Sunday, August 24, 2025

A Short Sunday Reflection





Here's a short Sunday meditation on supernatural inspiration; no small thing. Via Eclectic Orthodoxy:


Supernatural inspiration involves the infusion of knowledge from beyond the upper bounds of natural consciousness. In exploring this idea, Farrer finds it necessary to distinguish supernatural inspiration from “inspired wit” and from “preternatural” consciousness. He explains that “the excellence of the mind consists . . . of a conscious intelligence based always upon acute senses and riding upon a vigorous imagination.” He uses several analogies:

"The previous labour of the intelligence is thrown down into the imagination as into a cauldron, from which it emerges again fused into new figures and, it may be, enriched with materials from the subconscious sphere, which were never in distinct consciousness at all. . . . In inspired wit a spark leaps from intelligence to intelligence across a field of imagination: whereas in weird abnormal consciousness the spark leaps from the outer dark into imagi­na­tion itself, providing an image of which the intelligence must make what it can. (24-25)"

 

The infusion of divine knowledge and, surely, being; our Orthodox friends, I think, would call this divinization. Is this not what we're all about as Christians? Strive, my friends, to enter by the narrow door, the strait gate which is Christ Himself. Here endeth the reflection.

God bless,

LSP

1 comment:

The Night Wind said...

LSP: I don't know if you heard, but our old pal Peter Thiel is doing a four-part lecture series on the Antichrist (too late all tickets are sold out, and according to the flyers, are non-refundable). Anyway, the adverts read that Thiel will be discussing 'how his Christian Faith informs his understanding of the world.'

A WEF member who's CEO of some the most predatory Tech firms, a flaming homo who was suspected in Germany of murdering one of his lovers, and who's written extensively on how Democracy has failed, and how the West needs a Supreme Leader is going to tell us how Christianity works.

Interesting too the people he lists as influences: Rene Girard and Cardinal Newman (both admirers of European Feudalism); Francis Bacon (said by many to have been the forefather of modern Scientism); Jonathan Swift (for some reason); but the most interesting one is Carl Schmitt, who was a literal Nazi.

Why listen to Orthodox Saints when Billionaires can lead us into the Light? After all, some companies are already putting out AI saints, and even AI Jesus.