The Eternal Perspective: What’s It All About?

I have chosen a subject that is real. It is more real than anything that is a)physical. It is more real than anything that b)involves a process. It is more real than anything that is c)subject to conditions of any kind. Lastly it is more real than anything d)confined by limits. The physical is once new, changes, grows old, is ultimately rendered useless and left to waste. Process has a beginning, a middle, and most significantly ends. Anything subject to the conditional is therefore malleable, inconsistent, unreliable, manipulative, artificial and cannot be trusted. That which is defined by limits is subject to temporality and the immense pressures of time and just as temporality began it will surely end. I challenge each of us to consider one worldly phenomenon, no matter how great or slight, that avoids the qualifying definition of one or several or all of these four attributes. It cannot be done.

 The world is a finite state of self-generating ideas and systems, all is governed by factors of limitation and impermanence. Within the hugely disproportionate secular sphere, the world offers no attempt to know truth, it is unsure of its origins, denies meaning, questions reality, and has absolutely no sense of purpose. All it knows is that it will end causing an unbelieving society to live in a state of ignorant bliss to enjoy an abundance of attractive and fashionable comforting counterfeits to help ignore answers to question that in actuality, deep down, it is terrified to ask. In this artificial world, Satan uses innumerable lures with the same artifice, completely unrecognizable in a camouflage of like artificiality, such as greed, money being man-made and to love it, desire it, lust for it, doing evil for the sake of it, is a terrible wickedness and a vile sickness many succumb to.

 These snares engulf the masses who see this “reality” and of this the world is utterly confused. In the counterfeit worldly state with such manipulation, pride is the rule for the masses who compete in a state of falsehoods. The craving for power possesses many, no matter who is hurt, leading to unfathomable oppressive extremities, all for an incomprehensible animal like satisfaction of domination, the need to have the biggest and the best, to be the best; this will never be for more than a mere moment, or the vain obsession of beauty; no matter how one might spend, snag and nip and tuck, it is love that is eternal as beauty fades.

 As Latter- Day Saints, we avoid placing emphasis on the a)physical and embrace humility as a tremendous power drawing us closer to God while dismissing worldly materialism, so enticing to so many, destroying lives by creating unspeakable debt, pressures from the media ruining self-esteem, and is a vast source of worldly pride. Our knowledge of b)process is progression, and this, as we understand very well, is eternal, is the very Plan of Salvation. It is unconditional. From c)conditions we are wary. The world is a mesh of conditions and is utterly distracting and discouraging. "If you loose weight then you will be pretty." "If you get that promotion then you will be happy." "If you make yourself look younger then people will notice you." "If you build your muscles then she will like you." Lies, lies, lies!!! In the timeless eternities we will progress in like manner to our progress on earth, yet without temporal conditions of a cunning and convincing adversary in a dishonest world. We, d)in one eternal reality, have no limitations, this we know.

 Our existence is one of eternal progression and increase. But we do have to live in this world as we exercise all of our ability to create an existence for ourselves and those around us that is not of it, but how is this struggle to be successfully achieved and for how long is it possible? We as Latter-Day Saints, members of the true Church, possess something that is in direct opposition to worldly gullibility, anxiety, doubt, fear, confusion and a purposeless existential view, something within us as faithful sons and daughters of God, this being a unique perspective, very real, grounded on the utmost reality, that of the eternal. This eternal perspective becomes stronger as we exercise our faith and apply our ever increasing testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we seek the path of truth.

 From the very real vantage point of this eternal perspective is where is to be found the solid and secure path to seek truth and to know truth. The firm foundation of the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ is manifest as THE reality we naturally and spiritually aspire to and will be present in our lives and those around us if we desire it and act accordingly. A total release from worldly anxieties, concerns, doubts or fears is very real through a confident resignation to the Lord who, through the holy Spirit, puts all temporal confusion to a resolve if we trust completely in his truth. The difference between a worldly dark and dreary waste of doubt, insecurity and confusion and an eternal transcendent reality of clarity, security, knowledge, and unshakable truth is thus absolutely apparent, our place made secure, all of this, according to the sure orientation of our eternal perspective.

 As we must live in the world and desire to not live of it, we might triumphantly accomplish this if we exercise our eternal perspective within this spiritual existence, for the sake of our eternal progress and salvation, while making something of a heaven on earth, and ultimately, we will find our burdens lighter on our path to Godhood, with an ever growing understanding with an ever increasing clarity, and an inner luminosity through the gift of the Spirit to testify through the Savior along our course of truth and righteousness.

The Truth of Truth

The study and critique of meaning, albeit a linguistic branch of philosophy, is all the same, integral to a full understanding of a broad view of existentialism, especially one of Mormon Existentialism that seeks to know the truth of truth and how the answer to this seemingly impossible but very attractive paradigm might better serve a Latter-Day Saint member. In an existentialist critique, such as this, it is imperative to be well versed in the canon of the critique of meaning, i.e. semiology and structuralist theory, to begin a realization of the truth that is contained in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the sophistry and irrelevance of this dogmatic branch of philosophy. Thus the truth of truth will ultimately be measured as one seeks the truth of he whom is all truth.

Existentialism in itself asks the question of existence and in that there is no universal meaning left to substantiate any touchstone to affirm the truth of existence, instead, like a black hole- the theory of deconstruction, pairing opposites and demonstrating their reversal with the same results “proving” a level ground and sameness without distinction, rooted in semiotics which holds that all meaning is arbitrary as there is nothing inherent in the meaningful response to stimuli, only that which is conditioned- sucks the establishment of tradition and truth down its gaping gulf to never see reality, if there is one, again.

This was the philosophy of meaning towards the latter half of the 20th century and is still being held as absolute, an interesting irony coming from those who disclaim absolutes, today. Today is not so simple with a post-technologically revolutionized global economically socially networked international community of exchange of both the physical and the ideological; integration and globalization in this condition of today makes the overly generalized ideology of deconstruction, used with such portent in the ‘60s civil rights revolutions where it made some social progress, today simply irrelevant and void.

With integration and globalization creating limitless pluralities of global dynamics, how can one begin to assert that each, in so many infinite nuanced conditions and states of being, can be brought to a simple state of opposite and then manipulated and deconstructed? The idea is nonsensical in a world where difference is the rule that actually creates interest and progress. There must be an alternative. Thus, the reality of the philosophies of the post-structuralists that gave such weight to the angst ridden existentialist simply is a past historiology just as once Rousseauianism and the Social Contract seemed appropriate for the Enlightment, it died, now Derrida is dead, and with him goes the absolutist, another irony, idea that God is dead, who in a pluralistic post-Modern reality, is very alive to very many.

It is reconstruction that fits the universal mold of this day. What is reconstructionism? It has an entirely different methodology to its structure than deconstructionism, and it is based on a core principle that is divinely ordained by God. God alone is the one who can give it and God alone can take it away. This is agency, history knows it as free will, the Mormon Existentialist knows it as agency. In communities we relate through language. As this occurs, ideas are generated. Thought produces ideas, words communicate ideas, communities embrace ideas, together they create meaning and ultimately truth.

Agency is the facilitator that allows the mind to respond, even if arbitrary, to stimuli that best suits it. If the thought fits, use it. As a community goes about reacting to stimuli, they do so freely, choosing, without realizing it, the meaning that occurs as a response to random stimuli. These thoughts galvanize into ideas. If this community, given that each member has agency to choose, via a natural response, according to sensory stimuli, all come to the same conclusions, without each member arriving at one end of the conceptual spectrum and another there and another there, yet another far off in the distance, on the contrary, that community of independent agencies and ideas has naturally and collectively arrived at a homogenous, unified, meaningful truth, this being demonstrated here through logic as absolute and quite miraculous in the humanitarian aspect as well as the spiritual, and thus is the structure of reconstruction.

In our globalized world, with such difference, this reconstruction is imperative if communities and bodies of difference are to coalesce and to work and grow together. Great cultural divides of difference impossible to know the actual fullness of, must be traversed through this natural God given condition, a kind of unspoken language, to collectively arrive at meanings in a world of difference where that difference can be preserved, while we can maintain meaningful relationships grounded in commonalities.

In this reality, an international faith such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose membership reaches every corner of the globe and is more of a worldwide faith than domestic, relies on the absoluteness of truth to hold its membership together. One can rest assured, as scripture and living prophets indicate the divine nature of truth. Yet existentially, we ask the possibility to know the truth of truth and in this we might consider a like purpose of scripture and prophets, albeit using logic instead of revaluation, to attempt a reconstruction of the absolute truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the nature of this truth on the plurality of the global community, for the sake of existential relevancy, ultimately to become more effective members of the LDS community. Mormonism is a faith of a multiplicity of ethnicities, heritages, traditions, tribes, cultures, languages and dialects. Through agency, members seek personally the nature of truths. As is the structure of every reconstruction, the mind responds to stimuli, in this instance, the member responds to promptings of the Holy Spirit, this being the spirit of Christ. As the individual accordingly discovers personal truth, subsequently this truth is found to be universal being also familiar in the collective international Latter-Day Saint community. This powerfully asserts the validity of such truths, being discovered intrinsically on a personal level while also a universal truth sacred to the collective. As members in the LDS faith, one might be bold and assert the knowledge of the divine truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ while upholding the truth of the plan of salvation and making it a united purpose to put universal Gospel truths to action. Demonstrative through this reconstruction; given the gift of agency, responding as one who is spiritually in tune to the promptings of the Spirit, discovering a revelation of truth both personally and universally, surely, one will flourish with a surer foundation of faith and knowledge through understanding, by becoming more and more secure of the powerful strength and validity of truths, effectuating the value of such truths in one’s own life, and becoming effective in contributing to the good and spiritual progression of others.