In My Father’s House There are Many Virtues

This is Part 2 of a series.

Part 1 was Virtue Upon Virtue.  There we discussed that your standard virtue set could be disassembled and we could see the four different parts as stages or levels.  Seen this way, they wouldn’t even necessarily be vices, if they were necessary parts of progression.

In My Father’s House There are Many Virtues

There are four poles in a virtue set.  There are also four kingdoms in the afterlife.  It is tempting to try to assign them.  Let’s do it.

Introduction

In a virtue set there are two types of virtues and vices.  The hot type is the virtue of going after good with gusto (or the vice of pursusing some good immoderately in exclusion of other goods).  These are associated with glory, the sun and air, action, zest, and so on.

The cool type is the virtue of avoiding evils with thoroughness (or the vice or avoiding possible evils immoderately to the exclusion of seeking the good).  These are associated with wisdom, the earth and water, prudence, intellect, and so on.

Background reading:

Introducing Virtue Sets

The Two Types of Virtue

Satan Divided Against Himself (WJT)

Two Types not Four  (WJT)

The Four Afterlives

The soul has four possible destinations.  Outer Darkness with Satan (roughly corresponding to the ‘hell’ of classical Christianity).  Then the three divisions of heaven, or the three heavens, what are called the three kingdoms of glory.  They are the

telestial for the grossly wicked.  The terrestrial for the middling good.  The celestial for the righteous.

Let’s tentatively try to assign these four afterlives to the four poles of the virtue set

Outer Darkness is for the Cold Vice

Outer Darkness slots in easily.  That is Satan’s realm and Satan is the archetype of the cold vices of fear, risk avoidance, envy, and so on.  Outer Darkness is characterized by knowing and rejecting the Good (aka the sin against the Holy Ghost).  In fact, is is tempting to think that the ultimate fate of outer darkness is annihilation, which is the ultimate expression of the cold vice of avoidance:  lose every possible good to avoid what you fear, i.e., subjection to God and the risk of failure.

The Telestial Kingdom is for the Hot Vices

The Telestial Kingdom is clearly the destination of those who are more vicious than not.  “ These are they who are thrust down to hell.”  They are whoremongers, murderers, adulterers, and so on.  Their sins are primarily though not exclusively crimes of extreme passion and lack of self-control.  They indulged their lusts.  Significantly the telestial kingdom is associated with the stars, which appear to have very little glory but are in fact of the same nature as the sun.  Therefore it is appropriate to generally associate the Telestial Kingdom with the hot vices even if the fit isn’t perfect.

The Terrestrial Kingdom is for the Cool Virtues

The terrestrial kingdom is associated with the earth (terrestrial) and with the moon.  Both earth and lunar associations are associated with the cool virtues/vices.

The terrestrial are honorable enough.  But they didn’t go far enough–“they receive of the glory but not of the fulness.”  They avoid the grave sins of the telestial but their outstanding characteristic is that they “are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus.”  Valor of course being a hot virtue.

The Celestial Kingdom is for the Hot Virtues

The celestial have a fulness of glory.  They are priests and kings.  They are gods.  All things are theirs.  They overcome all things.  Their glory is the glory of the sun, their glory is the highest of all.

Glory, victory, conquest, ownership, and reaching the highest possible limits and beyond are all hot virtue.  The sun is the quintessential ‘hot’ symbol.

WJT once wrote that while in theory we would want Jesus to be the perfect representation of all cool and hot virtues, he comes across in the gospels as a pretty ‘hot’ figure.  I don’t think its any coincidence that He is that way, and He is the one celestial-type figure we will have encountered in a way that is legible to us.