On Theology

Theology is what emerges after the witnesses are dead. It is a speculative framework that purports to make sense of otherwise incomprehensible, if not somewhat disturbing events, which are felt to be pregnant with meaning, but now the rational mind takes over to make sure that the meaning is edited to its liking. Thus theology about Jesus really starts with Paul who never actually met him in life at all, which is not to suggest that meeting him in person would be any guarantee for an understanding of him. But still, within the historical framework, it is clear that the Thomas Gospel is that last extant document which reflects only things Jesus said, although it may contain some embellishments. But, if it is 65% solid, as the edits of Pursah in Gary Renard's Your Immortal Reality suggest, it still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the New Testament literature, which is 90% anything but Jesus's words, and when it is, it probably is only 50% reliable.

Theology is thus on a macro level what we also do on a personal level, namely to take direct intuition, and clutter it up with rationalizations to the point that eventually it means something else, but somehow we convince ourselves that we should follow the rationalizations and not the intuition, and it takes us forever to find out that we ourselves are the architects of our own quandary, and if we had truly followed the pure intuition, we might not be in the predicament we find ourselves in at any particular point. The Course says about this "The Holy Spirit speaks to me throughout the day," (ACIM:W296), though it also says "Only very few can hear God's Voice at all." (ACIM:M12.3).

This constant ego-based temptation to mess up the present and give it a different spin is the real topic of Logion 52, where the disciples tell Jesus that 24 prophets in Israel have spoken of him, and he rebukes them that those prophets spoke of the dead, and so they're ignoring him who is standing in front of them in the present. In short again, we drag in our interpretations and projections from the (ego-)past, and thereby we clutter up the opportunity we have in the present to make what in the ACIM context is the choice for "another way." In everything the "monkey mind" has to say, the now is obfuscated by its projections and rationalizations, and it ends up just like it did with Jesus in the New Testament, that he does not get any say in saying what it is he said. It's other people telling him what he said, just like in the clutter of the mind, we obliterate the authentic inspiration with our own ego thoughts. In short our ego invariably clutters up the present with the past, and thereby insures that the future will be a rerun of the same old ego soap opera:

    The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must escape. They are not real, and have no hold over you unless you bring them with you. They carry the spots of pain in your mind, directing you to attack in the present in retaliation for a past that is no more. And this decision is one of future pain. Unless you learn that past pain is an illusion, you are choosing a future of illusions and losing the many opportunities you could find for release in the present. The ego would preserve your nightmares, and prevent you from awakening and understanding they are past. Would you recognize a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past? For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning. (ACIM:T-13.IV.6)

The healing of this tendency is stated in Miracle Principle 13:

    Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future. (ACIM:T-1.I.13)