Lets have a look at Romans 8. This is one of my favourite chapters in the Bible. I was first introduced to it by a theologian who read verse 21 as an ecological hymn. So I will take this opportunity to work through my understanding verse by verse.Peter Kirby wrote: (2) The earliest theological accounts of Jesus Christ are considered to be letters such as Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Hebrews. How much [astral theology] can be found in them, I wonder?
This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos. Spirit represents the regularity of the cosmos in the orderly movement of the heavens, while flesh is the carnal world of desire with its arbitrary risks, errors and dangers.Saint Paul wrote:Romans 8 King James Version (KJV)
8 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The heuristic applied in an astrotheological reading of the Bible is to understand Jesus Christ as an anthropomorphisation of the sun, taking the real attributes observed in the physical star and applying them to an idealised human being in order to humanise these invincible forces and give them ethical meaning and purpose.Saint Paul wrote: 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The sun provides the actual law of life in its three regular motions of the day, the year and the great year, as Copernicus observed, and as the Gnostic inventors of the Christ myth must have understood. Paul’s vision of Christ here reflects a conscious or unconscious vision of the sun as the source of light and life and grace.
My view, following Pagels, is that Paul had some grasp of the allegory as the real driving impetus in his letters, but carefully concealed this knowledge to make his message palatable to a mass audience. In any event, reading Romans today it makes sense to read salvation in terms of natural scientific understanding. The laws of science can free us from destruction if we understand and apply them within a spiritual ethical framework.
The great Christological theme here is the connection between time and eternity. Flesh represents the illusory nature of time in surface appearance, while Spirit is eternal truth, revealed in objective knowledge.Saint Paul wrote: 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
By living according to knowledge or Gnosis, we base our ethical values on evidence and logic, and are freed from the corruption and depravity that arise from accepting emotional instinct as the guide to decisions. Astronomy is at the foundation of a logical worldview, and therefore at the foundation of what Paul calls life that walks in the Spirit.
Achieving spiritual peace arises from understanding scientific order as the basis of life. I think it is important to note here that false belief, such as belief in miraculous superstitions, is a source of delusion and suffering and should be devalued as carnal.Saint Paul wrote: 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
All disorderly thinking and values causes suffering and destruction, ranging from direct illegality to morally repugnant beliefs, which should include delusory superstition.Saint Paul wrote: 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Understanding God as primarily revealed in natural order, we can consider either the orthodox panentheist idea that God is extrinsic to nature, or the heretical pantheist view that God is intrinsic to nature. Either way, alignment to natural order is essential to what Paul here calls pleasing God.Saint Paul wrote: 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
The great wonder of language, our ability to represent reality in symbol, is the foundation of the idea that man is made in the image of God. Spirit is revealed in words that mirror nature. Knowledge enables humans to conquer base instincts and order society on the basis of reason. The great reason of the cosmos has its sublime expression in astronomy.Saint Paul wrote: 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Traditionally, in the Tulip theology of the five points of Calvinism, this verse supports the doctrine that Christ’s work of atonement is limited to believers. And yet, a more complex idea of the meaning of atonement and redemption against a purely scientific materialist understanding can read this verse against a universal potential to see how our limited temporal lives form part of a vast cosmic order. Astrotheologically, Christ as the sun provides the point of connection to the real order of the cosmos, so Paul’s statement becomes a literal observation that denial of natural order leads to extinction. This observation provides a foundation for a theology of climate change.Saint Paul wrote: Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Science has a natural righteousness, even if that word sits uncomfortably against a liberal relativism. The only way to ground such a zealous term in a coherent vision of the public good is to establish clear logical evidentiary links to the actual order of nature which serves as the template and horizon for ethical values. This link to nature and especially the sun is where Christianity is morally superior to Islam – Christianity can be grounded in science whereas Islam lacks such an encompassing evidentiary meaning.Saint Paul wrote: 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
The astral allegory of resurrection has a direct correlation to the day, the year and the great year, with their natural orbital cycles of light and dark. It is noteworthy here that the orbital insolation cycle of precession is key to the scientific structure of terrestrial time, but understanding of it is extremely rare.Saint Paul wrote: 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
My experience is that few people have the patience or interest to explore how we can construct a coherent scientific understanding of the meaning of resurrection against the evidence of orbital mechanics. Perhaps that effort will be a defining mark of our planetary transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius when some of these mental blockages will dissolve.
It is wrong to read Paul’s comments about resurrection as proposing a magical breaking of the laws of physics. The real ethical meaning of his intent can only be approached if all seemingly magical claims are understood as allegory for natural material science.
A great theme from the Gospels is that instinctive impulses are often destructive, and that society has to evolve to use our brains to order the world, creating a planetary civilization founded on love and truth. This evolutionary vision sees intelligence as the great adaptive trait of humanity that can enable us to live by grace. However, our world is mired in maladaptive fallen values that have strong potential to cause human extinction. The great cosmic war between good and evil requires the victory of intelligent spirit over stupid carnality to enable sustained human flourishing.Saint Paul wrote: 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Many who claim to be led by the Spirit of God deny information derived from scientific evidence. Such denial of science is incoherent and unsustainable. My view is that acceptance of a scientific worldview, with God as allegory for the laws of nature, is the key indicator for whether a person is actually led by what Paul calls the Spirit of God. Even so, a shift to a scientific reformed Christianity provides no reason to criticise popular traditional rituals and ceremonies of sacramental worship, which often have a deep mysterious adaptive reason that superficial atheism cannot see.Saint Paul wrote: 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
The real order of time is our guide and mentor, adopting us as its children. The laws of physics do not enslave us but enable us to find freedom in the recognition of necessity.Saint Paul wrote: 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
An heir inherits ownership of all the assets of the estate. The presence of God on our planet can be understood in terms of the ordered structure of time, a vision which flows consciously and unconsciously through into this myth of suffering and glory.Saint Paul wrote: 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
After seeing the insulting foolishness of some on this topic of precession and cosmology, and the indifferent and ignorant comments of others, I hesitate to discuss this scientific material in a way that would be like throwing pearls before swine. So I simply ask that people exercise some restraint before exposing their foolishness with ignorant comments about the following points, which emerge from a new theological paradigm. The core is how the orbital drivers of precession provide a purely scientific framework and template to understand such Christian ideas as the cycle of suffering and glory. This is a new paradigm for a reformed Christianity.
With this verse we are now approaching the sublime vision of Romans 8. This eschatological vision of fall and redemption points to a premillennial theory of time. The old myth of the cycle of gold and iron ages maps directly to the glacial cycle driven by orbital precession. The core here is how we can understand this vision today, not just to what extent Paul consciously intuited the real alignment between his vision and the actual natural cycle, which has a 21,600 year period whose low point, at the perihelion-December solstice conjunction, was in 1246 AD. So verse 18 aligns suffering to the descent to the low point of the climate cycle, and glory to the ascent towards the next golden age in ten thousand years time.Saint Paul wrote: 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
The slow millennial turning of time provides the context for cultural evolution, providing seismic physical drivers for politics and religion. The cosmic seasons of precession each last for about five thousand years, and are marked by the date of the perihelion, when earth is closest to the sun. The perihelion is now at about 3 January, advancing by a day every 59 years as explained at http://individual.utoronto.ca/kalendis/ ... htm#eccent This means we are in early cosmic winter, having traversed the cosmic fall over the five or so thousand years of known history.Saint Paul wrote: 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
While this orbital factor may seem small or obscure, the advance of the perihelion was the main force that created a wall of ice two miles high across America and Europe in the Ice Age. Paul’s concept of eager waiting for manifestation of God is best understood against this vision that just as the days grow longer from Christmas, so too the climate becomes more benign as the perihelion advances into January, providing the conditions to enable transformation from the ignorance of fall into what Paul will call glorious liberty.
There is a direct physical correlation between the long orbital cycle and the Christian eschatology of fall and redemption. Just as nature subjects the world to fall and winter each year, as a cycle of death, and to spring and summer as a cycle of life, the glacial cycle mirrors this pattern on millennial scale.Saint Paul wrote: 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
The vanity that Paul mentions here could be equated to the myth of technological progress, the vain idea that physical control delivers salvation. But the hope that Paul mentions recognises the illusion of vanity, and the need to embed our understanding of salvation in the real natural order.
This sublime verse, Romans 8:21, is the key to Paul’s vision of faith, hope and love. The bondage of corruption is the fall from grace, the cultural and spiritual impoverishment that has accompanied material progress, driven by the consolidation of metallic empires with the emergence of bronze and iron technology.Saint Paul wrote:21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
The glorious liberty of the children of God is the faithful hope that the cycle will turn towards a new cosmic summer, that the false promise of technology will be incorporated into a new enlightened spirituality. Paul’s eschatological vision here is entirely compatible with scientific knowledge.
A core theme is that Jesus Christ as Avatar of the Age of Pisces was a creature of human imagination as the myth of connection between time and eternity, responding to the bondage to decay with an ideal integrity. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ, presented here by Paul in terms of the glorious liberty of the children of God, can be understood scientifically against the orbital seasons, with Christ as Avatar of the Age of Aquarius, implementing in power the ethical values for which he was crucified and rose again in the imaginative myth of the dawn of the Age of Pisces.
The shift of Ages is likened by Paul to the pain of child birth. The old paradigm, which in Paul’s day was the prevailing ideologies from the Age of Aries, gives way to a new paradigm through a painful transformation, necessary for the creation of new life.Saint Paul wrote: 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
This same model of Age transition applies today with the dominant old ideologies that arose over the last two thousand years failing to comprehend the need for new ideas and new understanding of the essential meaning of things that the old age grasped as through a glass darkly.
The new ideas of an Aquarian Christianity prefigured by Saint Paul reflect a scientific understanding of the slow planetary cycles of transformation, and how culture can and must evolve to reveal the real meaning and purpose within the great ideas of the New Testament.