Hi Nick —
Once one is able to come out of the cave by establishing the connection between heaven and earth in their own being...
If one sees Christianity was of a purely cosmological order, then I would agree. Such being the case, following Plato's teaching, one would be capable of uniting heaven and earth through the operation of the reasoning faculty, but as Christianity comprises Divine Revelation, the knowledge contained therein transcends the cosmological order and therefore the capacity of the human intellect. What it reveals is beyond man's ken and, therefore, beyond his reach, so one is able to do nothing other than approach the Mystery in faith in accordance with the means and the methods made available to him.
Even a cosmological approach requires a supreme act of intellectual asceticism, a Pelagian act of will, which, by all the evidence we have, only a very few are capable of. This limits the idea of salvation to a handful of humanity, whereas those who are 'justified' according to Scripture — the widow, the publican, the robber — display none of these qualities. In fact the one person who does display them, the 'rich young man', cannot bring himself to embrace the gift offered to him.
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A Christian emenates a light and a quality of energy not of the earth.
Again, that seems to me a cosmological determination, one in which the life of the Spirit is sought to be measured and quantified. A Christian emanates love. How that love is perceived is dependent upon the viewer. Many Christians are not 'seen' at all — it does rather suppose that we assume the capacity to see it in all its mysteriousness in the first place, a rather presumptive statement, I would have thought.
I suggest a hermeneutic key to the esteric dimension of this is in Romans 6:3-4:
"Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death?
For we are buried together with him by baptism into death"
There are only a few Christians in the world and a great many pre-Christians and non-Christians.
Again, I am not in a position to sit in judgement upon souls, so I am inclined to dismiss such statements as something of an assumption — I am not the mean by which a life is measured. I prefer the idea of 'practising Christians' — hopefully some are good, no doubt some are bad, but none are perfect.
Doctrine is one thing and actualising doctrine is another.
A self-evident truism.
This is normal for the infestation of "experts." I just feel sorry for the young that feel the truth of Christianity but are denied it by these "experts."
The trouble being that one's presuppositions determine who one considers to be an 'expert'. Is not Weil one of your 'experts'? It seems to me she has a lot to say about something she never fully embraced nor understood. It seems to me all you allow in Christianity is psychology. If such is the case, it's understandable that you decry the work of the Spirit, or those who speak on its behalf.
Yes, most of these rites came from ancient Egypt. The trouble is that exoteric forms of rituals exist but without the inner understanding to experience their esoteric benefit.
Actually that's not the case. We accept that their interior workings are in fact 'mysterious' precisely because they transcend the human capacity to understand. Again, it depends whether you limit Christian doctrine to a cosmology or not. There is plenty of evidence in the saints and mystics to plumb then depths of the mysteries and illuminate the furthrest reaches of the intellect, but even then, every authority states that there is more than pure mind can comprehend.
It seems to me that whilst my 'experts' insist the mystery transcends all limitation, your 'experts' insist the mystery is contained entirely within comprehensible boundaries. So one opens the possibility of more, and the other shuts it down.
With regard to rites themselves, I suggest you look further. Then you need to look closer at rites and the doctrinal statements. These rites — the sharing of food, the offer of hospitality, the welcome of the stranger — come from man's heritage as man, much older and more universal than Egypt. But none reach so far in their understanding and doctrine as do the Sacraments, that is an acknowledged and inarguable fact. Every culture has its rite of a shared meal, a ritual of washing, rites of passage ... but taking the meal as one example, none has the equivalent of the Eucharist as it is understood.
No, it is the world that is an abstraction...
I disagree. I think that's a view of a psychologism, an mode of existentialism. To me the world is what it is, it is man who reduces it to abstractions. If the world is not 'real', then nothing is.
A person can only become a Christian; that is follow in the precepts of Christ, by becoming able to do so which requires inner work on ones own being beginning with the efforts to "know thyself"
Again you reduce it to psychology. I do not.
What makes me wonder is, even within your limitations, you should choose to hold such a pessimistic view according to the puny efforts of your intellectual inferiors. Why not exercise optimism and look to those who lead the way ... or is Weil the total summation of human possibility?
Not for me. Whilst I fully accept that "without me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5), I delight in the fact that I am called to co-operate in the operation and indeed the mission of the Holy Spirit. You reduce Christianity to a psychological praxis. I see it as a gift, albeit a challenging one.
Otherwise we turn in circles normal for being in opposition to ourselves. This is an insulting psychological reality but non-the-less something a person must come to recognize if they have a calling from Christianity.
What is absent, and therefore I assume unrecognised, in your view is the Presence of God.
To disassociate oneself from the world means to experience it without our normal cave perspective. To carry ones cross is to open ones eyes:
Quote:
"There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too." Simone Weil
It's a shame she never experienced love, for she might have seen things differently.
For the Christian, detachment is the prince of virtues (according to Eckhart), but there is no talk of pain, only love, and the joy of God. No pain ... no hate ... no lies ... why does she introduce these into the contemplation of Christian things? Why express it in negative terms? Except that she can find none positive? I wonder does she understand Christianity at all.
To consciously carry ones cross allows one to experience the world without the rose colored glasses of our emotional reactions and their associated hatred and lying and whatever other ingenious forms of self justification we can invent. This is a learning experience and what it means to live without psychological slavery. The world doesn't applaud this. To the contrary it hates it since it reveals it for what it is.
"Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude. –Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace, p.55)
Sounds like guilt to me. She seems to insist you have to feel bad about feeling good. I think Weil sums up the existential angst of the modern era.
If we imagine that the path of love is an easy one, constantly filled with heavenly perfumes and sublime ecstasies...
But who does? This is all your angst, Nick, not mine, nor anyone else's. Stop projecting your own feelings and emotions onto others.
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Without God, I can understand why you have such a negative view, but without God, what is the point of calling oneself a Christian?
Thomas
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