Ernst Troeltsch : The Divine Seed

Time and Creation
In Gregory of Nyssa and
Meister Eckhart

This latter element, above all, needs to be taken into account as a means of establishing the mystical impulse towards an interior life, and of breathing fresh life and energy into objective religion upon a general theoretical scientific foundation. This basis is held to be that universal cosmic process, which is also the ultimate underlying truth in the Christian experience of salvation, of the descent of the Absolute into the finite world of sense, in which, however, God remains the Ground of the Soul, the Seed and the Spark even of the Creature, which in selfishness and sin asserts its right to an isolated independent existence. This is the great doctrine of the Divine Seed, of the Divine Spark which lies hidden in every mind and soul, stifled by sin and by the finite, yet capable of being quickened into vitality by the touch of the Divine Spirit working on and in our souls. This "seed" is the source of all religious longing for and awareness of God. Simply quickened by the historic revelation, this "seed" is developed into a complete power of overcoming the world and of return to God by the purely inward movement of the Spirit which is kindled and strengthened within the soul. Here all the emphasis falls upon the present, immediate, interior religious movement of feeling and of thought, in contrast to all external authority, all literalism in faith, to all theories which would make salvation dependent upon historical facts and upon the individual's knowledge and acceptance of these facts. Here the saving energy of God joins forces with the movement of transient religious emotion, and faith is certain that it is able to distinguish the motion of the Divine Spirit from all merely human opinion and desire, by the practice of self-examination and the cultivation of a selfless spirit. All that is ecclesiastical, historic, dogmatic, objective, and authoritative is changed into a mere means of stimulation, into that which arouses that personal experience which alone is valuable, and on which alone the hope of salvation is founded. This is a theology of the subjective consciousness of salvation, and no longer one which confines itself to the objective facts of redemption. The Spirit, or the present living consciousness of salvation, and the facts of history and of the cultus, have been placed in a new relation. All that concerns the Church, doctrine, and dogma seems to be simply a precipitation of a personal religious life of that kind, and can only be understood in its true sense by the gracious inward influence of the Spirit, the movement of God within the soul. The spirit of God can only recognize His own Presence in the Scriptures and in the Church, and only thus can strength and nourishment be drawn from them; left to themselves both the Bible and the Church are merely a dead letter or an empty ceremonial. This is mystical "spiritual religion" in the service of a direct and personal religious life, preserving that which is alone worthy, a life in the spirit which rises above and conquers the world.

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THE DIVINE SEED

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