WILLIAM BLAKE AND JACOB BOEHME. AN INTRIGUING APPROACH TO CHRISTIANITY

Abstract

In this paper, William Blake�s religious system, the relationship between Natural Religion (Deism) and Art will be discussed. Blake rejected Natural Religion because Deism, which he considered Atheism and the tree of mystery, that is the dichotomy of good and evil, is false religion. �Natural religion�s impossible absurdity� urged him to allege The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which proclaim that nature is God�s creation, follow Urizen�s cruel practices. Deism, Druidism is responsible for human slavery, war, and spiritual backwardness. Blake�s Protestant Jesus, that is imagination incarnated is spirituality and productivity. This does not mean that Catholicism and Orthodoxy are consisted by false religious beliefs. The basic idea of the differentiation between religions is not the division of the spirit in good and evil but the ground on which this division is based. Although �Man must and will have some Religion,� religion is a �web� and a �direful wheel.� Jesus is not a religion, in the sense that religion is a system of justice which is based on single standards that regulate human ethics and conduct. Understanding Jesus is a process of self - knowing. Man should not strive to express himself through religion but through his creative imagination and the humanitarian values of annihilation of the selfhood, universal brotherhood, and mutual forgiveness of sins. In a false religious system these values are ignored and forgotten. In order to form these ideas Blake received various influences from Boehme�s assertions, for example about the single root of the God of the holy world, and the God of the dark world. Also, God is the Fire and Jesus is the Light; Boehme saw the incarnation of Jesus not as a sacrificial offering to redeem humans from sins but as an offering of love to all humanity. In addition, Blake�s ideas about Virgin Mary are significant to compare and contrast to Boehme�s. The latter�s Marian views helped Blake to construct his own view on divine birth and Jesus�s human side.