Böhme, the Mother of all Things, and the Gnostics

When first reading Böhme's The Signature of All Things, it was apparent that it bore a similarity to certain gnostic writings of the early Christian era.  The Apochryphon of John comes to mind where the concern is the origin of the world and how understanding the origin is essential to our discerning who we are and what we should do.  However, that text reflects the pessimistic, classic version of gnosticism for whom the world is a mistake and the physical realm deeply flawed.  Signature would not go as far as that and has a happier feel to it.  Interestingly, they both have a role for the female or mother.

 From the Apochryphon of John:

The Father is surrounded by light.
He apprehends himself in that light

........

His self-aware thought (ennoia) came into being.
Appearing to him in the effulgence of his light.
She stood before him.

.....
Arising out of the mind of the Father
The Providence (pronoia) of everything.
Her light reflects His light.

She is from His image in His light

...
She praised Him
            For she arose from Him.

 [This, the first Thought, is the Spirit’s image]

She is the universal womb
She is before everything
She is:
            Mother-Father
            First Man
            Holy Spirit

From the Signature of All Things:

CHAPTER III OF THE GRAND MYSTERY OF ALL THINGS

Section 32. After the creation of the highest spirits, God created this visible world with the stars and elements as an external birth out of the mother of all essences; all which proceeded out of the eternal beginning, and took a temporal beginning: For here we are to consider, that the eternal pregnatrix moved itself, and enkindled its own form [or similitude], where then the one became corporeal in the other; but afterwards God created the earth, which we are thus to consider of.

CHAPTER IV OF THE BIRTH OF THE STARS, AND FOUR ELEMENTS IN THE METALLINE AND CREATURELY PROPERTY 

Section 1. As it is before mentioned, all things proceed out of one only mother, and separate themselves into two essences, according to the right of eternity, viz. into a mortal and an immortal, into life and death, into spirit and body; the spirit is the life, and the body is the death, viz. a house of the spirit: As the holy Trinity stands in the birth, so also is the external birth: There is likewise essence and spirit in heaven; a figure of which we see in this outward world, where there are four elements, and yet there is but one only element, which separates itself into four properties, viz. into fire, air, water, and earth, as is above mentioned.

It is not commonly known that in the Aramaic language the gender of the word spirit is feminine.  For some early Christians, then, the Holy Spirit was seen as a kind of Mother so that the Trinity was formed by a Father, a Mother and a Son. 

I am not a Gnostic.  But I find them fascinating in part because I do not understand them and how they came to their place.  Some mysteries are worth pursuing and some are not.   Maybe this one is.  Böhme lived over a thousand years after the gnostics faded away from Christendom.  But somehow his feelings overlap in some degree with them.  Do they have a shared delusion or some useful insights?  The next post will find correspondence with the Gospel of Thomas.

God and the Cosmos in Jacob Boehme's Signature of All Things

I'm nearing the end of The Signature of All Things.   It has been a long and hard slog through it and I never know whether its prose or poetry.  Probably both.  Most of it inscrutable to me.  But somehow it seems significant.

Quotes:

The whole outward visible world with all its being is a signature, or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internally, and however its operation is, so likewise it has its character externally; like as the spirit of each creature sets forth and manifests the internal form of its birth by its body, so does the Eternal Being also
.... 
So likewise God dwells in all things, and the thing knows nothing of God; he likewise is not manifest to the thing, and yet it receives power from him, but it receives the power according to its property from him, either from his love, or from his wrath; and from which it receives, so it has its signature[156]  externally; and the good is also in it, but as it were wholly shut up [or hidden] to the iniquity [or evil]; an example of which you have in bushes, and other thorny and pricking briars, out of which notwithstanding a fair well-smelling blossom grows; and there lie two properties therein, viz. a pleasant and unpleasant; which overcomes, that shapes [forms or marks] the fruit. 
...
The Being of all beings is but one only Being, but in its generation it separates itself into two principles, viz. into light and darkness, into joy and sorrow, into evil and good, into love and anger, into fire and light, and out of these two eternal beginnings (or principles) into the third beginning, viz. into the creation, to its own love-play and melody, according to the property of both eternal desires.

On his influence, I found mythosandlogos.com which has this to say:

"His thought has since influenced major figures in philosophy, especially German Romantics such as Hegel, Baader, and Schelling. Indirectly, his influence can be traced to the work of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hartmann, Bergson, and Heidegger. Paul Tillich and Martin Buber drew heavily from his work -- as did the psychologist, Carl Jung, who made numerous references to Boehme in his writings."

That is quite a lineup. 

Can you learn anything after age 25?

Mike Lofgren is a retired former House and Senate Staffer.  I enjoyed reading an interview with him as he related his career and how things have changed and was particularly struck by this quote from him which I take as a word of good advice to me and everyone.  Let us not cease learning.


Most people cease learning after age 25 or so, but if you continually question the premises of things, you end up where I am; it depends on how intellectually curious and open-minded you are. There was never a huge contradiction. I wasn't living a double life. I was still a government employee doing the best I could on budget issues.

Once Obscure Jacob Boehme now on You Tube

A couple of years after I was fresh out of college, Harding U. that is, I was reading an interview with Henry Miller, of Tropic of Cancer fame. Don't remember which magazine. He described how he had recently become so excited because he came across something very difficult to get and rare, a book by Jacob Boehme. So he planted the seed in my head that something mysterious and wonderful awaited a person who would have to be both lucky to make the encounter with him and prepared to appreciate the experience. Way back in the ancient days of the 1970's, it was not easy to get one's hands on rare books. There were no computers and no internet. I suppose the avid person could badger the local library and with some luck and persistence track down less common offerings.

That memory remained lodged in a dusty corner of my mind for a great many years. Boehme is so far removed from the Southern Protestantism of the US and I've had no friend or advocate to surface and awaken the curiosity. Now, some thirty or more years later, the internet has introduced me to many friends and informative sites and made available what was previously inaccessible. So, not long ago I downloaded The Signature of All Things, one of the later books by him and prepared to wade through it.

He lived at the boundary of the Medieval and Modern and is not easy to understand. So, the last two days I've been googling him to see what I could learn to help me through. There are a number of insights to be blogged about later. But for this evening, I will simply link to this You Tube posting that presents him in a way about which he would certainly marvel.

The Illumination of Jacob Boehme

Am back in town now from the Thanksgiving Holidays.  Read some more from Jacob Boehme last night and it was slow going.  Will have to do some more homework to understand and appreciate him.  Not something that can be done in one sitting or even a few months.  So I hit the internet for some help.  Here is one of several things.  The complete essay by Mark Jaqua is at this link.


Boehme believed that this world is but a shadow play and representation of what occurs in higher dimensions. Everything in this world is the "signature" or symbol of something which exists more concretely in the spiritual world. Since the spiritual world is contained within oneself, the external world and the body could be viewed as a projection from these interior contents. Boehme's insight on this was that:

The whole outward, visible world with all its being is a signature or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internal, and however its operation is, so likewise it has its outward character...for whatever the natural light is spiritually, that the earth is in its coarseness.*

*Jacob Boehme: His Life and Thought, John Joseph Stoudt, Seabury Press, New York, New York, 1968, p. 243,248.

Protestant Mystic Jacob Boehme

These days I'll read 10 % of a book I've downloaded to Kindle then will download another or two then after a few days download some more.  Am reading about a dozen right now.  Half my time on Kindle is spent searching for books and reading reviews about them.  Sometimes will find something old that is free or $0.99 and will embrace the joy that comes with pressing the button and getting a zillion pages for free.  Jacob Boehme is one of those mysterious names I've run across a number of times and some time ago downloaded The Signature of All Things.  My understanding is that he is unique in that he is a Protestant Mystic.  Made it through the Introduction last night and that was fascinating itself where its author Clifford Bax says:

The purpose of the mystic is the mightiest and most solemn that can ever be, for the central aim of all mysticism is to soar out of separate personality up to the very Consciousness of God.

Jacob Boehme, the last of the great European mystics, having imagined the Spirit which pervades the universe, knew well how little was the stature of his human personality; but he had realised that God was verily within him, and he spoke with the uprightness of a divine being.  Unflaggingly he counsels men (as in the Supersensual Life) to turn away from the worthless and separated self which hungers for honour or for bodily comfort, in order that they should rediscover within themselves "what was before nature and creature." And he means by this phrase "that light which lighteth every man who cometh in the world."  It is here, he says, now and always: we have but to extricate our consciousness from all that is the effect of our time and place.  We have but to quiet our own thoughts and desires, and we shall hear at once the harmonies of heaven.

Storied

Was in Los Angeles last week on business.  Still getting caught up in more ways than one.

Haven't been reading Len Hjalmarson over at his blog Next Reformation lately but he is always good to come back to.  Need to do it more often.  See this recent post titled "Storied".  He meditates on something interesting by Paul Fromont.  It is a reflection on narrative theology, something that has given me great comfort in recent years.  Should take time to investigate this spiritual thread again soon.  Here is the first portion of the post.

A narrative approach to theology has promise. In part, that promise comes because modern approaches to theology tended toward reductionism: lists of propositions abstracted from the living story. But to abstract truth is to do violence to the texture of truth. Truth abstracted from context is a simulacra – it only appears to be real. It is processed food, lacking that which gives life. In his reflections on The Insatiable Moon Paul Fromont writes,

“If the root of art is storytelling, then the taproots are longings. Longings for such things as truth, beauty, romance, adventure. We long to find the true north that will guide us through this life and into the next…”



There is more but I need to get to work.  After being gone for 4 business days there will be much catching up to do.

And see this at the Fromont's Prodigal Kiwi's site.

growing up Church of Christ by mike s. allen

This book is a winsome, lighthearted account of what it was like growing up in the Church of Christ.   Mike occupies an interesting place and time since he is the son of a well known minister.  The book grew from scrapbook entries and reminiscences.  It consists of numerous short vignettes of Mike's experiences.  Also included are brief comments by others coming from this same heritage.  It is a great format.  Easy to read and covers a lot of territory in time and subject.

I liked the good-natured and humorous aspect of the book.  Kinda reminds me of Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz. 

Like Mike, I am the son of a CofC minister and our dad's are close friends. 

The Church of Christ is a branch of what is known as the Restoration Movement.  This began in the early 1800's and some have said it was the first indigenous American movement.  The DOC, Christian Church, CofC and Int. CofC are branches of the endeavor.  The CofC has given the world Pat Boone, Max Lucado, Ken Star, Weird Al Yankovic, Michael Shermer and Pepperdine University.

The only other book I have on growing up in this fellowship is Hearing God's Voice:  My Life with Scripture in the Churches of Christ  by Thomas Olbricht.   Tom is 20 years older than me and Mike is 16 years younger.  Geographically we are similar too.  Mike and I from Arkansas and Tom just across the border into Missouri.  Being in the middle between them I see a lot of commonality and yet some changes too.  When Tom and I were growing up there really was no evangelical counter culture and when Mike came along that was just beginning. 

Mike closes the introductory Author's note with "By the time you make it to 'The End', I hope you'll have found a connection to some thought or story, and in that connection, I hope you will have been helped a little in your own journey."  Many of us will be able to say yes we were helped. I was.  Thanks Mike!

Haggis

Haggis croquettes on lower right of plate

Haggis patties on top of neeps on top of tatties

Haggis is a classic Scottish dish.  Wikipedia describes it extensively as quoted below.

"Clarissa Dickson Wright suggests that haggis was invented as a way of cooking quick-spoiling offal near the site of a hunt, without the need to carry along an additional cooking vessel. The liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire, but this treatment was unsuitable for the stomach, intestines, or lungs. Chopping up the lungs and stuffing the stomach with them and whatever fillers might have been on hand, then boiling the assembly — likely in a vessel made from the animal's hide — was one way to make sure these parts did not go to waste."^[12]

Haggis all prettied up

 ^{Somehow, when I eat a local food, I'm trying to identify with the locals and affirm them and who they are.} 
 

Back from Edinburgh

Arrived home last night after a week in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Was there on business and Dorothy came along.  We had a wonderful time during the breaks.  In the background is the Edinburgh Castle, first referred to about 1000 years ago and a site of human activity since who knows when.  There was something vaguely familiar about this place even though I've never been here before.  Simply from a mathematical perspective, some of our ancestors must have come from this place or near here.  Edinburgh is sometimes referred to as the Athens of the North.  The Scots changed the world with the Scottish Enlightenment of the 1700's.  That is when Adam Smith invented Economics, Thomas Reid discovered common sense, and James Hutton founded modern geology and paved the way for later U. of Edinburgh student, Charles Darwin.  When a senior at Harding, I wrestled with Electromagnetic Theory.  Much of that is based on the 19th century advances of James Clerk Maxwell, also a grad of the U. of Edinburgh.

The University of Edinburgh Divinity School.

It is important to note that Alexander Campbell was a product to some degree of this intellectual matrix.  He is even mentioned on the Scottish Enlightenment Wikipedia page as a famous example of that school.  And so, my cultural and religious as well as ancestral heritage derives in part from this place.

from Wikipedia

An English visitor to Edinburgh during the heyday of the Scottish Enlightenment remarked: "Here I stand at what is called the Cross of Edinburgh, and can, in a few minutes, take 50 men of genius and learning by the hand." It is a striking summation of the outburst of pioneering intellectual activity that occurred in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century.

They were a closely knit group: most knew one another; many were close friends; some were related by marriage. All were politically conservative but intellectually radical ( Unionists and progressives to a man), courteous, friendly and accessible. They were stimulated by enormous curiosity, optimism about human progress and a dissatisfaction with age-old theological disputes. Together they created a cultural golden age.

— Magnus Magnusson, New Statesman^[9]       

Quote from Love Wins and Insurrection

Ah.  With a Kindle one can read several books at the same time.  I was comparing clippings from Love Wins and from a book I just started, Insurrection.  They present similar thoughts and I agree.  This is what religion is all about.

From Love Wins

Religions should not surprise us. We crave meaning and order and explanation. We’re desperate for connection with something or somebody greater than ourselves. This is not new.

And something similar from Peter Rollins' Insurrection

This story presents to us the psychological reality that our pleasure is intimately interwoven with the pleasure (or pain) of those around us. Understanding this can help us unlock something fundamental about the nature of human desire—namely, that the most sought after material in the universe is not some precious metal or limited resource but rather the attention of those whom we desire. We long to be seen by the other and acknowledged by them in some way.

More From Love Wins

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (Rob Bell) 

Rob's approach involves an investigation of what the Hebrew scriptures say about where history is going.  This must be taken into consideration in addition to the explicit passages in the New Testament regarding hell, it seems to me.  The first snippet here is a passage he builds on which is famous and inspiring and which has been used and cited in peacemaking and efforts to convert war technology to peaceful uses.

Direct quotes from his book are in dark blue italics.

The prophet Isaiah said that in that new day “the nations will stream to” Jerusalem, and God will “settle disputes for many peoples”; people will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (chap. 2).

 --

But that is not all.  There is a continuing optimistic theme expressed by the Hebrew prophets.

Isaiah said that everybody will walk “in the light of the LORD” and “they will neither harm nor destroy” in that day. The earth, Isaiah said, will be “filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (chap. 11). He described “a feast of rich food for all peoples” because God will “destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations, he will swallow up death forever.” God “will wipe away the tears from all faces”; and “remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth” (chap. 25). The prophet Ezekiel said that people will be given grain and fruit and crops and new hearts and new spirits (chap. 36). The prophet Amos promised that everything will be repaired and restored and rebuilt and “new wine will drip from the mountains” (chap. 9). Life in the age to come. If this sounds like heaven on earth, that’s because it is. Literally.

---

First, they spoke about “all the nations.” That’s everybody. That’s all those different skin colors, languages, dialects, and accents; all those kinds of food and music; all those customs, habits, patterns, clothing, traditions, and ways of celebrating— multiethnic, multisensory, multieverything.

---

That’s an extraordinarily complex, interconnected, and diverse reality, a reality in which individual identities aren’t lost or repressed, but embraced and celebrated. An expansive unity that goes beyond and yet fully embraces staggering levels of diversity.

---

So, overall, there is a definite optimism for the end of history on the part of the Hebrew prophets in these places.  And Rob places an encouraging interpretation on them.  There are a few places in the Hebrew scriptures that might be interpreted as supporting the traditional concept of Hell, but they are not so explicit nor obvious without traditional assumptions.  (Exception:  One reference in Daniel which I think was written very late.)

Today's Quote from "Love Wins"

This from early in the book Love Wins by Rob Bell. This expresses my feelings as well.  When I discovered that many years ago, it removed a barrier to my spiritual life.

Often times when I meet atheists and we talk about the god they don’t believe in, we quickly discover that I don’t believe in that god either.

Reunion for the descendants of Bill Ed and Zonie Allison

The gathering was at the home of Earl and Doris Highfield which is near Powhatan, AR. It was held on Saturday, Sept 3, 2011. Bill Ed and Zonie were my great grandparents. Their son, Cleo, was my grandfather. Bill Ed died before my Dad was born but I remember my grandfather and great grandmother. We had a great time at the reunion. By the time I was born and was growing up, most everyone from this family had left Northeast Arkansas and I never had the opportunity to meet them. It was great meeting everyone.

Surprized by Kuyper

Somehow I found myself at the blog of John Stackhouse one morning six weeks ago.  He is Professor of Theology and Culture at Regent College.  I had enjoyed his thoughtful comments from time to time but had been out of the habit of visiting there lately.  He is a Canadian evangelical and he wrote a short note recommending Richard J. Mouw's new book regarding the progenitor of Neo-Calvinism -  Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction.  Richard is president and professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

It is so easy given the wonderful resources of the internet to spend all of one's spare time only engaging sites and books that support one's interests and viewpoints.  But I was moved by the recommendation and decided to download the book to my Kindle.  It was good that I did.  Abraham Kuyper (1838-1920) was a Dutch Reformed theologian who, very briefly, became active in politics, founded a university and eventually became Prime Minister of the Netherlands. 

Had heard of the guy before, having encountered a snippet of his thought here and there.  I was prepared to encounter a stern 19th century Biblical literalist with a slightly different set of rules to follow and some possibly good insights here and there but another version of why my form of the Christian religion is better than yours. 

Was surprized and happy to be jolted out of such dogmatic slumber on the part of myself.  Below in italics are direct quotes from Richard Mouw's book which is a short well presented summation of Kuyper's thought.

The fact is, Kuyper insisted, that the true church "can reveal  itself in many forms, in different countries; nay, even in  the same country, in a multiplicity of institutions." He saw it  as a major contribution of the sixteenth-century Reformation  that it had "ruptured the unity of the Church," breaking "that  one Church into fragments," in order to encourage "a rich variety  of all manner of church formations."   Kuyper wanted us  to see the "differences of climate and of nation, of historical  past, and of disposition of mind" in a positive light - thus acknowledging   a reality that "annihilates the absolute character  of every visible church, and places them all side by side, as differing   in degrees of purity, but always remaining in some way  or other a manifestation of one holy and catholic Church of  Christ in Heaven.


I come from a tradition that values unity.  But the above helps me to see that there is a difference between unity and uniformity.  So often uniformity has been the goal.  It has been confused with or substituted for unity.
...
Kuyper's fondness for pluriformity ran deep. He was convinced   that God himself loves many-ness. Indeed, on his reading   of the biblical account, the Creator had deliberately woven   many-ness into the very fabric of creation. Kuyper even
wrote an essay on the subject to which he gave the telling title  "Uniformity: The Curse of Modern Life."  Many-ness, Kuyper argued, was necessary for created life  to flourish in a "fresh and vigorous" manner.'   Referring to the  Genesis creation story, Kuyper noted that the Lord willed  "[t]hat all life should multiply `after its kind."' That the concept   of "kind" in that context applied specifically to animal  life did not deter Kuyper from making a more general application.   "[E]very domain of nature," he says, displays an "infinite  diversity, an inexhaustible profusion of variations." And this  many-ness also rules the world of humanity, which "undulates   and teems" with the same sort of diversity, bestowed  upon our collective existence by a "generous God who from  the riches of his glory distributed gifts, powers, aptitude, and  talents to each according to his divine will."'