John Dunn

Alpha and Omega

Thursday, 19 September 2024 at 22:05

Alpha and Omega

In giving man a fulcrum status to the future of the cosmos Steiner is conflating, or confusing, purpose with meaning. In being granted this necessary purpose, man becomes an adjunct to cosmic evolution, a mere ‘apparatus’. Steiner is in danger of returning man to the passivity of serving Spinozistic ends.

Given the times in which he lived, it is hardly surprising that Steiner was smitten withthe notion of evolutionary progress. Even if he had rejected Darwin in favour of the morphogenetic principles of Goethe, progress across time was central to Steiner’s cosmography. The ‘elevation’ of man to an instrument of evolutionary progress is purposive. It might nudge us towards an answer to the question - ‘who am I?’, but if we are to discover meaning, it will not be in purpose.

I am brought back to Giovanni Gentile because the notion of evolutionary time as a progression, linear time, in Gentile’s terms, is an abstract (or presuppositional) rather than a concrete truth. I am also brought back to the Gospel of John for timeless expressions of the cosmic truth.That which was ‘in the beginning’, the ‘Word’ or Logos in John 1:1-4 recurs in Revelation 22.13.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

To counter the diminishment of man

Tuesday, 17 September 2024 at 21:32

Vladimir Vernadsky

To counter the diminishment of man

Steiner sought to counter the diminishment of man in the necessitarianism inherent to his philosophy by boosting the cosmic proportions of man’s significance. He argued that man must exist, for without him there would be no further evolution. There are portents here of what was to appear later in the work of Vladimir Vernadsky i.e. the evolutionary emergence of man’s mind in the Noosphere as an intervening and guiding force of new evolution. Whilst Vernadsky’s schema worked from the biosphere upwards so to speak, Steiner operated from the spirit world down, but they coincided on the point that man was an active participant in the evolutionary progress.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Consciousness, not blind creativity

Sunday, 15 September 2024 at 22:15

Steiner's interpretation of man

On the one hand Steiner offers us a Spinozist interpretation of man who is utilised for a purpose, which is to make manifest the thought pool of the cosmos. This would make man a mode of existence of that which was there ‘in the beginning’ - the Substance. On the other hand, Steiner offers us the ultimate divination of man. The gospel mystery and drama of the incarnation is now located and consummated in humanity, which becomes its living carrier. It is as though man has been accepted as one third part of the Trinity.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Messiah socialised

Saturday, 14 September 2024 at 21:38

Rudolf Steiner

Messiah socialised

In Steiner’s schema, humanity co-partners with the Divine so as to complete the creative act of God’s Incarnation. Instead of the Incarnation being through one man, the Jesus of the gospels, in our current day it is taking place through all of humanity. The modern-day coming of the Messiah is through the transformed and awakened consciousness of humanity as a whole. In a very real sense, we are the very Messiah we have been waiting for. ‘By a strange paradox,’ according to Steiner, it is ‘through the forces of evil’ that ‘mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha’.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Echoes of Spinozism

Thursday, 12 September 2024 at 20:26

Baruch Spinoza

Echoes of Spinozism

The world spirit, or cosmic fulness, is being presented by Steiner as a presupposition to which we, as fully human individuals, must ultimately return. We can make as much effort as we like into achieving individuation, shunning ‘all the welter of customs, legal codes, religious observances, etc.’ as Steiner describes them, only to find that we must remain true to what was there all along, that which was there ‘in the beginning’. Are there not echoes of Spinozism here? Are we not back to the great presupposition - the Substance - with that which was there ‘in the beginning’?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Taking stock

Wednesday, 11 September 2024 at 20:54

Rudolf Steiner

Taking stock

Let us take stock here. Has Steiner answered the question? Who am I? I am a cosmic mediator according to Steiner, Logos incarnated, the manifestation of cosmic fulness, that which was in the beginning. Found!The meaning to life! Answered! The Grail question! Is this not enough? We keep coming back to this - the divine status of man, a creator in the image of God - the incarnation of the second coming resonates in the work of Dante, Fichte, Coleridge, Gentile and now in Steiner. But if manifestation of the spirit is not a creative act, but rather a revelatory act, are we not confronted with a severe curtailment of man’s freedom, however vast the leap we have made with Steiner?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

To be a cosmic mediator?

Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 22:19

Cosmic Mediator by Leonard Rubins

To be a cosmic mediator?

It was on the point of Logos that Gentile was beginning to penetrate through to the truth, but fell short. Steiner seemed to offer me a way forward. By being the cosmic mediator, man is the manifestation of cosmic fulness, i.e. the Logos incarnate, that which was in the beginning. But more than being merely a cosmic mediator, I am, to use Steiner’s own words, ‘the unified world of ideas which reveals itself through this organism’.

Is this not enough? To be a cosmic mediator? Is this not finally the answer to the great Grail question. I could never have dreamt of such a response when I first asked the question. And yet - the question remains- does something emerge from intuition that was not there before? Is man free to create?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.