Pretty summarizes the first two commandments well. Bruce, I wonder if there is a way to combine options 1 & 2? The Buddhists have evolved the self-liberation of the self to Nirvana (Theravada) to the Bodhisattva principle (Mayahana) where the individual is to take that liberation to the world. I know some progressive spiritual communities (maybe New Age/New Thought) have explored this to varying degrees, where the liberated self is not impersonal, but a Higher Self that still has a relationship to a Divine Spirit. I know there is still some abstraction here where God may not be seen as Person, but at least it doesn't fall into pantheism.
@Adam - Thanks - you have emboldened me to post it on Junior Ganymede.
@ted - I don't think they can be combined - but they could be alternated; I think Nirvanah can probably serve as a temporary phase (rest and recuperation) before, or perhaps during, active personal participation in God's plan.
After taking some classes in physics, I came to understand an aspect of the nature of God as the ultimate anti-entropy being.
They (that is, the Elohim), upon the spirit substratum of the universe, from chaos have organized/are organizing/will organize the intelligences and tangible matter to the end that they are eternally, non- or anti- entropically bound to Them and each other. They are bound through the relationship called agape - a love that tends toward order, obedience to divine law, mutual growth, and expansiveness.
24 June 2015 at 19:57
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For mainstream Christian theologians, the primary act of creation is making the stuff of everything; for Mormons it is perhaps the shaping of pre-existent stuff- the making of form.
But perhaps God's primary purpose was neither of these - but to bring the stuff of existence into a relation - each with every other. Because, naturally, there is no coherence - only chaos.
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Before form could even be possible, first everything needed to be brought into relation. However, relation is something that happens between entities - so the implication is that entities were already present.
Entities were already there - in other words, life is eternal and universal (but very various!). Life is not the problem - the problem is to bring the multiplicity of lives into relation.
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That was done through Love. The reason that Christians say God is Love refers to this primary act: God brought everything into relationship, by Love.
We can think of this primordial Love as a light emanating from God and bathing the universe in luminosity - everything is inside God's Love; or, Love could be a sea, and everything immersed in this sea.
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So the first phase of creation was to make the universe 'one' - not in identity, but one group (or family) as a network of relations: a network of loving relations.
The second phase was to enable primordial Men to become divine, and share in God's love: this is a transition from being spontaneously bathed-in love, to each man becoming a self-conscious entity and then choosing to love (choosing to participate in God's network of loving relations).
So, the secondary act of creation is in relation to Man; and the enabling of each man's self-consciousness: so that we step-back-from the first state of unselfconscious immersion - become aware of ourselves as free agents capable for choice - and then decide whether or not to participate in the network of relations.
[This participation including the matter of making more (self-conscious) Men, who will then be confronted by the same choice.]
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The choice is threefold:
1. To enter into the fullest relationship with God by becoming a fully self-conscious divine person and choosing to love God-as-a-person;
2. To return to primordial and unselfconscious immersion-in love, ceasing to be a person (e.g. the Eastern religious goal of Nirvanah, impersonal non-self);
3. To oppose God's unification of the universe through love, by explicitly and actively rejecting God - denying the desirability of a network of loving relations as the basis of reality: to assert one's autonomy from this web of love.
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Note, for simplification, I have left-out explicit reference to the role of Jesus Christ - which relates to the process of self-consciousness - both in Man and in each man. I also left-out consideration of a distinction of God between Heavenly Father and Mother in Heaven.
"What is Creation about?"
4 Comments -
Bruce,
I think I could quibble about some of the details and the implications here, but the big picture you paint has the feel of holiness to me.
22 June 2015 at 16:44
Pretty summarizes the first two commandments well. Bruce, I wonder if there is a way to combine options 1 & 2? The Buddhists have evolved the self-liberation of the self to Nirvana (Theravada) to the Bodhisattva principle (Mayahana) where the individual is to take that liberation to the world. I know some progressive spiritual communities (maybe New Age/New Thought) have explored this to varying degrees, where the liberated self is not impersonal, but a Higher Self that still has a relationship to a Divine Spirit. I know there is still some abstraction here where God may not be seen as Person, but at least it doesn't fall into pantheism.
22 June 2015 at 18:11
@Adam - Thanks - you have emboldened me to post it on Junior Ganymede.
@ted - I don't think they can be combined - but they could be alternated; I think Nirvanah can probably serve as a temporary phase (rest and recuperation) before, or perhaps during, active personal participation in God's plan.
23 June 2015 at 12:09
After taking some classes in physics, I came to understand an aspect of the nature of God as the ultimate anti-entropy being.
They (that is, the Elohim), upon the spirit substratum of the universe, from chaos have organized/are organizing/will organize the intelligences and tangible matter to the end that they are eternally, non- or anti- entropically bound to Them and each other. They are bound through the relationship called agape - a love that tends toward order, obedience to divine law, mutual growth, and expansiveness.
24 June 2015 at 19:57