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3.30.2006

The 3 means of grace

When you read good systematic theologians you see how confused and sloppy doctrine is regarding the two sacraments. They don't, basically, know what to make of them. This is not even mentioning something like speaking in tongues.

Actually, the sacraments only usually become a way for the devil to control churches and people via priest-craft. The early Reformers like Zwingli (not to mention the anabaptists) basically saw nothing useful in the rituals of the sacraments.

But if you know the practical level teaching it becomes clearer. The theologians talk of the three means of grace: the Word of God, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. That corresponds to knowledge and the two conscious shocks. Specifically: Work (or 'school') knowledge and the two conscious shocks.

And tongues is just language. Learning a new language. Not a worldly language, but the language of Man #5 and higher. This is what tongues, and speaking in tongues once you are filled with the Holy Spirit, symbolically refers to.

Theologians don't know what to make of the biblical doctrine of speaking in tongues. They mostly avoid it altogether (that is, the more orthodox ones do).

Some theologians include prayer with the Word of God and the two sacraments as a means of grace, but if you include prayer why not include fasting as well? Jesus put the two together. The fact is, though, prayer and fasting correspond to the two conscious shocks as well. Just as the two great commandments (love God and love your neighbor as yourself) do in their own way as well.

So it's three means of grace, ultimately. At the practical level it's the Word of God (including the practical level teaching of that Word called the Work) and it's the two conscious shocks (self-remembering and non-identifying, also called conscious labor and intentional suffering). These are the means of grace. And here is where a person who knows the Work has clarity on something the church level is really, without overstating it, grossly confused and wallowing in nonsense regarding.

Posted by c.t. at 18:07