| This dissertation attempts to explore what could be a starting point in thinking through a basis for a modern, rational and androgynous spirituality. By a rational spirituality I mean a spirituality that does not rely on notions of the divine as a separate, unknowable, supernatural being. In addition, I propose a concept of the divine that is androgynous that is, one that contains both the feminine and the masculine principles as part of one another within a harmonious balance.;I then propose that Boehme could still have a significant contribution to a rational and androgynous spirituality because he provides the androgyny piece. Boehme provides a view of a divine that has a place for the feminine in all its aspects. Further, Boehme has an account of original humanity as being androgynous. This androgyny was then lost through the fall and, he also says that humanity's future redemption will include a recovered androgyny.;This dissertation seeks to recognize the strength and pervasiveness of the human spiritual impulse and suggests the need for a rational spirituality, complete with a mythology that does not subject itself to a separate creator and one that allots half of the human race its rightful place in the divine. I believe, as does Hegel, that humanity needs mythology for rational truths to resonate on a more emotional level. However, humanity also needs rationality in order to take control of its own destiny. Thus, I suggest that both Boehme and Hegel add dimensions that the other does not possess. For example Hegel has a notion of God that is not external to the human and Boehme offers, along with a rich symbolism, a fully equal and powerful place to the feminine within the divine and within humanity and its history.;I suggest that using the philosophers Jacob Boehme and GWF Hegel might be a way to begin thinking through this project. Hegel provides a philosophical concept of the divine, much as Boehme does, as being a self-generating evolutionary process that will culminate in the collective human self-consciousness as knowledge of itself as being the divine. As such, he proposes a secularized spirituality. I discuss how Hegel uses the insights Boehme affords and elevates them to philosophical discourse. |
