Integral aperspectival cognition

Integral aperspectival cognition

When Prophecy Fails...

St. Paul, I Corinthians 13:8,9

"Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part."

Indeed, it is only when prophecy fails, that true spirituality begins. Most prophecies eventually fail, when taken in a strictly literal sense.

The early Christians considered it clear that Christ literally prophesied that He would return again before one generation completely passed away, as it seems to say in the Gospels; that the end times would come while some of those present in Jesus’ lifetime were still living.

How could it be different? There are, always, an infinity of real futures; different quantum outcomes from the same starting point. In some of those real futures, Christ may have actually returned in the clouds during what we call the first century A.D.

But when prophecy fails, then a religious group can turn from literal, physical, dogmatic interpretations and understandings of their Faith, to spiritual, symbolic, real and ultimately more meaningful understandings and interpretations. By spiritualizing apparent failure, growth occurs.

Although the literal, physical understandings of ancient Jewish prophecy concerning the Messiah were not literally fulfilled, Jesus of Nazareth was able to spiritualize, re-interpret, and infinitely enhance those very same prophecies. Similar examples can be found in the other Great Faiths of the world.

Perhaps this same principle can be applied to other human endeavors besides religion. When humans strive mightily to build a meaningful and important outcome, failure should not be the end; rather, failure must, and can be, transformed into a higher level success.

From a higher level point of view, the real significance of prophecy is in that it expresses the essential structures of spacetimes, the underlying hidden tendencies, similarities, and meanings behind the scenes which make history meaningful. Thus can otherwise failed prophecies be sublimated into symbolic systems of far greater value; for, after all, a literally fulfilled prophecy in one spacetime is of only limited, contingent value.

Whereas, a sublimated prophecy can become a transcendant symbolic system f or future generations and a transmitted meme for future, even higher level sublimation.