think about this. If his justice is at all seen as separate from him, then we observe the following. Justice exists to punish violations of legitimacy (of God). So if justice itself perpetuates violations of legitimacy, then it loses its legitimacy. Perpetuating hell for all eternity violates legitimacy, since those in hell are illegitimate and God must be metaphysically connected to their existence. To whatever extent justice failed to bring about God's will (failed to serve legitimacy), it would no longer ought to be, and would not function. So for ECT to occur, it can't be that justice is separate from God, or a possession of God, over which he could have authority. Justice has to be an inherent element of God, one over which he does not have any sovereignty, because it is sovereignty (God) itself (himself).
As we can see, justice is something that conflicts with God getting what he wants. Perhaps God wants justice, but also wants everything to be in harmony with himself. How can he resolve this issue? Perhaps justice is so much more valuable to him than harmony that he really wants to suffer for all eternity so that justice can be served. (God suffers whenever we do.) God is so principled, and takes us so seriously as moral agents, that he is willing to sacrifice his peace of mind, for all eternity, just to hold us accountable. He is willing to violate himself by prolonging the existence of each person in hell beyond any point at which it might serve the purpose of giving him a world which is all good, just to get the greater good of justice. Maybe he can't sin against himself in this way by himself, but he contracts out the willing of this state of affairs to evil beings, as he did before with temptation. Temptation (and the willing-to-temptation) came into the world so that we could come into tune with legitimacy, but this willing-to-ECT came in order to prolong the existence of illegitimacy. But this is acceptable because in this case, the prolonging is because justice is being served, and justice outweighs the prolonging of sin and suffering.
Perhaps I could respond by saying that the nature of unbearability is such that for God to experience our unbearable suffering, over time the strength of the effect of the unbearability on God's will would be such as to reshape his values away from valuing justice. Or, the unbearability of God's experiencing of the existence of illegitimacy, could eventually corrode his willing of justice. This makes sense to me. However, isn't it possible that the lack of justice is unbearable to God? So then either way there would be unbearability. God would be trapped.
You could say that God could simply focus on the inherent attractiveness or life-givingness or the like of all the good in his experience, but for God to really experience what we do, God can't escape by shifting his awareness to what is positive. Could God take a break from tormenting the people in hell? (They sleep, perhaps?) But they would continue to have illegitimate hearts, dispositions that should not be. It is the awareness of "should not be" that is unbearable -- maybe Rawlette is right to some extent in saying that pain qualia are the qualia of "ought-not-to-be-ness". Whatever is truly bad about pain, as an experience, is that we can't accept it. Completely acceptable pain is not "eternal conscious torment", but is more like the sting of tolerable hot peppers (for those who like to eat such things), or sore muscles after reasonable exercise. What is unbearable is that which ought not to be, and sin (violations of legitimacy) ought not to be.
Clearly God can put up with some illegitimacy and unbearable suffering -- quite a lot. He must have some kind of patience for that. Is that patience sufficient to endure an eternity of illegitimacy and/or unbearable suffering? If it is finite, no. The prolonged unacceptability will eventually outweigh whatever finite patience that he has. But what if it is infinite? If God has infinite patience, then in his eyes sin and suffering is acceptable. He never needs to get rid of it, can tolerate it forever. At no time would he be unable to let it be part of his reality. But by definition, what should not be is unacceptable. If it can't be accepted, then at some time or other, God (legitimacy) has to do the opposite of accept it -- make it cease to exist. So legitimacy contains in it the necessity to bring about a state in which there is no illegitimacy.
So God would have to end the situation of unbearable lack of justice versus unbearable tolerance of sin and suffering. How could he go about doing this? He could annihilate the people who are illegitimate (adjust his concern for justice downward). Or he could come to find acceptable their sins. But then why keep them in hell? (I tend to think that sin is sin only if it violates the unchanging nature of God, but I won't argue for that here.) So either way, God does not permit or ordain ECT.
However, you could say that God can't change his own nature, or the nature of what is sinful. So he could be stuck with "sin is unchangeably unacceptable, and justice is unchangeably necessary, in such a way that ECT is necessary".
But we should remember that there is an anthropic principle to creation. According to the anthropic principle, we should expect to observe the universe to be a certain way because it permits life on earth to exist, allowing us to observe anything in the first place. So, we wouldn't have been created by God if he knew that there would be such a terrible and insoluble problem in his own future, if he were to go ahead and risk our existence. (God creates us with his own extensive but finite patience in mind, so that we can arrive at the final harmony before it runs out.)
I haven't quite absorbed all of these thoughts, but I think for now I am satisfied that this shows that ECT does not follow from MSLN.
Pain is wrong, evil, bad, say some. But to me, it is almost always at worst unbearable, in itself. Pleasure is right and good, say some. But to me, it is often at best attractive.
If something is attractive enough, you find it difficult or impossible to resist trusting it, moving toward it, taking it in. If it is unbearable enough, you find it difficult or impossible to resist closing off to it, distrusting it, moving away from it, destroying it, shutting it down.
But is it you that values what is attractive? Or that disvalues what is unbearable? Not necessarily. You can value what is unbearable and disvalue what is attractive. Nor is it clear that what is attractive ought to be valued, or what is unbearable ought not to be valued. It is practical, all things being equal, that your attractions and valuings, and what is unbearable to you and your disvaluings, line up. But it is not necessarily right that they do so, except insofar as what is practical makes it more possible to pursue what is really right.
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(Added 2 December 2020)
Things which cannot be borne for all eternity are at least a little bit unbearable. If you can bear it for all eternity, it's fully bearable.
The tongue as an organ of perception. One meaning: taste and mouthfeel. Another: we speak reality to ourselves. So, to see things from the Spirit's perspective, and to speak as though God exists.
Humans are actors. When we say the lines, we become the character, and see things from the character's point of view.
I was inspired to write this when I was catching a fly to release outside. My usual technique is to isolate the fly in the room I am in (easy when I'm in my bedroom using my laptop), and then open the curtains on the window, or the window itself so that fresh air comes in. The fly's deepest longing (if I judge by behavior), is to be outside. It will fly to that window even though it is closed, and spend its time there.
The fly doesn't understand how the human world works, and is just trying to do what it knows best. It's actually doing the wrong thing sometimes by staying near the window. If there's a door open somewhere else in the house, it should just find the door and fly out the house. But it doesn't know any better, and just thinks (or acts like it thinks): the appearance of freedom shows where you get freedom.
Sometimes this leads to the death of flies. I used to kill flies when I saw them on the window, rather than catch them and release them. So in that version of the human environment, the desire for freedom, seeking it the best way the flies knew how, led to death. They should have increased their intelligence and flown nearby the front door, so that they could slip out whenever the humans opened it.
But because I am actually a good person with respect to the fly's desire for life and freedom, the environment that I create makes it so that when the fly, unjustified though it may be in assuming this, thinks (or "thinks"), "I will go toward freedom -- it's right there, I can see it -- I can smell the fresh air -- somehow that's the way out", it's actually a trustworthy move for the fly to make, in ways that it does not understand.
I approach the fly with a small glass cup and put the cup over the area on the window or screen that the fly is on. The fly thinks the cup is prison, and it is. It takes off -- some flies more untrusting than others -- flies around inside the cup. Eventually, it lands on the inner surface of the cup long enough for me to quickly pick up the cup and put my hand over the opening. Now the fly is very much a prisoner, and is taken far away from the promise of freedom, through the rest of the house to the door.
I open the door and keep the fly inside its transport, and then step outside and close the door, so that if I release the fly it doesn't go straight back into the ultimately unwelcoming human environment. Then I take it down to the most favorable part of the back yard, near the compost heap, which I assume is where a fly would most like to be, and where I assume it is best to be a fly -- although flies are perfectly capable of getting around, to seek their own best environments. Then I let the fly go. Sometimes it takes a moment to grasp that it is free, or I help it out of the glass cup. And then it flies away.
Because the fly looks for freedom so predictably, I was able to capture and imprison it, and give it true freedom.
An MSLN view: we might have different intuitions about life depending on whether we find ourselves in the presence of a beneficent super-human environment (whatever is beyond human agency and/or our ability to sufficiently mentally grasp), or a negative one. The MSLN assumption is that we should adjust our priors in the direction that there is a being who would be inclined to help us, and might do so. And so if that is true, we should go toward freedom, like a fly trying to escape the spacious prison of a house.
1 Kings 17:
1 Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." 2 Then Yahweh's word came to him, saying, 3 "Go away from here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." 5 So he went and did according to Yahweh's word, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith that is before the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. 7 After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
8 Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, 9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you."
10 So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and said, "Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink."
11 As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand."
12 She said, "As Yahweh your God lives, I don't have anything baked, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said; but make me a little cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward make some for you and for your son. 14 For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, 'The jar of meal will not run out, and the jar of oil will not fail, until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth.'"
15 She went and did according to the saying of Elijah; and she, he, and her household ate many days. 16 The jar of meal didn't run out and the jar of oil didn't fail, according to Yahweh's word, which he spoke by Elijah.
And here, in 1 Kings 18:
1 After many days, Yahweh's word came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, "Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain on the earth."
2 Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. 3 Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly; 4 for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh's prophets, Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) 5 Ahab said to Obadiah, "Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we not lose all the animals." 6 So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. 7 As Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. He recognized him, and fell on his face, and said, "Is it you, my lord Elijah?"
8 He answered him, "It is I. Go, tell your lord, 'Behold, Elijah is here!'"
9 He said, "How have I sinned, that you would deliver your servant into the hand of Ahab, to kill me? 10 As Yahweh your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent to seek you. When they said, 'He is not here,' he took an oath of the kingdom and nation that they didn't find you. 11 Now you say, 'Go, tell your lord, "Behold, Elijah is here."' 12 It will happen, as soon as I leave you, that Yahweh's Spirit will carry you I don't know where; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he can't find you, he will kill me. But I, your servant, have feared Yahweh from my youth. 13 Wasn't it told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed Yahweh's prophets, how I hid one hundred men of Yahweh's prophets with fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water? 14 Now you say, 'Go, tell your lord, "Behold, Elijah is here".' He will kill me."
15 Elijah said, "As Yahweh of Armies lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today." 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah.
When you follow the Spirit, you will be led into other people's lives. They have the choice of whether to trust you or not. There is some risk -- in the case of the widow of Zarephath and Obadiah, the risk of death. You sometimes bring with you a confrontation with life and death, just in the course of following God.
Matthew 17:
1 After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain by themselves. 2 He was changed (transfigured) before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light. 3 Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him.
4 Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, let's make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
5 While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him."
6 When the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces, and were very afraid. 7 Jesus came and touched them and said, "Get up, and don't be afraid." 8 Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus alone.
9 As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Don't tell anyone what you saw, until the Son of Man has risen from the dead."
Obviously what happened here was an event of power. The disciples already knew that Jesus was a man of power -- they might have felt, if not consciously thought, that he was a god. In this event, he is revealed as God, but perhaps more importantly, as a true servant of God. God validates his son.
To those who see through the eyes of power, the Transfiguration separates disciples from Jesus. The disciples will never have Jesus' power. They are subject to the absolute power of his glory. But if you see how the point of the Transfiguration is for God to validate his son, then you see how the disciples are kin to Jesus. If they obeyed God as sons, as Jesus did, God could say of each of them "Behold my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him."
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (source).
Or is it "the fear of death is the beginning of knowledge"? A lot of our criteria for why we should consider real what we do consider real boil down to "if you don't abide by these criteria consistently, you will be at greatest risk of physical death in the long run."
Or is it "the fear of shame" or "the fear of a particular human's opinion, or group of humans' opinions"? As opposed to the fear of the LORD's opinion.
Is fearlessness the beginning of knowledge? Or the full growth of it? There is a certain kind of fearlessness which comes from not caring. Experience is most real when there is fear, for a certain meaning of "real". Wealth enables us to not live in reality.
Knowledge has different flavors, different tonalities and physical expressions, depending on whether it is begun by the fear of death, the fear of shame, the fear of people's opinions, or whatever else, or the fear of the LORD.
