Category: science

THE INTIMACY OF GOD

Atheists believe we cannot make

any absolute statements about God

so the word ‘God’ is meaningless

and science can explain everything

so God is unnecessary.

Modernity separated the big three:

art, morals, and science

but its big mistake

was leaving out the big fourth:

religion, which draws the big three together –

there was no cohesion

so science dominated art and morals

and became the new religion of intellectuals.

But science and technology have no room

for the human person –

by kicking humans out of world center

into a vast impersonal universe

they kicked God out too –

they not only displaced God

they displaced humans

as God’s image.

What satisfies the soul is not knowing all

scientific knowledge

but doing the purpose

for which we were created: to love God.

The spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

are thus far more important

than any science textbook.

Catholic theology has always been pro-science

and insisted that faith and reason

are not opposites or enemies –

if you cannot give reasons for your faith

you become extremely devout

but an irrational/dangerous fundamentalist

who loves God

and blows people to Kingdom-Come.

Christians should be pro-science and pro-evolution

since evolution constantly drives toward

spiritual transcendence –

higher/more inclusive/more conscious orders

from atoms to senses to neocortex.

The Hindu Dance of Creation is all around:

clouds streaming, trees swaying, sunlight sparkling

on water and snow.

The Incarnate God shows God’s face everywhere –

God’s passionate embodiment demands

whole new ways of relating to bodies:

healing/sexual tenderness/compassionate justice.

The masculine in us tends toward

agency/rules/individualism/visions.

The feminine in us tends toward

communion/connection/relationships/touch.

Each person needs their whole self

and sexual relations between women and men need

the energies/polarities/excitement

of opposites becoming One.

The truth is: certain desires and pleasures

are willed by God – to not accept pleasure

is to not accept our humanity

and to arrogantly oppose God’s will.

Buddhists, on the other hand

preach detachment from pleasure and pain –

their key is not doctrines

about God/self/no-self

but nonattachment to illusion –

seeing the nature of reality

living according to reality

not words or concepts.

For Celts, reality is not

immediately visible/quantifiable by science

but the invisible world of

symbol/sacrament/myth.

To Celts, you are already holy

through the free gift of the Holy Spirit

the Divine Indwelling.

Authentic religion is about subtraction

letting go of the False Self

not creating a new Holy Self

not addition – with religion less is more –

letting go of the ego

and letting the Flow

carry you.

Surrender to the Great Mystery

is the key that unlocks

all world religions.

THE LIGHT WITHIN

The goal of Confucian philosophy and ethics

is to find the hidden reality of heaven

in the center of your being

and from that center to engage in right action.

Otherwise, you spend your life in

frustration, confusion, and self-seeking.

Confucius held the Universal Christ on tap.

The new mythology is the ancient mythology

but in a subjective sense –

the glorious past or future is no longer

‘out there’ but ‘in here’

in each individual as a center of

‘The Mind at Large Without Limits.’

Centuries ago, atheism emerged as a protest

against the evil in the world. But to combat darkness

they deified human values of reason and science –

they made Reason and Science their Lord and Master.

Subsequently, rationality destroyed our ability

to respond to numinous symbols so that

we are now at the mercy of the psychic underworld –

deep subconscious urges – lust, greed, and hate –

evil spirits – that only religion can contain.

As our spiritual and moral traditions collapse

there is world-wide disorientation –

we have overcome ‘superstition’

but now have no guiding lights.

To the extent you think you can attain to holiness

by your own strength or wisdom

to that extent you have lost the humility of holiness.

Atheists who think they can save themselves –

build the Garden of Eden without God –

are lost before they begin.

In spite of all the world-darkness

the Second Vatican Council approached

human nature positively as made in the image of God

and human dignity as founded on our call

to communion with God within us.

As Ken Wilber notes: often unbelievers and critics of religion

equate the pre-rational and trans-rational believer.

The pre-rational have not yet discovered the power of reason,

the transrational have seen the limits of reason and transcended it.

Pre-rational is immature, spiritual ‘milk’

that makes you oppositional, defensive

and unable to respect and include

those outside your circle.

Only your emotions have been converted.

“Through conversion/transformation

of your intellect, will and emotions

(wisdom, obedience to God, and love)

you become a fully alive and authentic human being.”

– Bernard Lonergan

The fully converted use reason and science

but only as two tools in their toolbox –

they also employ the parables of Jesus as koan-bombs:

subversive memes that blow apart the everyday

rational worldview.

In the Cloud of Unknowing

you feel and know nothing for certain

except your naked intent to love God for God alone

in the nakedness of God’s Being.

When you get soul-naked with God

true love-making happens.

Afterwards, in the afterglow

“The Holy Spirit rests in the soul of the just

like a dove in her nest.

The Spirit hatches good desires in a pure soul

as the dove hatches her young.”

– Jean Vianney

As Jesus said: “I thank you Lord

that you have hidden your truth

from intellectuals, the wise rationalists of the world

and have revealed it to the simple.”

“I don’t say anything when I pray.

I just sit and look at God

and let God look at me.”

– An old peasant

COSMOLOGY, SCIENCE, SPIRIT AND SUFFERING

Since the birth of science

Christianity no longer has an effective cosmology

and its followers have difficulty 

relating their faith to the world of science.

Meanwhile, secular culture sees its purpose as 

personal fulfillment and social progress

and religion as having little to do with

solving temporal problems.

Peoples’ loss of faith in the institutional church

and their search for meaning outside church

was instigated by God 

the Hound of Heaven who always pursues and finds us.

This is the mysticism of today

an attempt to find and experience the True God

rather than the Lego god constructed piece by piece

through pre-set definitions of churches.

The downside of abandoning religion

is that secularists suffer tremendously

 – always dissatisfied – never able to fill their soul’s God-hole.

To dissolve suffering due to dissatisfaction

with who we are and where we are

we are forced to give up some basic assumptions:

that we can have it all, get it all together

have lasting security, all pleasure and no pain.

In spite of these assumptions

or perhaps because of them

things fall apart.

Crucifixion is symbolic in its universal sense 

of destruction – that is an inevitable part

of evolution unfolding and necessary

for the birth of new life.

Secular people need to embrace poverty like Francis of Assisi:

“Blessed poverty even in this life

gives to souls who love her

the ability to fly to heaven.

Poverty guards the armor of true humility and charity.” 

Even Karl Marx was an anti-materialist 

when he wrote (well before intelligent phones):

“All our technological progress results in 

endowing material things with intellectual life

and stunts human development by materialism.”

Eastern religions share this anti-materialism

but their solution to the suffering caused 

is to desire less

whereas in western religions the solution is

to desire more – desire God –

until you reach God you have not desired enough.

But Christian theology to be relevant must gain a foothold 

in the new science that is replacing spirituality

for so many in Generations X to Z.

We need to see Spirit behind scientific revolution –

Spirit had to, thru Reason, free the Spirit 

trapped in the mythology of a distant heaven

and so break the chains

of the oppressed here on Earth.

Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican who dominated

Christian thought for centuries

was no Platonic contemplative

in love with incorporeal essences

but a Christian who contemplated the divine light

in every created thing here and now.

Heaven is NOW. In YOU.

Fully realizing that you are Spirit/divine

only happens if your Higher Self

takes compassionate action

letting Spirit into your whole life.

Otherwise, you stunt your development

if your Higher Self exists

only in the ivory tower of your intellect 

and never in your emotions, senses and body.

The laws of our mind, emotions and body

are one with the laws of the 

universe, galaxy and planet

that birthed us as its children.

Spirit driving science and evolution

gives us a new Christian cosmology.

TWO AGES

Michel Foucault believed the sciences of man

furthered scientism

the belief science has all the answers

which led to the “Age of Man”

in which humans are studied as

objects of scientific investigation –

B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism

treats humans as “Its”

with no subjectivity.

Science can give us concrete information

about the flow of evolution and our place in it

but not a framework for ultimate meaning –

the purview of theology and religion.

There is a different way of looking at salvation – 

God saves us from ourselves

by giving us meaning.

With meaning, little else is needed

without meaning we are caught up in endless

addictive consumerism, rivalry, competition

endlessly rolling the stone up the mountain

only to watch it roll down again

as others out-compete us.

But there is positive meaning and negative meaning.

Martin Luther’s meaning in the 16th century 

created the perfect storm for anxiety:

focus on sin, the wrath of God, heaven and hell

coupled with new printing press technology

to spread the Message, rats to spread the Bubonic Plague

and the dissolution of ecclesial order

an “Age of Anxiety” blossomed 

whose rotting fruit persists to this day.

Believing, as Luther did, 

that we are a solid, separate self

traps us in self-centeredness

but as we work through the chakras in order

we are liberated from successive prisons:

chakras 1,2,3: egocentric food, sex, power

chakras 4,5: ethnocentric love and communication 

chakras 6,7: world-centric mindfulness and spirituality.

The ‘porous’ non-separated self gives and receives:

as living beings, we are part of the close-knit family 

of living organisms that evolved one from another

over billions of years, products of immensely creative

energy-exchanges of matter and spirit that makes us one with

stars, galaxies, and everything.

Pharisaism symbolizes the self-centered self –

identification with your own self-righteousness

no shadow; no need of conversion

which ironically blocks your path to God

and your compassion for others –

being in touch with shadow means

you know you need, and others need

God’s grace.

To break addiction to yourself 

(the only way to liminal space/transformation)

you must change your usual patterns:

fasting not eating, silence not talking,

anonymity not fame, displacement not status,

poverty not money.

Realizing that all desires are good

and the problem is only selfish misuse of desire

many mystics gave up asceticism:

punishing their bodies, suppressing their desires.

Meister Eckhart for one

replaced asceticism with non-attachment.

Desires are good, but on the other hand

pain burns through illusions

of false pleasures

and shows us what is truly beautiful.

But what you see, the beauty of pain or pleasure

depends on how you choose to see:

positive or negative, blessing or curse.

Why is the Holy Spirit within everyone 

but not everyone realizes it?

Because God does not force anything on anyone

that they didn’t desire and choose – 

human freedom is respected –

and the freedom of the Holy Spirit 

to overcome anxiety

and the limits of science. 

THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL

For Carl Jung, consciousness and archetypes

underlie all religion –

religious symbols are a response 

to power centers in the collective unconscious.

Jesus deserves the claim

of universal salvific significance

because he is the archetype

the paradigm, the living parable 

of humanity, of God’s love for us

the human face of God’s mysterious care.

And for Jesus, no amount of 

learning, authority, tradition, or sacredness

was immune to his challenges.

Even fundamental assumptions and values

like obedience to the Law

could be questioned and changed.

Catholic and Orthodox priests

made the Great Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

depend on membership and sacraments

and Protestant clergy made Spirit

depend on personal decisions.

Both tried to control

the Uncontrollable.

Transformation happens in ‘liminal space’

when we are in-between stages of 

life, relationships, faith

when we are not in control –

transformation does not happen in our comfort zone.

William Blake, Chuang Tzu, and Zen

knew that vision and imagination 

are necessary to counter

a world of rationality – 

both reason and imagination are needed 

for the marriage of heaven and hell.

According to Michel Foucault 

the 18th to 20th century scientific Enlightenment 

resulted in people becoming

“objects of information” 

rather than “subjects of communication”

that is, persons became “its” with no 

depth, intentionality, or personhood.

The spiritual void

in a culture of “its”

intensifies anxiety over 

death, guilt, and meaninglessness –

all “existential threats of non-being.”

Pleasure and pain are inevitable

components of bodily existence.

Happiness is not all pleasure and no pain

but the ability to handle pain

and, when necessary, delay pleasure 

preventing denial, blame, scapegoating and addiction.

All major religions

transform suffering into 

deep connection to salvation. 

Many great religious figures suffered

for others 

or ascetical purification.

But religion was never just

how to handle suffering –

along with lists of sins

there were lists of virtues.

Christians added three theological virtues:

faith, hope, and love

to Aristotle’s list

of four cardinal virtues

justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence.

Seven cardinal virtues

counterbalanced seven cardinal sins.

And beyond positively practicing virtues

there is non-elitist “street spirituality:”

seeking out the stranger

the broken, the prisoner

were part and parcel of the biblical prophets

wisdom literature, and saints

down through the ages.

All this is the opposite

of treating persons as 

“its.”

WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Few of us can run off

to the wilderness or hermitage

so the older religions

to break us out of 

our normal, comfortable, sleepwalking trance

help us get into liminal space

through pilgrimages, fasting, silent retreats

Lent or Ramadan.

You are baptized with the Holy Spirit

not by believing in the Holy Spirit

as a doctrine, but by drawing upon

the Divine Indwelling already within you.

According to Thomas Merton

the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church

so when the Holy Spirit prays within you

whether in public or private 

it is the Soul of the Church 

praying within you.

Bad things happen to good people

but the Holy Spirit is always present

prompting you from within 

to take care of your self

and comforting you from within 

when your health, work, or marriage  fails.

Quantum theology befriends and redeems

the pain, the dark, the chaos

by helping people see the interdependence of

darkness and light

pain and pleasure

sickness and health

death and rebirth.

The Holy Spirit shows us

there is a virtue to be practiced for every sin: 

pride/humility, anger/patience

avarice/compassion, lust/chastity

gluttony/sobriety

all the Enneagram

vices and virtues.

If you are engaging with those

who have not suffered

“rings of fire”

your attempts to explain

the reasonableness of faith

or prove God’s existence

will fail.

Systematic atheism insists

humans must be free

of any kind of God

as their author and goal

in order to be responsible 

for their own life.

Since YOU are your own author, goal and end

you cannot foist off onto God

responsibility for your own life.

Atheism relies upon science

but science believes only 

what can be physically located is real: 

cells, brains, stars.

So science scrubs the universe clean of

values, meaning, consciousness, ethics and depth 

since these things cannot be located in the cosmos

they are unreal fantasies/illusions.

What Alfred North Whitehead called

“the fallacy of simple location”

leaves us with a culture of superficiality.

We are like seed 

that falls upon gravel

and withers because it has no roots.

Merton studied the “archaic wisdom”

of Mayans, Zapotecs, Toltecs

to learn how to counter the efficiency, ambition

and triviality of technocratic society.

Science saps us of passion 

but Eros is the Holy Spirit in action – and passion 

deserves a home among spiritual people 

– passion for pleasure and sharing it

– compassion: awareness of suffering 

– passion for restorative justice

– all these are works of the Holy Spirit.