Metaphysical meaning of Seth (mbd)
Seth, seth (Heb.)--settled; determined; founded; set; placed; disposed; constituted; substituted; compensation.
Son of Adam and Eve, who "called his name Seth: For, said she, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel; for Cain slew him" (Gen. 4:25).
Meta. The root idea of this name is that of a surrounding sympathetic movement that envelops a thing and defines its limits, places it, founds it, disposes of it. Some mystics have seen in the name Seth a law of destiny, that which predetermines a thing and settles its order.
While man is in a sense a creature of free will, yet in a larger sense he is a son of God, made in the image and likeness of God, and is destined to express and demonstrate spiritual perfection. There is in all the universe, including man, a balancing power of good, of perfection, which causes a readjustment, a healing, to set in after every transgression of the law, every wandering away from that which is wholesome and true. We find this set forth very clearly in Bible history and symbology. Man seems ever to have wandered away to the limit; then a great reaction has set in, and he has been led back to a saner level. Thus he evolves, grows; and finally he shall come into a full consciousness of his perfect good. His growth into Christlikeness is accelerated greatly as he comes into a knowledge of the Truth that makes free, and thinks and acts consciously, voluntarily, in harmony with it.
"And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah" (Gen. 4:26). Enosh means a miserable man, mortal man; it is when man comes to the end of his personal resources and sees the nothingness of all his efforts in the outer, apart from Spirit, that he begins to look for a higher power to express in his life--he calls upon the name of Jehovah. It is the activity of the awakening spiritual ideals within him (Seth) that causes him first to realize the futility of his human efforts to better himself, and then to recognize the one Source of all true uplift and good.
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