/lit/ - Literature

If you want to discuss more about the work of father Seraphim Rose and guénonian traditionalism, make sure to join our server: https://discord.com/invite/JqpWeS7M

>>23059870
>truth is a person
What does that even mean? The statement “That car is silver” could be true. What had it got to do with being a person. It’s just a basic primitive notion, that can’t really be defined, but is obviously not “a person”.

>>23059870
Rose fell for the very same error of sentimentalism that Guenon identified, his attraction to Orthodoxy and his rejection of other religions as demonic stems from a sentimental attachment to aesthetics and exterior forms. This is quite a step down from Guenon's more refined understanding.

He was in fact so enthralled by sentimentalism that the "eye" of his heart was clouded over and he failed to realize that he fellow monk Fr. Gleb was molesting people.

Rose is not the "next step" but a backslide from Guenon.

>>23059887
Is this bait? There aren't people with reading comprehensions this low on our board are there?

>>23059908
>being this smug and wrong
It literally says truth is a person
>With my exposure to orthodoxy and Orthodox people,
Ok, with his exposure to Orthodoxy what happened?
>a new idea began to enter my awareness:
He had a new idea! What was it?
>that Truth was not just an abstract idea, sought and known by the mind,
Ok, so what is it?
>but was something personal--even a Person--sought and loved by the heart.
A person!

Do you guys eugene knew that his best friend herman was sucking child cock in his spare time

>>23059870
>>23059907
Did Seraphim Rose remain being perennialist, or did he completely reject it and believe that Orthodox Christianity is the *only* way regards of one's native culture or ethnicity? After searching I believe the answer is the former:

https://pdfcoffee.com/seraphim-rose-on-guenon-pdf-free.html

Even after converting to Orthodoxy, Rose didn't denounce Guenon or Taoism he once studied, instead he recognized Guenon's positive influence on his pursuit of truth and in his own words, "still keeping all my basic Guénonian ideas about all the authentic spiritual traditions". He didn't reject Eastern traditions because he thought they were inherently false, but rather because his Western mindset was more "suitable" for Christianity, the Chinese tradition was being destroyed by the communists, and also Christianity being a unique immediate contact with the full Truth of God.

>It is my prayer for you that God will open your heart, and you yourself will dowhat you can to meet Him. You will find there happiness you never dreamed possiblebefore; your heart will join your head in recognizing the true God, and no real truth youhave ever known will be lost. May God grant it!

>>23060122
If he remained perennialist, why did he publish a compilation of essays from other people and himself under "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future" which condemns eastern religions as demonic, false, misguided? From what I recall the essays that say this were written by other contributors but he surely read and was aware of them and saw fit to publish them under his own name without including any qualifications or addendums setting out his actual view on eastern doctrines.

>>23060144
For the same reason as when Guenon was a Sufi Muslim in Egypt, even though he himself studied and wrote about the teachings of other traditions, his own practice was entirely Islamic and he did not encourage others to convert to Hinduism, but to convert others to Islam.

From a perennialist viewpoint, there is nothing wrong with excluding the practices of other religions and guarding one's own tradition. Rather the opposite practice which is religious syncretism like how Schuon unfortunately does is what Guenon and traditionalism are against. Rose's choice to add exclusive essays in his collection does not violate either Orthodoxy or traditionalism. After all, the book is written for laities who may not know what traditionalism is, and for them this is the safest bet.

>>23059870
Rose was literally a faggot homosexual who got topped by multiple BBCs in gay bathhouses of San Francisco and then had a religious epiphany while smoking crack

>>23060051
He's talking about the doctrine that sets orthodoxy apart from other christian branches - doctrine of the nous. It says that you have a personal relationship with god aka Christ aka logos aka truth. You can only have a personal relationship with a person.

>>23060304
what's wrong with that?

>>23060333
Nous means heart btw.

>>23059870
>Literally a gay xenophile who died from AIDs
lol

Is a gay schizo drug addict really the best Orthobros have?

>>23060304
>>23060343
>>23060346
Rose's fall was a product of the modern era, and as a Christian he repented and spent the rest of his life to do the work of God. God forgives and welcomes him in Heaven.

>>23059870
>guénonian
outdone

>>23060497
Guenon = Batman
Evola = Robin

>>23060304
Sounds based and redpilled desu

>>23060517
>incapable of talking about metaphysics without mentioning racial or political ideas
what's wrong with that?

>>23060517
why would marashi a hindu call him a sufi

>>23060517
>sired out of wedlock children and would then deny he was the father
based og ItsOVER

>>23060333
How is truth a person? Explain your doctrine.

>>23060410
Lol, no man who has taken it up the ass should ever presume to speak in public, much less lecture anybody about religion

>>23060701
Christ = logos = truth
Christ = God = man
Basically, Christ is a figure that transcends categories. By that logic (or rather illogoc) truth is a person. It's a sort of Zen paradox. It's what makes the gospels compelling.

>>23060735
This. I don't know why it's so difficult for tardlarpers to avoid the thing they insist isn't allowed by Yahweh

>>23060926
I have no idea what this means

>>23060926
Listen schizo, if you think Christianity teaches that you personally are identical with God, you are at best a bad armchair theologian.

>>23061026
I mean if god can forgive prostitutes and such why would gays be any different if they repent and change their ways?

>>23061307
sure why not, the more you sin the more you'll be forgiven for, it's really a strange premise, make sure you get all that depravity out of your system before death knocks or you are damned forever, play chicken with the master of the universe i guess

>>23061188
Maybe you are retarded.

>>23061234
I don't know what LARP denomination you go with, but in Orthodoxy, you need to have a personal relationship with God.

>>23061508
>Maybe you are retarded.
You literally just said a bunch of words that don’t make sense (in your own admission, it’s “beyond logic”). Christ = logos = truth = God = man. As of that string of words carries any meaningful content.

The next step after Guenon is to invent a new religion called Infinitism, which regards all other religions as different sects or schools within it.

>>23061508
>you need to have a personal relationship with God
Your formulation, that God = man, is not a relationship, it is an identity. If man is God there are a number of ridiculous consequences you will need to explain away to keep Christianity intact, it isn't a theurgical indian religion, you imitate Christ, you are not becoming him

>>23061520
Ok, you are retarded. I will explain it to you as simply as I possibly can.

Orthodoxy differs from catholicism and protestantism through the doctrine of the heart (nous). Basic theology. The doctrine says that you know God through the heart. The only way you can know God through the heart is to have a personal relationship with him. You can only have a personal relationship with a PERSON.

God is Christ and Christ is Logos. Did you ever hear Christ referred to as Logos? Logos/Christ is also understood as Truth.

So if you are Orthodox, you have a personal relationship with the truth. That is what Seraphim Rose is saying. It's an esoteric quote.

You can go on wikipedia and verify all of this.

>>23061545
Is Christ God? Is Christ man?

>>23060333
>You can only have a personal relationship with a person.

>>23061556
That is orthodox dogma.

>>23061234
I expect the lad just discovered Orthodoxy and has the evangelizing spirit (either that or he's just baiting).
Theosis exists as a concept however.

>>23061569
How do you people not understand basic Orthodox theology? It's funny because the only reason I learned this is to BTFO christcucks on 4chan.

>>23061560
I know, I wasn't laughing at the dogma, I was laughing at your claim.
But I'm gonna grant that it's true for argument's sake, you can still have a personal relationship with God through the Holy Trinity.

>>23061582
Do you know what theosis is?

>>23061548
The truth is non personal concept. Sentences can be true. “We are on 4chan now” is a true sentence. The truth of that sentence is grounded in what is actually going on in the world. Truth seems to be something like the correspondence between a proposition and the state of reality. It has nothing to do with being a person. It is an abstract notion in the human mind, not a person.

>>23061584
Maybe. The way I understand it is you have a personal relationship through the heart. It's a way to counter the atheist argument that arises when atheists are faced with the First Cause.
>how do you know that the First Cause is the Christian God?
Which is check mate. So you have the doctrine of the nous, which transcends logic and goes to the heart (nous) of the issue.

>>23061592
Your point?

>>23061601
Nigger. LARP for a second. Christ is Truth. Christ is a person. Therefore truth is person. That is what Seraphim is saying. Don't take it at face value.

>>23061551
that doesn't make all men God, I am pretty sure Christianity falls apart if we are all God, or are you a Spinozist?

>>23060517
Guenon married?

>>23061652
Christ is both man and God. But man is not God. Never claimed he was. Maybe the "=" sign got confusing

>>23061652
> I am pretty sure Christianity falls apart if we are all G-
refuted by David Bentley Hart

> or are you a Spinozist?
There are numerous ways that such an idea has been elaborated by Christian thinkers without resorting to Spinoza’s metaphysics, his is just one of many options.

>>23061657
>Maybe the "=" sign got confusing
Yeah that means "is." When you say "god = man" there's not much room left to argue you said otherwise
>>23061659
This is new to me, if we are all God why are we following God's laws? Why was the sacrifice of Christ necessary? How is original sin possible for we God?

>>23061678
God is man through Christ. But man is not God.

>>23061654
Like many Frenchmen, his descendents are Arabs

>>23061682
>But man is not God.
So don't say man = God, mr browny hands

>>23061695
Yeah, I assumed that people understood that I'm referring to Christ being both God and man in a thread about Orthodox Christianity.

>>23061727
Christ being god and man is standard lower case orthodoxy, no orientalist larp required; your attempt to be more intellectual than a Republican politician backfired

>>23061763
And yet it still went over your head.

>>23061779
>communicates poorly
>gloats that he is misunderstood
wow what a fa— err, I mean seraphim rose

>>23061616
>Christ is Truth. Christ is a person.
All you do is repeat the concept without explaining it. How is truth a person? It doesn’t make sense when you consider the nature of truth. Truth seems to be an abstract concept, not a conscious being.

>>23061782
>autistically misunderstands a hasty notation
>didn't even reach the meat of the argument
What are you even doing in this thread?

>>23061794
I told you that Christ transcends categories. It's not meant to make linear sense, but to snap you into a deeper level of understanding, like a Zen koan. Did you read the gospels? They're full of paradoxes and contradictions. That's what Seraphim is going for. He's also saying that the truth is better understood through the heart. And, he's throwing out an esoteric dog whistle to people who know about the doctrine of the nous.

>>23061829
If Christianity is just a metaphor for understanding philosophical concepts and doesn't have to make sense otherwise, you are at odds with almost all believing Christians who have ever lived. The Buddhist comparison is especially wrong. To put in context how alien Buddhist scriptures are to Christian scripture imagine if Jesus in his sermons mentioned that Christ, as a sort of title meaning supreme beyond-being and not a person, had already appeared to other communities and nations and kings and so forth, who are known to the audience to have been long dead or even the stuff of legend. Jesus would be telling the disciples about the time the previous Christ was king of some antediluvian principality and had taught the same Covenant to the people there who all swore their allegiance to the Heavenly Father and were thus liberated from the endless cycles of destruction of the world. Or once he had been a minister of a pharaoh of Egypt, well before the Israelites had come down there, and he actually instructed the Egyptians in their own religion and converted the king, but this has declined over time and become forgotten among all but a few who do not teach—but of course, he is here to teach! Instead Jesus is meant to be historical and be the culmination of utterances accumulated in the existing scripture about some sort of redeemer who will restore Israel (which has been conquered for effectively all recent memory... even if you count the Hasmoneans their Judaism is almost a neo-Judaism, it is post-hellenic, and the historical Jesus himself is a challenge against it). The Buddha fulfills no such ethno-religious aspiration, he is of the Sakya clan, which while prestigious, is not itself attempting to re-establish some restored idyllic holy state against its oppressor in line with literary expectations. The Gospels argue for their historicity and fulfilment of prophecy, they are not intended as metaphors for neoplatonism to be discarded by men who have reached godhood.

>>23061855
>If Christianity is just a metaphor for understanding philosophical concepts
It's not.

>The Buddhist comparison is especially wrong
There is no Buddhist comparison. It was a comparison to a Zen koan, which is a literary form. The gospels make extensive use of paradoxes and contradiction.

>imagine if Jesus in his sermons mentioned that Christ, as a sort of title meaning supreme beyond-being and not a person, had already appeared to other communities and nations and kings and so forth, who are known to the audience to have been long dead or even the stuff of legend
"Before Abraham was, I am". Granted, Abraham is not foreign to Jesus, but Christ is an eternal, ahistorical figure.

My argument would be that Christ is God, man, and a literary instrument at the same time. It's clear that the Christ figure in the Gospels is abstract to a degree. Again, the figure of Christ is a figure of paradox, which is why it has enthralled so many people.

>>23061904
>Zen koan, which is a literary form
Yeah it's a Mahayana buddhist literary form, so the "point" is to convince you to discard turgid scholastic reasoning and categories about what "enlightenment" is in favor of direct experience. That's not how Christianity works. At no point are you free to shit on the word of God and throw it away because you've attained what it was merely an aid for. Your scriptures are inerrant, not a finger pointed at the moon.

>>23061948
It is comparable to the orthodox perspective and the doctrine of the nous though. You don't understand God through your rational mind, but through your irrational heart. Quite comparable indeed.

>>23061948
>>23061984
Furthermore, does Christ not step all over the customs and the turgid scholastic reasoning of the pharisees?

>>23061984
>doctrine of the nous
What does that have to do with the Gospels? You are using them as a metaphor for neoplatonism?
>>23061996
No, because Christianity reintroduces priesthood anyway, but more importantly the rampant theological speculations it has engaged in and continues to assert are the exact sort of thing "Zen" was a reaction against. The sūtras and shastras being worthless to someone who has attained buddha nature or nirvana or a pure mind, such an idea could never be argued by a proper Christian, he would be dismantling his entire church in saying the Gospels contained no meaning and liberated no person from sin, evil, etc. It's telling that Christian apologists are trying to pass off their religion as similar to Buddhism (or even Hinduism), they are a hundred plus years behind western intellectual and popular currents (philosophical idealism, theosophy, new age, multiculturalism etc.). There is no prestige in merely being Christian!

>>23062038
Yeah, there's no nirvana in Christianity and the two are very different, but paradox is used in both the gospel and in Zen koans to different ends.

>>23062051
christian paradoxes are just the theologian shrugging, buddhist paradoxes are often attacks on the idea of logic itself as a source of knowledge
a christian has to say christ is god and man and will comb the inerrant and perfectly true bible for support of both, a buddhist might say christ is god, is man, is not god, is not man, is both god and man, is not god and is not man, all in the same treatise, and you are supposed to have exhausted the options and learned something about the futility of this exercise

crypto-buddhist annihilationists feeling VERY insecure ITT

>>23062093
idk seems like the zen guy in your analogy has a better sense of the divinity God than a prot trying to interpret scripture at their kitchen table.

>>23062446
right that's why buddhist monks deal triple damage against protestant missionaries

>>23062093
>christian paradoxes are just the theologian shrugging
Except they're not. Read the gospels and see what I'm talking about. You're talking out of your ass.

>buddhist paradoxes are often attacks on the idea of logic itself as a source of knowledge
Same with Christian paradoxes. You're making a strawman out of orthodoxy and looking at it as if it's catholicism. Orthodoxy does not reach gnosis through logic.

Idk why you think your Buddhist paradoxes are so precious, and an exclusive spiritual tool of the bugmen. Obviously the two religions are different. You seem to want to prove that Buddhism is superior. Maybe. But at least read the Bible and some theology before attacking the religion.

In my opinion, the only thing that makes Buddhism superior is the practice of meditation, the four noble truths and the doctrine of no-self. It's a religion of practice. Christianity is a religion of devotion. But to handwave it away, simply because the vast majority of christians are retards who can't defend their religion is stupid. It's a very compelling religion, and it has generated gnosis simply through the text of the bible in many, many people. If you can't look at the gospels and see that they are works of literary genius, then maybe Dawkins is more your speed.

Reminder that Rose was always a gay hippie new-age sodomite who learned how to be a gay hippie new-age sodomite from Alan Watts, he just chose Orthodoxy as his flavor of eastern exoticism rather than Hinduism or something. There's a reason it's primarily exoticist internet converts (not gonna call them "larpers" cause that's passe) attracted to him and not lifelong committed Orthodox Christians.