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Sep 26Liked by Matthew David Segall

"Without sin, there could be no material world and, consequently, no possibility for divine grace or salvation."

felix culpa

"This omission, Jung argues, may reflect a deep metaphysical or psychological wound in the godhead itself, with the second day symbolizing an evil splitting between higher and lower realms that has yet to be resolved."

one may explore the Kabbala idea of tzimtzum as well.

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Sep 23Liked by Matthew David Segall

I was just reading a text by Sean McGrath on Schelling and your post came to add new ideas. Thanks!

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McGrath's work on Jung and Schelling has had a significant influence on me.

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Sep 22·edited Sep 22

Evil is on my mind as necessary not only to one’s personal faith but also to a complete and honest metaphysic. I appreciate these further perspectives from Jung and Plato. Any metaphysic or indeed, any personal faith, needs to accept evil as something that belongs to our own nature (as opposed to seeing it only in Those Other People.)

It’s interesting to me that Jung “located” evil or chora in the Holy Spirit. Moltmann explores it in terms of the Crucified Christ, in the book with this title. Moltmann, his own kind of panentheist, resonated with me. It seems more complete than Jung’s explication, because it builds upon notions of the incarnation and Christ’s dual nature that are already present in the New Testament and have perhaps been explored more thoroughly in the history of Christian theology.

(I also like the references to Steiner. He's new to me, but I had some exposure to New Thought/theosophy as a teenager -- we had a "medium" in town, which led us to read Edgar Cayce. They get ignored these days because they went in non-academic and unscientific directions with art and mythology. Nevertheless, we found genuine seekers of meaning and a community of sensible, caring adults who helped us through some rough times and helped in the transition to the new moralities of the sixties.)

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