Synthesis: Towards a Unifying Plan - Part 1

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Synthesis: Towards a Unifying Plan - Part 1

 

(p.255) The intention of this chapter is to put together the ideas we have been

considering, particularly the evolution of the world and the evolution of human

consciousness, and to see how the whole process converges on an Ultimate

Reality, a Supreme Being. It is important to have some kind of plan in terms of

which to identify and unify our experience. It is also important that this

unifying plan has a place for all the great religious traditions. Many

Christians today feel the need to relate their experience to that of the Hindu,

the Buddhist and the Muslim, as well as to the traditional religions, of, for

instance, the American Indians and the tribal peoples of Asia and Africa. What

follows is an attempt to articulate some kind of framework in which all these

modes of experience can be related and seen in their inner unity.

 

We start with the explosion of matter at the beginning of time, around fifteen

billion years ago. It is understood that in the original explosion of matter the

forms which were to come into being in the course of the ages were all already

implicated, enfolded together, and that these forms have gradually unfolded or

become explicated in the course of the evolutionary process. We have to go a

step further and say that not only was the matter of the universe implicated

with all its forms but that consciousness was also already implicated in the

original explosion of the universe because consciousness itself emerged from

matter as the process advanced. This means that we have to conceive of a

universe coming into being in which matter and consciousness are interwoven, and

to speak about this I have chosen to use the Aristotelian terms, matter and

form. (p.256) Matter is the energy of the universe, an unformed, unstructured

energy, which is behind the whole universe, while form is the principle of

order. Form and matter are the two basic principles in the universe. Matter is

indeterminate, unpredictable, unintelligible, a pure flux of energy without

form. It is the principle of change, of becoming, of chance, of the absurd. All

that element in life comes from matter. Form on the other hand is the principle

of order, of structure, of intelligibility, of being in actuality. Matter has no

being in itself. It is pure potentiality which is organised into being and

becomes actual through the action of form upon it.

 

Matter and form are the two basic principles then and the whole universe evolves

through the interplay between them. Part of the dynamic is that matter always

tends to dissipate itself, to disintegrate, to become disorganized. Consequently

at the very beginning of the universe there was an explosion of matter such that

matter was thrown outwards in primordial expansion. It is believed that this

principle of expansion is still operating and that the galaxies are expanding

all the time as matter pushes itself out in that way. But at the very time that

matter expands and tends to disintegrate, another force, the force of form,

comes into play and begins to structure matter, organising and controlling it.

The understanding is then that there were originally photons, electrons and

other basic particles coming into being and dissolving, and then gradually forms

began to be structured and the simplest atoms, those of hydrogen and helium,

came into being. From that origin of organisation matter became increasingly

more organised as the two forces were continuously operative, matter

disintegrating and moving outwards and form drawing within, concentrating and

centring the matter. (p.257) So with the galaxies the matter expanded enormously

while the forms began to structure it, forming the stars, the galaxies and

eventually suns, moons, and planets, including earth. We can understand then

that the whole cosmos comes into being by the interaction of these two forces,

one working on the other.

 

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

Christian Faith) Chapter 12, p.255-257

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0