Of all the advancements made in the 20th and 21st centuries…the technological and scientific achievements, the expansion of rights and international awareness, the maturing of our understanding of the human mind…few are as unnoticed, nor as monumental in scope, as the advancements that were made in the field of theology. Many intelligent men and women of the last century and current century put their minds to the great theological questions of the ages.
They came up with some amazing, creative answers to these questions, and posed questions of their own at least as interesting. Expressing these insights to the general religious populace, finding ways to explain their relevance, is one of the major jobs of modern ministry. And nowhere can one find a more interesting line of discussion than on the issue of the incarnation.
Much of the significant theologizing on this subject has been a corollary of some deeper project, and no greater ‘discovery’ was stumbled upon than the image of incarnation that took place among theologians whose main focus was not Christology, but cosmology. I’m talking about those men in women who sought to grapple with the rising scientific consciousness of mankind and what our expanded understanding of the universe might mean for the Christian worldview.
The most striking thing that came out of these musings was that modern science has forced us to see the universe itself as undergoing a kind of evolutionary process. The universe, these people suggested, is not a finished project, but a work in progress. We have to stop thinking about God as having ‘created’ the universe and instead realize that God ‘is creating’ the universe. The implications for incarnation have been this: God’s incarnation is not something that happened at one particular point in time, but rather is also a part of this cosmic process. Science, seen through the eyes of faith, is not only a journey of discovery, but a journey of self-discovery. Who we are is in part inclusive of the whole cosmic evolutionary history, and so from a Christian’s point of view, that means that Jesus Christ also, being fully man AND fully God, did not ‘begin’ at Bethlehem, but rather the whole of natural and human history is the story of Him becoming incarnate. Nor did that story end with His death. The Church is Christ existing still, and that story of incarnation continues with us. We, too, are a part of that cosmic and divine story.
This realization has had grand results in my own life. I have learned to see the entire cosmic process as a system of divine promise. No longer is Christ some far-flung deity in another world. Rather I have learned to truly see Christ within the dance of nature and my own life. The little things I do become filled with significance even as my own self-centered way of looking at the world shrinks, as it is no longer simply me, or mankind, but the entire cosmos that is the arena of divine grace and salvation. The incarnation from this view has clear relevance to every human life, because every human life is a part of the process of incarnation, and every action becomes a part of the Christian message, because as Alfred North Whitehead said, "Every act leaves the world with a deeper or a fainter impress of God." However, since this God is a truly cosmic Divinity, no act is the final word in the story, and there is always a larger context in which one is acting. The relationship between grace and responsibility is clearly enlightened.
I don’t know about you, but I feel constantly bombarded by two worldviews: one the dualistic other-worldliness of much of modern Christianity, the other the materialistic monism of scientism. In both cases, one gets the feeling that the true meaningfulness of life in this world is lost, the complexities of human experience ignored, and the full breadth of the Biblical message is forgotten. The more nuanced, cosmic view of many modern theologians is the Christianity I was, thankfully, introduced to when I finally sought a religious faith as an adult, but I’ve been saddened to find that among most people it is unknown or ignored. In my experience, no worldview has more to offer us in the way of enlightening our world, and making the Bible something that is truly relevant to the life we live today.
Love your first post. Of course that's easy because I agree with it entirely (notwithstanding my agnostic leanings).
ReplyDeleteEvery individual, which takes part in the struggle called Life, belongs to the endless process of creativity and novel self-discovery that is the universe (God, if you will). We are the universe continually realizing itself every moment. It's questionable to even talk about individualized first person perspectives... the totality of things is a first person plural subject, and we are each an inseparable part of that.
In other words, my experience right now includes other subjects, which by virtue of their interaction with me and I with them, become inseparable from me. My experience of the world cannot be explained without including those other subjects. This relational/causal chain extends beyond my own perceptive and conceptual boundaries, and seems almost infinite in scope.
I suppose this sounds like New Age hogwash, but I'm not a writer of, say, William James caliber, nor do I want to bore anyone with technical philosophical & scientific jargon (i.e. neutral monism, 3rd order self-organizing systems).
Anyway, the theological community needs more theologians like yourself. Pluralistic and thus open-minded, rational, but aware of the importance and influence of emotion in theorizing about life and life itself, persistent, patient, and dedicated... I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Sorry for the long comment... you got me on a roll.
Thanks, Andy, I agree with you're analysis of selfhood. I wonder if we can include the experience of the individual in our vision, though. You could think of the individual as the intersect on the web. That intersect geometrically is something, it makes sense to talk about it as an existential. But it is only something because of the strands that make it up. It exists as a part of something bigger than itself. There is no one 'center' of the web, each intersect is made up of its very relationship to all other intersects. Anyways, just a thought.
ReplyDeleteJoshua
Agreed. Every individual is a node within a vast web or network of relations. Some nodes have more connections than others, but no single node is so important that, should it disappear, the entire web would collapse. So yes, individuals do matter... but the causal chain runs in both directions: up from the individual to the larger web, and down from the web to the individual. This forms a feedback loop, which is what gives rise to the redundant aspect of the entire web, as well as the tremendous complexity it contains and generates.
ReplyDeleteOne last remark on this beautiful sentence you wrote: "The little things I do become filled with significance even as my own self-centered way of looking at the world shrinks, as it is no longer simply me, or mankind, but the entire cosmos that is the arena of divine grace and salvation"
You my friend, are a Daoist sage. That is precisely the main insight of the Dao de jing, though of course the legendary Lao Tzu didn't know anything about divine grace and salvation. Still, the lesson is the same.