God Plans and Man Scoffs

"So long as a thing possesses being," writes Thomas, then

God must be present in it, and in conformity with the way in which it possesses being.... We must, therefore, necessarily conclude from this that God is in all things in the most intimate way.

Agreed, but why then the Incarnation? If God is already present in us in the most intimate way, it would seem superfluous.

I can think of several reasons, beginning with our so-called fallenness. For reasons of expedience, this incident is presented to us in mythopoetic terms, but I've long believed it's past time for an update. 

It reminds me of Galileo, who turned out to be right about heliocentrism even though his reasons were all wrong. Analogously, the doctrine of original sin is correct even if it doesn't actually involve a talking serpent and a fruit tree. 

Thank you. The the whole snake thing is demeaning for a person of my position.

The imagery used to convey it notwithstanding, the lesson itself is vitally important to man's flourishing, and equally important, should give him pause before embarking on yet another one of his stupid ideological adventures. 

But in a scientistic, materialistic, and literalistic age of credentialed indoctrinees, few educated people have the interpretive chops to unpack the deeper meaning of archetypal mythology. Indeed, as we've said before, what is leftism but the institutionalization of man's fall? 

That's more like it.

As to the other reasons for the Incarnation, we mentioned one of them in yesterday's post, that is, God's goodness. In short, he just can't help being so darn helpful. 

Another big one has to do with the next evolutionary leap of the cosmos. We might say that Christ is to man as man is to animal. This is not to go all Teilhard on you. Don't worry, I'm not one of those evolutionary integralists or integral evolutionists, thy Wilber done. Big rabbit hole here, but it's perfectly orthodox, beginning with none other than Ratzinger, and let me see if I can remember how.

Help us Father Joseph!

The New Testament testimonies leave us no doubt that what happened in the Resurrection was utterly different. Jesus' Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life.... a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence.

It's redo, baby, a brand new cosmos. For it is 

not an isolated event that we could set aside as something limited to the past, but it constitutes an "evolutionary leap".... In Jesus' Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind.

Father Joseph may we buy some pot from you?  

Does that contradict science? Can there really only ever be what there has always been? Can there not be something unexpected, something unimaginable, something new? If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether? Is not creation actually waiting for this last and highest "evolutionary leap," for the union of the finite with the infinite, for the union of man and God, for the conquest of death?

Hmm? Cannot we have nicenew things? We all agree that there were prior bangs of radical novelty, e.g., into existence, life, and persons. Why not into Christ consciousness? What kind of messiah were you expecting?

Speaking of the hominization of God, for Maximus the Confessor, "God is constantly becoming man in man, so that man may no less constantly become God." 

This is my shortmorn, so we'll end with this: Maximus

regards the created constitution of man as an ontological preparation for the eschatological mystery of theandrism.

In other words, we are but the (com)pliant (or not) material with which God is busy bringing about his next cosmic evolutionary leap: with his own hominization he initiates the possibility of our reciprocal divinization, thus engendering a terrestrial reflection of the whole cosmos from top to bottom, inside and out.

That's the plan, anyway

Maximus Slaximus, who in every icon is depicted posing before O: