The Cosmic Person in the New Testament - Part 9

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Dear All,

 

Part 8 concluded with:

 

(P.144) " There is, then, the supreme Reality and there is the created world,

between which humankind is the link. Ibn al Arabi calls man the " isthmus " , the

isthmus between God and creation. The perfect man is he who unites heaven and

earth. He is the one in whom the Divine sees himself and through whom the

universe sees the divine. He is the eye of the universe, as the Sufis put it.

God sees himself reflected in this universal Man and the universal Man enables

the whole creation to reflect God. In this way he is the mediator between God

and the universe. So again we have the figure of the mediator and it is

particularly interesting that in a doctrine which was so far from having any

link between God and the world, the mystical side of Islam introduced this

concept of the perfect Man. In my view this is an extremely important point

where Christianity can relate with Islam. The doctrine is not of course the same

in these two great faiths but it is very similar in many ways. (P.145) If we say

Jesus is God the Moslem is horrified and sees this as blasphemy, but if we speak

of the perfect man, this mirror which reflects God and in which God reflects

himself, then we are using the language of Islam, which is also the language of

the Bible which sees Jesus as the " image " of God. " "

 

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

Christian Faith), Pgs. 144-145

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

 

Here then, is Part 9.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

The Cosmic Person in the New Testament - Part 9

 

(P.145) The perfect Man is manifested first of all in Adam. The Quran says that

in creating Adam Allah gave him knowledge of all things. He gave Adam the power

to name all things, which is a way of saying that he was given the knowledge of

all creation. In the process of creation Adam was placed above the angels and

Allah commanded the angels, which are the cosmic powers, to worship him. One of

the angels refused and in so doing became the power of evil. This Adam is very

like the figure we have encountered in Judaism and Christianity, the 'Adam

Kadmon', who is also the original Son of Man, having knowledge of all things and

to whom even the angels bow down.

 

Further, there is a text in the Quran which speaks of Allah bringing forth

descendants from Adam. This was interpreted as taking place from the beginning,

so that this Adam was seen as the primordial man in whom the whole human race is

present from the beginning. Here Allah makes an eternal covenant with this Adam

who is pre-existent and in whom the whole creation is to be found. So once

again, in Islam this time, we discover the figure of the 'purusha', the person

in whom the whole universe and the whole of humanity is to be found.

 

Adam, then, is seen as the archetypal Man. The whole universe exists eternally

in God the transcendent, and is manifested in time and space. So God is both

eternal, transcendent, and also immanent in the whole space-time universe. The

eternal existence of the universe in God is existence in its archetypes. That is

why we speak of the archetype of man. All the archetypes exist eternally, in the

mind of God. (P.146) You and I and everything in the whole creation are

eternally present, realized in God eternally, and then manifested in time and

space.

 

The archetypal Man is also identified with the " idea " of Mohammed, or the spirit

of Mohammed. Just as the Buddha came to be seen in his 'dharmakaya', as

identified with the supreme Reality, so the prophet Mohammed was seen as the

source of all prophecy and of all wisdom and came to be identified with 'al

haqq', the supreme Reality. Mohammed then came to be conceived as the

manifestation of the Supreme. So the same principle is at work here as

elsewhere. There is the concept of God, the absolute Being, and of the universe

as existing eternally in God and of the archetypal man as reflecting God in the

universe and the universe in God. In all the eastern traditions this is worked

out in a similar way and it is not surprising that we find almost exactly the

same in the Christian tradition as represented by Meister Eckhart.

 

According to Ibn al Arabi this archetypal man sees beyond the " God created in

belief " as the Sufis call it. Sufis have a phrase, " God who is created in

belief. " In fact we all create an image of God. We need some image by means of

which to focus our attention on God so we form images and concepts of God. But

the perfect man is the one who does not stop at the image but sees through the

image to the reality beyond. In other words, he sees beyond the God created in

belief to the undifferentiated truth, 'al haqq', the absolute Reality.

 

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

Christian Faith), Pgs. 145-146

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0