Owen Barfield formulated the concept of Final Participation some seventy years ago - building upon the work of Rudolf Steiner who died a century ago; and they both understood that this was the destiny for Man - a divine destiny which, if refused, would become pathology as its impulses were distorted in the process of 'materializing'.
In other words; Final Participation is a spiritual and Good imperative; but if the primacy (and true nature) of the spiritual was to be denied, if this necessary Good was refused - as in fact happened - then the imperative would change Mankind; but in bad ways.
Final Participation entails Men consciously choosing the reality which they affirm and live-by; and the divine destiny was to affirm divine creation and the spirit.
Anything else would - does - lead to pathology.
What we, therefore, find is that creative spiritual impulses get horribly-distorted into destructive materiality when their proper channel is refused.
If we look at any one of the (from a Christian perspective) Big Lies that dominate public discourse in the world today; we can infer that it originated in some Good spiritual impulse that has been twisted into evil materiality.
The major terminus of materiality in the modern world is that bureaucracy which characterizes the global totalitarian System.
It is best if each works-out the examples for himself; but we could consider the horrible ways in which an underlying spiritual destiny concerning sex and sexuality has been made into an anti-Christian/ anti-Human/ anti-functional System of unnatural, dishonest and (spiritually as well and physically) destructive outcomes; in terms of material laws, regulations, subsidies and arts/ media propaganda.
Because we inhabit a spirit-denying world; all that is truly spiritual Must-Be reduced to the physical material; and because the System officially regards reality as non-theistic, purposeless and meaningless - therefore all (in origin) Good impulses are necessarily transformed and twisted to evil.
And this will continue until we acknowledge, understand and evaluate our ultimate assumptions regarding the nature of reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment