Beyond World View Revisited

God reveals Himself to us in ways we can understand.  If you accept God’s Mercy, you won’t have to worry about His Justice. These might seem like incompatible statements, unrelated and disjointed, however, look closely.

It is true now, as it was for the Old Testament congregations. Much of what the prophets, rabbis, and priest taught, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was centered on projecting the peoples’ humanity onto God’s divinity. What was said was filtered through their worldly experiences, tailored for cause and effect, and like the parables in the New Testament, the analogies and metaphors used were directed at the audiences of their times. Today we might see these projections, these points of views as models, one being our created nature or one being our human condition. It might make sense to you to look at your own world view through lenses, one being spiritual or one being psychological. Obviously, there is an endless combination of faceted views, what we might call our “world view” uniting emotion, reason, logic, moral principles, experience, personal commitment, and my all-time ego driven favorite, fulfilling my wants and desires which I think will lead me to a rich and rewarding life. If the underlying objective is to have a rich and rewarding life, and I think it is, then we should consider the paradox of beginning from different points of view, taking different paths, and ending up in the same place. So, how does this idea broadcast itself into our lives. Is it true, that everything we do is a prelude into a deeper and more meaningful faith?  

Believing the Old Testament commandments were written on stone for the sake of God’s new nation and Christ Jesus’ New Testament teachings were drawn out of our hearts for the sake of His Father’s Kingdom. What follows is one of those paths to a rich and rewarding life beginning in our human condition and striding into our created nature.

I believe, catechesis comes first, and evangelization follows. I am referencing my own world view, which directs me to know God in a devotional way, accept His teachings, and follow the path He has for me, so I might spread His word in an inspirational way to others as they journey along their path. The cliché tells us we can’t give away what we don’t have. One step further tells me I can’t keep what He has given me until I give it away. So, you see that knowing Him is more important than knowing about Him, on the other hand, knowing about Him can lead to a deeper way of knowing Him. Let’s consider what we know.

Scripture teaches in Timothy, “If you are unfaithful to God, God remains faithful to you, because God cannot deny Himself.” This leads me to the simple notion that God has a nature in His divinity and a condition in His manifestation in this distinctive reality He created. Using definition, description and experience as a guide going forward, let’s look at God as both infinite and finite.

The definition begins simply by saying, I am man, my name is A. J. He is God, His name is Lord God. The definition quickly blends into the description, by acknowledging God as creator, by His word, He said what would be and it was. By divine and worldly attributes, we piece together a definition and description which leads us to knowing more about God, so we can better know God. We come to know that God is all powerful, there is nothing in His creation which is beyond His command. There is nothing in our lives He cannot do for us; nothing lies outside the parameters of His miracles. We understand He is not in His creation; He is the Creator not a player. We see His reflection in everything there is, however, said another way, He is not these things, He made these things. Now that we have made the observations and drawn the conclusions, we can appreciate many different levels of cognition, information, and knowledge,  coming to know more about God. It should be said at this point, that yes, Jesus did come into this world, it’s true. However, He was in the world, not of it. We, as created creatures, are both of the world as an assembly of contingencies, and in the world as an expression of His divinity, which is the plan and purpose He has for us. Understanding the definition and description as foundational and formational, we are better equipped to experience the experience of knowing God.

Let’s pause here for a moment. If we are considering knowing God as an experience, then our world view of knowing about God, by necessity should be big enough to include and contain any creditably faceted world view which truly reflects God. If knowing God is based on, yet beyond, any such world view, then,  through prayer, meditation, discernment, and contemplation any particular world view will be able to be assimilated or perhaps better said, be absorbed into our world view. I offer you this, as that foundational world view. God cannot create a God greater that Himself.  This is a rhetorical statement which does not point to any limitation of God, it actually points to His majesty. There is nothing greater than God, He is greater than the sum of infinity; there is not a condition where there is God and something more. Could God create a rock so heavy He could not pick it up?  Of course not, again another rhetorical statement, not limiting God but demonstrating His authority and command over all of His creation. However, there is a finite aspect of God, which is in this distinctive reality He created. Why finite: because God cannot deny Himself, by His own Nature and through His own creation, He is God. God cannot be evil. Evil is the absence of God. God cannot sin, sin is turning away from God; God cannot turn away from Himself. God cannot lie. There are no circumstances, no contingencies in which God would misdirect or misinform us for our own good. God cannot punish. He can cure and heal, He can re-align, He can rehabilitate, He can discipline but He cannot punish. Again, God is beyond our world view, however, our world view should be consistent with an expression of His Nature, and any world view which truly reflects God will be consistent with His Nature. Scripture tells us, God’s Mercy and Justice, sun and rain, reign down on sinners and saints alike; all receive, not all accept.

Let’s continue the description of this broad-based world view by considering scripture again. In Exodus 34: 6-7, we see God passing in front of Moses, describing Himself as He proclaims, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” This passage establishes God, in His own words, by name and identity. The Nation of Israel reflects the Old Testament, and in the emerging Greek world the theology, philosophy, spirituality, and psychology are bound together in an apparently seamless system. For the Greeks, philosophy was a way of life. For the Jews, theology was the center, and all worldly endeavors were products of this central theme. This mind set allows a free interchange between the man God made and the God man made. Mysticism and spirituality co-exist and compliment the psychological world view, philosophy, history, and natural sciences of the era. On the surface, this homogeneous model satisfies both knowing about God and knowing God. However, it does force fit God into the worldly mind set of the times, and limits God to the often-demeaning confines of man’s imagination. It’s no wonder Jesus admonishes Peter, telling him he is thinking as man would think, not as God thinks. And again, in Job, we see God being all virtues, and all virtues being God in His singularity. In the same manner as God is in all places and in all times at the same time, whereas man is witnessing each virtue and each place in his own time seen through man’s plurality. Exodus continues by describing many of the magnificent virtues of God, along with a warning targeted at the psychological world view of man, that man should be careful, as with all fathers, God has a limit to His patience and His anger will eventually be provoked. Again, blending this homogeneous model into man’s understanding of how God might appeal to man in a way man could comprehend. And to this point, “might” for man in his humanity means, could be; whereas God’s “might” is for sure and for certain.

Now, considering Exodus again, let’s unpack the troublesome phrase, “Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.”  On first reading it appears God will do the punishing. However, on closer examination we find, it is God who allows the iniquity of the father to be visited on the children and grandchildren, it is not God’s punishment, it is the consequences of the father’s bad behavior. Furthermore, these consequences, these reflections of wrong worship, this turning away from God is “visited” on the children, implying a coming and going. It’s not a curse, not an affliction or punishment from God. We see in Kings, that some sons recognized the dilemmas created and perpetrated on the Nation of Israel by their fathers and turned away from their father’s wicked ways, while others influenced and guided by these travesties acted worse than their fathers. For me, this is nothing more than the calamities of original sin, the reflection of the fall permeating into the lives of the present. There are many discussions which follows from and through this train of thought. One being the sins we contract and the sins we commit. One being the power of prayer and how it is elemental to life on the earth. There are visions of hope, founded on love and trust, as well as heart break in a seemingly endless maze of confusion in an ego driven world.

If you, the reader, can agree that we are not the early first century Zionist waiting for the coming of our Lord and there is a world view which does incorporate knowing God as we journey from the formative to the transformative, that we can truly bring definition and description into the realm of experience, then the next best question is why and how are we different from these early Zionists? The answer is transubstantiation. Now I’m sure you realize that if my model is a good one, and it is working the way it should, then there is more than one good answer. After all good questions make better answers than good answers make. So, let’s look at one facet, transubstantiation.

The Church knows that nothing says formative to transformative better than transubstantiation. The mystery of bread and wine turning into the body and blood has baffled and delighted Christian since the Passover Night on the eve of His Passion. Certainly, the real presence of Christ Jesus is the sum and summit of the Church, the pillar and foundation, the beginning and the end, along with many other definitions and descriptions. I am suggesting this is all that needs to be said, and that there is something more to be said. Christ Jesus not only changes the bread and wine, He changes everything. He entered the world, and nothing will ever be the same. Consider the formative aspects of the Mass. We hear His words as the Lector reads scripture. We see the Host as the priest raises Christ before the congregation. We reach out and touch Christ as the Eucharistic Minister places our Lord in our hands. Now think about this, there are several inert gases, such as, helium, argon, and neon to name a few, which do not combine with any other element. It’s possible that at any given moment we are actually breathing the same elements, the exact same elements which passed through Christ Jesus’ lungs. He entered the world and changed everything. His transfiguration put an end to the discussion concerning the immortality of the soul, a heavenly realm of resurrected bodies and the covenant relationship of the Father with the Son and the faithfulness of the Trinity and the created creatures. He was baptized in the Jordan River not only showing us the model, procedure, and purpose of baptism, also changing the water in the river forever more into Holy Water, forever changed. He died on the Cross for all of mankind, so that we could live in a new world, one where Justice has been and is forever served. This is more than a sum zero equation. It is an acquittal not a pardon; there are no equal parts, because there are no parts. This answers the “why” we are different than the early Zionists, now we look at the “how”.

We have the benefit of 2000 years plowing the same field. The early patriarchs of the Church, through their inspirational and devotional genius paved the way for countless saints, fathers, and doctors of the Church to lead us into the shadow of His providence. We draw strength from the blood of the martyrs; we rest in the loving arms of our Holy Mother, and we rejoice in the sacraments of Church life.  And more, we are children in the twenty first century, seekers looking beyond our world view and praying in unison with the billions of Catholics who have come before us. We separate our fields of study into disciplines each with their own definitions and descriptions within their areas of concern. We have united these disciplines into spheres encompassing far ranging influences so we can correlate geography and topography with anthropology, history, and theology in order to better understand the evolving mind of man. We have more than shifted the paradigm, more than arranged the elements or reconfigured the components. We introduced new ingredients, trumpeted new discoveries, changed the ways information is gathered and stored, and then theorized how things really are based on new observations and conclusions. In some cases, the words we commonly use can’t describe what we have found, so we have invented new words to better capture what we now know. In some cases, the words we choose can be a trigger to shift our minds from how we used to think, into what we now consider plausible, creditable, helpful, advantageous, and even inspiring. All of these formative elements are only precursors to our Lord God, who always was, who is and who will forever be. It is in the eternal now we find ourselves living in the presence of the Lord. In this moment there is no separation of the formative and transformative, any more than there is any difference between intuition and self-realization. In this moment, our lives become His plan and purpose for us beyond our own world view. Our life becomes authentic, we look beyond our unique life history, into our unique life experiences. These experiences lead us out of the world around us and into a world of empathy and sympathy. In this moment, the door opens in our minds, we understand what St. Augustine meant when he said,” God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.” Is it any wonder, in the stillness of the moment or the clamor of the world, that God’s message and His mercy are given to us an undeniable expression of what we need to hear, clear and truthful? This is God telling us what we can understand and inspiring us to a deeper understanding , at least pointing us in a different direction, prompting us to ask questions and seek His answers.

I asked, you the reader, how this idea broadcasts itself into our lives and is it true, that everything we do is a prelude into a deeper and more meaningful faith? In part, I suggest this as an answer. We accept. We accept we are created creatures. We accept He has predestined our journey into His Kingdom. We accept we don’t know how He will get us there, but we are going with Him anyway. We accept, it is not our place to judge ourselves or others. It is not a matter of what is right or wrong, what is beautiful, good, or true; it is a matter of what is complete or incomplete. It is up to each of us to examine our model, our world view and ask is it consistent with healthy psychology and solid philosophy and with the gifts and blessings given to us through His Grace and Goodness. It is up to me to ask my neighbor if his world view is consistent in the same manner, complete in a healthy psychological way and consistent with the teachings of Christ Jesus. I am not suggesting we should be tolerant, I am suggesting we should be respectful realizing everything we have done is preparing us for everything unfolding in our lives just as everything our neighbor is doing is another step in his journey into a deeper and more meaningful way of knowing God.

Modeling the formative to the transformative, using definition and description as the formative and experience as the transformative, leads me to this conclusion; God’s love is like light passing through a prism….what we see on the other side is mercy, compassion, kindness, all the goodness of all the virtues….yet it is still love…just as the colors through the prism is still light…. Blessings for all of us   AJ