Tackling Theology: Incubi, Egyptian Mythology & Mystery in Space

I mention on Votaries the sense of being caught between positions. It is impossible to take a "side" when both sides strike one as wrong. 

I currently feel the same about theological matters. I was raised to believe in the importance of the physical body--and I still do. The physical experience is more than a "trial." It is more than something to be endured. The physical body is not the enemy of the spirit nor do the greatest sins arise from the challenges and demands of the physical body. 

In classical Christianity, the worst sin is pride, which comes from the mind and heart. Pride is greatly tempered and disciplined by the physical experience. 

In addition, mortality allows humans not merely to learn and grow, which ideas are often relayed in purely abstract terms, but to actually do things. The release of the body at death is not something to crow about. In refutation that C.S. Lewis ever stated, "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body," Hannah Peckham correctly points out that this is a misreading of a line from George McDonald. She writes,

"Christians need to be mindful, however, that they are embodied creatures with the promise of an embodied resurrection. Jesus incarnated in a body and resurrected with a body, so Christians should be careful about minimizing their own." 

I agree. A theology that dismisses the mortal experience as some kind of "rough patch" that the soul or spirit rises above is missing the point. The egoism of believing that the essential "me" is the only thing that needs to survive resembles the classical version of hell more than any truly desirable vision of heaven. 

Give me instead a theology that rejoins the physical with the spirit and values that state without shame or apology. 

The theology of my childhood states that the goal of each human is not simply to be with God--we could have done that without ever gaining a body. The goal of each human is to become like God or, if you want to go down the science-fiction road, to follow a path to a different plane of existence: to go from existing as a 2 and 3-dimensional being to something/someone more complex, deeper, and expansive, to become--in essence--more. The mortal experience places us on that road while the gift of the physical body is ours forever.

We can never entirely reach God since God will always continually progress beyond us. We will always be rushing to catch up. But we can certainly aim higher, not as part of some abstract mind-game (Now, I'm happy) but as an actual condition of existence.

Heaven is not a state of continual rest where we are patted on the head for getting through the rough stuff and then sent to hang out eternally in God's rumpus room. It's not about winning, being rewarded for checking off all the right boxes and jumping through all the expected hoops. Rituals and ordinances can help bring us closer to God, to better understand God's vision and purpose, but they are means to an end, not the end itself. C.S. Lewis, as always, gets closest: Further up and further in.

An afterlife of ongoing, endless work bothered me as a child. Now, I respect a belief that bypasses the earthly, secular battle over "who gets into utopia and who doesn't--what you say versus what we say" for a larger view, a greater possibility, a continuing journey.

The main protagonist of my next Myths Endure book grapples with many of the above ideas. However, I learned the hard way when I was younger that writing fiction to explain theological principles inevitably collapses in on itself. It is always best to tell a story, to start, as C.S. Lewis explained, with the image of a lion or a lamp post in a snowy wilderness. 

In my case, it's the image of a detective in a cassock.  

Anubis on Mars, with conclusion, is available on Amazon for pre-order.