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Dwelleth in love
Thursday, 14 November 2024 at 22:12
Saint Augustin by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1645
Dwelleth in love
Augustine knew that the mind must have the capacity for God (capax Dei) in order to recognise the presence of God, let alone even imagine that presence; and that this capacity for God must have something to do with the dialectical relationship with God, which is described by John as one of mutual indwelling, but only, and this is the key point, when love is accepted. ‘He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ (1 John 4:16)
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Encounter
Wednesday, 13 November 2024 at 21:49
Encounter
Love is not a pre-existent entity and does not precede the encounter; neither does consciousness, which is awakened by the encounter. Similarly, God does not precede the encounter as a pre-existent entity. To accept pre-existence makes of God an idol. God is Love and is present in the encounter.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Rescued from recidivism
Monday, 11 November 2024 at 21:30
Valentin Tomberg
Rescued from recidivism
A son of God - is that the answer to the Grail question - ‘who am I?’ Let us reflect on such a massive leap of faith for readers in a secular world. What place does a metaphor like a ‘son of God’ have in the modern world?
I take from Giovanni Gentile the concept of the actual being the eternal present. Creation from this point of view is not a one off ‘big bang’. Creation is eternal, always now. However, Gentile slid into solipsism, eventually even driving the thinker out of the equation, leaving only Logos, one truth, which might be likened to Spinoza’s Substance.
I was rescued from recidivism by Tomberg and his assertion of the need for mirroring, reflection and reflexivity in the conscious mind. Consciousness was established as the entity which distinguished humanity from nature, which countered the kabbalistic prospect of humanity being subsumed into Ein Sof. Looking back upon my journey, Tomberg had reinforced the position on conscience that I met in Coleridge, which in turn reinforced the importance of Fichte’s humanising summons to encounter and the subsequent ‘I thou’ relationship that Coleridge and Buber connected to love and so to God.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Restorer
Saturday, 9 November 2024 at 21:53
Restorer
The Passion was the turning point and continues to be so. Before the Passion, there was death of the self. After the Passion, there is new life. We are called to reject the god of this world in order that we may have new life. Away with the laws of necessity. In proclaiming the good news about choice, Jesus was the restorer of humanity, the Saviour of mankind.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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The eternal struggle
Friday, 8 November 2024 at 22:23
Saint George and the Dragon, Jacopo Tintoretto
The eternal struggle
Through Jesus, the bifurcation between good and evil became clear and exposed. The eternal struggle between good and evil surfaced at this turning point in cosmic history. The veil was rent. Jesus confronted hollow men,the living dead, people who lived their lives to the letter of the Law to get by in the world. Driven by externalities, these were people who had chosen the world, but who rejected Jesus’ message of the Father’s love. Their god was the god of this world, as it remains for idolaters today. They had suffered the death of the self. They had made a pre-existent idol of their god and the world. And their ways were revived in Spinoza’s great presupposition, the all-encompassing Substance, of which the individual is but one mode and subject to its laws of necessity. Herein lies the death of mind and the death of the self. And they rejected Jesus’ message and murdered Him - and continue to do so.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Immortal diamond
Thursday, 7 November 2024 at 22:03
Immortal diamond
Theexperience of my journey, and my encounters with all the many efforts to assert the self, has led me to an understanding that the self survives only in a dialectical process that both creates it and is created by it. All descriptions must fall short where that which will not be defined is concerned. We can only describe the process as Love, and accept the mystery. In passionate love fire meets with fire. God’s love was expressed in the heat of passion, the Passion. But we do know that out of an encounter with passion something lives on, as one sole essence, an immortal diamond, with ‘consequences for eternity’. And the fires of love must burn constantly because this dialectical process of creation is constant. God from the beginning is always ‘I am’. But we have a choice and the acceptance of Love is central to this choice.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Active choice
Wednesday, 6 November 2024 at 22:52
Caspar David Friedrich’s, Wanderer above the sea of fog. An image of man's autonomy
Active choice
What is this love to be accepted or rejected and how does it relate to the survival, or rather, the saving of the self? And how is the Father relationship to be accepted in a modern secular world? There is analogy.There is metaphor. There is no other way to explain the mystery of consciousness. The point here is that an active choice is necessary. It is our choice, now, at this moment and every moment. It is an active choice that recognises man’s apartness and individuality. By its nature,choice assumes autonomy.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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