DISQUS

jason77 · 2 years ago

"When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will be seen as they truly are, infinite"

-Blake

Sinner Gyst · 2 years ago

William Blake ought to "haunt" you. He is credited with keeping alive the works of Jakob Bohme. Such "pre-modern" Hermeticism is the ancient theology of all that is emergent, unifying east with west, reason with nonreason, myth with logos, black with white, sanity with insanity, evil with good; ever-spiraling but never to truth.

Art · 2 years ago

[quote post="20"]He is credited with keeping alive the works of Jakob Bohme. Such “pre-modern” Hermeticism is the ancient theology of all that is emergent, unifying east with west, reason with nonreason, myth with logos, black with white, sanity with insanity, evil with good; ever-spiraling but never to truth.[/quote]
Precisely the reason why he drives me crazy yet fills me with a longing for a better world.

Sinner Gyst · 2 years ago

In "A Mythology of Reason" David Walsh writes that "For the new occult philosophy to work, the old Christian philosophy must be redirected.The individual with the theoretical genius to effect their reconciliation and, thereby, become the transmitter of the new symbolism to the modern world was Jakob Bohme." Discussing Bohme's influence on Hegel, he noted that "Bohme provided for [Hegel] the most profound insight into the modification Christianity must undergo if it was to be reconciled with the spirit of the age [zeitgeist]....He shows the extent to which the earlier Christian definitions of man and God, creation and redemption, must be transformed to accommodate the new roles of the divine and human within history. Above all, it is Bohme who gives expression to the new conception of the process of reality that enables man to become the co-creator in the divine work of creation and redemption, once he has penetrated to the perspective of the mind of God."

Schaeffer, commenting on Romans 12:2, in "True Spirituality" strikes the dichotomy: "Now you will notice here another element in this that is most important in the twentieth century, and in the midst of twentieth century thinking. In the eighteenth verse [Ephesians 4:18 "being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them"] it speaks of 'ignorance.' Ignorance is in relationship to content; it is not just a spirit of ignorance. In verse 21 it speaks of 'the truth. . . in Jesus.' Truth is content, truth has something to do with reason. Truth has something to do with the rational creature that God has made us. The dilemma here in the internal world is not just some sort of gray fog; it is in relationship to content. "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (verse 23). This again is not simply a feeling. It's a matter of thoughts in a rational sense, and with content... This is not just an emotional holiness, but holiness in relationship to content,holiness in relationship to thought and a set of things that can be stated as true, in contrast to what is false."

Following Bohme's model, Hegel sought truth in a dialectic synthesis of god and man, heaven and earth. But Schaeffer declares in "The God Who Is There" that "Christianity demands antithesis, not as some abstract concept of truth, but in the fact that God exists, and in personal justification. The biblical concept of justification is a total, personal antithesis. Before justification, we were dead in the kingdom of darkness. The Bible says that in the moment that we accept Christ we pass from death to life. This is total antithesis at the level of the individual man."

jason77 · 2 years ago

Are you trying to pigeon hole an entire movement into one stereotype influenced by one person...i think you are....and you miss the mark by a lifetime..first who are you addressing...emergents or the emerging because they are two seperate groups..

Sinner Gyst · 2 years ago

Oh, sorry. I could have been more precise. "Emergent" and "emerging" is etymologically related to Teilhards "emergence." Google it. E.g.: "For this Jesuit priest, noogenesis is essentially a planetary and mystical Christogenesis, i.e., the evolution of Christ to God-Omega as the divine destiny of humankind." http://www.huumanists.org/rh/birx.html

Sample quote: "The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality . . . the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, furfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega . . . critical point simultaneously of emergence and emersion, of maturation and evasion." Source: The Phenomenon of Man, bk. IV, ch.3,sec.3 http://quotes.zaadz.com/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

To track it forward in time to emergent/emerging see http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17689.htm, for example. The lineage is Hegel, Darwin, Haeckel, et al. And before Hegel there was Boehme.

The problem with all this is that Kuhn postulated that "when political recourse fails" to shift the emerging paradigm, that "the parties to a revolutionary conflict must finally resort to the techniques of mass persuasion, often including force."

Art · 2 years ago

Your disturbing evaluation of an entire movement as "a descendant of Hegel, Darwin, Haeckel, et al" is indeed disturbing. Do yourself a favor and actually come up with some original opinions for once, and actually enter the emerging conversation before attempting to sabotage it.

Sinner Gyst · 2 years ago

Well, I was part of the original emergent/emerging/emergence movement a generation ago. I even wrote poetry about it. I'd share it if you want to read it (if I can locate it buried in my attic files). It was a wonderful new lightness, brilliance, wonder and awe. Every spiritual thought was original, crystalline and fluid, ever-reaching to new realities. When I read Teilhard and his Hymn of Universe it was the pinnacle. A new Christology, a new eschatology! But suddenly, without warning, a dark side of the light became manifest. It was ruthless and relentless, and in the end I wanted to jump in front of a semi.

Desperate for truth, I sought answers -- years of peeling back layers upon layers to reach the foundation of the matter.

I'll share more if you're willing to listen.

Art · 2 years ago

I'm willing to listen. I'm glad you finally came out and gave some motives for your lambasting. :D

I found it necessary to distance myself from the "emerging" strain of conversation awhile ago, for various reasons which I may discuss soon. I am curious as to what your experience has been.

Sinner Gyst · 2 years ago

Experiences. . . where to begin. . . . Perhaps with a metaphor:

A cool, dark forest with tall trees reaching to the sun, eerie paths without end, shadows and light interplaying among damp leaves. Stillness. Peace. But it wasn't real. Startled, out of the shadows lurks foul beasts, dank smells, a growing oppressiveness. And then suddenly with no warning -- life versus death! Flee the forest! Yet the path is not marked, and the way is not clear. Get out! The underbrush is tangled, twisting and tripping, slimy and oozing. The darkness is encroaching quickly!

There was a way out. I was literally carried out by His Arms. But it wasn't to be the end of the story. I knew the forest. I had lived and breathed the forest for days upon years, and knew it by heart. So, I had to go back into the forest - that dreadful forest - and mark the path, identify the trees, locate the pits, sweep the path, draw a map, post hazard signs, cry aloud into its stifling stillness and perhaps - just perhaps - someone else could find a way out.

So, when I read: "I’m only beginning to explore the “pre-modern” approach to modernism," I recognized the path! I walked it, lived it, exuded it, reached its interior. And I see an incredibly intelligent kid who's being drawn into the calming stillness of the forest because it looks and smells and feels so good. What else can I do but to engage in the "conversation"? And if at first it appears to be a lambasting of the forest (a "severe denouncing" says Websters), it is much more than that. It was a warning, "Look out!" because I happen to know what's around that next tree, and the tree after that, and the path after that. And I know where they all lead. And so I obey, "And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire..."(Jude 22)

In the posts above I told you about a few of the trees and paths that are nearby the entry point into the forest. Not much. Just a few things. Enough to provide a bit of a roadmap.

Don't ever check in your brain at the edge of the forest. The forest entices with the sweet floral scents of truth. But there is no Truth to be found there.

Occult Blogger · 11 months ago

That's a great poem of William Blake, all his work is so reflective...