As I have explored Schelling’s understanding of religious representations, in this section I shall give an account of how these relate to what Schelling calls the theogonical process. As discussed in the first chapter, our post-Fall condition opens the necessity of a historical process ending with our full awareness of God’s nature. Furthermore, this process reflects the accomplishment of God’s plan for creation. In this respect, mythology and its culmination in revelation manifest the broader pattern of reconciliation of the whole of creation in God, and Schelling himself claims that mythology as a transition is fundamental in relationship to “the universal plan of Providence”. Hence, the process advances with the enrichment of our religious representations from the mythological to the revealed ones. Therefore, it is possible to speak of our religious images in terms of them being closer than others to manifest God properly.
Accordingly to the providential nature of the theogonical process, the development from one step of the process to another is not dictated by randomness, and even less it is the passage from mythology to revealed religion. Once more, let us borrow on Rowan Williams’ words, namely that the world always comes to us in symbols, and all we …show more content…
In Schelling’s own words, “in the child one cannot see the person that will be, Newton in the cradle did not show the creative spirit which will have given a different shape to math and astronomy [...] nonetheless what follows attests the meaning of what preceeds”. Thus, this means that the organic growth of A2 ends in the figure of Jesus, and that by looking back at the theogonical process we are able to track this development. Hence, we become able to see Dionysus and his manifestations at the same time as endowed with their own significance as well as steps to the manifestation of God as incarnated in Jesus
Accordingly to the providential nature of the theogonical process, the development from one step of the process to another is not dictated by randomness, and even less it is the passage from mythology to revealed religion. Once more, let us borrow on Rowan Williams’ words, namely that the world always comes to us in symbols, and all we …show more content…
In Schelling’s own words, “in the child one cannot see the person that will be, Newton in the cradle did not show the creative spirit which will have given a different shape to math and astronomy [...] nonetheless what follows attests the meaning of what preceeds”. Thus, this means that the organic growth of A2 ends in the figure of Jesus, and that by looking back at the theogonical process we are able to track this development. Hence, we become able to see Dionysus and his manifestations at the same time as endowed with their own significance as well as steps to the manifestation of God as incarnated in Jesus