We're discussing the hominization of man -- AKA Incarnation -- which is a prerequisite for the possibility of our full divinization.
In its absence we could still scurry partway up the greasy pole of verticality, but there would be an unbridgeable chasm between man and God. We couldn't get there from here, for the simple reason that we cannot pull ourselves up by our own buddhastraps.
As alluded to yesterpost, there are two ways to approach our cosmic predicament, one from the negative viewpoint of our fallenness, the other from the positive viewpoint of God's generosity, which cannot be "dependent" on something as contingent as what happened back then in the garden.
If anyone is willing to let bygones be bygones it is God, for which reason we should be more like him and forgive our brother like 490 times. Temporal choices don't have eternal consequences, and besides, only God is eternal. (We will come back to this point later.)
Not to downplay the gravity of the offense, whatever it was and is, only to balance it, or rather, to frame it in the infinitely larger context of God's metacosmic magnanimity. There can be no pettiness in God, or so we have heard from the wise. Think twice before you appeal only to God's justice, for
Our last hope is in God's injustice.
Ho!
Anyway, on the west hand we the emphasis on a theology of redemption, or justification, or restitution, but on the easter hand one of theosis and divinization. Matter of fact, until I stumbled upon this latter bit of good news (euangelion) in... in 2002, I didn't see a bridge from east to east, that is, from yoga to Christianity.
It was back then that a book called A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esoterism and Modern Thought fell into both hands. I no longer even know if I could recommend it. All I know is, it's what I needed at the time to get from where I was to where I am. I'm tempted to pull it down from the shelf for a bit of harmless gnostalgia, but perhaps some other time.
To get back to Eckhart, he claims that "The first grace consists in a type of flowing, a departure from God" (this being Creation as such), while "the second consists in a type of flowing back, a return to God himself." McGinn adds that our "deification" (which is a participation in the flowing back)
takes place through the action of a grace that is rooted in the trinitarian "boiling" itself. Only by sharing in the inner activity of the three divine Persons can we attain our goal.
I keep meaning to show you that photograph of my map of the cosmos, and I will, but suffice it to say that it's not enough to simply have vertical and horizontal, because these two are not static.
Rather, I want to say that the principle of horizontality is already situated in the trinity, so that if we want to picture it accurately, it is more like a horizontal circle bisected by a vertical one. "Salvation" is a consequence of the latter dynamic circle bisecting each moment of horizontality.
In other words, suppose there were only the horizontal line. No amount of progress or evolution could lift us one inch from it.
Thus, primitive peoples imagined a kind of horizontal circle that could lead us back to paradise. In general, we could get back there if only we appeased the gods by sacrificing a sufficient number of human beings.
In reality, we could sacrifice 70 times 7, or even 70 times 700, but it was never enough, because finitude never adds up to infinitude, nor time to eternity, so the chasm alluded to in the first paragraph couldn't be bridged. Sad! No good news for you!
I'm out of time, but here's a provocative pneumagraph:
Our last hope is in God's injustice.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
I no longer even know if I could recommend it. All I know is, it's what I needed at the time to get from where I was to where I am.
There are a few things I was reading back when (cheesy fiction, mostly), that I wouldn't recommend to anyone now but which weirdly kept the spark going just enough. Wouldn't want to read them again, the cringe factor would be massive.
Only by sharing in the inner activity of the three divine Persons can we attain our goal.
ReplyDeleteI had a thought earlier today regarding sainthood that perhaps ties into this: nobody becomes a saint in isolation. At least, as far as we know. What I mean is, we know somebody is a saint not only because of their relationship with God but because of their relationships with their fellow men. Put another way, by sharing in the inner activity of the three Divine Persons vertically, we cannot help sharing it horizontally as well.