Prophecy versus numerology - And living well, here and now

I do not believe that divine destiny is organised in terms of numbers, therefore it cannot be predicted from numerical patterns. I don't believe that God follows a timetable for human salvation and theosis; nor do I believe that theological history is following an abstract geometrical master plan expressive of specific proportions.

I regard time as serial and sequential; as implied by the fact that Christianity is an historical religion and the fact of free agency (hence non-predictability).

And therefore, I am sure that all prophecies of divinely-ordained events which are tied to specific dates are intrinsically wrong - because derived from false premises.

However, the validity of prophecy as such is not ruled-out - indeed it would be difficult and inconsistent for a Christian to rule-out the validity of prophecy, considering its emphasis in the Gospels (as well as elsewhere in the Bible).

All that is uncertain concerning the validity of prophecy as a general phenomenon (not each specific prophecy, of course) is the mechanisms by which prophecy is made to be fulfilled - and here there are presumably many ways and means by which a prophesied event can be made to come to fulfilment - ranging from predictions based upon extrapolation from a very complete basis of knowledge, to direct divine interventions (whether explicit and miraculous, or behind-the-scenes imperceptible).

For me, the most impressive and overall-convincing prophecy I have encountered was by Rudolf Steiner in 1918; something I have extensively written about previously.

I believe that this was a true prophecy - and a vital one, which has primary implications for what we (individually - you and me) should be doing in our lives; as a major priority. However I would also emphasise that Steiner made many more prophecies which were not validated, or were indeed either nonsensical or incomprehensible - including many that were based upon exactly that kind of 'numerology' which I rejected in the first paragraph above.

Which goes to show that although Steiner was a real prophet, he was (like most other prophets) fallible and flawed: being a real prophet does not imply getting-it-right all-the-time (nor even, quantitatively, most of the time).

As usual - as, indeed, the world has been designed - we need to work-out such things, each for himself. Life isn't a matter of following a program; because each person is different - ultimately, not superficially different; and is meant to be different; and each has a different path of divine destiny that must be (and this is a vital part of it) discovered by personal effort.

(At the basis of creation is that we are all hoped/ intended/ given-the-choice to become divine sons and daughters of God; and like mortal sons and daughters, each divine son or daughter is (and is designed to be, supposed to be) unique in his or her divinity; this resulting from the over-time experience of God-within-us that we all share identically, interacting with our eternal/ unique/ divine selves.) 

My understanding of Steiner's 1918 prophecy is that he described what we ought to do - what God wanted us to do, and still does - and what would happen if we chose not to do it. (This was both a warning, at the time it was given - and is now a means of validating the prophecy.)

Steiner knew what God wanted us to do because he was (in this instance) unusually able to discern this from God-within-him; and he predicted, largely correctly, what would happen if we did not do it from his general understanding of Life and the powers at work in it.

(Steiner's other prophecies were wrong from the usual kind of human failings; especially a characterological reluctance to acknowledge past errors and the possibility of present error. Also from his Pythagorean/ Platonic tendencies towards strict numerology and God as a blueprint-planner. Steiner displayed a fairly common form of pride, especially in men - a fixed baseline assumption of de facto infallibility. One is hard-pressed to find a place when Steiner explicitly admitted to a significant mistake; at least not without also making so many explanations and excuses for his error that the admission is in effect undercut and reversed.)

The value of this and other real prophecies is to clarify causes and consequences; and therefore to clarify our priorities - the nature and direction of our efforts.

In the case of Steiner's 1918 prophecy, this clarifies that the Christianity of the future must be different from the Christianity of the past (which, with time as sequential and history as real, would necessarily be the case); and that we must be focused on re-establishing our individual and personal connection with the imperceptible, immaterial, spiritual world; but in a new and unprecedented way.

(Steiner made the specific recommendation that this be done by the general method of Anthroposophy - and in a general sense of the aim of the spiritual activity I regard this as correct; although Steiner's specific recommended techniques and meditative 'exercises', framed in terms of a stepwise process of 'initiation', are unconvincing, arbitrary and apparently ineffective - or even counter-productive in practice.) 

In my life this means that I keep-on trying to change my world view from the prevalent modern spirit-denying metaphysics of materialism/ reductionism/ positivism/ scientism - but not in the direction of trying to revive that early historical and childhood spirituality of immersion-in, and sensory-perception-of, the spiritual world. My aim is to develop the habit of experiencing the reality of the spiritual, immaterial and divine world in the domain and activity of thinking.

I seek a direct knowledge of reality - a knowledge located in my thinking, not my perceiving - of the divine and spiritual realities; such that I can live properly from my own resources even when all (or nearly all) significant social institutions are corrupted and inverted. 

In sum, we should not strive to see or hear (or touch, smell or taste) spirits and divinities and unseen realities; instead we should strive to know them in our thinking.

This, at any rate, is what I am doing.