Conversation on Chapter Two of The Christology of Rudolf Steiner

A conversation with Martin Samson (the Author), Angus Hawkins ‪@TheExceptionalState‬ , Nicola Hoggard Creegan ‪@nzcis7114‬ Craig Logan, and Reynand Dumala-on. Presents and discusses some themes arising from reading chapter 2 of Martin's PhD thesis: theses.flinder....

[@JohnBarnwell888]

"You will have gathered, from what I said yesterday, that at the present time we must come to realize the distinction between abstract and purely intellectual thinking, and thinking which is based on reality, in order to relate our thinking to the reality. The natural tendency is to make our thinking incontrovertible, as free from contradictions as we can make it. But the world is full of contradictions, and if we really want to grasp reality, we cannot throw a general, standard form of thinking like a net over everything in order to understand it. We have to consider everything on an individual basis. "The greatest defect and deficiency in our time is that people are literally inclined to think in abstractions. This takes them further away from reality. "We now come to the application of this to reality itself. Please, consider this carefully! I am going to say something rather strange; for I have to apply unrealistic thinking to reality. Unrealistic thinking is, of course, also part of reality. The unrealistic thinking which has developed over the last three or four centuries, and the fact that as such it has become part of reality in human life, has resulted in an unreal structure which is always self-contradictory." Rudolf Steiner, Abstraction and Reality, Dornach October 13th, 1917 (GA 177) ----------------------------------------- "The truths of philosophy are thus striven after with faculties of knowledge which, though of the subtlest, are yet connected with the body. Philosophy has, at bottom, the same goal as occultism and theosophy, namely, to search out the foundations of existence; but philosophy makes use of the thinking and the means of research that are bound up with the brain and with outer perception. "One can however quickly appreciate the difference between these and an unkindly critic like Schopenhauer who approaching merely the external side of philosophy, sees only what splits it up into many different personal standpoints, and does not see the sequence of these personal human standpoints. In this sense philosophy is the very reverse of occultism. "On the other hand, anyone who succeeds in clothing occultism in expressions and ideas that are current and generally comprehensible, will meet with understanding all the world over. Occultism strips itself entirely of the personal element. Systems of philosophy arise directly out of the personal in man; occultism arises out of the impersonal and is on this account capable of general comprehension." Rudolf Steiner, "Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy" - Lecture I Oslo, June 2nd, 1912 (GA 137)