Practical knowledge of features - such as lying

I'm not picking on anybody in this post who knows me by my writings or who has had exchanges with me. I'm just making a general statement. Extra-biblical teachings. I get hammered by the usual suspects who think everything is evil that isn't a Reformed confession or the Bible itself. Obviously this is a shallow stance (and pious, and, in fact, man fearing).

Let's take one big subject: features. Features of our fallen nature, and features of a regenerated and restored to an unburied, undistorted image of God nature.

You're just screwing around as a Christian if you stay ignorant of these basic features. If you allow them to stay in the dark they maintain their control over you by default. Systematic theology doesn't go into such things. You can't find a mainstream Christian work that will get down to the practical level and identify and describe these features for you.

You can find extra-biblical sources that will do it though.

How does the Holy Spirit teach? Only via the actual word of God? Then throw out your commentaries and systematic theologies! Right? Right.

The Holy Spirit teaches through general revelation as well as special revelation; and through languages contained in disciplines that are extra-biblical like science, and visual art, and philosophy, and imaginative literature, and history, and music, and any other influence He chooses to teach through. Because it's not special revelation it will be mixtures of wheat and chaff, but that is why the Holy Spirit gives us by degree the ability to discern wheat from chaff. I say 'by degree' because progressive sanctification is a work in progress. We're not made perfect and complete by fiat.

So back to features. What is a basic feature of our fallen nature? How about lying? Yes, that's a basic one. But what do you really know about lying? If all you know is the moralistic stance that lying is not good then you don't know much. The feature called 'lying' has control of you because you don't know it, haven't observed it in yourself, haven't shined light on it, don't know how big or multifarious it is as a phenomenon. And you can't observe it in yourself if you don't have a language to identify it.

Here are some different categories of lying:

1. "No, I didn't get into Dad's favorite cookies." Yet you did, therefore you just told a lie. People's knowledge of lying pretty much ends there. Maybe they have more subtle knowledge such that some lies are 'OK', like, "Yes, honey, you look fabulous in those jeans."

Here are some categories of lying people have no knowledge of and hence practice them with impunity as far as their conscience is concerned:

2. Talking about things when you have little or no understanding of what you are talking about. Everybody does this. It's a form of lying. Though it's not recognized as lying.

3. Inner contradictions in us like when we convince ourselves we are one thing when our actions give us away as being something entirely different. We can see this in other people more easily. It's a form of lying. We don't think of it as lying, yet it is. Lawyers often think of themselves as, and proclaim themselves to be, truth tellers (truth tellers of society!), and often are the most lying bastards that ever draw breath. We have to see such contradictions in ourselves because they are there. "I'm a nice person. I'm not bragging, but I've just always been aware of myself as being nice to other people." Yes, tell that to your female acquaintance that you knifed in the heart that time when you pointed out that she has short legs. That wasn't so nice, now was it?

(It's hard to see this category of lying in ourselves. To do it we have to use the external world as a mirror. We have to make a conscious effort to: see in ourselves what we dislike in others. Because what you tend to hate, or just not like, in other people is often a feature that you have and manifest yourself, but that you are blind to in yourself. It's not always the case, but it's a good clue and worth investigating. It gives you subject matter for self-observation. If you value such an endeavor.)

4. Deep, foundational lies such as thinking you are awake when in fact you are walking around dead asleep in life. (Most everybody thinks they are awake. Especially if you bring the subject up to them. Walk away and they fall back into deep identification with their thoughts and their environment. That word 'identification' is an example of a unique language needed to see such features. I'm not really presenting such a language here, so I can't go into definitions.)

Anyway, see how that feature of our fallen nature - lying - is more deep and multifarious than we ever knew?

Lying is also tied to conscience. At the fall our conscience became buried. By degree, more buried in some people than others, but basically pretty buried for most everybody. It's still there, just buried. As our conscience starts to become unburied we start to see things like lying in ourselves and our behavior. Like when we are talking about something that we don't really know much about, and we pause, kind of look away, and say, "But, actually, I don't really know a lot about that subject." That is conscience making an appearance.

Or, when we see somebody do or say something that really upsets us, or outrages us, or annoys us, and we pause and actually have the thought that we do that very same thing. Or have done it. That is a person whose conscience is becoming unburied, by degree. A person who is also awakening somewhat as well.

So, features. Lying is a feature. A feature of our fallen nature. And we have to know it, see it in all its manifestations and categories, so that we can observe it in ourselves. We have to know the language of lying, so to speak. And we have to have a source for that language. This is what I'm talking about with extra-biblical influences. The Holy Spirit would teach on such a subject, if we are able to be led by the Holy Spirit. And He would direct us to a source for learning such a thing.

I learned about lying from Fourth Way material. Or the language of the Work, mainly in the books by Ouspensky. Now, is that a source that is all wheat and no chaff? As stated above, only special revelation is all wheat and no chaff (especially if you are reading the King James Version, and I'm not kidding). But we don't draw back from everything because there is chaff in it. Here's a good rule too: learn what you can from everything; join nothing.