Romans 8 is one of my favourite chapters in the Bible. I was first introduced to it by a theologian who read verse 21 as an ecological hymn. Here I work through my understanding verse by verse.

Saint Paul wrote:Romans 8 King James Version (KJV)
8 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos. Spirit represents the regularity of the cosmos in the orderly movement of the heavens, while flesh is the carnal world of desire with its arbitrary risks, errors and dangers.

Saint Paul wrote: 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

The heuristic applied in an astrotheological reading of the Bible is to understand Jesus Christ as an anthropomorphisation of the sun, taking the real attributes observed in the physical star and applying them to an idealised human being in order to humanise these invincible forces and give them ethical meaning and purpose.

The sun provides the actual law of life in its three regular motions of the day, the year and the great year, as Copernicus observed, and as the Gnostic inventors of the Christ myth must have understood. Paul’s vision of Christ here reflects a conscious or unconscious vision of the sun as the source of light and life and grace.

My view, following Pagels, is that Paul had some grasp of the allegory as the real driving impetus in his letters, but carefully concealed this knowledge to make his message palatable to a mass audience. In any event, reading Romans today it makes sense to read salvation in terms of natural scientific understanding. The laws of science can free us from destruction if we understand and apply them within a spiritual ethical framework.

Saint Paul wrote: 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

The great Christological theme here is the connection between time and eternity. Flesh represents the illusory nature of time in surface appearance, while Spirit is eternal truth, revealed in objective knowledge.

By living according to knowledge or Gnosis, we base our ethical values on evidence and logic, and are freed from the corruption and depravity that arise from accepting emotional instinct as the guide to decisions. Astronomy is at the foundation of a logical worldview, and therefore at the foundation of what Paul calls life that walks in the Spirit.

Saint Paul wrote: 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Achieving spiritual peace arises from understanding scientific order as the basis of life. I think it is important to note here that false belief, such as belief in miraculous superstitions, is a source of delusion and suffering and should be devalued as carnal.

Saint Paul wrote: 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

All disorderly thinking and values causes suffering and destruction, ranging from direct illegality to morally repugnant beliefs, which should include delusory superstition.

Saint Paul wrote: 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Understanding God as primarily revealed in natural order, we can consider either the orthodox panentheist idea that God is extrinsic to nature, or the heretical pantheist view that God is intrinsic to nature. Either way, alignment to natural order is essential to what Paul here calls pleasing God.

Saint Paul wrote: 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

The great wonder of language, our ability to represent reality in symbol, is the foundation of the idea that man is made in the image of God. Spirit is revealed in words that mirror nature. Knowledge enables humans to conquer base instincts and order society on the basis of reason. The great reason of the cosmos has its sublime expression in astronomy.

Saint Paul wrote: Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Traditionally, in the Tulip theology of the five points of Calvinism, this verse supports the doctrine that Christ’s work of atonement is limited to believers. And yet, a more complex idea of the meaning of atonement and redemption against a purely scientific materialist understanding can read this verse against a universal potential to see how our limited temporal lives form part of a vast cosmic order. Astrotheologically, Christ as the sun provides the point of connection to the real order of the cosmos, so Paul’s statement becomes a literal observation that denial of natural order leads to extinction. This observation provides a foundation for a theology of climate change.

Saint Paul wrote: 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Science has a natural righteousness, even if that word sits uncomfortably against a liberal relativism. The only way to ground such a zealous term in a coherent vision of the public good is to establish clear logical evidentiary links to the actual order of nature which serves as the template and horizon for ethical values. This link to nature and especially the sun is where Christianity is morally superior to Islam – Christianity can be grounded in science whereas Islam lacks such an encompassing evidentiary meaning.

Saint Paul wrote: 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The astral allegory of resurrection has a direct correlation to the day, the year and the great year, with their natural orbital cycles of light and dark. It is noteworthy here that the orbital insolation cycle of precession is key to the scientific structure of terrestrial time, but understanding of it is extremely rare.

My experience is that few people have the patience or interest to explore how we can construct a coherent scientific understanding of the meaning of resurrection against the evidence of orbital mechanics. Perhaps that effort will be a defining mark of our planetary transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius when some of these mental blockages will dissolve.

It is wrong to read Paul’s comments about resurrection as proposing a magical breaking of the laws of physics. The real ethical meaning of his intent can only be approached if all seemingly magical claims are understood as allegory for natural material science.

Saint Paul wrote: 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

A great theme from the Gospels is that instinctive impulses are often destructive, and that society has to evolve to use our brains to order the world, creating a planetary civilization founded on love and truth. This evolutionary vision sees intelligence as the great adaptive trait of humanity that can enable us to live by grace. However, our world is mired in maladaptive fallen values that have strong potential to cause human extinction. The great cosmic war between good and evil requires the victory of intelligent spirit over stupid carnality to enable sustained human flourishing.

Saint Paul wrote: 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Many who claim to be led by the Spirit of God deny information derived from scientific evidence. Such denial of science is incoherent and unsustainable. My view is that acceptance of a scientific worldview, with God as allegory for the laws of nature, is the key indicator for whether a person is actually led by what Paul calls the Spirit of God. Even so, a shift to a scientific reformed Christianity provides no reason to criticise popular traditional rituals and ceremonies of sacramental worship, which often have a deep mysterious adaptive reason that superficial atheism cannot see.

Saint Paul wrote: 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The real order of time is our guide and mentor, adopting us as its children. The laws of physics do not enslave us but enable us to find freedom in the recognition of necessity.

Saint Paul wrote: 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

An heir inherits ownership of all the assets of the estate. The presence of God on our planet can be understood in terms of the ordered structure of time, a vision which flows consciously and unconsciously through into this myth of suffering and glory.

After seeing the insulting foolishness of some on this topic of precession and cosmology, and the indifferent and ignorant comments of others, I hesitate to discuss this scientific material in a way that would be like throwing pearls before swine. So I simply ask that people exercise some restraint before exposing their foolishness with ignorant comments about the following points, which emerge from a new theological paradigm. The core is how the orbital drivers of precession provide a purely scientific framework and template to understand such Christian ideas as the cycle of suffering and glory. This is a new paradigm for a reformed Christianity.

Saint Paul wrote: 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

With this verse we are now approaching the sublime vision of Romans 8. This eschatological vision of fall and redemption points to a premillennial theory of time. The old myth of the cycle of gold and iron ages maps directly to the glacial cycle driven by orbital precession. The core here is how we can understand this vision today, not just to what extent Paul consciously intuited the real alignment between his vision and the actual natural cycle, which has a 21,600 year period whose low point, at the perihelion-December solstice conjunction, was in 1246 AD. So verse 18 aligns suffering to the descent to the low point of the climate cycle, and glory to the ascent towards the next golden age in ten thousand years time.

Saint Paul wrote: 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

The slow millennial turning of time provides the context for cultural evolution, providing seismic physical drivers for politics and religion. The cosmic seasons of precession each last for about five thousand years, and are marked by the date of the perihelion, when earth is closest to the sun. The perihelion is now at about 3 January, advancing by a day every 59 years as explained at http://individual.utoronto.ca/kalendis/ ... htm#eccent This means we are in early cosmic winter, having traversed the cosmic fall over the five or so thousand years of known history.

While this orbital factor may seem small or obscure, the advance of the perihelion was the main force that created a wall of ice two miles high across America and Europe in the Ice Age. Paul’s concept of eager waiting for manifestation of God is best understood against this vision that just as the days grow longer from Christmas, so too the climate becomes more benign as the perihelion advances into January, providing the conditions to enable transformation from the ignorance of fall into what Paul will call glorious liberty.

Saint Paul wrote: 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

There is a direct physical correlation between the long orbital cycle and the Christian eschatology of fall and redemption. Just as nature subjects the world to fall and winter each year, as a cycle of death, and to spring and summer as a cycle of life, the glacial cycle mirrors this pattern on millennial scale.

The vanity that Paul mentions here could be equated to the myth of technological progress, the vain idea that physical control delivers salvation. But the hope that Paul mentions recognises the illusion of vanity, and the need to embed our understanding of salvation in the real natural order.

Saint Paul wrote:21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

This sublime verse, Romans 8:21, is the key to Paul’s vision of faith, hope and love. The bondage of corruption is the fall from grace, the cultural and spiritual impoverishment that has accompanied material progress, driven by the consolidation of metallic empires with the emergence of bronze and iron technology.

The glorious liberty of the children of God is the faithful hope that the cycle will turn towards a new cosmic summer, that the false promise of technology will be incorporated into a new enlightened spirituality. Paul’s eschatological vision here is entirely compatible with scientific knowledge.

A core theme is that Jesus Christ as Avatar of the Age of Pisces was a creature of human imagination as the myth of connection between time and eternity, responding to the bondage to decay with an ideal integrity. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ, presented here by Paul in terms of the glorious liberty of the children of God, can be understood scientifically against the orbital seasons, with Christ as Avatar of the Age of Aquarius, implementing in power the ethical values for which he was crucified and rose again in the imaginative myth of the dawn of the Age of Pisces.

Saint Paul wrote: 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

The shift of Ages is likened by Paul to the pain of child birth. The old paradigm, which in Paul’s day was the prevailing ideologies from the Age of Aries, gives way to a new paradigm through a painful transformation, necessary for the creation of new life.

This same model of Age transition applies today with the dominant old ideologies that arose over the last two thousand years failing to comprehend the need for new ideas and new understanding of the essential meaning of things that the old age grasped as through a glass darkly.

The new ideas of an Aquarian Christianity prefigured by Saint Paul reflect a scientific understanding of the slow planetary cycles of transformation, and how culture can and must evolve to reveal the real meaning and purpose within the great ideas of the New Testament.

Fine, you are unusually creative and imaginative, Robert, gifted in that area, in fact. But what I've always wondered is whether you recognize any difference between "can be readily understood," i.e., your own vision of things, and a claim of what should be binding for all. Idiosyncrasy is what I see, rather than striking universality. I'm reminded of Keats' phrase "the egotistical sublime," referring to certain writers, such as Wordsworth and Milton, who cast their viewpoint onto the world, rather than more disinterestedly reporting on it, as Shakespeare did. Before you bristle at "egotistical," note also the word "sublime."

Robert Tulip wrote:Saint Paul wrote:
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.


The heuristic applied in an astrotheological reading of the Bible is to understand Jesus Christ as an anthropomorphisation of the sun, taking the real attributes observed in the physical star and applying them to an idealised human being in order to humanise these invincible forces and give them ethical meaning and purpose.

The sun provides the actual law of life in its three regular motions of the day, the year and the great year, as Copernicus observed, and as the Gnostic inventors of the Christ myth must have understood. Paul’s vision of Christ here reflects a conscious or unconscious vision of the sun as the source of light and life and grace.

My view, following Pagels, is that Paul had some grasp of the allegory as the real driving impetus in his letters, but carefully concealed this knowledge to make his message palatable to a mass audience. In any event, reading Romans today it makes sense to read salvation in terms of natural scientific understanding. The laws of science can free us from destruction if we understand and apply them within a spiritual ethical framework.

Robert here crystallizes his view in saying;" Paul's vision of Christ here reflects a conscious or unconscious vision of the sun as the source of of light and life and grace."
If it was an unconscious vision how would he even know to "carefully conceal this knowledge"? This "careful concealing" includes making an emphatic distinction between the creator and the creation as in chapter1 and also the reference to the "creation" in this chapter.
Further "concealment" is found in his reference in chapter 1 to Christ as being "of the seed of David,according to the flesh",and in the very next chapter of this book referring to the Israelites, of whom he says: "Theirs are the patriarchs,and from them is traced the human ancestry of the messiah,who is God over all blessed forever."
He distinguishes between the creator and the sun and refers to Christ as being of human descent which is antithetical to a mythical being based on the sun.

Chapter 8 is a culmination and conclusion from the previous chapters dealing with the universality of sin and death and a just basis for reconciliation and justification by faith in the atonement of Christ.
In fact we would have to say if Robert's thesis is correct,that Paul deliberately deceived everyone about his theme and subject matter since it is so clear and logically developed.
So now it's just some mythicists who possess the golden key to unlock what he was really saying, which is of the redemptive power of science ethically applied for our "salvation".
Robert thinks this is all allegory yet Paul in Galations for instance, clearly distinguishes allegory from his to be understood as non allegorical teaching.
There's no cure for this though, since the thesis prevents the obvious meaning of the texts getting in the way of their supposed "real" meaning disclosed to the latter day "elite initiates".

"My view, following Pagels, is that Paul had some grasp of the allegory as the real driving impetus in his letters, but carefully concealed this knowledge"

Evidence for this concealment conspiracy theory?

"So now it's just some mythicists who possess the golden key to unlock what he was really saying, which is of the redemptive power of science ethically applied for our "salvation"

Actually thats a perfect example of promoting science as a religion - the one true religion that eclipses another religion. Sort of a parasite being introduced.

Am i the only one creeped out by this??

ant wrote:"So now it's just some mythicists who possess the golden key to unlock what he was really saying, which is of the redemptive power of science ethically applied for our "salvation"

Actually thats a perfect example of promoting science as a religion - the one true religion that eclipses another religion. Sort of a parasite being introduced.

J.P.Holding in the article I linked on the myth thread shows the absurdity of astro-theology in such as Cancer the crab "calming the seas" and many other similar nonsensical applications of the theory.
So he becomes in Robert's world the anti-scientist as opposed to anti-Christ even though it's all patent nonsense.
He may be a Christian apologist but it's the astro-theologians who need to apologise for asking us to take their conspiracy theories,rewrites of history and wacky interpretations seriously.

DWill wrote:Fine, you are unusually creative and imaginative, Robert, gifted in that area, in fact. But what I've always wondered is whether you recognize any difference between "can be readily understood," i.e., your own vision of things, and a claim of what should be binding for all. Idiosyncrasy is what I see, rather than striking universality. I'm reminded of Keats' phrase "the egotistical sublime," referring to certain writers, such as Wordsworth and Milton, who cast their viewpoint onto the world, rather than more disinterestedly reporting on it, as Shakespeare did. Before you bristle at "egotistical," note also the word "sublime."

I said “This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos.”

This strikes me as a simple claim, that life governed by the spirit is orderly while life governed by the flesh is chaotic. People who live by coherent principles are orderly, while people who run after every impulse are chaotic. This distinction between order and chaos has a simple correlation to Paul’s discussion of spirit and flesh in Romans 8. This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos.

Order is a completely scientific concept, reflecting the obedience of matter to universal permanent laws of physics, and how these laws produce a stable regularity, ranging from the orbital patterns of astronomy and to smaller systems of order in biology.

Chaos is also a scientific concept, but is more complex than order, reflecting the unpredictability of complex systems. People whose lives are run by chaos are those whom Paul criticises as dissolute and hedonistic. Nature is both orderly and chaotic, operating by predictable rules but also subject to unpredictability. I am not sure though that the order v chaos dichotomy also maps to good v evil in the way Paul suggests regarding spirit and flesh, since some level of uncertainty can be important for creativity and change.

In this instance, my claim about order and chaos is universal rather than idiosyncratic. I think though, that analysing Paul as making sense against modern secular rationality in this way is so jarring because of the dominance of ridiculous Christian myths. People often find it hard to enter a conversation which involves any measure of rational respect for the Epistles, let alone for the eschatological ideas which are generally dismissed as crazy, but which I suggest have a deep scientific coherence.

Robert Tulip wrote: This strikes me as a simple claim, that life governed by the spirit is orderly while life governed by the flesh is chaotic. People who live by coherent principles are orderly, while people who run after every impulse are chaotic. This distinction between order and chaos has a simple correlation to Paul’s discussion of spirit and flesh in Romans 8. This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos.

I'm with you until the last sentence. I have doubt for anything called a scientific vision in the first place. I think also that the equivalence of order, or orderly thinking, and science isn't valid. Doctrines of the Church that require supernatural belief are actually quite orderly, even logical if logic is taken to refer to internal consistency. The adjective 'scientific' as you're using it is supposed to confer respectability, and that is about all it does. It's not very useful.

In this instance, my claim about order and chaos is universal rather than idiosyncratic. I think though, that analysing Paul as making sense against modern secular rationality in this way is so jarring because of the dominance of ridiculous Christian myths. People often find it hard to enter a conversation which involves any measure of rational respect for the Epistles, let alone for the eschatological ideas which are generally dismissed as crazy, but which I suggest have a deep scientific coherence.

The idiosyncrasy remark referred to the entirety of the post, and I suggested that you have often presented a fully customized program as something for everyman. Rational respect for the epistles can come also from the attempt to understand Paul's (in this case) purpose and audience, even though one may not assent to the theology. Rational respect would also be given to content such as the centrality of love in 1 Corinthians.

Robert Tulip wrote:The heuristic applied in an astrotheological reading of the Bible is to understand Jesus Christ as an anthropomorphisation of the sun, taking the real attributes observed in the physical star and applying them to an idealised human being in order to humanise these invincible forces and give them ethical meaning and purpose.

The sun provides the actual law of life in its three regular motions of the day, the year and the great year, as Copernicus observed, and as the Gnostic inventors of the Christ myth must have understood. Paul’s vision of Christ here reflects a conscious or unconscious vision of the sun as the source of light and life and grace.

My view, following Pagels, is that Paul had some grasp of the allegory as the real driving impetus in his letters, but carefully concealed this knowledge to make his message palatable to a mass audience. In any event, reading Romans today it makes sense to read salvation in terms of natural scientific understanding. The laws of science can free us from destruction if we understand and apply them within a spiritual ethical framework.

I think Robert that the problem here is as I said, the Gnostic thesis of dual layers of meaning,one for the ignorant masses and the other for elite initiates is a logical vicious circle.
No matter how clearly it can be shown that the writings say something totally at odds with and contrary to the supposed real meanings this can be dismissed as the fodder for the ignorant masses.
How then can the thesis be disproved? The delusion lies in the thesis itself and it is humourous therefore to see those who interpret rationally dismissed as being deluded.
You may disagree with a supernatural worldview but to see other than a supernatural worldview in these writings is to turn things on their head,to accommodate a dubious theory in support of your own worldview.

Sun worship is pagan and is by no means Judeo-Christian, yet this in effect is what you are saying Paul is advocating. Not directly but as the epitome of order and bringer of life.
It's not of course, since life comes from life but it is one environmental element necessary for life to exist and continue but so also is water and oxygen amongst many others.

Paul explicitly condemns pagan worship in this book as worship of the creature and creation rather than the creator.
The sun is secondary and God primary.

And as I pointed out through James Hannam's article, Paul is by no means silent on Jesus' human earthly life.
You can dismiss these things as part of the "that's just for the ignorant masses" line but it's hard to see how something like global warming might have been in the mind of a first century religious Jew,even unconsciously.

Most scholars and historians take a middle line on the historicity of Jesus as they are generally sceptical about the supernatural as you are, but this just highlights the extreme of the mythicist view.

It's a world of bruised egos in the combat zone where most scholars don't even venture. Here for example is a lengthy response from atheist sceptic Tim O Neill to mythicist David Fitzgerald.
It can be seen how dismissive O Neill is of supernatural Christian views, nonetheless he argues cogently against mythicism.

http://www.armariummagnus.blogspot.ie/2 ... david.html
This link is imprecise; Click on David Fitzgerald's book "Nailed" on the link, for pretty much the bulk of the debate though it's not the actual article I had in mind, if you are interested.
The actual article I intended on the blog is titled; the jesus myth theory;a response to David Fitzgerald, and is likely a sequel to the "Nailed" one, so maybe it's findable but I imagine the arguments are largely the same.

Robert Tulip wrote:I said “This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos.”

This strikes me as a simple claim, that life governed by the spirit is orderly while life governed by the flesh is chaotic. People who live by coherent principles are orderly, while people who run after every impulse are chaotic. This distinction between order and chaos has a simple correlation to Paul’s discussion of spirit and flesh in Romans 8. This theme of spirit and flesh can readily be understood against a scientific vision of order and chaos.

Just to elaborate here Robert. The main basis of the dual layer meaning comes from the teaching about the parables of Jesus in the gospels.
"That seeing they might see and not perceive,and hearing they might hear and not understand."

This is set against a backdrop of unbelief in the face of miraculous signs and is in effect a judgement on it, in that context.

The parables are a part of the gospels yet we also find accounts such as the lengthy Sermon on the mount,which are not parabolic and are addressed to the multitudes as well as his disciples.
Some of his parables were quite clearly understood by the hearers as is made plain in the passages,and it's specifically what is called "the mysteries of the kingdom" that is said to made known to his disciples only.
We have the interpretation given to the disciples for most of these parables recorded in the gospels so to that extent they are no longer hidden or obscured.
The rationale is that this generation Jesus addressed was a particularly stubborn and recalcitrant one as in their stubborn rejection of Christ despite witnessing many miracles.
There is no obvious element of tension or contradiction between the parables and the interpretation provided. They fit extremely well.
They are a particular genre included in the gospels with others such as narrative and ordinary dialogue with people also.

So it seems to me it's problematic, as to turn the entirety of the writings in scripture into something akin to parable in allegorical interpretation is simply to not differentiate at all.
So most would ordinarily read Paul's letter here as straightforward didactic language and as I said he refers to allegories specifically in Galations, which would be meaningless in a book entirely made up of allegory.
Treating the entire bible as allegory is itself a kind of fundamentalist approach which fails to distinguish literary genres and the interpretations given often are blatantly contradictory to the plain unmistakeable meaning of the texts themselves.
Not something that can be said of the parables and the interpretations provided in the text,and if an interpretation could be shown to flatly contradict the parable,that would be a problem.
The flaw here is not that a parable does not have another corresponding reality,or that symbolism,allegory or metaphor don't, but the extrapolation from the use of parable at a particular time to a universal law of interpretation for all the scriptures.
Thus any system applied in this way such as astro-theology is inevitably headed for absurdity in attempting to force a square peg into a round hole.