(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

If it is your will, read the post I just made in challenging_god about "goddy stuff" or theoplasm.

Comments

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"Now, in some Christian denominations, the miracle of transsubstantiation implies that God is not already present in the Host, nor is God already present in the body (or presumably the soul) of the person taking the sacrament."

Not exactly. The mystery of transubstantiation (and grace and Christ in general) can be understood from an emanationist standpoint. Emanation describes a sort of hierachy whereby the activity of one hypostasis produces the next. The mystery of grace, as seen eg. in transubstantiation, is like a 'direct transmission' from God to the hypostasis in question, rather than via the usual method along the chain-of-being/descent-into-multiplicity.

In any case, neither process alone is necessarily antagonistic to pantheism; nor necessarily dualistic.

Thanks for linking that up; I miss the occasional gem in that forum.

Transubstantiation as alchemy

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I've been meditating on this all morning.

If anything, emanationism makes the problem worse. It means that the difference between matter and God is one of degrees -- which implies that there must be some way to measure or understand the degrees of difference, a way to measure how much "God" is in something.

There is some intuitive appeal there. For example, some objects or places feel holier than others. It also presents a means whereby apokatastasis could be achieved.

But the next implication is that with the right technology, it would be possible for humanity to create or transform things into theoplasm. In that case transubstantiation might not be a miracle that comes from God, but an act of alchemy performed by a human.

The alchemists understood there to be a progression in matter from perfect to imperfect, from gold to silver to baser metals which were thought to be merely impure. Their search for the hidden stone was actually a search for a kind of powder that could make things more perfect -- that could make things to be more like God. This was the alchemical understanding of Christ, that Christ was the embodiment of the hidden stone and that salvation involved transforming base humans into people who were more holy.

These implications head in the direction of esoteric Gnosticism, specifically the idea that the proper kind of knowledge would allow one to ascend the heavenly spheres to the realm of God -- salvation not by grace but by technology.

Another dilemma for Christians is that this hints at pantheism, though emanationism is not inherently pantheistic and some, like Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite, developed a non-pantheistic emanationist theology.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure it implies differential holiness across matter (though I can see the potential appeal there), nor technological theoplasm - because in both cases this is dealing with 'lateral transformation': changes in the composition of the matter in question... whereas emanation as such deals with 'vertical transformation': meta-changes, if you will; where all matter of any composition is but one hypostasis.

This multi-axis cosmology is what, I think, distinguishes emanationism proper from pantheism proper (although of course the line can get very blurry, depending on the thinker in question): there's a sense in pantheism that God (or whatever) has some direct relationship with matter (even if it's "what God is is all the matter there is"), whereas in emanationism, the multiple axes complicate the relationship - it's not so much that God has any particular relationship with matter (he's neither here nor there, nor both), but rather matter is some abstracted function of God: like red is a function of apples, or exciting bulls is a function of red; moreover, then, how exciting bulls is a function of apples. One doesn't ask "where in 'exciting bulls' is an apple?" And an apple isn't "all of 'exciting bulls.'"

Ok, I'm not making sense any more. But this is getting towards your last comment regarding Gnostic salvific grace (which I think the alchemists shared, and used 'technology' only metaphorically - though I confess I'm far more familiar with the Chinese alchemists than the European).

I don't think pantheism is necessarily problematic for the Christian; although it depends largely how blurry the lines have become. IMHO, what distinguishes Christians from pantheism proper is the notion of a separation between God and matter by Original Sin; analogously, I think, identical to emanationist 'solutions' proposed by Neoplatonists, and the Demiurge of Gnostics (both providing a myth of such a separation). Although, there are surely Christians on the more fundamentalist side who take 'creation' quite literally, in a sense which is antagonistic to 'emanation' and pantheism at all (ie. there are Christians who concieve of God as the Demiurge rather than the One)... but I can't speak for such opinions myself.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Perhaps my understanding of emanationism is not perfect, but I don't see how it can work with "vertical" transformation. That sort of distinction is what I implied in my original post -- a fundamental difference not of degrees but of kind between hyle and theoplasm.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to get at with the vertical vs horizontal thing is that, from an emanationist account, I don't believe you can do permutations of stuff at one hypostasis and arrive at stuff from another hypostasis.

If you have vertical emanation of One -> Nous -> Soul -> Matter; horizontal transformation of Nous might yield Ideas, Soul might yield the various kinds of soul, and Matter might yield the various sorts of matter. No transformation on matter operating in the Matter hypostasis could ever result in Soul or even a soul; as Soul has no spatialtemporal relationship with the stuff of Matter, nor is composed of any building blocks of Matter.

This makes it sound like a difference of kind, and in a sense it is - but it is also a difference of degree, because Matter is not created out of nothing as a new sort of thing, but only develops as a function of the activity of Soul.

Again, this is just like red on an apple. It's neither true that redness is a new kind of stuff than apples, nor is it true that redness is a difference of degree from apples.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that here you trade the problem of theoplasm for a problem of psychoplasm, nooplasm, AND theoplasm. Even if there is a progression, to suppose a distinction implies that there is some way to distinguish one from the other. It also implies that there is some relationship between one and the next; clearly something on a "higher" rung can affect something on a "lower" rung, but how does that work exactly?

Saying "these things exist, but I don't know what distinguishes them, or what characterizes them really beyond a vague notion, or by what mechanism they affect other states of being," is I'm sure you'll agree a very problematic kind of assertion because there is no way to test or question it.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"you trade the problem of theoplasm for a problem of psychoplasm, nooplasm, AND theoplasm."

Well, I didn't mean to commit to that model of emanationism, so much as use it as an example - but, yeah, basically. Though, as I noted at the end, I do not think this can rightly be called differences of type or of degree, but something in between.

"implies that there is some way to distinguish one from the other."

Certainly. Although we must keep in mind that thinking in terms of 'stuff' or 'plasm' is allegorical. However, we can make distinguishing remarks such as 'there is no multiplicity in One', 'in Nous, multiplicity is achieved, but without dispersal, in spacetime or otherwise' and 'in Soul, dispersal is achieved.' We could make distinctions such as 'large face' versus 'small face' in Kabbalah or 'void' versus 'wuji' in Taoism based on the experience of different states of consciousness.

"something on a 'higher' rung can affect something on a 'lower' rung, but how does that work exactly?"

I put forth the framework of a model here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/anosognosia/14785.html), where you could take (IIa) to be the One. The particular laws of descent from one hypostasis to the next would be the topic of practical Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and such.

Re: Transubstantiation as alchemy

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

BTW, it strikes me I should apologize, in a sense... I've fallen out of the habit of lacing my posts with "I think..." and "I feel that..." and I may be sounding like I'm giving authoritarian pronouncements... which is certainly not my intention. We've got some similar interests, yet slightly different views, and the best I'm hoping for is that my vague ponderings can knock over a few dominoes in your own theorizing. Yours have inspired me on more than one occasion, for which you have my gratitude.

So, sorry if I've succumbed to the danger of the text medium and come across as oppressive; or, indeed, if this apology is itself an unsettling non sequitur - but better awkward and polite than suave yet overbearing.

[pooperman.livejournal.com]

My own answer is kind of paradoxical, in a sense -- theoplasm is nothing, but a "meaningful nothing", the potential whereby things exist or events occur.

If you get the time, you might enjoy my recent post on "existence as the inverse of entropy." In there, I compare God to "nothingness" and "non-existence." Sort of like Plato's world of forms in a way, but not quite.

I am really starting to like the idea of "nothing" being a state of maximum entropy and not necessarily the absence of matter and/or energy. Your words that I quoted above struck me as if you were plainly stating what I spent too many words to explain:

--God is "nothing."

--The universe is progressing towards God, or "nothingness," as is evidenced by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. "the potential whereby things exist or events occur"

--This "nothingness" is also "maximum complexity," which means ultimate knowledge will come with it.

I'm trying desperately to connect the dots that I've started to end up with "love." I just feel that it has to lead there for some reason.

[pooperman.livejournal.com]

By the way, thanks for recommending "Gnostic Paul" by Pagels. Just arrived today!

:-)

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Oh, good! I look forward to seeing your thoughts on it. I should maybe have warned you, it's a bit hard to get through at first, until you start to get the flow of it. Not exactly light reading.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

If you get the time, you might enjoy my recent post on "existence as the inverse of entropy." In there, I compare God to "nothingness" and "non-existence." Sort of like Plato's world of forms in a way, but not quite.

I made a mental note to come back to that, and so today I will. :)


I am really starting to like the idea of "nothing" being a state of maximum entropy and not necessarily the absence of matter and/or energy.

The flesh kind of recoils at the thought of maximum entropy -- but it certainly would fill the Neoplatonic and Gnostic requirements of "an abyss of stillness."

I don't know. I'll have to contemplate this one a while.