AshvinP wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 11:37 pmFederica wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 2:48 pmAshvinP wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 2:17 pm It has been interesting for me how the so-called 'introductory' material is actually the most helpful for orienting my intuition for these profound esoteric realities even more. That is also true for Cleric's various illustrations on this forum. I'm trying to make a habit of always returning to these after venturing out into more diverse domains of spiritual science.
In connection with the lecture you shared above, here is another complementary angle to consider from Tomberg.
Yes, I also try to revisit posts and lectures to get a sense of how my understanding is changing. Thanks for this other angle on Christianity by Tomberg. Though I can't properly grasp all the meaning, I do appreciate the elevated perspective. I see the connection with the lecture, that creation and destruction are one, and how the resurrecting power of Love shines in the middle, the unifying principle of everything.
I should have included this section as well which introduces the above section:
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WHEN WE STUDY the history of human cognition, we find that a problem runs through this history, as an unbroken thread, concerning the common source of the outer world and human consciousness. The cosmic Godhead in relation to the world and humanity was, and ever will be, the most important question for earthly humanity. Since the moment of the birth of thought this question has been answered in various ways. But, regardless of how manifold the answers to the question may be (apart from Atheism, which is a manifestation of spiritual disease rather than knowledge), they may ultimately be combined into three categories. The Godhead may be considered pantheistically, theistically, or deistically; it is the cosmic entity in itself, or it guides the universe it has created from outside, or it is the creative being at rest above the universe who, having created the world, has lost interest in its fate. In the first instance, we have the Godhead of all consciousness, enlightening the world and all life that flows through the currents of the world; in the second, we have the highest being with whom humankind is confronted; in the third, we have the transcendental originator of the cosmic system present in the cosmos, the same way a watchmaker is present in the constructed watch. These views depend on certain basic feelings that are peculiar to human souls in their views of life. One soul feels inundated and irradiated by the divine; another has the experience, as an independent being, of confronting the divine in free exchange; and yet another feels neither the flow of the divine in the cosmos nor its revelations in free interaction, but merely a memory of the divine as the rational principle that governs the universe. Those who hold these fundamental conceptions often stand in irreconcilable opposition, believing that the truth of their own view unmasks that of the other as mistaken. Thus, the pantheist views the theistic concept of God as anthropomorphic; the theist regards the pantheistic concept as naturalistic and vague; and both reject the concept of a deist (say, Voltaire) as an insubstantial abstraction. The deist, on the other hand, considers both the other concepts unscientific and philosophically unsound.
Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (pp. 130-131). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition.
I am stunned how insightful and clear this whole explanation is! Thanks Ashvin. Hopefully I'll not forget that. I feel that with these last two characterizations, by Steiner and Tomberg, I have made some progress in grasping our human relationship to the Divine, the nature of Christ, and how feeling is called to fill and substantiate the form outlined by these thoughts.