AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 2:12 pm
As we saw from the finger in front of your eye example, realizing you are a unique perspective of God does
not inhibit your ability to function or know about the world. In fact, it gives you a much more
harmonious understanding of the world you are functioning in. You go from, "
I have two eyes redundantly showing me the same world" to "
I have one eye providing me a perspective, and another eye providing another perspective, and they both integrate to give me a more whole perspective on the world." That is what we call 'physical' knowledge
by way of the Spirit's illumination. There is no discontinuity between the two forms of knowledge, but there is also no possible way you could get from the first understanding to the second understanding from merely studying the physical components of the eye, without the Spirit's illumination (in this case our Reasoning activity).
What part of that is any different if I am a unique being, connected to and part of the cosmos, in the image of god?
That same logic applies to all physical processes. That is what your view is missing - the spiritual (Thinking) component. You are assuming there is an external world to you which is complete in itself and that your eyes-mind take that complete picture and tries to recreate it within you. That is the standard flawed assumption of nearly all post-Cartesian science and philosophy. We can dispel that assumption by reasoning through the nature of our thinking activity. All of that reasoning is provided by Steiner in his PoF and also Goethean Science. In a nutshell, our thinking activity takes incomplete percepts of the world and unites them with their proper concepts to form Unities of experience. That is why we can say we are truly co-creating the phenomenal world. Of course this will make little sense unless you actually go through the reasoning for yourself.
I don’t think the “external world is “complete in itself”. However it has a level of reality given to it by god, for a purpose. You cannot just turn the starving family you perceive in the house next door into teapots, and ignore them because you don’t fancy tea. Some cultures tend to treat animals very cruelly as they see them as not much different to tractors, does that make the reality they “co-create” real?
I know what your answer to this will be, but I actually see a danger in this because it makes the spiritual journey monotone. We are grounded and given spiritual food to sustain us by turning our hearts and mind to god, by connecting at the deepest level into the vine through the eucharist, and by finding some silence in the storms that can rage there. We are fulfilled by then turning that inward love from god outwards into the world, by helping in small ways the people/creatures/environment in their needs. We are improved by understanding and acknowledging or failings, our shadow, and putting effort into improving our thoughts, words and actions. And finally we have an opportunity to enjoy life, to appreciate and be thankful for the good things we have been given.
These are not things that happen just through a correct understanding of our perception. They are about choices, and a journey, and as someone who has spent a big chunk of his life being selfish and foolish, these are the things that are slowly turning the ship around so that it’s path now at least has a compass.
In the words of the bard,
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
Shakespeare was referring to the phases of our lives, but there is a sense in which we can chose the characters we play. To me, your focus is on designing the set, and rewriting the play. I think we can do both to some extent, but far more important is the choice of who we play, ensuring our script and our performance are true. This is enough of a challenge, and understanding how the stage lights work is just a ‘nice to have’ part of the wider story.
You are making Reality two by claiming God's essence creates another essence when creating us (and presumably all other creatures).
Yes I am, it’s only when we are “born again in the spirit” that we take on participation in god’s spirit. This is how we become children rather than creations. He did not create us as his essence.
It is a very simple thing I am pointing out to you, so simple that it easily goes unnoticed. The thing is, I am not interested in convincing you my view is more "sacred" than yours. If you get a feeling of more sacredness by thinking of God as other than man, or by whatever mystical experience you have had in the context of your faith, then that is just the way it is and I cannot write anything to change that. But, ideally, that would be stated upfront - that the separation of God from man is based only on faith and/or mystical experience and not on reasoning - so that I do not assume you are looking for reasoned arguments.
It’s based on several ways of knowing, including experience, reason and faith. There must be a balance in these things to understand where things fit correctly.
Your OP certainly gives the impression that you are looking for such reasoned arguments to discuss the essence of what occurs in the Universe, and the only place such questions could naturally go is to the essence of spiritual Reality. Perhaps you do not expect that because you hold spiritual Reality to exist in a completely different domain of inquiry (or non-inquiry) than the workings of the Universe, an expectation which I claim is an obvious artifice of Cartesian-Kantian dualisms. When we inevitably arrive at the spiritual Reality, then it becomes entirely a matter of feeling and faith for you. I would say the sacred feeling you get in the context of Catholic faith is actually intimation of the higher spiritual Reality I am speaking of, despite the rigid Church dogma, and it should prompt you towards seeking higher resolution of the spiritual workings behind the phenomenal world.
It’s fine to try to understand these things, but go back to the analogy of us being actors on a stage. By the time you work out how the writer of the play got the script to the director, how the director got the script to you, you summarised the key themes and decided the parts of the script you wanted to change, the play will be over. The reviews will say there was this one actor who just stood there staring at a bit of paper in his hand.
Right now it seems to me your position is summed up by Kant when he said, "I had to deny knowledge to make room for faith".
Kant was a protestant, so that’s not a surprise