The human mind is possibly the only thing in existence that lives separated from reality. Everything below the human state, below here meaning of more restricted consciousness, is embedded in the wholeness of life, more specifically natural life with its priorities of self-preservation and reproduction. Everything above the human state, such as angels and those human beings who have entered the kingdom of God, has become one with spiritual reality. There are also demons but these are a fallen not a natural category. It is only human beings who, by virtue of what they are, live outside reality. This is because human beings have moved beyond necessity into freedom but are not yet so far beyond necessity that they are fully free. They have developed a conscious self but are still bound to that because they have not yet aligned that self with the greater whole.
The human state is in many ways a sad state but it is one full of potential. It is sad because of the separation from the rest of life a conscious self causes with the inevitable consequence of suffering. Alienation is the hallmark of a human being, especially one that has progressed to the midway point we now occupy in which we have largely overcome pure instinct to live in a rational state but have not yet developed the intuition that would start us on the path of return to God. This is midway on the path of spiritual evolution but it is also the nadir of an arc, the point from which we have to ascend by turning to spiritual life. If we fail to do that, as so many of us are currently failing to do, we will fall still further into spiritual darkness.
It is only the human being who requires proof of God because it is only the human being that lives outside God, separated from him. The animal is unconsciously one with God, the saint consciously so. But all we know is our self, our own consciousness, limited in content and with a seemingly impenetrable barrier between it and everything else. And yet while our consciousness certainly is limited it is also self-conscious and in that fact is the source of freedom, love and potentially inexhaustible creativity. It is, in other words, god-like even if it is so in a very undeveloped form.
Do you want proof of God? The fact that you are a living, conscious being, no mere automaton, is proof that God is. He is in you. Not only in you, of course, but he is there, manifesting in your consciousness. You, you yourself, are proof of God.
What a beautiful post! Humanity is proof of God's existence. Art, music, & love have no real evolutionary purpose. Atheists dismiss these ideas as just chemical reactions. However, they are so much more. This is why true creativity can only occur when one is in tune with the Savior.
ReplyDeleteIn one of Steiner's lectures he discusses that the emergence of proofs for the existence of God were a consequence of consciousness becoming detached from God - up to that point, then God did not need to be proved, because the divine was obvious, experienced.
ReplyDelete(So long as we distinguish the obviousness of 'the divine' in a general sense to earlier Men; distinguished from more specific concepts of the nature of God - such as proofs that there is one God only, or proofs about the nature of the one God.)
My feeling is that proofs of God were valuable to the medieval mind (what Steiner - which was at a 'partially detached' stage, intermediate between the immersive passivity of Original Participation and the detached agency of the modern Consciousness Soul.
Steiner calls this medieval type of consciousness the Intellectual Soul; perhaps because they seem to have been able to reach an awareness of the divine wit the help of logic and proofs - e.g. the kind of rigorous theology associated with traditional Roman Catholic practices.
But (with individual exceptions) this no longer works for modern Man - and proofs/ logic etc just get absorbed into the Ahrimanic System.
Thanks Lady Mermaid.I think you are right in what you say about true creativity. There is creativity outside of a God-centred awareness because humans remain human but more often than not it is destructive in its overall effects.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bruce, early man was aware of the divine as a matter of course but had little idea of the nature of God. By losing that instinctive awareness we can eventually get a better idea of God's true nature.
Good post, especially the last paragraph.
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