Symbolic thinking, Anthroposophy and Transhumanism

[AshvinP]

Again, this is all well and good if by Lord one has in view the ground of reality which Christian theology, particularly classical theism eventually landed on. But in popular piety, Lord is the OT figure who had a keen interest in the status of flesh on penises, the mixing of fabrics, slaughtering Canaanites, taking delight in the smell of burnt sacrifices, and the like. He is a god with personality - likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, virtues and imperfections. I guess we can view this all as a progression in humanity's understanding of the divine - tribal deity to omni-god to foundational intuitive structure. But the differences between the Lord of those early apprehensions to the one you are proposing is very great indeed.

Anthony,

Can you just say a few words on what significance this has for you? If there is a progressive transformation in humanity's understanding and relationship with the Divine, which I would say could not be made more plain for anyone who examines the whole corpus of OT and NT without modern prejudice, and this fact is at tension with "popular piety" as you understand it (which may be overestimating your ability to speak for the understanding of many others, but we can leave that aside), what relevance does this have to any practical pursuit of truthful understanding in the here and now?

Put another way, I am asking you to fill in the blank - "I don't necessarily have these atomistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of the nature of the Divine as revealed in scripture, but some people do in popular culture, and what you guys speak of is at tension with their understanding, so therefore [fill in the blank]."

I don't necessarily have these atomistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of the nature of the Divine as revealed in scripture, but some people do in popular culture, and what you guys speak of is at tension with their understanding, so therefore it is unhelpful to put new wine in old wineskins through redefining terms that are in active usage.

You have witnessed how many complaints there have been in the other direction - we use too many new and unfamiliar terms that 'make no sense', for ex. 'intuitive structure'. I feel it's mostly a waste of time to consider and address these complaints, because those who cannot be flexible in their thinking and try to sense the inner meaning for which the various terms are only anchors, will never be satisfied with the terminology, old or new. It is time for people to start swimming with their spiritual activity, to start doing the 'field work' and investigating how everything manifest in nature and culture is but a parable for inner first-person flow of experience. It doesn't matter if we are speaking of the flow of a river, the growth of a plant, the creeds of the church, the models of quantum mechanics, or what have you - they are all symbols for objective inner realities that can be unveiled through enlivened and strengthened cognition. Through the latter, we can learn to flexibly and imaginatively use the symbols of nature and culture as tools in different contexts according to whom we are speaking and what aspect of inner experience we are trying to highlight.

A greater concern I continue to work is the continuity/discontinuity between spiritual science and the old faith. Is SS, as I hope is the case, a spiritual stream that reveals a true deeper meaning? Or is there no continuity with the faith once delivered by the apostolic witness ("Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves", "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’")?

Right, and we have discussed this concern many times and in many ways. The main problem is that the old can never discern the continuity with the new when it remains confined within its own standpoint. We are back to PoF 101 here.

But can we not then make the old a measure for the new? Is not every man compelled to measure the products of his moral imagination by the standard of traditional moral doctrines? For something that should reveal itself as morally productive, this would be just as absurd as to want to measure a new form in nature by an old one and say that, because reptiles do not conform to the proto-amniotes, they are an unjustifiable (pathological) form.

Ethical individualism, then, is not in opposition to a rightly understood theory of evolution, but follows directly from it. Haeckel's genealogical tree, from protozoa up to man as an organic being, ought to be capable of being continued without an interruption of natural law and without a break in the uniformity of evolution, up to the individual as a being that is moral in a definite sense. But on no account could the nature of a descendant species be deduced from the nature of an ancestral one.

So the continuity of moral intuition discovered through intuitive thinking with the moral concepts of the 'old faith' won't be proven by some logical deductive argument, but can only be experienced as we traverse the intuitive thinking path ourselves. It is essentially the same continuity that we discover between our childhood ideas of ethical living drawn from external authorities (parents, teachers, etc.), and our adult sense of morality drawn from the most varied interactions and relationships with other people. Through the latter, we rediscover the former in a more inward way, we internalize the moral principles that we previously took on faith and understand how they actually contribute to the collective well-being, the harmonious functioning of the social organism. Then we are no longer only passive receivers of the faith but active participators in its establishment on Earth.

"Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Heb 5)

[Anthony66]

Anthony,

Can you just say a few words on what significance this has for you? If there is a progressive transformation in humanity's understanding and relationship with the Divine, which I would say could not be made more plain for anyone who examines the whole corpus of OT and NT without modern prejudice, and this fact is at tension with "popular piety" as you understand it (which may be overestimating your ability to speak for the understanding of many others, but we can leave that aside), what relevance does this have to any practical pursuit of truthful understanding in the here and now?

Put another way, I am asking you to fill in the blank - "I don't necessarily have these atomistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of the nature of the Divine as revealed in scripture, but some people do in popular culture, and what you guys speak of is at tension with their understanding, so therefore [fill in the blank]."

I don't necessarily have these atomistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of the nature of the Divine as revealed in scripture, but some people do in popular culture, and what you guys speak of is at tension with their understanding, so therefore it is unhelpful to put new wine in old wineskins through redefining terms that are in active usage.

You have witnessed how many complaints there have been in the other direction - we use too many new and unfamiliar terms that 'make no sense', for ex. 'intuitive structure'. I feel it's mostly a waste of time to consider and address these complaints, because those who cannot be flexible in their thinking and try to sense the inner meaning for which the various terms are only anchors, will never be satisfied with the terminology, old or new. It is time for people to start swimming with their spiritual activity, to start doing the 'field work' and investigating how everything manifest in nature and culture is but a parable for inner first-person flow of experience. It doesn't matter if we are speaking of the flow of a river, the growth of a plant, the creeds of the church, the models of quantum mechanics, or what have you - they are all symbols for objective inner realities that can be unveiled through enlivened and strengthened cognition. Through the latter, we can learn to flexibly and imaginatively use the symbols of nature and culture as tools in different contexts according to whom we are speaking and what aspect of inner experience we are trying to highlight.

A greater concern I continue to work is the continuity/discontinuity between spiritual science and the old faith. Is SS, as I hope is the case, a spiritual stream that reveals a true deeper meaning? Or is there no continuity with the faith once delivered by the apostolic witness ("Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves", "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’")?

Right, and we have discussed this concern many times and in many ways. The main problem is that the old can never discern the continuity with the new when it remains confined within its own standpoint. We are back to PoF 101 here.

But can we not then make the old a measure for the new? Is not every man compelled to measure the products of his moral imagination by the standard of traditional moral doctrines? For something that should reveal itself as morally productive, this would be just as absurd as to want to measure a new form in nature by an old one and say that, because reptiles do not conform to the proto-amniotes, they are an unjustifiable (pathological) form.

Ethical individualism, then, is not in opposition to a rightly understood theory of evolution, but follows directly from it. Haeckel's genealogical tree, from protozoa up to man as an organic being, ought to be capable of being continued without an interruption of natural law and without a break in the uniformity of evolution, up to the individual as a being that is moral in a definite sense. But on no account could the nature of a descendant species be deduced from the nature of an ancestral one.

So the continuity of moral intuition discovered through intuitive thinking with the moral concepts of the 'old faith' won't be proven by some logical deductive argument, but can only be experienced as we traverse the intuitive thinking path ourselves. It is essentially the same continuity that we discover between our childhood ideas of ethical living drawn from external authorities (parents, teachers, etc.), and our adult sense of morality drawn from the most varied interactions and relationships with other people. Through the latter, we rediscover the former in a more inward way, we internalize the moral principles that we previously took on faith and understand how they actually contribute to the collective well-being, the harmonious functioning of the social organism. Then we are no longer only passive receivers of the faith but active participators in its establishment on Earth.

"Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Heb 5)

The following is very helpful:

It doesn't matter if we are speaking of the flow of a river, the growth of a plant, the creeds of the church, the models of quantum mechanics, or what have you - they are all symbols for objective inner realities that can be unveiled through enlivened and strengthened cognition.

A few lights came on in me as I pondered these words.

The continuity between the old faith and the perspective of SS is something I still aren't seeing. This seems to be a common result with the various interactions I've seen here. There is quite the leap from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved" to "Strive for higher cognition for you shall experience a first person perspective of reality".

[AshvinP]

The continuity between the old faith and the perspective of SS is something I still aren't seeing. This seems to be a common result with the various interactions I've seen here. There is quite the leap from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved" to "Strive for higher cognition for you shall experience a first person perspective of reality".

We don't need higher cognition to experience 1st person perspective of reality - this is the only perspective of reality we ever experience. It is only a matter of shedding a few flawed assumptions/beliefs that we layer on top of experience. Practically we need to first make all these implicit assumptions/beliefs more conscious, to see they are actually exist in a concrete way and therefore may be influencing our current thinking state of being.

For example, you say we are leaping from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved", but what does this even mean? Are you sure that your assumed meaning of that opaque phrase is shared by 'popular piety' across the centuries of Christian history? The point here is not to debate the actual meaning of this phrase, as if we can find it as a formula or definition in the dictionary, but to notice how our first-person thinking state, the state that is trying to find the continuity between perspectives, is resting on all sorts of shadowy assumptions that are simply being taken for granted. It is as if a person says they can't find the continuity between the nighttime and the daytime when they are seeking for it within an underground bunker, never questioning whether this is an appropriate place to seek for it.

The Roman Catholic faith, for example, speaks of the Mysteries of the Rosary. There are the joyful mysteries, the mysteries of light, the sorrowful mysteries, the glorious mysteries. Why would these be "mysteries" if they are completely transparent and can be reduced to the intellectual meaning, "believe on Christ and you shall be saved"? Why does Christ himself say the following?

"And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand."

I am sure you can find modern theologians who offer some templated answers to such questions, but again, the point is not to find a clear-cut answer but to live with the questions and see what inner feedback we get that helps elucidate the various soul factors that modulate our thinking state and that we are usually merged with. It is only in this way that we can gradually unveil the deeper meaning embedded within the parables of the natural and cultural landscapes. Then we find the continuity, not as a ready-made definition or logical argument, but because we have become the continuity between faith and knowledge, between subject and object, spirit and matter, etc. We experience how the Christ impulse inflows our being, elucidates our orientation to existence, and thereby provides the basis for our concrete salvation in the here and now, our ever-expanding freedom from the psychic and material constraints that modulate our innermost spiritual activity.

[AshvinP]

Then we find the continuity, not as a ready-made definition or logical argument, but because we have become the continuity between faith and knowledge, between subject and object, spirit and matter, etc. We experience how the Christ impulse inflows our being, elucidates our orientation to existence, and thereby provides the basis for our concrete salvation in the here and now, our ever-expanding freedom from the psychic and material constraints that modulate our innermost spiritual activity.

Along these lines, I also wanted to ask, Anthony, whether you had a chance to work through Cleric's recent essays and, if so, how you experienced them so far? At the end of the day, this is the most direct way for most people to become intimate with the Christ impulse in our time before we have strengthened cognition to the extent of Imagination+ proper.

Imagine there is white sheet with a hole and a hand sticking through it. The hand starts making signs - it holds up one finger and you discern the meaning of "1", it holds up three and you discern "3", it holds up two in a V-shape and you discern the meaning "peace", it starts moving horizontally back and forth and you discern "cancel" or something like that. These signs represent the various doctrines of Christianity that have developed over the centuries. Yet healthy reasoning shows these hand signs are animated by something deeper, by a Being to whom the hand is connected. We can't see this Being as a perceptual object but that makes him no less real and immanent. Especially if we have overcome the most superficial assumptions of materialistic thinking, we know all these phenomenal parables can be traced to intelligent agencies.

Moreover, the fingers on this hand represent our own thought-life, our own intellectual thinking movements. Obviously the various church doctrines were fashioned through human thinking. When we engage in a phenomenology of spiritual activity, we are retracing through the fingers and the hand to the Being who animates them. We are retracing the meaning of the doctrines to its essential life. As we move forward in Earthly evolution, the Christians, the followers of Christ, will be those who seek the experience of his essential Being within the meaning of the Earthly parables, the various hand signs. It will be those who recognize Christ is not merely a divinity that saves those who confess the church creeds, but the very Life of humanity's soul and spiritual existence. That is regardless of what nominal faith any particular soul happened to be raised in mostly due to childhood circumstances beyond its control.

By investigating the living structure of our spiritual activity, we come into more profound and intimate contact with the Christ being than anything that can be found in the millions of pages written by modern theologians. We may not be doing apologetics, reciting creeds, running through the motions at church service, and what have you, but we are devoting our time and mental effort to the being of Christ in a way that few people today even suspect it is possible to do. This is how we become the continuity between the old and the new that we are seeking to understand.

"Christ could be born a thousand times in Bethlehem – but all in vain until He is born in me." -Angelus Silesius

[Cleric K]

The continuity between the old faith and the perspective of SS is something I still aren't seeing. This seems to be a common result with the various interactions I've seen here. There is quite the leap from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved" to "Strive for higher cognition for you shall experience a first person perspective of reality".

Let’s try to make things a little bit more concrete. Let’s start with the fact that in most contemporary minds both “Lord Jesus Christ” and “higher cognition” sound equally abstract and fantastic. In this sense, trying to make a connection between them is like seeking a connection between Star Wars universe and DC universe. In other words, we go from fantasy to meta-fantasy.

Today people generally agree that we exist within the constraints of a physical world – whatever its essential nature might be – material, mental, simulational, etc. From that point onward we find only disagreements.

We can recognize the following ideas on the path to a more expanded understanding of reality.

1. At our basic sensory level we’re dominated by the idea of locality. In other words, we can understand the World only as local interactions – think billiard balls. This immediately makes ideas like destiny or retribution, completely bogus. Our mechanical actions dissipate as vibrations in the Cosmos. It is nonsensical to imagine that these diffused waves can somehow return to steer our stream of being in any meaningful way (as for example a compensation for immoral action). So this is the first problem on our path of development. We begin to realize that the individual streams of destiny could be entangled at different scales, so to speak. In other words, something like two people meeting together against all odds (which in a mechanistic universe can never be more than chance) could be completely lawful (for example, the soul-level ‘wavefunctions’ of the persons filter the paths of experience such that they converge).
2. Deepening our understanding leads to the idea that our first-person stream of being passes through rhythmic metamorphoses, alternating into highly focused bodily states and more expanded Cosmic (non-local) states.
3. Next we have the realization that our inner being is more like a ‘depth-slice’ of the Cosmic spectrum (symphony of minds), instead of us being a self-contained and self-sufficient atom of existence that could exist independently in the spiritual vacuum.
4. Finally, we have the realization that the Cosmic interference of minds at different scales converges toward a common center of gravity, so to speak. Without this central attractor (the Divine singularity containing all possibilities), the differentiated minds would sooner or later clash, as they follow their arbitrary orbits.

Notice how we can speak of these things without mentioning SS or Christianity. All we need is some way to speak symbolically of the deeper lawfulness of existence.

To be sure, none of these ideas can be derived intellectually from within our basic phenomenological starting point (where we live with sensory perceptions and intellect). But nevertheless, all these things can be thought about and we can see to what degree they make our existence more comprehensible and logical.

Now these steps are of such character that if one has reached their realization (or at least unprejudiced openness to the ideas), they will have very little trouble approaching SS. They would find that it already speaks of the things they feel as truthful. The reason people reject SS can always be traced to resistance to some of these four points, or a combination of them.

For example, for a materialist, all four points are scandalous. A simple superstitious man maybe accepts only the first point. Maybe he believes that if a cat crosses his path something bad will happen. This is nonsensical from a local physicalist perspective but is comprehensible in a universe where the paths of experience themselves could be entangled at a higher order of integration. The spiritual conceptions of many reach only to this point. It all gets exhausted with something like “Yeah, there’s something deeper than ricocheting atoms, but no one knows what it is. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a self-contained individual sphere of existence. Anything else I’ll see after death.”

Point three may have variations. At a simpler level it’s the familiar “It’s all one consciousness”, although when asked to elaborate, it’s difficult to explain in what aspects exactly is everything one. It’s usually no different than saying “It’s all one quantum field… yet we’re fully encircled islands in it.” It is quite rare to see someone open to the possibility that indeed our inner space is superimposed with that of other beings. Before recently, I wouldn’t be able to give a concrete example but now I think that Marco fits it. Here we have an understanding about the higher planes of consciousness but in the end, all remains a diffused cloud. This allows the bodily self to rest comfortably and say “Of course, my existence (of the intellectual ego) is necessary while in the body. But my higher being is of a completely orthogonal nature, it is somewhere in the diffusion. I’ll have to wait for some evolutionary event to transfer me there.”

So we have:
1. Understanding of the holistic nature of reality – the idea that paths of becoming can be entangled at more integrated scales (which makes the entanglements meaningful, and not seen only as random chance)
2. Understanding of rhythmic cycles of crystalization and expansion of our conscious experience
3. Understanding of our inner being as belonging to the Cosmos and modulated into the superimposed spiritual minds at different scales
4. Understanding of the Center of convergence of all potential for a first-person experience of existence, from where every state of being is differentiated and where it integrates

It can be very consistently shown that anyone who has a problem with SS, necessarily stumbles at some of these points. They could be out of order. For example, someone may have faith in 4 but deny 2 and 3 – that is, that there’s reincarnation and that we share the same sacred inner space with God (thus God is taken as a being in Heaven, while we’re down on Earth).

So with all this said, and granted that you still find the ideas of SS unconvincing, can you identify which of the four stumbling stones is problematic for you liking?

[Anthony66]

The continuity between the old faith and the perspective of SS is something I still aren't seeing. This seems to be a common result with the various interactions I've seen here. There is quite the leap from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved" to "Strive for higher cognition for you shall experience a first person perspective of reality".

Let’s try to make things a little bit more concrete. Let’s start with the fact that in most contemporary minds both “Lord Jesus Christ” and “higher cognition” sound equally abstract and fantastic. In this sense, trying to make a connection between them is like seeking a connection between Star Wars universe and DC universe. In other words, we go from fantasy to meta-fantasy.

Today people generally agree that we exist within the constraints of a physical world – whatever its essential nature might be – material, mental, simulational, etc. From that point onward we find only disagreements.

We can recognize the following ideas on the path to a more expanded understanding of reality.

1. At our basic sensory level we’re dominated by the idea of locality. In other words, we can understand the World only as local interactions – think billiard balls. This immediately makes ideas like destiny or retribution, completely bogus. Our mechanical actions dissipate as vibrations in the Cosmos. It is nonsensical to imagine that these diffused waves can somehow return to steer our stream of being in any meaningful way (as for example a compensation for immoral action). So this is the first problem on our path of development. We begin to realize that the individual streams of destiny could be entangled at different scales, so to speak. In other words, something like two people meeting together against all odds (which in a mechanistic universe can never be more than chance) could be completely lawful (for example, the soul-level ‘wavefunctions’ of the persons filter the paths of experience such that they converge).
2. Deepening our understanding leads to the idea that our first-person stream of being passes through rhythmic metamorphoses, alternating into highly focused bodily states and more expanded Cosmic (non-local) states.
3. Next we have the realization that our inner being is more like a ‘depth-slice’ of the Cosmic spectrum (symphony of minds), instead of us being a self-contained and self-sufficient atom of existence that could exist independently in the spiritual vacuum.
4. Finally, we have the realization that the Cosmic interference of minds at different scales converges toward a common center of gravity, so to speak. Without this central attractor (the Divine singularity containing all possibilities), the differentiated minds would sooner or later clash, as they follow their arbitrary orbits.

Notice how we can speak of these things without mentioning SS or Christianity. All we need is some way to speak symbolically of the deeper lawfulness of existence.

To be sure, none of these ideas can be derived intellectually from within our basic phenomenological starting point (where we live with sensory perceptions and intellect). But nevertheless, all these things can be thought about and we can see to what degree they make our existence more comprehensible and logical.

Now these steps are of such character that if one has reached their realization (or at least unprejudiced openness to the ideas), they will have very little trouble approaching SS. They would find that it already speaks of the things they feel as truthful. The reason people reject SS can always be traced to resistance to some of these four points, or a combination of them.

For example, for a materialist, all four points are scandalous. A simple superstitious man maybe accepts only the first point. Maybe he believes that if a cat crosses his path something bad will happen. This is nonsensical from a local physicalist perspective but is comprehensible in a universe where the paths of experience themselves could be entangled at a higher order of integration. The spiritual conceptions of many reach only to this point. It all gets exhausted with something like “Yeah, there’s something deeper than ricocheting atoms, but no one knows what it is. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a self-contained individual sphere of existence. Anything else I’ll see after death.”

Point three may have variations. At a simpler level it’s the familiar “It’s all one consciousness”, although when asked to elaborate, it’s difficult to explain in what aspects exactly is everything one. It’s usually no different than saying “It’s all one quantum field… yet we’re fully encircled islands in it.” It is quite rare to see someone open to the possibility that indeed our inner space is superimposed with that of other beings. Before recently, I wouldn’t be able to give a concrete example but now I think that Marco fits it. Here we have an understanding about the higher planes of consciousness but in the end, all remains a diffused cloud. This allows the bodily self to rest comfortably and say “Of course, my existence (of the intellectual ego) is necessary while in the body. But my higher being is of a completely orthogonal nature, it is somewhere in the diffusion. I’ll have to wait for some evolutionary event to transfer me there.”

So we have:
1. Understanding of the holistic nature of reality – the idea that paths of becoming can be entangled at more integrated scales (which makes the entanglements meaningful, and not seen only as random chance)
2. Understanding of rhythmic cycles of crystalization and expansion of our conscious experience
3. Understanding of our inner being as belonging to the Cosmos and modulated into the superimposed spiritual minds at different scales
4. Understanding of the Center of convergence of all potential for a first-person experience of existence, from where every state of being is differentiated and where it integrates

It can be very consistently shown that anyone who has a problem with SS, necessarily stumbles at some of these points. They could be out of order. For example, someone may have faith in 4 but deny 2 and 3 – that is, that there’s reincarnation and that we share the same sacred inner space with God (thus God is taken as a being in Heaven, while we’re down on Earth).

So with all this said, and granted that you still find the ideas of SS unconvincing, can you identify which of the four stumbling stones is problematic for you liking?

Cleric,

I have not said I find SS unconvincing, at least in its core ideas. Rather I am yet to be convinced of attempts to connect it to Christianity as broadly understood.

In terms of what you have outlined above, my attention is drawn to points 3 and 4, the depth structure of reality. Christianity in its various stripes has always maintained an ontological divide between the being of God and his creation. Eastern Orthodoxy blurs this somewhat with its doctrine of theosis, but still if pressed would want to maintain an impermeable barrier somewhere this side of the Godhead. SS on the other hand maintains a continuous gradient of being.

The nature of Jesus/Christ outlined by Steiner would have him on the wrong side of the councils of the early church. He would have been lucky to dodge a burning in the middle ages. Talk of a Macrocosmic Sun Being is quite unheard of in catholic Christianity.

There is a significant divide between the soteriology of traditional Christianity vs that of SS. Obviously there are differences between different theological schools of the former, but broadly they are about humans being forgiven for their sins by a merciful Father on the basis of the sacrifice of his Son, "not be works so that no one can boast". SS on the other hand paints a radical evolutionary program which places the onus right back on us.

I could go on and cover the whole theological landscape with the various points of divergence. But that should suffice for now.

[Federica]

...Even as there is no contradiction between natural science and Spiritual Science, so is there no justification for saying that Spiritual Science contradicts the life of religion. In this connection I brought out points of importance in the first lecture I gave here. It is my conviction that no one (who has seriously weighed the mental attitude expressed by me in that lecture) can raise any objections to Spiritual Science from a religious point of view. Today I shall enter into some details to show that no one rooted in the scientific life of a particular religious faith can raise any objections to Spiritual Science, as long as an attitude of good will is maintained by that person. I am going to show how someone who has embraced the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, a Christian philosopher absolutely recognized as such by the Catholic Church, can think about Spiritual Science as here defined. And the things I venture to say in this regard are also applicable to the relations between any Protestant line of thought and Spiritual Science.

Thomas Aquinas' philosophy distinguishes between two kinds of knowledge: - first, facts unconditionally deriving from divine revelation and accepted because this, revelation is man's warrant for their truth. Such truths, in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, are the Trinity; the doctrine that the earth's existence had a beginning in time; the doctrine of the fall and the redemption; the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth and the doctrine of the sacraments. Thomas Aquinas is of the opinion that no human being who comprehends the nature of human powers of perception would endeavor to discover the above named truths by means of knowledge developed within himself.

Besides these truths of pure faith, Thomas Aquinas admits others which can be attained by man's own powers of perception. Such truths he denominates “Praeambula Fidei.” These include all truths dependent upon the existence of a divine spiritual element in the world. The existence therefore of a divine spiritual element which is the creator, ruler, upholder and judge of the world is not merely a truth to be accepted on faith, but a fact of knowledge which human powers can acquire. To the realm of Praeambula Fidei belong furthermore all things relating to the spiritual nature of human existence, as well as those leading to a correct discrimination between good and evil, and finally the kinds of knowledge which form the basis for ethics, natural science, aesthetics and anthropology.

It is entirely possible for us to accept the point of view of Thomas Aquinas, and to admit that on the one hand, Spiritual Science does not affect the character of these truths of pure faith, and that on the other, all the statements presented by Spiritual Science come under the head of Praeambula Fidei, as soon as we understand this concept in the correct sense of the Thomistic philosophy. For Spiritual Science there are fields of knowledge, even in domains lying very close to the human being, which must be treated exactly as the truths of pure faith are treated in a higher domain. In ordinary life we have to accept facts which are communicated to us which, by the very nature of the communication, cannot fall within our experience, viz. information concerning what befell us between the earliest point of time which we remember and the time of our birth. If the researcher develops spiritual powers of cognition, he is able to look back upon the period prior to this point of time; but prior to the point where memory begins, the “spiritual eye” does not behold events in the forms of the sense world, but it does perceive what has occurred in the spiritual realm, while the corresponding events are occurring in the physical world. Events perceptible by the senses, can as such, when they cannot enter consciousness through personal experience, be accepted by spiritual research only through the ordinary channels of communication. For instance no healthy minded spiritual researcher will believe it possible to do without communications from fellow human beings, and to substitute spiritual vision for the things that can be learned by ordinary means. Thus there are for Spiritual Science already knowable facts in the realm of everyday life, which can only be acquired by being communicated. In a higher domain the truths of pure faith recognized by Thomas Aquinas are those relating to events inaccessible to the grasp of human knowledge when it is compelled to rely on its own powers alone, because they lie in a domain which is withdrawn from ordinary existence and which, like the events occurring in physical existence during the years directly after birth, does not fall within the field of spiritual vision. Even as those physical occurrences can be received only through human communication, so can the events corresponding to the truths of pure faith be received only through communication (revelation) from the spiritual domain. Although Spiritual Science uses such terms as trinity and incarnation in the domain of spiritual perception, this fact has nothing to do with the application of these terms in relation to the domain to which Thomas Aquinas refers. Moreover everyone acquainted with Augustine knows that such a mode of thinking cannot be called non-Christian.

Thomas Aquinas' views regarding the Praeambula Fidei are likewise compatible with Spiritual Science. For everything accessible to unassisted human powers of perception must be admitted to belong to the Praeambula Fidei. For instance, he includes the spiritual nature of the human soul in that domain. Now when Spiritual Science, by extending the boundaries of knowledge, increases the information concerning the soul beyond the limits within which mere intellect confines it, it expands only the compass of a form of knowledge coming under the head of Praeambula Fidei; it does not go outside that domain. It thus wins its way to truths which support the truths of faith more actively than do the truths obtainable by mere intellect. Thomas Aquinas is of the opinion that the Praeambula Fidei can never find a way into the domain of the truths of faith, but that the former can defend and support the latter. What Thomas Aquinas desired of the Praeambula Fidei will be done still more intensively through their extension by means of Spiritual Science than through the mere intellect.

These observations of mine concerning the Thomistic system are made with the sole object of demonstrating that even the strictest adherent of this particular branch of philosophical thought can find the conclusions of Spiritual Science compatible with it. Of course I have no intention of proving that everybody who accepts the conclusions of Spiritual Science must become a disciple of Thomas Aquinas. Spiritual Science does not disturb the religious confession of anyone. The fact that one individual leans to one type of religious faith and another to a different one has nothing to do with what they know, or think they know, about the spiritual world, but is due to other conditions of life. The better these facts are really comprehended the more will opposition to Spiritual Science cease.

But all of us who have already worked their way through to the recognition of spiritual research will feel some degree of consolation in face of the antagonism which confronts us because of our knowledge of what has occurred in other things to which we become more easily accustomed in the external world, because they are in harmony with the principle of utility. You are aware that the railroads were incorporated into external civilization during the 19th century. A board of directors, whose membership included several recognized authorities, had to decide whether or not a railroad should be built in a certain locality. The story has often been told. According to reports, their decision was to the effect that no railroads should be built, because the people who would travel on them would of necessity incur injury to their health. And if in spite of this there should be people willing to take such a risk, and railroads should be built for their convenience, high board fences should at least be built to the right and left of the roads, to prevent damage to the health of the people past whom the train would have to go. I am not relating things of this kind in order to make fun of people whose one-sidedness could lead them into such an error as this. For it is quite possible to be a distinguished individual and still make such a mistake. Anyone who finds that work done by him is arousing opposition should not instantly accuse his opponent of folly or malice. I am telling you about actual cases of opposition encountered in various instances, because in considering such cases the right kind of feeling and attitude is aroused in anyone confronted by opposition of this kind.

It would not be easy today, no matter how wide a range the enquiry covered, to find a person who is not delighted by a performance of the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. When this art-work was given for the first time the following opinion was expressed not by an individual without importance, but by Weber, the famous composer of “Der Freischütz”: — “The extravagances of this man of genius have at last reached the non plus ultra; Beethoven is now fit for a lunatic asylum.” And Abbé Stadler, who heard this Seventh Symphony at that time, commented as follows: — “The E is repeated interminably; the poor chap is too lacking in talent to have any ideas.”

It is quite true that those who observe no decrease in the amount of human folly will find special satisfaction in calling attention to phenomena of this kind in the evolution of mankind. And it is obvious that such phenomena do not prove anything, when dealing with a particular case of opposition. But they are not adduced here for the purpose of proving anything. Their intent is rather to stimulate people to examine rather closely what appears strange to them, before condemning it. In such a connection it is allowable to refer to a greater event. And I should like to do so, though obviously without any absurd intention of comparing the work of Spiritual Science, even distantly, with the greatest event which has taken place in human evolution. Let us cast a glance upon the development of the Roman Empire at the beginning of our Christian Era, and observe the rise of Christianity from that time on. How far removed was this Christianity at that time in Rome from any of the subjects considered worthy of an educated person's attention. And let us turn our gaze aside from this Roman life and look at what was unfolding literally underground, in the catacombs; let us look at the Christian life beginning to burst into flower in those caverns. Then let us direct our eyes to what was visible at this place some centuries later. Christianity had ascended from the caverns, it was being clutched eagerly in circles where previously it had been despised and rejected. The sight of such phenomena may serve to strengthen the confidence of any individual who deems it a duty to enlist in the service of a truth which has to struggle and strive for victory in the teeth of opposition. — No one in whom anthroposophical truth has taken permanent root will be surprised to find that it awakens hostility. But it will also appear to be that individual's bounden duty never to desist, in the face of such hostility, from presenting what Anthroposophy strives to be in the spiritual life of the human being.

https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA035/En ... umLif.html

[Cleric K]

Cleric,

I have not said I find SS unconvincing, at least in its core ideas. Rather I am yet to be convinced of attempts to connect it to Christianity as broadly understood.

In terms of what you have outlined above, my attention is drawn to points 3 and 4, the depth structure of reality. Christianity in its various stripes has always maintained an ontological divide between the being of God and his creation. Eastern Orthodoxy blurs this somewhat with its doctrine of theosis, but still if pressed would want to maintain an impermeable barrier somewhere this side of the Godhead. SS on the other hand maintains a continuous gradient of being.

The nature of Jesus/Christ outlined by Steiner would have him on the wrong side of the councils of the early church. He would have been lucky to dodge a burning in the middle ages. Talk of a Macrocosmic Sun Being is quite unheard of in catholic Christianity.

There is a significant divide between the soteriology of traditional Christianity vs that of SS. Obviously there are differences between different theological schools of the former, but broadly they are about humans being forgiven for their sins by a merciful Father on the basis of the sacrifice of his Son, "not be works so that no one can boast". SS on the other hand paints a radical evolutionary program which places the onus right back on us.

I could go on and cover the whole theological landscape with the various points of divergence. But that should suffice for now.

What is characteristic of Christianity (together with the OT) is that it portrays the story of humanity – from its spiritual origins, through the fall, and the turn-around point where the Spirit penetrates the Earthly realm (the Word becomes flesh) and thus the human soul and the creation can ascend toward spiritualization (new Earth and new Heaven).

People often speak of religion as a simple lawbook dressed in mythical language – simply a way to put some behavioral framework for humans to comply with (and the extended narrative is that this is done for the sole purpose of controlling and exploiting them).

So this is the first thing – Christianity can only be grasped properly if we understand it as the blood and nerve of our existential movie. As such, it is not finished. Thus we’ll always fall into stagnation if we only seek some ‘formulation’ of Christianity (hopefully the ‘true’ one) as if it presents the ultimate and final dogma.

That it is not finished is clear from the bible itself. Even the Christ said

12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.

It’s clear that the story is not yet finished. He continues:

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

And elsewhere:

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

So when we read these things we can’t fail but see how there are so much more things yet to happen. Why would the Christ speak of all these things if humanity was already saved and nothing more is expected from it? How could there be an absolute boundary between man and the Divine when the Christ explicitly says that we are one within another and that he and the Father will make their home in the human soul?

With all that in mind, what is your view on this expected sending of the Spirit? Could it be that it might be already happening? Could it be that this Spirit of Truth, who is to teach us and remind us of everything, be inspiring and spiritualizing human thinking? Would that not manifest as a sort of higher knowledge, a science of the deeper workings of reality? Not intellectual science, a metaphysical model, but inspired, revealed intuition, proceeding from the deeper strata of existence?

If this is not the way you expect the Holy Spirit of Truth, in what way do you expect it? What do you expect that it should reveal? If the practice of Christianity in its current forms was the final say, why would the Divine Spirit need to teach us anything more than that?

So we see that if we take the scriptures seriously, there's so much more to happen, so much to understand and be revealed. Based on the bible itself, one may not expect something similar to a science of the spirit only if they ignore what is written, and believe that the Earthly realm is already sealed tight. We only get the message of Christ properly if we become comfortable with the fact that our present life is open-ended. There's much that we still can't bear - an influx of the Spirit, that will ignite consciousness of the deeper mysteries of existence. In that sense, not only that we can see a connection, but we can truly say that the appearance of something like a science of the spirit is prophesized by the Christ himself. If such development of higher knowledge does not appear on the Earthly stage, we're bound to ask the same question I asked you above: "Then in what other way should this Divine Spirit of Truth manifest in the human soul?" Or do we simply ignore that part of the Word of Christ?

[AshvinP]

I could go on and cover the whole theological landscape with the various points of divergence. But that should suffice for now.

To add something to what Cleric wrote, imagine you are promised by the manager of a tutoring agency - "I will be sending a tutor to your home, he will live in your home and teach your son mathematics and will not leave until all that is necessary to pass the exam is grasped." A few weeks later, nothing happens, no one shows up, and your son doesn't learn mathematics or pass the exam but miserably fails. You call the agency and the manager says, "You took my words too seriously, I just meant that you keep it in your mind as a vague concept and in your heart as a nebulous feeling that a tutor is with you, living in your home, and teaching your son mathematics."

You would be rightly frustrated and perplexed because in the sensory world, such promises have precise and concrete meaning and they are expected to have practical relevance to the course of one's life, to provide concrete opportunities for higher development. Yet that is exactly how most of the 'theological landscape' in modern times understands what Christ promised and prophesied, simply because the promise relates to supersensible realities. In other words, it is hopelessly abstract, remote, floating in the air. The promise has no practical relevance for the course of Earthly evolution or individual lives.

And this is exactly why spiritual science starts at the very first step with transfiguring our thinking, bringing more life and concreteness to our concepts and ideas. It was understood that only in this way can the scriptures be taken seriously once again, along with the sciences, philosophies, arts, etc. We have been swimming in abstractions for so long that we don't even realize how meaningless our models, doctrines, dogmas, and so on have become. Everything just floats in the air as some self-enclosed conceptual system while the actual, hands-on opportunity to participate with the indwelling Spirit of Truth passes the theologians and laity by.