Tag: cosmology

REVOLUTIONARY WORLDVIEWS

Copernicus (1473-1543) upset two worldviews:

the Earth was not fixed in place but rotated

and the Sun was the center of the cosmos not Earth

Duns Scotus, Franciscan theologian, upset another two:

“Our predestination to glory precedes by nature

our tendency to sin” – we are original blessings

not original sinners – and “The goal of perfect love

is the perfection of love, therefore Christ 

would have come to Earth even if there was no sin

and therefore no need of redemption” 

Meister Eckhart upset a fifth worldview:

God is not “out there,” but rather

“The soul is the deepest/truest part of being human

and the place where we are united with God

who creates us in every moment”

the spiritual and physical are united –

the Father/Son/Holy Spirit are in our heads/hearts/guts

Jacques Ellul’s theology upset both the capitalist and Marxist

world-views: “Christian social action must put the emphasis

on individual humans not the collective masses

nor on the technological means of production –

a human being is not a cog in mass machinery

nor a tool to be used by the professional politician”

another upset of the modern worldview: sex is healthy not “dirty” 

“Evolution continues through humans only to the extent

that we are conscious of the integral wholeness of love

which includes healthy sexuality. In other words

healthy sexuality is a key to evolution’s progress”

– Teilhard de Chardin

but there is a major problem with males and females:

we can see our shadow and the shadow of others

much more easily in our own sex than in the opposite sex

we overlook the shadow of the opposite sex

which means that men see their own shadow

in other men, fight them, and create wars

and women are jealous of other women

overlook the flaws of men

and make seriously bad choices 

in whom they fall in love with and marry.

DEATH AND REBIRTH OF RELIGION

The emphasis on love as due to genes or neurochemical reactions

detracts from love as Omega – the final purpose and meaning

of life and the universe

 

Judy Cannato, author of Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons

from Black Holes/Supernovas/and Other Wonders of the Universe

found as she got to know the new sciences

of quantum mechanics and cosmology

they resonated more and more with her experience

of the Holy One –

she believes God’s vision/desire is unity

and this is what the new sciences tell us –

all things are already united –

and this needs to be the root of our own spirituality

 

in Fall/Redemption theology suffering and death

are the wages of sin

but in Creation Spirituality suffering

is due to the birth pangs of a constantly evolving universe

and death is a natural event –

a prelude to recycling and rebirth

 

traditionally, the Institutional Church made heaven and hell

into geographic locations – places in the universe

instead of what is within us and around us

but even someone as conservative as Pope John Paul II

believed heaven and hell

are primordially “states of consciousness” –

similarly, according to Simone Weil:

“God graciously invites all the damned into paradise

but for them paradise is hell”

 

since true religion is about consciousness

and the source of ultimate inner freedom

totalitarian systems feel obligated to attack it

but ironically they attack it with the same values

that religion holds such as communal/brotherly/sisterly love

which religion professed but failed at

 

but religion fails and is born again everywhere

– numerous Japanese Zen teachers criticize corrupt Buddhists

and thus invite non-Buddhists, Catholics in particular

(thanks to Thomas Merton, author of Zen and the Birds of Appetite)

to practice Zen – they felt Zen had a greater future in Catholicism

since it was dying in Japan.

LIGHT IN A DARK AGE

Thanks to the 18th century philosopher David Hume

we have made believing into a technocratic thing

having to do with true or false opinions:

“I believe (or do not believe) in climate change” –

belief now has nothing to do with trust/relationship/heart

“Believing is a modern concept and the great heresy

of the church today” – Wilfred Cantwell Smith

 

blasphemy is usually thought of as taking God’s name in vain

but it could include priests blessing nuclear weapons/

imams indoctrinating youth into political martyrdom/

religious leaders like Joel Osteen living in palaces/

being multi-millionaires/with private jets –

just like Jesus

 

we can only grasp the meaning of Christ today

and what is heresy and blasphemy

thru the lens of the evolution of human consciousness

to a new level thru technology/television/the Internet

facilitating world-wide consciousness

 

for example, Afro-American theology finds solidarity

with liberation theology/liberation movements

in Asia/Africa/Latin America

 

God is always connected to humans/the world/the cosmos

and in medieval times anthropology/theology/cosmology

were all one

 

however, since Copernicus and Galileo’s heliocentrism

the cosmology has changed and traditional ideas

of humans and God have been marginalized

to the point where we now live on an infinitely small dustmote

called “Earth” spinning in a vast godless cosmos

 

but there is light at the end of the Dark Age –

marks of a coming Interspiritual/New Axial Age:

  • friendships between many in various religious traditions
  • promotion of world-centric consciousness thru climate change
  • a vision of humans as one life form connected to all others
  • widespread receptivity to meditation/contemplative practices

 

The Cosmic Christ is not done with us yet.

 

 

YOUR TRUE CALLING

Rosemary Radford Ruether, the great feminist theologian

was one of the first to see patriarchal/dualistic thinking –

that things are divided not one –

causes not only sexism but also racism and environmental destruction

 

theology itself can be patriarchal/dualistic

if it does not paradoxically give up

what it has always asked other disciplines to give up: supremacy –

like all sciences it must submit to the greater wisdom

of evolutionary cosmology – the blueprint of the universe –

the unrelenting progress from atoms to humans to divinized humans –

astronomy blesses us with a scientific revelation of God’s Plan

 

whereas classical thermodynamics said closed systems dissipate energy

and thus the whole cosmos is winding down –

which breeds nihilism – we are ultimately doomed so why care about anything?

but biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, inventor of General Systems Theory

revealed that open systems do not run down

because they get new energy from their environment

 

but systems are not The System that wants to fool us and rule us –

the culture we live in is deceptive and hegemonic –

“We need Christ and the poet/artist/mystic to give us liberated vision –

new ways to see” – Canadian folk legend Bruce Cockburn

 

the journey to find new ways to see

the departure of the hero on the Hero’s Journey – has sub-stages:

The Call

The Refusal of the Call (and the folly/futility of resistance)

Supernatural Aid

Descent into the Night:

God calls Moses to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt

Moses says “No way, I cannot go, who am I to challenge Pharaoh?”

God says “I will be with you”

Moses leaves for Egypt and the rest is history

 

“The True Calling for all of us is the Present Moment –

that’s why they call it the “Present” – the “Gift from God” –

the bigger miracle is not for one person to walk on water

but for all of us to walk on our blue/green planet

in the Eternal Now”

– Thich Nhat Hanh

 

if you live in the One and the Now

dualistic thinking has no power over your True Calling.

THE EROTIC UNIVERSE

In early Christianity, theology and prayer

were never divorced. Evagrius of Pontus (345-399 CE):

“The theologian is the one who prays

and the one who prays is a theologian.”

 

Later on, Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ

“If you look at Creation, the Creator

withdraws his gaze from you.”

So, Christians have had an anti-Creation/

anti-body/anti-sexuality spirituality

which is ironically contrary to the Creation-centered

spirituality of the Bible.

 

But the theory of evolution changed all that –

evolution does not degrade humans

it shows us we are an integral part

of a vast web of earthly relationships.

But science only tells us ‘how’ we got here –

we need religion to tell us ‘why’ we are here – our purpose.

 

The idea of Christian cosmology

is in the Greek Fathers of the Church

particularly Irenaeus, who wrote that, in Christ,

the universe finds its meaning and goal.

 

The Uni-Verse, the One Verse, the One Poem

is thoroughly relational/communal/erotic –

wanting union even at the molecular level –

‘gravity’ is ‘mutual attraction between bodies’ – ‘eroticism’ –

its all part of the love that makes the Universe go round –

to ‘be’ is to ‘be with’ – the ‘we’ always precedes the ‘I’

just as the sexual union of a man and woman precedes children –

no one can say “I did it all on my own”

or “I did it my way – alone.”

 

Mantras are not words that mediate rational meaning –

they are vehicles that carry the spirit to one’s depths

and give us solitude to make us ‘uselessly present’ to God

which connects us to love in our depths

which connects us to others –

solitude is thus the erotic foundation

upon which community is built –

the purpose of life is the same as the purpose

of the Universe – to make love.

COSMOS/THEOS/ANTHROPOS

 

Copernicus/Galileo/Newton opened the door

to the new cosmology – there is more to the universe

than Earth as its center, and gravity connects us

not only to Earth but to the stars. It is all one!

 

You can let the ki/chi/energy of the whole universe

flow thru your body

thru deep rhythmical abdominal breathing –

breath is central to all Asian forms of meditation

and in the mythology of some Asian religions

the universe was created

thru the intercourse of the gods.

Similarly, a Christian mystic in the fifth century

named Pseudo-Dionysius believed that

Creation is an outpouring of Divine Ecstasy –

the Big Bang is God’s Orgasm!

 

In the magical/mythical pre-rational religious stage

myths about God are taken literally

for example, God is an angry Old White Man

detached from humans and living far away in the sky.

In the post-rational (but not anti-rational) religious stage

God is Spirit – the unitive Ground of Being

a timeless Presence accessed by unity-consciousness.

These two religious stages were separated

by the renewal/new dawn of reason

in the so-called ‘Enlightenment.’

 

Christians need a new dawn too –

we must no longer stand with Saint Augustine

who separated grace from nature

causing our current environmental crisis

but with Saint Irenaeus who saw everything in this world

as good/a manifestation of God’s grace –

grace is in nature and therefore in human nature!

 

We cannot grow spiritually

if we separate our humanness from spirituality

and we cannot grow in humanness

if we separate out our spirituality –

good anthropology is foundational to good theology

and good theology is foundational to good cosmology.

 

 

 

COSMOLOGY AND GOD’S LOVE

Theology was queen of the sciences for 500 years

science usurped that role for 300 years

now cosmology is the queen:

the study of large-scale properties of the universe as a whole –

its origin/structure/content/laws/development/evolution

including space/time/causality/freedom –

the Big Bang Theory is an example

that all moral/political/social/economic/personal decisions

even our highest mystical concepts of God

must bow to cosmology.

 

David Bohm’s Implicate Order is another example

based on the idea that the whole, not the parts, is primary.

Classical physics focused on the parts, the new physics sees

that all the parts connect to each other

in one indivisible whole system, that is,

All is One –

Cosmology is the new scientific mysticism.

 

But, as Richard Rohr says:

“We are one yet not one.”

We are one with God

and yet we are not God –

the two great encounters: with True God and True Self

are experienced simultaneously

and grow in parallel with each other.

And “Even if we sin, we are God’s.

But we will not sin, knowing we belong to God”

– Wisdom 15:2.

 

Meister Eckhart focused on joy/

relegated penitential practices to the background/

maintained that the more you let God’s love conquer you

the freer you are.

 

“The test of authentic religious experience

is a life well-lived – religion begins

in the affections/emotions and results in

love of God and neighbour.” – Jonathan Edwards

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.

3 Big Thoughts for March 12, 2019

  1. The more one pursues spirituality in the teachings of world religious leaders like Jesus, Mohammed, Lao Tzu and Buddha, the more one experiences oneness, interconnectedness and less separation.
  2. The new cosmology (the story of the origin and development of the universe and our place in it) that science is showing us: – things develop from matter (big bang, galaxies, planets) to life (plants) to sensitivity (animals) to thought (humans) – demonstrates that the whole universe is heading in a spiritual direction – the whole universe is moving inexorably towards more life and consciousness. This new cosmology can heal the former split between science and religion. Matter intrinsically moves toward spirit. The whole universe is bound for enlightenment!
  3. Contemplation does not kill your pain and anguish. In fact it increases your awareness of the false faith in things that most “normal” people put their trust in: money and possessions. Once you start to grasp the folly of this – the cultural trance or sleepwalking that is the status quo – it increases your grief for the all those who are trapped in it. You shed tears of compassion for your fellow human beings. “Compassion” means “to suffer with.” Contemplation leads to suffering with and for others.