Christian Relaunch

God turns his foes into friends by realigning them toward our proper goal.

As mentioned earlier, a consequence of humanity's defection was that in the natural course of events none of us would ever adopt the alignment needed for our fulfillment.

So there is no hope for man from man, and despair may seem appropriate.

But I think there are at least two grounds for hope.

1. Reason. As mentioned earlier (in "Creation"), God is always responding creatively to all that occurs both within and around us. It strikes me as implausible that he would abandon mankind.

"But if there are other selfkinds out there, as you have admitted is possible, God could abandon us and still achieve his purposes. To him the exact number of selfkinds that reach fulfillment is probably just a minor detail.|"

God can accept the kind of detours introduced by our defection, but that is because the exact route to fulfillment was always flexible. I doubt that the same applies to the number of selfkinds, a number specifically set by God, given (as argued in "Creation") that a selfkind cannot arise by chance

2. History. The Tanakh tells of various friends of God, and the New Testament and subsequent history tell of more.

For details see Realignment in History.

These considerations support my belief that God makes his foes his friends by realigning them toward our proper goal.

The beliefs contained in the first two Sections of this creed might possibly be held by someone unaware of the relevant history, and some of them may seem precariously speculative. This one, or at least its form, arises mainly from history. I stated the diagnosis (the human problem) before mentioning the prescription (the divine solution), but historically the diagnosis only arose in conjunction with experience of the prescription, and has never persisted apart from it. This is because in practice admitting the diagnosis, and accepting the prescription, are parts of a single choice; I have never heard of anyone seriously accepting the diagnosis while rejecting the prescription, except in a conversion crisis, and sincerely to persist in such a position is probably psychically impossible, entailing a suicidal level of despair.

"If God had really been acting as you claim, history would not be the series of disasters it still is."

The explanation is that most selves are still wicked. See the next Phase of this Section of the Creed.

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