You Shall Look At The Sun
And You Shall Not Squint
The saint and Lucifer are the same. But first we must search out why God created at all. We believe that God created the world for His glory. It is common today to explain that in terms of love. God created because He desired a creature to share His love which is within the Godhead from all eternity. Of course I do not deny any of this but if God wished to share His love because it was somehow lacking then I reject it. God did not need nor want to share love in order to fulfill the love within the Trinity. If He did this would indicate something lacking in Him.
Perhaps He created humans with something of a sport in mind as well. It is said that heaven is the ever ascending of man from glory to glory. Further up and further in. A searching out.
What if it was conquest instead? For a good while now the church has had a backlash against the saint who is otherworldly. Who climbs the tower to pray. It has replaced it with the saint who is incredibly concerned with brushing their teeth as an act of prayer. I do not disagree in the slightest. Yet I cannot but help think that humans were made for acts of wonder. To conquer the sky.
This is my point. Lucifer was created for a similar goal as humans. We are to take God’s throne from Him. Imitate Him until we take over Him. This is the conquest of heaven or the sky that Emil Cioran talks about and I have referenced before.
The ancient myths of the overthrow of the Father God by the lesser god is Lucifer’s propaganda but it gets at the point of his existence. Lucifer did not win in his heavenly rebellion, nor did any of the other angels. They attempted to take God’s throne as God purposed but at their first defeat they learned to sulk. They rejected the game.
The saint never rejects the game. He is all too willing to continue the conquest into eternity. Vying for God’s throne, always conceding the defeat, yet always trying again. Not out of malice but sport. Like attempting to capture the flag.
There are many tools which the saint can use to conquer the sky. Earthly war does not tend upwards but rather downwards, bringing a certain order from above to earth but it is extremely corrupt. There is physical fitness and sports, rewarded with a gold piece from the throne. Which is of some value but still trains in righteousness (1 Timothy 4: 8). Asceticism which is of no value (Colossians 2:16-23) when the throne is not in view (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
And suffering which produces glory.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. - Romans 8:17
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him. - Philippians 3:10
All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. - 2 Thessalonians 1:15
For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. - 1 Peter 2:9
But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. - 1 Peter 4:13
Suffering is of course the main tool on which Cioran focuses. But that is for this world. What will the conquest of heaven look like in a renewed earth that is physical but has no suffering? Will we be subject to an eternity of “tiny moments” theology? We simply cannot know. Yet the game will remain.