Great thoughts. I have also been thinking about these things. George MacDonald highlights the Fatherhood of God and Sonship of Christ in many of his stories. He has helped me to understand that Christ came specifically to reveal the Father to us. I think this gets quite overlooked much of the time. We take it for granted. That’s just how we are when we have heard things over and over again. But I had a mini apocalypse about it, in a sense, when I realized that there is no Father without the Son. The son makes a man a father. The only true revealer of a father is a son. This may sound banal but it was so illuminating to me. The story of the prodigal son took a new turn too. What the prodigal son didn’t know was that he was the son! And if he didn’t know what it meant to be the son (which is why he asked for his inheritance and left town) then he did not “see” his father. I’m sure you have thought about these things too. I just had to share my little eureka moment!
As an aside, have you ever thought about animism in light of Christ being “fully God and fully man”? This has been swirling around in my head for some time as well. I think this also ties into Barfield’s chapter on the Israelites in Saving the Appearances. The ineffable name of God, the Tetragrammaton. I can’t elaborate it all right here. But just thought I would ask.
I think that is an extraordinary insight re the manner by which relationship is real and transformative. I would like to add to your point by observing that, given the existence of a man, that he should have a son does not necessarily follow. hence, that it follows is not of necessity but of freedom. for this reason, Christ also represents divine freedom together with divine necessity. as Spinoza points out, these are in no way antithetical, and they are, of course, united in God. but it is an aid to the intellect to parse them.
after this point, then follows that you know and what you elucidated in your comment.
Oh this is interesting! I like where you are going with divine freedom and necessity although I fear I may not fully understand what you are getting at. Could you elaborate on this some more?
just that, as a man necessarily has a father but doesn’t necessarily have a son (though in doing so, in turn becomes a father), so in God there exists some transcendent relation between necessity and freedom that we can intimate through this analogy
Ok! Then we are tracking! For some reason I find the simplicity of this analogy so very profound. Two quotes from MacDonald that point in this direction.
“The Fatherhood and the Sonship are one, save that the Fatherhood looks down lovingly, and the Sonship looks up lovingly.”
“ In this, then, is God like the child: that he is simply and altogether our friend, our father—our more than friend, father, and mother—our infinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother. He has not two thoughts about us. With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end—namely, that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness.“
I like your ending statement " he should not imagine he could flee from own soul and still retain this privileged access." I think there is much to unpack in those words in relation to Son of Man and it's relation to evolution of consciousness, which is the evolution of humankind. To Father anything, there must be a yielding of life-giving forces, and in terms of consciousness this involves a partial sacrifice of self - a giving up of something that the soul processes as desire. The fleeing of father responsibility to his family is quite common in our modern culture in the U.S. I see this problem as a result of a larger one, which goes back to your ending statement. How can mankind neglect both the discipline and nourishment that the soul requires for the evolution of consciousness and still expect evolution to happen in a healthy progression?
As always, Steiner explains it best ;) From R. Steiner’s Lecture XI Gospel of Matthew- September 1910: “When we observe mankind — either at the present time, or at the time of Christ Jesus — we must recognize that rudiments lie in men just as plants contain seeds, even when only in leaf and before the blossom and fruit is formed. In looking at such a plant we can say: As surely as this plant which so far only possesses green leaves has within it the germ of both flower and fruit, so man, who at the time of Christ Jesus possessed only sentient and intellectual-soul, holds within him the germ of the spiritual-soul, which then opens itself to the spirit-self, in order that the higher triad, as a new spiritual gift from God, may flow into him from above. Thus we can say: Man unfolds through the content and qualities of his soul in the same way as a plant unfolds in turn green leaves, blossoms, and fruit. In developing his sentient-soul, intellectual-soul, and spirit-soul man develops something that corresponds to the flower of his being, and lifts this up to receive the inpouring of the Divine Spirit from above, so that by receiving the spirit-self he may rise to ever further heights of human evolution.
At the time Christ Jesus walked on earth the normal man had developed the rational-soul as his highest principle; this was not as yet capable of receiving into it the spirit-self; but out of the same man as now had developed to the rational soul the spiritual-soul would evolve as his child — as the consummation of his being, which later would become the receptacle for the spirit-self.
What is to unfold out of the whole nature of man, and come forth from him like a blossom? How was this described in the Mysteries, and in the circle where Christ Jesus spoke to His disciples of their further development? Translated into our language it was called the ‘Son of Man.’ The Greek has a less restricted meaning than our word ‘son,’ meaning ‘son of a father,’ and signifies rather the offspring of a living organism, something that evolves out of such an organism, as a blossom evolves from a plant which at first possessed only green leaves. So it was said of the ordinary man, whose being had not yet blossomed into the spiritual-soul, that the ‘Son of Man’ had not yet evolved in him.”
thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, Leilani, I would add that all authority comes from God and hence the “fleeing of the father figure” that you described is also of theological and metaphysical import. we need to have internalised the authority or else the soul will become anarchic and violent without its Lord, Christ.
there are many insightful bits in this, but I think this is one of those cases (and there are a few - is 'begotten, not made' really any more than a mere linguistic trick?) where the traditional formulation just confuses things.
I was immediately reminded of this passage from the King Follet Discourse:
'God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible, -- I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another'.
Son of God and Son of Man because... God is Himself a Man.
the 'evolution of consciousness' angle, in my view, is this: that we can now understand (and earlier men could not, for many reasons), that there is no fundamental separation in nature between God and Man, but only in perfection.
Jesus told us to be perfect as the Father is perfect. He wouldn't say it if it was not possible. But without the realization above (and in the traditional view of classical theology and metaphysics), the only way to do this would be to cease being human. But Jesus most emphatically rejects this, by calling Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man.
i tried to lay out why i don’t think “begotten, not made” is a linguistic trick but i understand if you don’t find it compelling.
re “perfection,” i like to think of this etymologically together with the more colloquial sense of the term. hence, God is complete and we are to strive towards this wholeness, of which we bear the image and one day, may attain to to likeness.
I used to try to make sense of it, so I appreciate the effort and the exercise. I just reached a point where eventually I dared to ask the question: what if they were wrong? does the Creed really jive with the words of Jesus? I ended up thinking it doesn't. And eventually I also found apocryphal texts that testify that not everyone agreed either (in the Gospel of Philip there's a very funny passage about the 'conception by the Holy Spirit' for example).
with regards to perfection, I don't think God is complete. because if He is, then we're not here for any reason (which makes God a sadist and a tyrant, which I don't believe). I like to think God is surprised all the time by our endeavors (both negatively and positively). In short, that we can indeed add something to Creation (and thus, to Him and Her too).
I understand where you are coming from despite not sharing your priors in respect to the meaning and relation of these terms. for instance, you seem to think of God’s being and Man’s being as similar in some respects, or analogical, perhaps, and yet materially disjunctive. but I don’t think that’s right. Saint Paul observes that we are members in the mystical Body of Christ and I don’t think he’s wrong.
I consider Paul a great writer, and my interpretation of his style makes me read metaphor there. we can be members of God's body in the same way that we can become members of the body of our neighbor who needs a hand doing something or the members of Santa Claus when delivering presents, we can become helpers in God's cause.
but I think, and this one is not based on interpretation but rather feeling, it's what I know from what we might call mystical encounters, that God's essence and Man's essence belong to the same category, just at different stages of development, much like a child and an adult man, except on a much larger scale. I understand that lots of people had mystical experience and came to the opposite conclusion, but I did not.
Great thoughts. I have also been thinking about these things. George MacDonald highlights the Fatherhood of God and Sonship of Christ in many of his stories. He has helped me to understand that Christ came specifically to reveal the Father to us. I think this gets quite overlooked much of the time. We take it for granted. That’s just how we are when we have heard things over and over again. But I had a mini apocalypse about it, in a sense, when I realized that there is no Father without the Son. The son makes a man a father. The only true revealer of a father is a son. This may sound banal but it was so illuminating to me. The story of the prodigal son took a new turn too. What the prodigal son didn’t know was that he was the son! And if he didn’t know what it meant to be the son (which is why he asked for his inheritance and left town) then he did not “see” his father. I’m sure you have thought about these things too. I just had to share my little eureka moment!
As an aside, have you ever thought about animism in light of Christ being “fully God and fully man”? This has been swirling around in my head for some time as well. I think this also ties into Barfield’s chapter on the Israelites in Saving the Appearances. The ineffable name of God, the Tetragrammaton. I can’t elaborate it all right here. But just thought I would ask.
thank you for the comment, Shari.
I think that is an extraordinary insight re the manner by which relationship is real and transformative. I would like to add to your point by observing that, given the existence of a man, that he should have a son does not necessarily follow. hence, that it follows is not of necessity but of freedom. for this reason, Christ also represents divine freedom together with divine necessity. as Spinoza points out, these are in no way antithetical, and they are, of course, united in God. but it is an aid to the intellect to parse them.
after this point, then follows that you know and what you elucidated in your comment.
Oh this is interesting! I like where you are going with divine freedom and necessity although I fear I may not fully understand what you are getting at. Could you elaborate on this some more?
just that, as a man necessarily has a father but doesn’t necessarily have a son (though in doing so, in turn becomes a father), so in God there exists some transcendent relation between necessity and freedom that we can intimate through this analogy
Ok! Then we are tracking! For some reason I find the simplicity of this analogy so very profound. Two quotes from MacDonald that point in this direction.
“The Fatherhood and the Sonship are one, save that the Fatherhood looks down lovingly, and the Sonship looks up lovingly.”
“ In this, then, is God like the child: that he is simply and altogether our friend, our father—our more than friend, father, and mother—our infinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother. He has not two thoughts about us. With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end—namely, that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness.“
I like your ending statement " he should not imagine he could flee from own soul and still retain this privileged access." I think there is much to unpack in those words in relation to Son of Man and it's relation to evolution of consciousness, which is the evolution of humankind. To Father anything, there must be a yielding of life-giving forces, and in terms of consciousness this involves a partial sacrifice of self - a giving up of something that the soul processes as desire. The fleeing of father responsibility to his family is quite common in our modern culture in the U.S. I see this problem as a result of a larger one, which goes back to your ending statement. How can mankind neglect both the discipline and nourishment that the soul requires for the evolution of consciousness and still expect evolution to happen in a healthy progression?
As always, Steiner explains it best ;) From R. Steiner’s Lecture XI Gospel of Matthew- September 1910: “When we observe mankind — either at the present time, or at the time of Christ Jesus — we must recognize that rudiments lie in men just as plants contain seeds, even when only in leaf and before the blossom and fruit is formed. In looking at such a plant we can say: As surely as this plant which so far only possesses green leaves has within it the germ of both flower and fruit, so man, who at the time of Christ Jesus possessed only sentient and intellectual-soul, holds within him the germ of the spiritual-soul, which then opens itself to the spirit-self, in order that the higher triad, as a new spiritual gift from God, may flow into him from above. Thus we can say: Man unfolds through the content and qualities of his soul in the same way as a plant unfolds in turn green leaves, blossoms, and fruit. In developing his sentient-soul, intellectual-soul, and spirit-soul man develops something that corresponds to the flower of his being, and lifts this up to receive the inpouring of the Divine Spirit from above, so that by receiving the spirit-self he may rise to ever further heights of human evolution.
At the time Christ Jesus walked on earth the normal man had developed the rational-soul as his highest principle; this was not as yet capable of receiving into it the spirit-self; but out of the same man as now had developed to the rational soul the spiritual-soul would evolve as his child — as the consummation of his being, which later would become the receptacle for the spirit-self.
What is to unfold out of the whole nature of man, and come forth from him like a blossom? How was this described in the Mysteries, and in the circle where Christ Jesus spoke to His disciples of their further development? Translated into our language it was called the ‘Son of Man.’ The Greek has a less restricted meaning than our word ‘son,’ meaning ‘son of a father,’ and signifies rather the offspring of a living organism, something that evolves out of such an organism, as a blossom evolves from a plant which at first possessed only green leaves. So it was said of the ordinary man, whose being had not yet blossomed into the spiritual-soul, that the ‘Son of Man’ had not yet evolved in him.”
thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, Leilani, I would add that all authority comes from God and hence the “fleeing of the father figure” that you described is also of theological and metaphysical import. we need to have internalised the authority or else the soul will become anarchic and violent without its Lord, Christ.
there are many insightful bits in this, but I think this is one of those cases (and there are a few - is 'begotten, not made' really any more than a mere linguistic trick?) where the traditional formulation just confuses things.
I was immediately reminded of this passage from the King Follet Discourse:
'God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible, -- I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another'.
Son of God and Son of Man because... God is Himself a Man.
the 'evolution of consciousness' angle, in my view, is this: that we can now understand (and earlier men could not, for many reasons), that there is no fundamental separation in nature between God and Man, but only in perfection.
Jesus told us to be perfect as the Father is perfect. He wouldn't say it if it was not possible. But without the realization above (and in the traditional view of classical theology and metaphysics), the only way to do this would be to cease being human. But Jesus most emphatically rejects this, by calling Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man.
i tried to lay out why i don’t think “begotten, not made” is a linguistic trick but i understand if you don’t find it compelling.
re “perfection,” i like to think of this etymologically together with the more colloquial sense of the term. hence, God is complete and we are to strive towards this wholeness, of which we bear the image and one day, may attain to to likeness.
I used to try to make sense of it, so I appreciate the effort and the exercise. I just reached a point where eventually I dared to ask the question: what if they were wrong? does the Creed really jive with the words of Jesus? I ended up thinking it doesn't. And eventually I also found apocryphal texts that testify that not everyone agreed either (in the Gospel of Philip there's a very funny passage about the 'conception by the Holy Spirit' for example).
with regards to perfection, I don't think God is complete. because if He is, then we're not here for any reason (which makes God a sadist and a tyrant, which I don't believe). I like to think God is surprised all the time by our endeavors (both negatively and positively). In short, that we can indeed add something to Creation (and thus, to Him and Her too).
I understand where you are coming from despite not sharing your priors in respect to the meaning and relation of these terms. for instance, you seem to think of God’s being and Man’s being as similar in some respects, or analogical, perhaps, and yet materially disjunctive. but I don’t think that’s right. Saint Paul observes that we are members in the mystical Body of Christ and I don’t think he’s wrong.
I consider Paul a great writer, and my interpretation of his style makes me read metaphor there. we can be members of God's body in the same way that we can become members of the body of our neighbor who needs a hand doing something or the members of Santa Claus when delivering presents, we can become helpers in God's cause.
but I think, and this one is not based on interpretation but rather feeling, it's what I know from what we might call mystical encounters, that God's essence and Man's essence belong to the same category, just at different stages of development, much like a child and an adult man, except on a much larger scale. I understand that lots of people had mystical experience and came to the opposite conclusion, but I did not.