Saturday 16 April 2016

Why are we alive now? - and so many of us! (Opposition in all things)

We live - in the West - in times of unprecedented physical comfort and convenience - and unprecedented spiritual darkness.

Most of the darkness relates (more or less directly) to sex and sexuality - the sexual revolution has been used as both a lure and a battering-ram to subvert and destroy religion (specifically Christianity), to hollow-out and recolonize its institutions as inverted parodies of the truth.

So why have you and I and so many others been born into this situation? (You can be sure there is a reason why we are born here and now, and not some other time or place.)

Given that God is our loving Father, the reason must be some version of 'for our own ultimate good' - or 'because this is what we, personally, most need'.

Everyone's case is different - indeed unique - but I suppose that the main source of 'opposition' to good in our time does seem to imply the main necessity of our souls.

Presumably, many of us alive today most needed strengthening by this particular type of opposition - that the sexual domain was (in some way) the particular weakness of our pre-mortal selves - the main factor holding us back from spiritual progression, perhaps.

At any rate, overall the particular nature of corruptions and temptations - of opposition - in our time and place must be some kind of tough love, or bitter medicine; a necessary challenge for our particular souls and the souls of Men in general: a kind of make-or-break opportunity to deal with some extremely serious problem.

**

These are reflections on Elder Oaks's talk at CJCLDS General Conference earlier this month. 
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/opposition-in-all-things?lang=eng


2 comments:

John R said...

What about the other side of the equation, those who enjoy drugs, anonymous sex, corrupt power, or pointless distraction? Why are they here? Unless they are shaken from their comfort how are they strengthened? Those who live in solipsistic bliss while dumping the cost and pain onto everyone else, why are they here?

Bruce Charlton said...

@John R - Those were the ones I was talking about.