God and the World - Part 10

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

In Part 9, we concluded with:

 

(P.169) It is very significant indeed that physics now sees the whole universe

as a web of dynamic interrelationships. When we come to the human person, our

lives are also a network of interrelationships. At the human level the child is

related to the mother and then to father, brothers and sisters, friends and so

on, in a web of relationships. The question is, do these relationships disappear

in the ultimate? (P.170) In this Christian understanding there are relationships

in the ultimate and Jesus himself expresses this by saying, " I am in the Father

and the Father in me " , and also when he prays " that they may be one as thou in

me and I in thee, that they may be one in us. " (John 17:21) Jesus' prayer is

that as he is in the Father in his personal relationship, so we also may be in

him and he in us, which means that we also enter into that interpersonal

relationship within the Godhead.

 

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

Christian Faith), Pg.169-170

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

 

Here now, is Part 10.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

God and the World - Part 10

 

(P.170) There is a very important concept here. As in Kashmir Shaivism and in

Buddhism there is the principle of differentiation in the Ultimate, so in the

Christian view the 'logos', the Word of God, is the principle of differentiation

in the Godhead. The Father is the source, the one, the origin, from which

everything comes, and the Father knows himself in the Son. He expresses himself

and differentiates himself in the Son. So there is interpersonal relationship

there in the ultimate, in eternity. But also, at the very moment that he

differentiates himself in the Son he unites himself with the Son in the Spirit,

just as in the other doctrines there are the two movements, the going out and

coming in, which are identical in the Godhead. We speak of this as being in

time, of course, but time is a category of the created universe, not of God. So

in the Trinity the Father eternally knows himself, differentiates himself, in

the Son, and is eternally united with himself, in the Holy Spirit. So here is

the same principle of differentiation in unity that we saw in the other

spiritual traditions.

 

Putting this in another way may perhaps make it more intelligible. The Father

expresses himself in the Son, totally and perfectly, but in the Son and in the

Word all the potentialities of creation are present and therefore in expressing

himself in the Son, the Father expresses the possibilities latent in himself in

his Word. St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Christian tradition generally, calls these

possibilities " ideas " in God. (P.171) This is based on Plato, where the notion

of ideas meant that everything in this world exists first as an eternal idea.

Every plant and tree and animal and person has its eternal idea, its archetype,

in God. These ideas in God are identical with God. There is no differentiation

at that stage. God knows himself in all these. He knows himself in you and in

me, eternally. Eckhart says, " God only spoke one word, and in that word the

whole creation came into being. " Then by an act of the creative will, like the

will that stirs between Shiva and Shakti in Kashmir Shaivism, these

possibilities of being, these finite possibilities, appear in space and time in

the universe as we know it and reflect their archetypes in the One. And as they

emerge from the eternal into time they are being drawn back from time and space

into the eternal. We are all in that movement of 'pravritti' and 'nivritti'. So

everything comes forth from the Father in the Word and everything is being drawn

back to the Father in the Spirit.

 

The difference in the Christian position here is that everything that returns to

the Father returns through the Son and the Spirit and so comes back transformed.

That is the whole rhythm of the universe. It comes out through the Word into

time and space. The Word is the intelligence, the mind, which organizes the

universe, and the Spirit is the energy which develops the universe. The Spirit

is drawing everything back to its origin, bringing atoms, molecules, cells,

plants, animals and human beings, back to their source in God. We ourselves are

precisely at that point where we have come forth through the Word and are

experiencing ourselves in this world of differentiation, and we are being drawn

back by this movement of the Spirit towards our source. That movement of the

Spirit takes place in every person. Each person emerges into creation in time

and space but there is within each the 'pneuma', the point of the spirit, which

enables one to know oneself and to experience oneself as open to the divine

mystery and as being drawn towards something beyond the self. (P.172) As Karl

Rahner says, the sense of self-transcendence is fundamental to human beings. We

all have an urge to transcend ourselves. That is why people want to do things

like climbing mountains and going to the moon. It is a need to transcend, to get

beyond the self. That is also why we fall in love. We want to get out of our

self into another. Clearly we are drawn out of ourselves all the time, but this

impulse towards self-transcendence is only fulfilled when we are drawn back to

our source, when we give ourselves back totally to the origin from which we

come. That is the ultimate meaning of the impulse of love.

 

In this process of being drawn back in that way to the source, sin is the

refusal to respond. Sin is the refusal to love. Love is drawing us back to

itself. It has given us our being, put us in this world with all its problems,

but it is always drawing us back. This instinct of self-transcendence is the

movement of love. Also each person's creation is a movement of love. The Father

wills us, loves us into existence. He conceives us in the Word and wills us in

the Spirit, and he expresses his love in bringing us forth. We are an effect of

that divine love, and the very love which sends us forth from him draws us back

to him all the time. If we respond, then we grow in this world and gradually we

are transformed, as Jesus was in the resurrection, and we return to the Father.

Sin, on the other hand, is the refusal to go back to the source. We want to stay

where we are and we cling to ourselves, or we cling to our mother or the earth

or to money. Clinging to anything stops our return. Grace is when we open

ourselves and allow ourselves to be drawn out of ourselves, to return to God in

this movement of love. Sin is always a refusal of love and grace is always a

response to love. Love moves the universe as Dante put it, " The love which moves

the sun and other stars. " The universe comes into being though that motion of

love in the Godhead, that 'spanda' or pulse of will, which wishes to express

itself in love and in the desire to be loved. (P.173) God wants to make himself

known and he wants us to know him, to return to him in knowledge and love.

 

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

Christian Faith), Pg.170-173

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0