A TALE OF SECOND CHANCES

I came across this question while strolling through the website called Quora. Quora.https://wisdomdiaries.quora.com/In-what-ways-has-our-increased-technological-knowledge-changed-our-image-of-God

What follows is my response to that question.

God has no image, which is the problem for humans who rely solely on matter as the only way through which we look at reality. Various languages can offer a glimpse of God from their perspective, allowing us to see the Other through human reasoning and free will. All are correct, and all are totally wrong.

Once upon a time, six people, a theoretical mathematician, a cardiologist, a school teacher, a politician, a professed atheist, and a Lay Cistercian(three men and three women) found themselves in front of one of the gates of New Jerusalem. St. Peter was there to admit them. “What is this place?” one of them asked. “It is the next step in your evolution, the fulfillment of your human species that your nature intended but human reason and free will alone could not see. You are all a product of your age, that of computers and artificial enhancements to fulfill your nature; you can enter here if you can answer one question.” “Fair enough,” they all said, “Let’s have at it.” “You have all led different lives and made choices that make up who each of you is, both good and bad,” St. Peter said. “Now, you find yourself at the next step of your evolution, one you might not have noticed with the languages you acquired while living. Here is the question. Solve the Divine Equation for me. The answers to the Divine Equation have nothing to do with who you think God is but everything to do with the purpose of your life, to discover who you are as a human being using the accumulated languages and experiences you have, in whatever time frame is your destiny.”

“We never heard of this Divine, whatever you call it,” said the scientist.

“I get that a lot,” said St. Peter.” “I thought you would be able to solve it since you have all the tools and tricks of AI that others have lacked,” Peter said. “I tell you what. I will give you the six postulates of this Divine Equation, and you give me your answers. Each postulate must be solved before you move on to the next one, which contains part of the answer to what went before. No time limit. You can wait here until you solve it. You can not only use anything you brought with you in your life experiences; you can also use the life experiences of the other five people. Each of you must answer it correctly before you move on to the next step.” Who grades for correctness?” said the teacher. “The person from whom both the questions and answers originate, The Magister Noster,” said St. Peter.

“That is the real elephant in the room,” said St. Peter. “Without a key to know which answers are correct, there is no way to know the truth. Without that key, all earthly truth is relative. Why do you think we call it the Divine Equation? Because humans each think they know what is good or bad for them, there are as many choices about what is true as there are people. Think billions. Humans don’t want to be told what to do; it is their fatal flaw. Not only that, but they think that just because they can choose and say YES and NO to God, whatever they choose is correct. They are not the key to the purpose of life, but they were all given the key at Baptism. Those of you not baptized, that is why you are here and not enjoying hot chocolate right now. Those of you baptized but never knew you had a key, nor didn’t learn from The Master how to use it, that is why you are here. You have time to discover it in this place of second chances.”

“What is the name of this place?” asked the politician with a sneer of triumphalism. “It is the crucible where you discover Truth,” was St. Peter’s response. “I never heard of truth before,” the politician replied. “I know,” said St. Peter, “a lot of politicians, bankers, and civil servants end up here because they could not see that truth is more than just political expediency. They sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for some watered-down gruel that they thought would make them popular, but I digress.”

THE ORIENTATION TO INCORRUPTIBILITY

“I want to give you every opportunity to get these six questions correct because, quite literally, your life depends upon it. Even though you are dead, that is not the end of human evolution. I call it intelligent design, but there is a movement from simplicity to complexity because that is who the creator is. As you might have guessed by now, you all lived what you considered purposeful lives, but for some reason, you did not get what God was trying to tell you. You are in a place of second chances where you get to make things new and correct your mistakes. A word of caution. If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. If bad assumptions got you here (i.e., greed is good), then you must change your assumptions to move forward.

“You have the opportunity to ask five Saints (those designated by the Church Universal) what they did to get through the narrow gate and enter into their fulfillment as humans. Just think, for example, of St. Charles de Foucault, and he will appear. Here is his picture.”

Don’t know who he is? Ask him, he will be sitting down next to you on a couch in the upper room of your spirit, if you summon him. Slow down and listen “with the ear of your heart”. He might be able to help you answer them correctly. After all, he answered them correctly to get into heaven.

“The first question is a simple one. There are six of you, and each one can have their own unique which may differ, but there is only one correct answer,” said St. Peter. “That does not make sense,” said the mathematician. “Neither does look at reality without the need to go within yourself to ask, ‘Is that all there is?'” “So, you are saying the answer to all these questions and correct answers from God have always been within us and we can access them at any time,” said the poet. “Indeed,” said St. Peter. “From the beginning of time, they are God’s DNA. Why do you think everything moves towards intelligent progression from A to Z?” said Peter. “The mark of any creator is that they want their building or program to last forever; they want people to enjoy their building. They must realize that THEY are the building.”

“Before you begin your challenge, I will go through each of the six questions and even tell you the key. You must go back throughout your whole lifetime of experiences and discover where you came up short and then choose the correct response, then move on to the next one, and so forth. As I promised, the key to these six questions is contained in knowing what it means to be fully human. It might help if you also knew the meaning of the following four lessons of what it means to be fully human.

1. What does it mean to be fully human?
2. What does it mean to love fiercely?
3. What is TRUTH above human relativism?
4. How can I take all these lessons and answer the six questions of the Divine Equation?”

QUESTION ONE: “Here is the first question,” said St. Peter. “What is the purpose of life? Each of you has the chance to go back over your whole life and use whatever insights you gained about why you are a human being and not an ant eater, and what that means. There is no time limit; take your time, enjoy the scenery, and the complimentary lemonade drinks. If you were to go to Hell, you would have the same lemonade but without the sugar and mint. When you have discovered the correct answer, using the only key which is TRUTH, then come to me and we can go to the next step.” “Each of you is unique and has different languages, which you can use to perceive reality and solve these questions. The question is, will you ditch your pride of thinking that only you know the answers to everything and pause in the silence and solitude of your heart and “listen with the ear of the heart”?

QUESTION TWO: “Remember that this question, What is your purpose in life? must use and build upon the answer to Question One,” said St. Peter. “Once you think you have the correct answer, and each of you will have a different answer depending on the choices for good or evil you made while living, hand in that choice to be graded by The Magister Noster (Jesus), and we can proceed to the next question. Just as each human is a unique creation using reason and free will to choose what is good for them, your answer will all be different, but, and here is the catch, there is only ONE way, ONE truth, and ONE life that counts. Because the Creator already knows your thoughts and activities on earth, it is best not to lie about your answer and embarrass yourself.”

QUESTION THREE: “Once you have passed the purpose of life and your purpose within it, you proceed to tell us what does reality look like?” said St. Peter. Be careful on this one. Let me give you a hint from a favorite book of mine, The Little Prince, by St. Exupéry. ‘It is only with the heart that one sees correctly. What is real is hidden from the eye.’ Here are two YouTube videos to help you out. To move beyond a one-dimensional view of reality, it will take more than one language to understand what is going on in these two videos. One is Gene Wilder’s interpretation of the fox and how The Little Prince could tame him. Second is the brilliant Bob Fosse’s choreography of The Devil. Both of these will help you delve deeper into your humanity and perhaps give you some idea of what reality looks like.”

QUESTION FOUR: “Once you know how reality is put together and your place in it, on to the next question, which is: How does it all fit together?” said St. Peter. The scientist remarked, “All this is nice and fluffy, but I only believe in a reality that I can see and touch.”

“You will have all the time there is to think about that one,” Peter said. “Seems to me that another disciple of Jesus told The Christ that he would not believe until he put his fingers in the nail marks and his hand into the laceration on His side. You can learn from stories like that in the Scriptures. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you all that all knowledge from the beginning of time to now is contained in the computer of your mind. All you have to do is think about it, and there it is before you on a large screen. You can look up anything you want just by thinking about it. I must tell you that this computer business is not of my doing. Actually, St. John gets the credit for using his mind to formulate a mystical view of how it all fits together. You should ask him.”

QUESTION FIVE: “Do you see a pattern to your responses? said St. Peter. “The energy that fuels God and all those in heaven is love. On earth, you had access to that very energy through Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit. How did you love authentically and fiercely while you were still alive on earth? How does love fit into the previous four questions? Question Five has to do with the very center that you placed in your lifetime of trying to discover a deeper level to your humanity, one that evolved using reason and free will to choose what seems like a paradox to human experiences.”

QUESTION SIX: “The final question uses all of the top five to answer how you found the way, what is true, and lived a life that centered around love and forgiveness. This is a Now What question, and your answers will determine if you enter into your Lord’s joy and keep searching for the truth within the limitations of human nature alone. You have not only these questions, but Jesus gave you the answers, if you but had the eyes to see and ears to hear,” said St. Peter. ” You all have a second chance to make a first impression,” Peter said as he looked back on them. “Choose wisely, my friends, and hopefully we will be together soon.”

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