This may seem like something my colleague, Alexios Fidei, would write, but in fact this is very controversial to Alexios, especially about my what he called 'over-simplification' of evangelism and faith. He thinks that faith should not be reduced to a mechanism or hierarchical levels, but anyway this is my views, Severinus de Psedosolipsist's views as a 'heterodox' Christian.
There are three things that people want to spread in this world, their faith i.e. their personal relation to God, their philosophy, which includes their metaphysical beliefs, ethics and political ideals, and they want to spread themselves, i.e. their seeds and genes or names to "live forever".
These three things reside in three levels, at the top faith, then philosophy, and at the bottom themselves. These three levels are connected in many ways and their order are non-switchable.
First, one who has attained the ability to will to spread the higher levels can attain the levels bellow it. One who has faith can spread faith and his philosophy and himself. One who has not attained faith can only spread his philosophy and himself. One who do not think about anything and void of any personally serious-held beliefs, only can and only want to spread himself.
The relation described above is caused by this, the object of each levels have different distances to the man. The lowest level only has himself as the object, he need not reach for anything. The second level has ideas which he created/discovered which is within his grasp and this requires an effort in his part. The highest level can only be attained through a truly relational personal connection to God, he needs to focus on another person, God. This is why it is very easy to find those people who wants to spread their seeds to everyone. It is harder to see people who truly want others to adopt his beliefs. And harder still to find those who wants to spread the good news of God.
The next relation between the levels is that each level can be expressed by a perversion of the higher levels, this is wrong. This is usually the case when one has not attained the higher levels and yet try imitate them. When one has only reached the second level, he can "spread his faith" by spreading his own idea of God for the sake of the idea alone and not bringing people to God. This purely idea God without the person is the imitation of God, sometimes they use the word life force or the personified 'universe'. When one is at the lowest level, one can spread his bogus ideas just to be famous so his name stays forever or worse start a cult or a religious movement for his own glory or even worse so that he can spread his seeds. Or spread his interpretation of God for his own fame, a less dramatic scenario. This is the perversions and can be seen quite easily seen in this present age. This upward arrow, the bottom becomes the motivation for the imitations of the higher levels, is the corruption of the true relation, the higher should be the motivation for the bottom.
A person who has a personal relation to the Divine, will want to spread his understanding of God so that others can draw close to God. He will want to spread his ethics, which is in the second level, not only for the sake of the ethical idea alone but so that people will be right with God. And to fulfill God's commandment he would want to be fruitful and multiply, some would want to (i have nothing against voluntary celibacy). And some would want others to know them so that others can know God, the bottom level. This is the correct arrow, the downward arrow.
Lastly the levels illustrate how much caution should be given when spreading each levels. At the highest level, faith should be spread to anyone, without any exception. Everyone should hear the good news of God. The second level should be approached with more caution. One cannot spread his philosophical beliefs indiscriminately, as this can harm one's chances to know God as our philosophical views may not be correct and may be too harsh to some. The last part needs extra caution, one can only produce offspring within the institution of marriage and one should be wary of making his name known to the world.
To add-on the higher levels can be attained without the lower levels. An the highest level, by the grace of God, can be attained by anyone.
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