If we Christians do not view paganism rightly, to see the truths it contains in its higher forms and to see why it fails to ascend to the true God, we will fail to understand ourselves, fail to understand God in His transcendance and immanance, and also fail to see the re-paganization of the world that is currently going on. This re-paganization is occurring even in enclaves of Christianity, including some which seem at first sight to be revivals of traditional forms of Christianity. As one example, I read in “Salt of the Earth”, a collection of interviews from the mid 1990s with the then Cardinal Ratzinger, that he felt “a new ‘angel craze’…comes to us from outside the Church and is fraught with a lot of dubious things.” I would claim those dubious things come from a revival of forms of paganism which are not even ‘higher paganism’ — such as the pagan theologies/philosophies of Plato or Aristotle. Rather does the current revival of respect for angels come from an anti-rational form of paganism in which God has retreated from His own Creation and is seen as a Magician who sends lesser magicians to carry out acts in violation of the rules and laws of this world, a world which consequently has become somewhat independent of this God who needs magic and also needs those lesser magicians to gain control over it. That’s a mouthful and this discussion will be a bit longish.
This discussion will take place over 3 future blog entries:
1. The Truths Which are in Higher Paganism;
2. The Falsehoods Which are in All Forms of Paganism;
3. The God of Jesus Christ: Transcendent God and Immanent
Creator.