Entries tagged with christianity

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Mary's Room and Iolo's Christ

The Rational Animal

Let us recall that the root of the word "Man" is the same as the root of the word "Mind." Part of the definition of man is "a rational animal."

Morganwg's Christ

Let us also recall the progression of the soul in the thought of Iolo Morganwg. Every soul has its beginning in Gwynvyd, the luminous life, but descends to the depths of Annwn, the mineral creation and the very border of the Cythraul, the primordial chaos. Over the course of long ages, the soul rises from the cauldron of Annwn and works its way through the circles of incarnate life in Abred. Arriving at last at the level of humanity, the soul stands at at the border between Abred and Gwynfydd. The soul's work then is to release herself from the bonds of matter and restore herself to her proper divine place in Gwynfydd, which is the realm of Luminous Life.

The role of Jesus Christ in the soul's progression is described thusly in Barddas:

Teacher. Dost thou know what thou art?

Disciple. I am a man by the grace of God the Father.

T. Whence earnest thou?

D. From the extremities of the depth of Annwn, where is every beginning in the division of the fundamental light and darkness.

T. How earnest thou here from Annwn?

D. I came, having traversed about from state to state, as God brought me through dissolutions and deaths, until I was born a man by the gift of God and His goodness.

T. Who conducted that migration?

D. The Son of God, that is, the Son of Man.

T. Who is He, and what is His name?

D. His name is Jesus Christ, and He is none other than God the Father incarnate in the form and species of man, and manifesting visible and apparent finiteness for the good and comprehension of man, since infinitude cannot be exhibited to the sight and hearing, nor can there, on that account, be any correct and just apprehension thereof.

Elsewhere, we read the following account of the soul's progression:

Q. Through how many forms didst thou come? and what happened unto thee?

A. Through every form capable of life, in water, in earth, and in air. And there happened unto me every se-verity, every hardship, every evil, and every suffering, and but little was the goodness and gwynfyd before I became a man.

Q. Thou hast said, that it was in virtue of God's love thou earnest through all these, and didst see and experience all these; tell me how can this take place through the love of God? And how many were the signs of the want of love during thy migration in Abred?

A. Gwynvyd cannot be obtained without seeing and knowing every thing, but it is not possible to see and to know every thing without suffering every thing.

In order to return to the light of Gwynfydd man must know everything, do everything-- suffer everything.

Gwynvyd, Intellect, Christ

Let us, further, recall the three primary beings in the system of Plotinus. First there is the One, unknowable, ineffable, abiding beyond all things. After the one, produced from the one as heat is produced by a fire, is Intellect.

Intellect is the universal mind, but we must not think of it in the way that we ordinarily think about mind. There are two differences between Intellect as understood by Plotinus, and "mind" as we ordinarily talk about it.

First, Intellect is not the level of discursive thinking. The sort of thought that goes "I'm hungry-- I wonder what I have in the fridge?" is not Intellect. The sort of thought that goes, "I'm hungry, but I dont' know what's in the fridge. It seems to me that I have a pattern of waiting until my blood sugar crashes to find something to eat, and at that point my brain is too foggy to come up with anything and I end up eating a cookie. I should do something about that" is closer to Intellect, insofar as it is both deliberate and concerned with patterns. But neither of these are Intellect, because at the level of Intellect there is no difference between the knower and the object of knowledge.

Second, Intellect is Real Being. The phenomena of the sensory world are always passing into and out of existence, but the structures of Intellect, diverse and yet absolutely united, are eternal. Being eternal, they are real. Plotinus calls Intellect Itself "The One God who is all the Gods." Thomas Taylor explains that Intellect "is all Beings."

After Intellect is Soul Itself. Soul has a higher phase, which looks toward Intellect, and a lower phase which tends toward matter. But every being which is alive, is alive by virtue of having a soul, and every soul exists by virtue of Soul Itself.

It should be clear to anyone that there is an obvious parallel between the Three Primary Beings and the Christian Holy Trinity. The One identical to God the Father, Intellect to the Logos, his Son, and Soul to the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the ages, some Christians and members of related traditions have noticed this and embraced it. Others have denied it and condemned Plotinus. Others have embraced Plotinus but organized his system a bit differently, so that the One is identified with the entire Holy Trinity and the succeeding levels with subordinate beings.

In the third category are thinkers like Ficino, who identified Intellect with the realm of the angels and Soul with the World Soul. In the second are Christians in the tradition of Tertullian, who famously denounced Greek philosophy. In the first category are many Christian esotericists, including, from what I can tell, modern thinkers like C.W. Leadbeater, and also the whole of the Ismaili tradition within Islam.

But I believe that Iolo Morganwg is in the first category as well. Consider the rest of the exchange on the nature of Christ:

Teacher. Why is He called the Son of God?

Disicple. Because He is from God in His essential works, and not from His uncreated pre-existence, that is, He is second to God, and every Second is a son to the primary First, in respect of existence and nature. That is to say, Jesus Christ is a manifestation of God in a peculiar manner, and every one is a son to another, who is primary, and the manifested is a son to him who manifests. And where God is seen or comprehended otherwise than as a species and existence beyond all knowledge and comprehension, such cannot take place except in what is seen differently to the attribute of God, in respect of the non-commencement and unchangeableness of His being, His nature, and His quality.

On this view, then, the Second Being is Intellect. Intellect can be understood as a Being who is All Beings, the One God who is all Gods, and as a level of existence, beyond the level of matter or ensouled matter. That is to say, the Intellect of Plotinus is the same as the Gwynvydd of Morganwg. Christ, then, is Gwynvyd.

Christ conducts the migration of all souls to Gwynvyd, and in order ot attain this level, the soul must "be all things, know all things, and suffer all things." What does this mean?

Mary's Room

In a series of papers published in 1982 and 1986 a philosopher of mind named Frank Jackson presented the following argument against Physicalism. Physicalism, recall, is the belief that only matter and energy exist.

Imagine a girl named Mary who lived in a black and white room and interacted with the world solely via a black and white TV. Perhaps her skin was painted black and she only wore white clothes, or her skin was painted white and she only wore black clothes. The point is that Mary had never seen color. And yet, over the course of her time in her black and white room Mary, via her black and white TV, learned everything that there is to know about color as a function of light waves. She knew, that is, exactly what happened when light bounced off an object at such and such a frequency to appear to the eye as red or blue or green, and she knew about the cones and rods in the human eye, and the different sets of cones and rods in other animal eyes. In fact Mary spent so much time studying color that she knew everything that could ever be learned about it in this way, even those details which have thus far eluded our own science of Optics.

And then, one day, when there was no more possible information to be learned, Mary stepped out of her room, and for the first time beheld the color red.

Now Jackson asks: Did Mary learn anything new?

Of course we must answer Yes. Now, instead of learning about red, she learned what it was like to see red.

Another way of saying this is to say that instead of learning about red discursively, she learned gnostically. No longer was there a separation between the knower and the object of knowledge.

Conclusion

If Christ is Intellect, and if Intellect contains all possible knowledge, and if Intellect truly is union with the object of knowledge, then Christ must know all things, do all things, and suffer all things. Otherwise his knowledge is limited in the same way that Mary's knowledge is limited before she emerges from her room; he has discursive knowledge only.

To say that Man is a rational being is to say that man begins to participate in Intellect. To say that his aim is to attain Gwynvydd is to say that his aim is to return to his existence in Intellect. To say that Christ conducts his migration is both to say that Christ is a man who has undergone the journey from Abred to Gwynvydd, and to say that Christ is all men as they rise from Abred to Gwynvydd. And to say that Christ is all men as they rise from Abred to Gwynvydd is also to affirm again that Christ is Intellect, Gwynvydd, itself.

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Some Notes on a Platonic Theology, Part 4: The Hypostases and the Virgin

I had intended to cover a number of subjects related to Platonic Christianity, but it turns out I have a great deal to say on that topic, and I'd rather not attempt to pack it all into one post. Instead, today we're going to discuss some of the possible ways of thinking about God that result when you combine the separate ideas of the Three Primary Hypostases in Plotinus with the Christian Holy Trinity, and then discuss how that then affects the role in the Divine economy of the greatest of Christian saints, the Virgin Mary.

Now, before we begin, I need to say that all of this is at the level of Wild Speculation. I intend nothing I say here as a statement of dogma and certainly not as an attempt to change anyone's views. I enjoy playing with ideas, combining important or powerful thoughts from different traditions, and seeing what results. If that sort of thing appeals to you, welcome aboard! If not, well-- you probably aren't reading this anyway.

The Hypostases, Horizontally and Vertically

As we’ve already seen, the Intelligible Triad of Being, Life, and Intellect (Nous) was borrowed by many of the Church Fathers in order to describe the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the Christianized Triad, the Father is Being; the Son is Intellect; and the Holy Ghost is Life. Among the pagan Platonists, starting with Porphyry, each term in the Intelligible Triad is a hypostasis represented by a particular God, just as they are for Christians (the Christians also use the term “hypostasis,” though they’d say “three hypostases of One God” rather than “three hypostases, each of which is a God.” I’ll leave it to you to decide how important this difference is). Earlier on, this isn’t the case; Porphyry’s teacher, Plotinus, did not see them as hypostases, but as qualities possessed by the First Principle. For Plotinus, the three Primary Hypostases are Being Itself, Intellect (Nous) Itself, and Soul Itself.

I wonder if it isn’t possible to combine Porphyry’s view with Plotinus’s, and Christianize both. In this case, the First Principle, Being Itself, is the One, or God the Father. Within the One Itself are three terms, Being, Life, and Intellect. The Being of the Father is the Father, within the Father; the Life within the Father is the Holy Spirit, within the Father; the Intellect within the Father is the Son, within the Father.

It's worth noting, by the way, that at least some of the late Platonists wouldn't like that notion very much at all. For Proclus, the One must be preserved exempt from all qualities and all multitude; in the Second Book of his Platonic Theology he calls it "the cause of the Gods," and emphasizes that it is "not the leader of a Triad." Fortunately, we don't have to do what Proclus tells us!

The Second Hypostasis, Intellect Itself, is the Son. Please remember that “Intellect” is not thoughts, but the Ideas which make thought and existence possible; Intellect isn’t a particular Idea or even the sum total of Ideas, but that by virtue of which Ideas come to be. At every level, the First Triad is re-capitulated, so that the Father is the Being of the Son, the Holy Ghost is the Life of the Son, and the Son is the Intellect of the Son.

The Third Hypostasis, Soul Itself, is the Holy Ghost. Remember, here, that Soul Itself is not the same as the World Soul. The World Soul or Anima Mundi is a powerful being-- a God-- but it is still one soul, even if it is the one soul that contains all souls. Soul Itself is that by virtue of which there are any souls at all, including the World Soul. Within Soul Itself, the Holy Spirit, the Father is the Being of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the Life of the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the Intellect of the Holy Spirit.

Mary and the Hypostases

Mary has a unique role to play in this formulation of the Trinity. She is a creature, but a creature which was able to contain the Second Hypostasis, and thus to contain the First Principle. She is thus the mediating principle between the Primary Hypostases and creatures. In traditional Theology, she is the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and the Spouse of God the Holy Ghost. As such, she plays a different role with respect to each of the Primary Hypostases.

Here are some of the roles and titles Mary is given in traditional Christianity: 1. Queen of Heaven and Earth; 2. Exalted beyond compare above the Seraphim and Cherubim, the highest of the angels; 3. Mother of God; 4. Her womb contained the universe; 5. Mediatrix of All Graces; 6. Recipient of "hyperdulia," the highest veneration possible for a creature; 7. A creature, that is to say, a being with a definite beginning, and so not eternal; 8. Yet, somehow, able to contain the Eternal.

Picture the arrangement suggested above, in which the three persons of the Holy Trinity each occur at all three levels of being; in a sense the Triad becomes an Ennead.

On this arrangement, Mary would have a different relationship to each of the terms (or Persons) of the Ennead at each of the three different levels.

At the First Level, she is the Daughter of the Father; this means that she receives her Being from the Father (with the Son, his Intellect, and the Spirit, his Life). It might be that although, in Time, her birth comes rather late in human history, because there is no Time for God, the Idea of her, and thus the fundamental spark of her Being, always existed with him. In that case, as she will become the First of Beings, this was always the core of her being, and thus she was always the First; we can thus justifiably call her the First Creature, even if it doesn't appear so to us who live with Time and History. She is the Mother Secret and Hidden.

At the second level, she is the Mother of the Son; this means that, having received Being from the Father (which includes Life and Intellect), she acts as the Kora in Plato's Timaeus, the Formless-Form which brings forth all the Forms; thus she is Mother of the Word, who is the Logos, the Form of Forms. At this level, too, she is Queen of Angels, as these are the Ideas or Noetic Beings (gods, in an earlier way of thinking) that exist at this level.

At the Third Level, she is Spouse of God the Holy Ghost; this means that, in partnership with Soul Itself (the Holy Ghost), she becomes Mother to all particular souls. Would that make her the same as the Soul of the World (Anima Mundi), or would the Soul of the World be one of the particular souls to whom she is Mother? I don't know; what do you think?

The Holy Family and the Divinization of Matter

In the thought of Plotinus, Matter is not and can never be a Fourth Hypostasis; Matter is the source of evil and the prison from which we must escape.

I wonder if the logic of the Incarnation doesn’t change this perspective.

By her birth in time, Mary, the first Creature, becomes incarnate in matter. She then bears the Christ-child, who is the Second (or Third) Hypostasis, become incarnate in matter. The two are cared for by Saint Joseph, an ordinary man who rises to an extraordinary occasion. As a living human family, these three become a material model of the Trinity: Christ, the eternal spiritual power who descends into Matter; Joseph, the mortal man who rises to the occasion and thus rises above mere mortality; and Mary, who has elements of both, at once representing an immortal Idea incarnate in material form and also a perfectly ordinary woman who raises herself to universal heights by submitting absolutely to the Will of God: Be it done unto me according to Thy Word.

If all of this is the case, it suggests that part of the work of the Incarnation of Christ is the Divinization of Matter Itself, the creation, in effect of a Fourth Hypostasis-- an adopted Hypostasis, to be sure, but another One which will share in the Life of the Blessed Trinity. The Way is shown by the Holy Family. This is the true meaning of the Gnostic idea of the Fallen Sophia, for whose rescue Christ descends into matter.

But again, this is all speculation. What do you think?

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Daily Advice 12.19.20

Let's begin to wrap up the treck through Seneca's De Providentia with an unfamiliar idea:

'Yet,' you say [that is, you say to God], 'many sorrows, things dreadful and hard to bear, do befall us.'

"Yes, because I could not withdraw you from their path, I have armed your minds to withstand them all; endure with fortitude."

In this you may outstrip God; he is exempt from enduring evil, while you are superior to it.

I would be very surprised if the majority of the people reading this blog were Christians. Most of the works I quote are pagan in one sense or another, and many of you probably found your way here via John Michael Greer.

I'd like to suggest that, in this passage from Seneca, we see Christianity's great strength-- and also one of its great weaknesses, at least in its popular form.

The weakness first. Contemporary Christians, at least here in the US, tend to think of God as an all-powerful puppet master, pulling everyone's strings all the time. The far richer and more diverse world of pre-modern Christianity, peopled with angels and demons, saints and spirits, of every sort, is either forgotten, or downplayed-- or deliberately denied.

The result of this denial is a monstrous absurdity. God becomes the author not only of every good in our lives, but every evil as well-- an omnipotent monster, like a child crushing ants and setting his toys on fire.

It is far wiser, in my view, to take something more like the view that Seneca shares elsewhere in this essay. As he writes, "Although the great creator and ruler of the universe himself wrote the decrees of Fate, yet he follows them." God himself is bound by fate. Or-- and this seems to me to be best of all-- God has essentially emptied himself into his creation. The result of this is that the answer to the question, "Can God make a stone so heavy even he can't lift it?" is "Yes. You are that stone." You-- or rather, your will, and the will of every other conscious being, the spiritual hierarchies of angels and demons; gods, demigods, saints and spirts very much included.

All that said, this passage does, as I said, highlight what I consider to be Christianity's central virtue.

For the Christian, it is not true that God is exempt from evil. Instead, God has descended into existence to suffer the worst sort of evil, enduring betrayal, abandonment, pain, humiliation, and, finally, death.

Now, this story, too, can be turned into something awful, by regarding it as a blood sacrifice, or a ransom payment. This has been what you might call "the majority view" in Catholicism and many Protestant traditions.

There is an alternative point of view, however. Drawing on the work of the medieval Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus, radical Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes it this way:

Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.

On this view God, though exempt from suffering, suffers anyway, as a final blood sacrifice to end the time of blood sacrifice.

I'm not trying to convince you to become Christians. I consider interfering in people's religious lives to be roughly on a level with interfering in their marriages, and for the same reason. My own Christianity is about as far from orthodox as one gets; "Iamblichean Catholicism" is a term I've been using for it lately. Still, this seems to me to be the very best case one can make for the worship of the divine through the person of Jesus Christ: Though divine and exempt from evil, he descends into the world of mankind, to suffer the worst we can suffer.