John Dunn

Track down the truth

Wednesday, 20 November 2024 at 20:10

Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne

Track down the truth

We may never encounter Love. We may choose to reject the Father’s love. In either case, the Triune God of consciousness is lost to idol worship. For, to paraphrase Augustine, only ‘by love are we carried away to track down the truth’. And whilst the truth is a conscious choice at every moment, we do, of course, lapse into sin. The many distractions of the animal soul have been described above. Through these distractions we are drawn to worship the god of the world.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Smashing the idols

Tuesday, 19 November 2024 at 20:01

‘He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ (1 John 4:16)

Smashing the idols

A third entity co-exists with the two in the saving encounter. In their mutual indwelling is the Love which loves them. This indwelling other and the I stand apart, whilst remaining one sole essence in Love. This is the reflexivity of a single conscience. Here lies the mystery - not in some pre-given idol, a prefabricated world or god. Consciousness is trinitarian and smashes the idols. God is Love, the one sole essence of the mutual indwelling.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Separate and whole

Monday, 18 November 2024 at 20:19

Gustave Doré - Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Plate 1 (I found myself in a dark wood…)

Separate and whole

Only metaphors can move us forward. To be a son is to be of the Father and yet to be separate and whole. To be a son is not to be a mode of the pre-existent and originating Substance that is Spinoza’s god. A son is not subsumed in the Father. There is love. This is the ‘I thou’ encounter. Fire meets with fire in the Passion. ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ Only that which is separate can be forsaken. A harrowing descent into Hell and back follows the Passion. Fire and passion co-exist as Dante well knew. An awakened consciousness is only open to those brought low. Ask - where did Dante begin his journey? Those lost in the dark wood are the elect.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Saved from the abyss

Saturday, 16 November 2024 at 17:13

Saved from the abyss

Let us step back at this point and remember that this is not about warm and cosy lurv, or the costly mistranslation of charity, helping others and committing the sin of pride by feeling good about it. The love of mutual indwelling is about a love that results in pain, anguish, loss, passion and new consciousness, new life, resurrection. In passion the veil is rent. To be a son of God is to be a son of Love, a product of encounter. In this lies the inner reflectiveness and reflexivity of mind which saves, literally saves, the human from the abyss of kabbalistic and Spinozistic Substance.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

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.

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.

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.