The New Humanity - Part 7

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 6 with:

 

" All this makes it evident that this work of the Spirit has been going on in all

humanity from the beginning. Certainly at Pentecost a fullness of the Spirit was

revealed, but the Spirit was present from the time that man fell from Eden. The

redemptive work of the Spirit was already taking place from the very beginning.

In all primitive peoples and in the hunting, agricultural and pastoral peoples

there was a presence of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is present in all creation,

in all humanity, drawing humanity back to God, back to Christ, back to the

Truth. "

 

Here now, is Part 7.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

The New Humanity - Part 7

 

(P.110) Looking back at myth and ritual, which we discussed earlier, we can see

that through myth God revealed Himself to the ancient world. At that point there

was no 'logos' since people were at the pre-rational stage. The 'mythos' comes

before the 'logos', for the 'mythos' is the symbolic story appropriate at the

imaginative level of development, whereas the 'logos' requires for its

understanding the reason and the intellect. Before the development of reason

human beings had to learn through myth, and myth was expressed in ritual. So all

ancient myth and ritual was the way in which the Spirit was made present and

through which the Word was revealing himself. (P.111) So the Word of God " which

enlightens every man coming into the world " (John 1:9) was revealing himself

through the myths and rituals of the ancient peoples. When it comes to

understanding this, there are two possibilities. The myth and the ritual can be

accepted as a means or sacrament, through which God is revealing himself, and

this is the way of true religion, or the myth and the ritual can be idolized,

which means that they are made an end in themselves. We are always either open

to the Spirit and take part in the work of redemption, or we close in on

ourselves and settle for substitutes for the Spirit in which case we isolate

ourselves from God, from the truth. So that is how the Word and the Spirit are

present from the beginning, building up humanity into the new body, the new

humanity.

 

The final point here is that this rebuilding of each person, the creation and

humanity into one is conceived as coming to fulfillment in a person, the person

of Christ. For many people this is a great difficulty for they cannot see the

stellar universe or the universe of the atom in terms of a person. But it is in

fact a very profound insight. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, the person is the

highest being in the universe. We understand that matter is the lowest level of

organisation, it is comparatively unstructured. The atomic level, the living

cell and the plant mark stages in organisation, in the development of a more

complex structure. The level of animal intelligence is a further stage and

finally the level of the human being is reached. Each human person has the

capacity for knowledge and love, that is, a capacity to structure the universe

around them and to further its organisation. A person is essentially a being

capable of knowledge and love, which means being capable of receiving the

universe into oneself by knowledge, that is, by symbol and language, and capable

of acting on the universe by art and science. (P.112) And so " person " is really

the supreme reality in the universe, the point at which the universe enters into

consciousness. It is significant that nearly all ancient people saw the ultimate

Reality in terms of a person. In Hinduism we have the 'purusha', the cosmic

Person, in whom the whole universe comes together. In Buddhism we have the

'tathagata', the one who has reached Reality and who is the supreme Person. In

Islam there is the " universal man " , 'al-insan al Kamil' and in Christianity we

have Christ as the cosmic Person, the one in whom all things were created. " All

things were created through him and for him ... and in him all things hold

together. " (Colossians 1:16,17) He is the person who personalises the universe

and the universe comes to a head as it were, in him. In this way the whole of

humanity is seen as growing, as St. Paul put it, to mature manhood, to " the

measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. " (Ephesians 4:13) The whole of

humanity is growing to the full stature of the man, Jesus Christ, who is none

other than the primordial Man who was there in the beginning and who has now

been revealed as the Lord, uniting all humanity with God. That is the vision of

St. Paul and of the New Testament as a whole. In the next two chapters we will

trace out this theme of the cosmic Person in Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism

and Islam, for it is one of the great themes of all the major religions.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith)

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

Pgs. 110-112