Category: theology

IMAGINING GOD

How we image God makes all the difference –

it impacts how we relate to God/others/ourselves –

Karl Rahner imagined God as “Incomprehensible Holy Mystery”

not concretely definable yet concretely involved

in all aspects of life

the ancient Greeks imagined God as Zeus –

 a god cleverly involved in human destruction –

not just by throwing lightning bolts

but also curing human lust for power 

by increasing our power at the expense of wisdom

until us mortals destroy ourselves –

what today we are on the verge of doing 

with artificial intelligence

in the past we made God and spirituality

the Great Escape from reality –

the holiest thing was to be holed up in a monastery

or in the monastery of your heart

never seeking restorative justice

but the True God and true spirituality

are not dead to the body/sex/nature/beauty/

justice/humor/and excellence

previously we cut God and Spirit off from all that

but God’s Spirit excludes nothing and no one

the Holy Spirit as the Breath of Divine Life 

is the Source of all life

in fact, aliveness is the best witness of God’s Presence –

when Francis of Assisi said to the almond tree

“Speak to me of God’s Presence”

the tree blossomed

similarly, we mortals blossom when we practice 

the Presence of God

for “while I am with God, I fear nothing”

“The Paschal Mystery is now grafted 

onto the tree of humanity and the history 

of each individual” – John Paul II

so, Ramakrishna (1836-1886), the great Hindu saint

may have met Jesus in his heart since Jesus said

“I have other flocks that are not of this sheep pen –

they will listen to my voice” (John 10:16).

CURING INDIVIDUALISM

Scripture says Satan, the Father of Lies

loves to deceive mortals

and so all private revelations/claims of visions/voices

are subjected to rigorous discernment

by Vatican authorities

Teresa of Avila had a private revelation

a vision of an Interior Mansion inside everyone

and we progress from one inner mansion to another

and riches/treasures/joys are in the fifth mansion

and the majority of people gain admittance there

and the devil is kept out

and the Vatican approved this vision 

as far as visions go, believers cannot trust society

to tell us the ways of God and Satan 

because society is confused/blown about 

by constant winds of change/

only concerned with pragmatism/and immediate consequences

and so, believers must somehow learn

to trust God again 

and there is objective good/objective truth

society cannot save us for 

“It has become normal to feel ill-at-ease

as we watch the fraying rope

of our culture unravel strand by strand

and slowly break” – Bruce Cockburn

families tie society together but individualism unravels them

curing individualism comes from recognizing

we are essentially social beings

we are all subjects before God

we are interdependent

and called to unity/accountability for others/the world/ourselves

the best way to be accountable is thru contemplation

for the essence of contemplation 

is to experience God’s “I AM” which:

illumines your own “i am”

ties us all together as one family of daughters/sons of God

being loved by one Eternal Mother/Father

being mindful of the Holy Spirit/the Present Moment/

healing of all our mental/physical wounds/

awareness of Jesus the Great Healer/the healing of the Trinity.

SCIENCE VERSUS RELIGION AND MEANING?

Forty percent of chemists/physicists/astronomers

have a religious affiliation 

but forty percent of Americans believe 

science and religion are incompatible/in conflict

science is about objective truth about Nature

but Spirit first of all goes out of itself as Nature

so Nature is objective Spirit/

unselfconscious Spirit/slumbering Spirit

Plato’s “visible/sensible God”

and Nature is a dynamic god

not an inert background for Mind

as the ancient Egyptians thought

to Dietrich Bonhoeffer “religion”

is the “garment of Christianity”

its outward form not its essence

and when essence is lost

religious institutions like churches die 

and are reborn as something new

death and rebirth is a pattern

in all major religions:

life/death/resurrection/reincarnation

the Moon is the great symbol of this –

religion is about symbolism 

the source of meaning

and humans by Nature are meaning-seekers:

even so-called “primitive” tribes

believe the Moon 

is the abode of souls 

awaiting reincarnation

and the Moon expands with souls as it waxes

and releases souls as it wanes

the Moon dies/resurrects/

reincarnates as something new

it may not be a scientific fact 

science is all about facts

but the Moon-belief

is objectively and truly meaningful

and soul-satisfying.

SPIRITUALITY BEFORE BIBLE

A Jesuit approached a guru

and asked to be initiated

into the art of praying without ceasing

the guru said “Concentrate on your breathing

and the air you breathe in and out is God

and stay with that awareness”

the Jesuit soon realized

prayer is as easy

as breathing

and that with the guru’s method

praying without ceasing is easy-

all of us are praying without ceasing

as we breathe

as long as we are aware

 

but constant awareness is the great challenge

for all of us, not just Hindus and Jesuits –

and in addition, the challenge for Buddhist practice

is to hold the sadness of Samsara

and the vision of the Eastern Sun

at the same time –

to hold sadness at our broken/illusory world

and the joy of heaven

simultaneously

and in constant awareness

 

but any type of prayer, Eastern or Western,

is powerful –

it was three hundred years of praying

that came before and led to

the Nicene Creed

and to choosing what books went in the Bible

and what did not make the cut –

the Gospels of Peter/Mary/Magdalene/Phillip/Thomas/

Gospel of Truth/Gospel to the Egyptians/Secret Book of James –

prayer came before choosing

the Canon of Scripture –

the officially sanctioned books by the Church –

the Bible and Creeds came after the prayer of the Church

 

the Bible and Creeds are not unimportant

but they are not foundational

spirituality/prayer is.

 

RELIGION AND RATIONALITY

Established religion must adapt to revolution

or become irrelevant

for, authentic religion: resonates with people

consoles them in their suffering

answers their existential questions

and changes with the culture

without changing its own sacred core

this is what the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) did

 

Gaudium et Spes, a document of the Council

said that “All the faithful possess a freedom

of inquiry/thought/expression, freedom of the mind

in matters in which they have competence”

thus throwing the Vatican door wide open

to Catholic scholarly and intellectual freedom

however, scientists who

since the so-called “Enlightenment”

chose as their spirituality “scientism” –

the faith that only science has all the answers –

which is ironically not provable scientifically –

these scientists could not brook other spiritualities

and totally repressed them

zealots of any spirituality, including scientism

do not clear their heart

they try to clear the world –

to hate and get rid of anyone who is not of their tribe –

and the tribe is simply the ego writ large

on the other hand, traditionalism can give religious tradition

a bad name – many people have abandoned religion

because of traditionalists stuck in the past –

God is a God of the living and the NOW

moreover, the media only recognizes spirituality

as pre-rational and puts trans-rational religion –

religion which transcends the limits of rationality –

into the same garbage pail

as the traditionalists and pre-rationalists

religious faith is only a problem when it sees itself

as a means to an end such as heaven

since true faith is its own end

and means you are in heaven NOW.

THE ORIGIN AND GOAL OF LOVE

The End of all things – the Omega Point of Love

is the centering principle of the whole universe

integrates it all – draws all things to itself

and is present in the Beginning/Big Bang/Alpha Point of Love –

and the Union of all things with God –

the Omega Point of Love –

is the goal of all evolution

 

Love is an interdependent life force

all the way from quarks to God

Love is the origin and goal of meaning

 

every star/cell/flower/bird/animal/human

longs for wholeness/completeness

so it can rest in peace –

not die, but rest peacefully

 

just as, after the Big Bang, God rested –

God seeks repose

our souls seek repose –

repose is the Law of Pleasure

for all creatures

 

but even in repose God is at work

another religious paradox –

God’s Providence is at work

even if God lets us be miserable

and deprived of all light and love –

since the longing of holy people for God

increases in such situations

and this longing is God’s work too

 

God is being/resting/working/

becoming/evolving/loving

all the way from Alpha to Omega.

 

 

 

EASTER: HUMAN VS DIVINE PERFECTION

Carl Jung believed each of us

originally had a total and powerful sense

of the Self – the total psyche

but then trauma caused the Ego to emerge

which narrowed our consciousness down

to awareness of our small self as a vulnerable individual

but our Ego still needed connection to the Self

to have psychic health

 

in this regard the Ego’s striving for security and perfection

is striving for death

because we kill our own life

by trying to control everyone else’s life

leaving no room for error or disruption

but sooner or later disruption happens

we lose our health or a loved one

and errors happen –

all this is an inevitable part of being human

 

so to counter this, God always calls all humans

to God’s version of perfection –

sharing in the Divine Life beyond all corruption –

Christ won victory over error/disruption/death

by dying and rising for all humans

so that all of us who live with Lady Wisdom

know faith is God’s Answer

to human versions of perfection

and human anxiety about an insecure future

 

by the grace of God, intimate friendship with the Risen Jesus

has always been central

to the spiritual life of authentic Christians –

this friendship allows us to love

our fellow human beings and our True Self

which fulfills God’s Commandments given to us in Judaism

and in modern Jewish thought –

“All real living is meeting other people”

– Martin Buber, Jewish theologian –

contrast this with the atheist

Jean-Paul Sartre:

“Hell is other people”

God’s version of perfection – faith in God –

saves us from every version of hell.

 

“ENLIGHTENMENT”

The new cosmology does not contradict Christian faith

but resonates with it –

God is neither reduced to the creation event

nor to the universe

nor is separate from the universe

but God’s Presence is in and flows through ongoing creation –

God is in the world but not entirely of it –

everything is made of the same stuff as God – divinity

but is not the fullness of Divinity

 

God flows thru the universe

and thru the progressive stages of human ethics:

ego-centric care (for me)/ethno-centric care (for my group)/

world-centric care (for all humans)/universe-centric (care for all beings) –

each stage has a higher compassion

so not all hierarchies are bad

 

the more mature religious mind has developed

an alternative/wider way of seeing –

Buddhism/Hinduism/the Gospel of John

call it “enlightenment” –

“you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) –

the light of Christ shines thru all who belong to him

and is meant to shine into every dark corner of the world –

Christians call enlightenment “conversion”

Jesus calls it “salvation” or “the kingdom of God”

which is not a place or only exists in the afterlife

but is a new way of seeing and thinking

here and now

 

“In the early church ‘believe’

meant to ‘belove’ something –

to give your heart/soul/trust to it –

but now society has become so ‘enlightened’

that to ‘believe’ something means

‘to hold an opinion about it’

so formerly ‘to believe in God’ meant

you gave your whole self/heart/soul to God

now, ‘to believe in God’ is to be of the opinion

that God may exist”

– Wilfred Cantwell Smith

 

 

 

COMPASSION – SOURCE OF SCIENCE

According to Meister Eckhart

the 13th century Rhineland mystic

Compassion is the Original Source of the universe/

the Earth/and our own individual life –

God made us because God wanted 

to share God’s Love

Love is the Source of Godhood – 

God made us because God loved us

even before we were born –

“God chose us in Christ 

before the foundation of the world”

(Ephesians 1:4)

Compassion is salvific because it unites us 

with our Origin

coming home to Compassion 

is coming home to our True Self

when we are confronted with a new paradigm

it shakes up our world

so we resist it out of fear

but the universe/science/religion 

come from the same Source –

from God’s Love –

if there was no Love there would be no universe

and if there was no universe

there would be no science 

and no religion

through rooting them in the Divine Source

we could reconcile science and religion

develop a “theology of science” 

and live lives of radical amazement

also if everyone engaged in “narrative theology”

that is, narrated their own faith story to others

and if the poor were allowed 

to tell their faith stories

it would create solidarity among all people

release new power to fight injustice –

the Vulture of Injustice would fly off –

and we could all live in amazement and peace.

DEMYTHOLOGIZING: KILLING GOD SOFTLY

“Matter is just a minor pollutant in a universe

made of light” – Ilya Prigogine

 

“For the rest of my life, I want to reflect

on what light is” – Albert Einstein

 

but artists/philosophers/scientists say

their best ideas emerged spontaneously

out of their unconscious

out of archetypes

residing deeply in the collective unconscious

in the dark –

it is the dark which paradoxically gives light

 

the drug-user/druggie/droog

swims in the same water

as the mystic –

the water of universal archetypes –

of mythology –

arch-types are the same all over the world

in their essential form

though interpreted differently

in different cultures

 

biblical scholars kowtowing to our scientific age

tried to demythologize the Holy Bible

and get to the facts

but anthropologists hrecognize

beginning and ending stories in all cultures

that is, myths

and myths are far more important to a culture

and convey far deeper truths

than mere facts –

facts are superficial –

deeper universal truth can only be found

thru myths

 

demythologizing kills God and religion

because myths are more important –

meaning is more important

to peoples’ hearts –

than science

and facts.