The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious by S. J. McGrath

Author:S. J. McGrath [McGrath, S. J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

In Clara, Schelling offers what initially appears to be a basically Neoplatonic view of the human being as tripartite: a material principle, the body, is connected to an immaterial principle, the spirit, through the intermediary of the soul, which partakes of both matter and spirit (Schelling, 1810b: 35–41). In fact, Schelling inverts the Platonic hierarchy under the influence of Swedenborgian spiritualism. Soul is not universal but particularized by virtue of its participation in body (this much is Neo-platonic), but soul is nevertheless higher than spirit, for that which unites opposites is higher than either opposite (Schelling, 1810b: 34). Although in one way, soul is lower than the spirit, for it partakes of body, in another way, soul is “of a higher lineage than spirit and body” (Schelling 1810b: 35). This peculiar argument allows Schelling to argue for a doctrine of personal immortality, the only kind of immortality that can console a bereaved lover. Where the standard Neoplatonic doctrine of immortality would have the universal and intellectual part of the human being survive death, the immortal soul in Neoplatonism being somehow a universalized individual (like an angel in medieval theology), for Schelling, it is the singular soul that survives death, the soul of the person which remains eternal and unchanged in the individual, while body and spirit are constantly changing. And since soul is nothing without body and spirit, the immortal soul possesses some type of body in the next life, just as it possesses some type of intellect and will, albeit transformed and elevated. Spirit on its own is “rather repellent,” Schelling argues; soul is “a milder essence,” that part of the individual which “we love above all; that draws us, as it were, in a magical way” (Schelling 1810b: 33, 35). All three powers must be active in the living person, just as all three divine potencies in the middle Schelling’s theology are essential to the divine. “The whole person thus represents a kind of living rotation: wherever one thing reaches into the other, neither of the others can leave, each requires the other” (Schelling, 1810b: 35). The soul, however, has pre-eminence over spirit and body; it is the essence of the person, “the actual innermost germ of life,” which is intensified in death (Schelling 1810: 36).

Schelling’s qualified Neoplatonic anthropology allows him to make a case for the necessity of death. Since each of the powers (spirit, soul and body) is equally necessary to the whole person, and all three cannot dominate at the same time, for their relations are oppositional (spirit being the opposite of body, while soul is in a way the opposite of both spirit and body, for it includes while the others exclude), a temporal sequence is necessary; they must each have their moment in the light, so to speak. The point here is that a whole can be composed of opposed parts so long as no part is permitted to dominate the others absolutely. One way to resolve the contradiction between parts is to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.