The Root of All Evil: 2 pillars and 5 consequences
Is the world completely evil?
What is evil?
Does free will have anything or everything to do with evil?
Age old questions indeed, used as arguments both for an against the existence of a God. These questions were recently raised during an interesting discussion with some friends, so I decided to give a short summary here of the way in which Martines de Pasqually approached the matter in his Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings. Read More...
Moses on Mount Sinai and the seven worlds paving the way to reintegration
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The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - First Commandment
How did the incarnation of Christ transform the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law? How does Christianity incorporate the basic moral framework of the Torah? These questions are central to the notions of reconciliation and reintegration that I have presented before (follow the "reintegration" and "reconciliation" tags in the sidebar), because they lay out the most fundamental virtues that one must cultivate in order to live in accordance with the Christian faith. One of the most contemplative and introspective traditions of Christianity, the Orthodox hesychast movement, has given us a profoundly pastoral summary of Christian moral teaching, that weaves together “worldly” codes of conduct and finer theological positions.
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Gregory of Nyssa - Exile & “diastema” (Pt 2)
Part 2:
Exile &
“diastema”
A characteristic of our fallen human condition is its
separation from God, by which process, divine unity is
broken. St Gregory develops the notion of “diastema”
which has the connotation of a standing apart, an
extension or an interval. When applied to theology, it
implies a separation existing on the side of creation
which has a beginning (arche) and end (telos), and thus
temporal limitations of our present existence. It can
therefore be understood as a temporal, thus temporary,
exile:
“All our notions are bound by time; they attempt to transcend their proper limits but cannot. Intervals of time constitute all our thoughts as well as the thought content. Yet we have learned to seek and to cherish that which transcends all creation.” (Commentary of Ecclesiastes, 412).
However, “diastema” does not apply in any way to God, since no division nor succession can apply to Him:
“Every measure (diastema) of distance that we could discover is beneath the divine nature: so no ground is left for those who attempt to divide this pretemporal and incomprehensible being by distinctions of superior & inferior.” (Against Eunomius, J.79.5, 52).
“Those who draw a circular figure in plane geometry from a centre to the distance (diastema) of the line of circumference tell us there is no definite beginning to their figure; and that the line is interrupted by no ascertained end (diastema) any more than by any visible commencement.” (Against Eunomius, J.218.1, 4).
It is therefore in Creation only that temporal and spacial “separation” are found. In fact, “diastema” is omnipresent throughout every aspect of our material universe thereby becoming a defining characteristic of any alienation from God. Indeed, that separation also exists in our mind, because of our own mode of projecting temporal boundaries on the world, whereby we inherently insert mental “gaps” between us and God. This, in turn, burdens us with the intellectual awareness of our alienation from God and from the immediateness that characterises the God’s Presence of God:
In contrast to our incorporeal but temporal intellect, our soul is by nature spiritual, thus timeless and incorporeal, and therefore is more to the likeness of God, breaching that “infernal circle” of the mind’s “separateness”:“For seeing that human life, moving from stage to stage, advances in its progress from a beginning to an end, and our life here is divided between that which is past and that which is expected, so that the one is the subject of hope, the other of memory; on this account, as, in relation to ourselves, we apprehend a past and a future in this measurable extent, so also we apply the thought, though incorrectly, to the transcendent nature of God; not of course that God in his own existence leaves any interval (diastema) behind, or passes on afresh to something that lies before, but because our intellect can only conceive things according to our nature, and measures the eternal by a past and a future, where neither the past precludes the march of thought to the illimitable and infinite, nor the future tells us of any pause or limit of his endless life.” (Against Eunomius, J.360.16, 296).
“What is the divinity which the soul resembles? It is not the body, [it] lacks form, likeness, quality, figure, depth, place, time and anything else which resembles material creation; rather, once all these attributes are stripped away, the soul reveals its nature which is spiritual, immaterial, invisible, incorporeal and unchangeable. If we contemplate the stamp of the archetype, the soul necessarily conforms itself according to that image. The soul is recognised by its characteristics, that is, as being immaterial, without form, spiritual and incorporeal.” (Concerning those who have died, 41).
Indeed, God
“[…] is simple by nature, immaterial, without quality, magnitude, composed of nothing, circumscribed by no form […]” (On the Making of Man, 209.50).
Thus, Man comprises at the same time the material, the temporal (intellectual) and the spiritual – a spark of the divine. As St Gregory writes, Man
Therefore, in St Gregory’s mind the “diastema” does not preclude Man from transcending his material temporal limitations, on the contrary:“extends from the first to the last and is one image of Him Who is.” (On the making of Man, 406).
“In this life we can apprehend the beginning and the end of all things that exist, but the beatitude that is above the creature admits neither end nor beginning, but is above all that is connoted by either, being ever the same, self-dependent, not travelling on by degrees from one point to another in its life...For increase has no place in the infinite, and that which is by its nature passionless excludes all notion of decrease.” (Against Eunomius, 257).
This explains why man, however immersed in his material senses he may be, always has the potential to see, and desire the perpetual presence of the divine, and thus be reconciled with God. As we shall see later, desire is what can pull man from his earthly bonds, and set him on the path to reconciliation.