Things Coming to a Point

“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”

His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
“I mean this,” said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.”

I am sure most readers of this blog will be familiar with these words from C.S. Lewis, one of the wisest men of the last century and a prophet for these times. They are in his novel That Hideous Strength which is a better book than either Brave New World or 1984 though not nearly as celebrated, very probably because it is a Christian book. I compare it with those two as it covers similar terrain. If you haven't read it you need to do so as soon as possible. It will help you make sense of the present time.

Bruce Charlton often mentions the idea of things coming to point. What this means is that good and bad, moral white and black, become more separated and there is no neutral ground between them, no grey areas which one might suppose that at one time there were. There never were really but the splitting apart becomes more obvious as the End Times gathers pace. The good and the bad become more clearly delineated and you have to make an active choice. Sitting on the fence is no longer possible. The last 18 months have seen a dramatic intensification of that process. Things that you might have thought were on one side are now revealed as being on the other side. These things include all ideologies associated with what we call leftism which might at one time have seemed 'progressive' meaning tending towards the evolution of the human being but are now more easily seen as destructive of a true spiritual consciousness. Those who are more attached to the destructive aspects of leftism (even if they call these humanistic) will stay with it and put themselves in the camp of the demons. Those who really are interested in a spiritual consciousness will now have to reject all aspects of leftism and that will be hard for many people because these have seemed to be on the side of the good for a long while to those who lack proper spiritual discernment. You are going to have to admit you have been duped. This will require a large dose of humility because you will have to confront the fact that what attracted you to the leftist position was actually part of the old unregenerate fallen man. It was your egotism. If you are a man you are going to have to bow your head to God and accept you are a sinner. If you are a woman you are going to have to reject feminism, Satan's most recent temptation to the female sex,  and that is going to be tough. Your apparent ticket to freedom and fulfilment is actually a deep and dark curse. You ate the apple because it was sweet but it is really poisonous.

Now is the time that good and bad are drawing apart but this will only be apparent to those who have good within them. If you don't have that you are going to be in trouble because that is what this is all about. It's to draw out the good in those in whom it is present and reveal the evil in those who gravitate more naturally to that. The position to take won't be obvious to the earthly mind, the mind corrupted by 3 centuries of atheism and materialism and the teaching of dark prophets from Marx to Freud and including many of the famous names in all fields of human endeavour over the last couple of centuries. In a way the odds are stacked against you because most of your modern education and cultural influences have been on the wrong side. But you have the light of God within you and if you are faithful to the truth that light will illumine your mind and release you from the evil influences that are so prevalent. Besides, there are good influences too and C.S Lewis was a major one. Above all stands the figure of Christ.

Unfortunately, however, in the world today the evil influences are rampant. One might even say they are triumphant and all the more so since totally unrecognised by the majority. I say they are unrecognised because most people don't know what evil actually is. In fact, it's very simple. Evil is that which separates from God. It does this either by denying him outright or by deforming him as in religion which submits to the world or by encouraging the breaking or transgressing of the laws of creation. Now can you see how we live in a world of evil?

To speak of things coming to a point and of the gap between good and evil widening to such a degree  that there are sheep and there are goats depending on which side you fall might lead to an accusation that I am demonising those who don't agree with me, and look where that has got us in the past. But I am not demonising anybody. The truth is those who fail to reject evil and embrace spiritual good are demonising themselves. Possibly quite literally in some cases. Anyway, the point is there is good and there is evil and they have to do with an acknowledgement in the heart or lack of it of God, your Creator. The bad news is you can make the wrong choice because there is nothing that is going to force your hand. It's a test of your inner integrity, your spiritual authenticity. The good news is that your choice, if it's the worldly one, is not set in stone as it now stands. You can turn to God at any time as long as you do so sincerely. Of course, in terms of behaviour, you will still stumble and even fall many times but what matters above all now is the direction of your heart. The needle must point due north to God.