By over cultivating his intellect man opposed God’s Ordinance and cut
himself off from his own home which is Paradise. He became arrogant despite his
narrowed horizon and put himself in danger of being totally lost in the world.
As a prey to the serpent which means intellectual cleverness, man put himself
in danger of death! Death in this context however is not the physical death but
eternal damnation!
The placing of the intellect above the spirit meant that man chained
himself to earthly things. Please note: the intellect is a product of the brain
which belongs to the perishable human body. It understands the things of this
world and can greatly excel in it. The buildings, technological achievements
and many things that make life on earth agreeable are achievements of the
intellect. The intellect actually is a good servant if it is placed under the
supervision of the spirit. The Wise Order of Creation is that the spirit leads
and decides while the intellect implements and carries out the wishes of the spirit.
But where all decisions are left to the intellect, then the flesh is the one in
control and not the spirit. As such, all the desires of the flesh which is dust
will then be in the fore front. Acquisitiveness, lustfulness, envy, fraud and
deception, hatred and murder are just some of the evil consequences. Placing the intellect as ruler and
suppressing the spirit was the fall of man!
The effect of this fall of man over the centuries simply made man to go
astray and remain in the firm hold of the darkness. A major effect is that all
helps and warnings through teachers and prophets remain unheeded. When special
Truth bringers came to the earth, not many accept them.
Among such teachers are Moses and the great prophets that helped the
Israelites. Krishna and Buddha helped in India; Zoroaster worked in Iran,
Lao-Tse in China, and Mohammed in Arabia. Their teachings were adapted to the
perceptive capacity of the peoples to whom they were sent and they have the
goal of guiding these races from one stage to the next higher stage of the
recognition of God right to the last stage of the worship of God through the
deed!
Many matured human spirits were also permitted to assist in the earthly
and spiritual perfecting, in all spheres of life. Yet men gave little thanks to
their Creator for all these helps. Almost invariably the teachings were
distorted soon after the death of the bringer, to suit men’s selfish wishes.
False teachers and prophets also came, who took advantage of the spiritual
indolence of many and offered them their own easy teachings, in order to attain
earthly power and fame.
It is on record for example, that as soon as Moses went up to receive the
Commandments of God, the people had already constructed a golden calf for
themselves, dancing around it in worship. This led to the breaking of the
Tablets containing the Commandments: a living symbol that humanity does not
deserve the help that was being afforded them at that point.
In Part VII we will look at how
the tyranny of the human intellect affected the dissemination of the Message of
Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment