Light from Light: Cosmology and the Theology of the Logos 978-1451479294

Table of contents :
Introduction vii
1. Cosmologies in the Pre-Christian Era 1
2. Cosmologies of Divine Light and Logos in the
Christian Era
55
3. Orthodoxy and the Logos 73
4. Medieval and Early Modern Orthodoxy 103
5. Mechanistic Science and its Sponsorship by the
Church
121
6. Contemporary Science and Interconnectivity 135
7. Spirit and Matter in Contemporary Science and
Theology
183
8. Interconnection to the Divine in a World of Light
and Transcendence
211
Bibliography 227
Index 245

Citation preview

Light of the World— Corey

Cosmology and theology share a long-held relationship with one another, explaining as they do the constitution of the world and the interaction of forces. In this work, author Judith L. Corey explores the history of this relationship, from ancient prescientific and theological explanations through contemporary science and philosophy. A particular problem is highlighted in this history: the prevalence of dualism— from Aristotelian philosophy to modern mechanistic conceptions. Many of these accounts presume a sharp, absolute dichotomy between matter and spirit, the material world and the divine. Increasingly, dualistic conceptions are called into question by contemporary science, theology, and philosophy. Corey argues that a particular trajectory stemming from Greek Heraclitean and Platonic philosophy to nonorthodox and early Christian theologies provides a fruitful resource for contemporary discussions. This is the Logos theology and its attendant language of light. The author brings this tradition into dialogue with contemporary science and theology to construct an integrative account. 

“Judith L. Corey’s Light from Light makes a substantial, even revolutionary, contribution to our understanding of the relationship between natural philosophy and theology from antiquity to the present. The real story, per Corey, is not the opposition of religious and scientific world views but the contrast between mechanistic and dynamic understandings of matter in both scientific and religious traditions. In their treatment of matter, Corey argues, the strengths and limitations of competing cosmologies are revealed. As mechanistic and dualistic worldviews reveal their shortcomings, Corey provides an expert overview of an alternative tradition that finds the potential for creation and transcendence in the very matter of which we and the world are made.”

Cosmology and the Theology of the Logos

Light from Light

Praise for Light from Light

Light from Light

Scott Wells | California State University, Los Angeles

Judith L. Corey earned a PhD from Claremont School of Theology. She teaches in the history department at California State University, Los Angeles. This volume is based on a dissertation completed at Claremont under the supervision of Gregory J. Riley.

Judith L. Corey

Religion / Constructive Theology

e m e r g i n g

s c h o l a r s

Light from Light

Light from Light Cosmology and the Theology of the Logos

Judith L. Corey

Fortress Press Minneapolis

LIGHT FROM LIGHT Cosmology and the Theology of the Logos

Copyright © 2016 Fortress Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/ or write to Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

Cover design: Alisha Lofgren

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-7929-4 eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-1900-8

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984. Manufactured in the U.S.A. This book was produced using Pressbooks.com, and PDF rendering was done by PrinceXML.

Contents

Introduction

vii

1.

Cosmologies in the Pre-Christian Era

2.

Cosmologies of Divine Light and Logos in the Christian Era

55

3.

Orthodoxy and the Logos

73

4.

Medieval and Early Modern Orthodoxy

103

5.

Mechanistic Science and its Sponsorship by the Church

121

6.

Contemporary Science and Interconnectivity

135

7.

Spirit and Matter in Contemporary Science and Theology

183

8.

Interconnection to the Divine in a World of Light and Transcendence

211

Bibliography

227

Index

245

1

Introduction

Science and theology have always had a symbiotic relationship; cosmological conceptions impact religious conceptions. In theological circles, one problem that has existed since the pre-Christian era concerns how to conceptualize the connection between the realm of spirit, light, and mind above and the world of dark matter below.1 This work addresses how this problem came about historically and seeks to offer a solution in terms of the divine Light and Logos cosmologies that began in the Greek period, and integrates this with new research provided by contemporary science. Descriptions of the interconnection of spirit and matter are dependent upon cosmological descriptions, and specifically, on how each term—spirit and matter—is defined within that cosmology. In modern times, a common view of spirit is that it is “generally taken to mean by most people the opposite of matter and whatever transcends the material or belongs to the other world,”2 while a definition of matter from traditional mechanistic science states that matter is hard, inert, mindless, and passive.3 Before the Common Era, Greek philosophers envisioned an unchanging, eternal, spiritual realm above, and the world of matter and change below—a view that was inherited by early Christians. The Gnostics in the first centuries CE envisioned a world of Light and Spirit above and 1. Gregory Riley, The River of God: A New History of Christian Origins (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 45. 2. C.F.D. Moule, The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 1. 3. Peter Harmon, Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy: The Problem of “Substance” in Classical Physics (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1982), 16–18.

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a world of dark matter below. Such a philosophical divide between God and the world has existed in theological circles for well over two thousand years. This, however, was not always the case. Long before the Christians and before the Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the world of gods and of humans was pictured as one. In general, the ancient view was that the earth itself was divine and home of the gods. Gods and goddesses interacted freely with humans, walking on the same ground, eating the same food, conversing with humans just as one person talks to another.4 Some deities were pictured as residing high on a mountain, representing the transcendent nature of the divine, while other gods resided in, or were equated with, the deepest depths of the oceans, representing fertility of life. The cosmology of the ancients was a “three-story universe” with the heavens as the shining sky above, the dark underworld below ground, and the earth in between, with deities residing in all spheres.5 However, a cosmological shift occurred—in large part, stemming from investigations provided by Babylonian astronomers and mathematicians in the seventh century BCE.6 What they discovered was that the movement of the celestial bodies was orderly, mathematical, and harmonious. This indicated that there was a Mind behind the universe and it called for a larger view of the Divine.7 From this data, new cosmological models were constructed by philosophers beginning in the sixth century BCE and continuing forward to the first century CE. These cosmological models profoundly influenced Greek, Jewish, and Christian theology. In the fourth century BCE, borrowing from earlier Greek philosophical precedents, Plato described an immaterial realm of light and eternal forms above with the material 4. For example, from eighth-century BCE Greece, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey present the gods and goddesses interacting in the Trojan War. In the Hebrew Bible, in the earliest writings from the tenth century BCE, such as Genesis 3 and Genesis 18, God is presented as walking, talking, and eating among humans in comparison to the later, sixth-century BCE writing such as Genesis 1, where God is presented as above creation. Chapter 1 reviews this worldview. 5. Riley, The River of God, 27. 6. David Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, Cuneiform Monographs (Groningen, The Netherlands: Styz, 2000). 7. Riley, 41.

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realm of ensouled matter below. After him, Aristotle pictured a divine “Unmoved Mover” above and the world of movement and change below, with matter ensouled by degrees. With the Middle Platonists of the first century BCE to the second century CE, the number of divine realms of light above increased, expanding the distance between the divine Monad and the world.8 In the new emerging worldview, polytheism began to give way to monotheism. Increasingly, the divine realm of the one God was pictured further and further away from the material realm of humans. Early Christian interpreters embedded in a Greco-Roman culture and writing in Greek struggled to explain how the far removed, transcendent God of spirit interacted with the world of matter below. Some of these early Christian theologians employed the Greek philosophical concept of the Logos to describe the interconnection between the two worlds. The Logos was the divine intelligent principle of the cosmos within nature, which provided connectivity and form to matter. Heraclitus of Ephesus had put forth this concept centuries earlier in response to the Babylonians’ astronomical findings that the world displayed intelligent, mathematical precision. 9 In the fourth century of the Christian era, an early example of the philosophical divide between the realm of Spirit and the world of creation is the debate between the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo and the Manicheans. Augustine states in “Against the Epistle of Manichaeus” that one of the many problems of the cosmology of the Manicheans is that the realm of Spirit and Light touches the world of matter and darkness. He goes on to say that the world of light described by the Manicheans must be material if it is to be in contact with the world of matter.10 For Augustine, because the transcendent realm is defined as unchanging and immaterial, it cannot, by definition, come into contact with matter and the world of change. On the contrary,

8. The concept of the Logos is increasingly employed and developed further as an intermediary, while in some cosmologies, hierarchies of divinities are placed between the Monad and the world. 9. Chapter 3 below reviews the employment of the Greek philosophical concept of the Logos by early Christians. 10. Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, 21.

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based on earlier precedents that the divine realm is light and the origin of the soul, the Manicheans defined light as immaterial and the soul as particles of light, where Augustine and the orthodox tradition understand the soul as distinctly created (ex nihilo) and generated through one’s parents. The debate revolved around both parties’ definitions of matter and spirit. The problem continued through the centuries with what has been called a battle of cosmologies, culminating in the seventeenth century.11 At that time, a mechanistic model of nature was put forth by philosopher-scientists such as Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, and Isaac Newton. In the mechanistic model, matter was defined as having no activating power; it was considered inert, with no internal intelligent principle, no goal-directed behavior, with movement achieved only through divinely ordained “laws of nature,” laws which were just being established.12 The mechanistic model of nature would be combined in the seventeenth century with a theological model that presupposed a supernatural theistic spiritual deity of power residing above the inert world of matter. In this worldview too, the human body was thought to contain a soul and mind, elements of the Spiritual realm, but it questioned how the body and mind interact. This was Descartes’ famous mind–body problem. If matter/body does not contain intelligence or even an active principle, as traditionally attributed to the soul, how do mind and soul interact with it? This problem sits within the larger question of how God as Spirit interacts with a material world. The debate continued into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, in Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant states that because God is Spirit and our knowledge comes only through sense perception, we cannot experience God.13 The view that 11. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 110f. 12. The concept of mechanistic movement stems from mathematical analyses of matter in motion when one object has been impacted by another object; it is akin to billiard ball motion and the domino effect. One thing does not move unless another thing impacts it physically. 13. Grace Janzten, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 308.

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the senses pertain only to the corporal and that spirit is incorporeal reflects the earlier Greek philosophical divide. In the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin’s research indicated that the forms of species evolved, which appeared to many at the time to be in contradiction to the account in Genesis that the forms of the species were divinely ordained in the beginning. What mind was adapting the forms of species throughout history? Was God intervening, or did nature display intelligence? Neither view quite fit with the traditional views from either theology or mechanistic science. In contemporary biblical scholarship, when addressing the Spiritmatter connection, there is a tendency to simply label this connection as “supernatural” intervention, or more often than not, to remain uncharacteristically silent on the issue of the connection. While the biblical text emphasizes the connection between the divine and natural world, there is virtual silence from commentators addressing this connection. The text will usually even provide a clue as to how the connection is possible. Interestingly, not only is the clue ignored, but often, it is discounted to emphasize God’s “supernatural interaction,” that is, that God interrupts the “laws” of nature to achieve a connection. Considering the nature of commentaries to offer reflection on each verse, to encounter silence or a mere label of supernatural intervention calls for discussion and analysis of this issue, particularly when the biblical passages in question emphasize the Spirit–matter connection. This tendency in biblical scholarship reflects both the philosophical ontological divide between God and the world, and the mechanistic supernatural worldview. For example, in Genesis 1, the Spirit of God is said to interact with creation in terms of a wind from God; however, in commentaries, there is virtual silence on the nature of the connection itself, with statements to the effect that we simply cannot know or cannot have access to the Spiritual realm.14 Genesis 37 presents Divine–human communication 14. Claus Westermann, Genesis, Vol. 1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1974); Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972); George Coats, Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature, Forms of the Old Testment Literature Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983; E.A. Speiser, Genesis: Introduction, Translation,

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through the medium of dreams. Yet, dreams are not investigated or brought to bear on the discussion, and as one commentator states, “it will do us little good to investigate the phenomena of dreams.”15 2.Kings 2 presents a passage on the enhancement of the spirit expressed in terms of “the double share of the spirit” for Elisha. The text states that if Elisha sees Elijah taken away, he will receive a double share of the spirit. Commentators do not pursue how one’s experiences may alter the spirit within.16 The connection between divinely inspired prophecy and music occurs in 2 Kings 3. The passage states that “when a musician played, the hand of Yahweh used to come upon” Elisha. Commentators do not pursue investigations concerning how music might enhance prophetic ability. James 5 offers an example of the connection between Spirit and matter in terms of prayer and its effect on matter. James 5:14 recommends calling for the elders to pray over one who is sick, yet there is virtual silence in commentaries on the topic of the efficacy of prayer on physical healing.17 This is just a sample of the problem in biblical commentaries of how to explain the connection between Spirit and matter. Recent discussions in science and religion concerning how the God of Spirit interacts with the world of matter often focus on locating a place to put “the causal joint,” as it has been termed. Philip Clayton rightly states in one of his early works that what needs to be rethought is the Spirit/matter distinction.18 This writing seeks to address this and Notes (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964); A.M. Henry, The Holy Spirit (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960); George Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1976); Dale Moody, Spirit of the Living God, rev. ed. (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1976); Eduard Schweizer, The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress,1980); Dan Loy, The Search for Ultimate Reality: Intertextuality between the Genesis and Johaninne Prologues, Studies in Biblical Literature, v.93 (New York: Peter Lang, 2005). 15. Walter Brueggeman, Genesis (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 289. 16. Peter Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006); Burke Long, 2 Kings, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature, v. 10 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991); Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmore, II Kings: A New Translation and Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible, v.11 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988); W.R. Shoemaker, “The Use of Ruach in the Old Testament and of Pneuma in the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 23 (1904). 17. William Brosend, James and Jude (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Patrick Hartin, James, Sacra Pagine Series v. 14 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003); Douglass Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); R.V.G. Tasker, The General Epistle of James: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957). 18. Philip Clayton, God and Contemporary Science, Edinburgh Studies in Constructive Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 264.

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historical, philosophical problem of the connection between God and the world by redefining the Spirit/matter distinction and bringing forward a definition of matter from the perspective of contemporary, non-mechanistic science. While mechanistic science describes matter as inert, and mindlessly following the “laws” of nature, contemporary science defines matter as energetic, light-filled, information-rich, inter-relational, and capable of transcending previous forms. It is this definition of matter, as well as the insights from the divine light and Logos cosmologies, including non-orthodox and Eastern Christian traditions, that will be employed here to address the interconnection between Spirit and matter. The Methodological Approach Chapter 1 addresses the changing worldview brought about by the ancient astronomers and Greek philosophers. Prior to these advances, cosmological models tended to describe Nature as divine, powerful, generative, and intelligent. Earliest descriptions presented a model of divine being/s interacting with the material world as Person-toperson set in a cosmological framework of the three-story universe.19 With the arrival of the new astronomical data, geocentric cosmological models were put forth, with the planets orbiting in spherical circuits around the earth in perfect orderly fashion. There was a divine mind behind this order, a deity much larger than anyone had previously pictured. With the geocentric models, polytheism would increasingly disappear into the concept of the one God, divine source of the cosmos, who is beyond the world of creation. The concept of the Logos was employed—first by Heraclitus, and later, the Stoics—to describe the divine, intelligent, reason-filled aspect revealed by mathematical study of the world of matter. Chapter 1 traces these philosophical movements from the gods living among us and the earth as divine to the one God as far removed and the world of matter gradually denuded of its divine status. In the historical trajectory of thought 19. Riley, The River of God, 27.

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from the Greek philosophers Anaxagoras, Plato, and Aristotle to the philosophical school of Middle Platonism and the Gnostics, an increasingly dualistic divide between the transcendent world of Spirit and Light to that of matter and darkness would develop, with the Logos often used by both philosophical and Christian theological sources as the ontological and epistemological connection between God and the world. Chapter 2 presents religious and philosophical systems that did not follow the path of a God–world dualism, but instead, described Nature as divine, intelligent, and filled with light and energy. This view can be found in the writings of the Hermetics, Manicheans, Neoplatonists, and mystics throughout the ages. A representative sample of their writings, beliefs, and practices are presented in terms of how they understood and described connection to God. Chapter 3 presents the rise of orthodox Christianity from the first century through the fourth, focusing on the growing divide, as well as the narrowing conceptions of the connection between God and the world. Following the writer of the Gospel of John, who employed the concept of the Logos, Christian Apologists of the second and third centuries, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, and others applied this Greek philosophical concept to Jesus. In the fourth century, Logos theology would be further employed to develop the Christian Trinitarian doctrine and the connection between God and the world in terms of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4 further charts this development in the medieval period up through the Protestant Reformation. In the works of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin the concept of Christ’s Holy Spirit forms the bridge between “the supernatural realm” and the world of matter, with connection expressed increasingly from the side of the divine alone. Presented in chapter 5 is the rise of Newtonian science in the seventeenth century which established mechanistic descriptions for matter, and increased dualistic conceptions between Spirit and matter. Spiritual interaction with what would be considered inert matter was increasingly described in supernatural terms.20 In the three-way battle

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INTRODUCTION

of cosmologies in the seventeenth century, mechanistic matter set within a supernatural theistic framework was promoted by the Church, edging out the two competing cosmological traditions which had existed for centuries—the Aristotelian-Thomistic model and the Divine Light models. While the supernatural–mechanistic cosmology is the dominant theological model today, it is the Divine Light and Logos cosmologies which provide valuable insights into how to conceptualize a connection between Spirit and matter, and perhaps not coincidentally, coincide well with research on the nature of matter provided by the contemporary sciences. Chapter 6 provides insights from contemporary science concerning the nature of matter itself. Today, advances in quantum electrodynamics, complex systems theory, and neurobiology offer new perspectives. From quantum electrodynamics, matter is expressed as energetic, both in terms of particles and waves, in contrast to mechanistic conceptions in earlier centuries. Complex systems theory describes how smaller elements combine to form into the visible things of matter, and how there is continuous natural transcendence of former things into new creations, based on a system’s interaction with the surrounding environment.21 A history of neurobiological studies is provided from mechanistic understandings to conceptions which express the plasticity of neural networks, where matter literally grows in response to information received from the environment. It will be shown that light is not only a primary connective element among and between the elements of matter, but also, a fundamental element in what is identified in the field of theology as spiritual enlightenment. That matter is light-filled, relational, information rich, dynamically self-transcending, and capable of bringing forth new creations which transcend former material configurations, is a fundamental aspect of brain matter itself, the seat of enlightenment. 20. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 124–33. 21. Ervin Laszlo, The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2002); Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers. Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam Books, 1984); Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); John Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (New York: Helix Books, 1996).

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Chapter 7 presents contemporary works from the field of Science and Religion addressing how Spirit and matter may interconnect. Theological and scientific writings from the following scholars will be reviewed: Alfred North Whitehead, John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, Willem Drees, Lawrence Fagg, Wolfhart Pannenber, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jürgen Moltmann, Nancey Murphy, and Warren Brown. Insights from their works will be carried over and applied to the position put forth here, that matter defined in terms by contemporary science as essentially electromagnetic and light-filled, inter-relational, informative, and self-transcending provides a way to conceive of the connection between Spirit and matter in more natural as opposed to “supernatural” terms. Chapter 8 provides the conclusion and thesis of this work—that the divine Light and Logos traditions from within early orthodox theologies, Eastern Christian theologies, and alternative non-orthodox theologies provide valuable insight for re-conceiving the connection between the spiritual world of Light and the world of matter. The Greek philosophical concept of the Logos, the intelligent aspect within nature allows a means of describing the connection between God and the world—a world, according to contemporary science, that is filled with light, information, and capable of transcending previous forms. In contrast to a mechanistic world of matter set within a supernatural theistic framework in which the connection is achieved solely from the side of the divine, in a divine Light and Logos cosmology, we ascend to God. As human beings emerging from within a light-filled world, we have powers of transcendence to connect with the divine source of light.

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1

Cosmologies in the Pre-Christian Era

In the fourth century BCE, Alexander the Great spread Greek culture and language throughout the Mediterranean region. Western culture in general—including science and religion, language, literature, architecture, politics, music, and drama—is founded upon Greek concepts which are still with us today. The earliest stories of Jesus were written in the Greek language, and it was in Greece that the Apostle Paul found himself to be very successful in planting the Christian message. The New Testament contains many important Greek concepts, which have been extensively modified over the centuries of theological debates. In order to recover what has been lost, we need to go back to that original culture out of which Christianity and Western culture first blossomed. This chapter begins with a description of the world of the Greek poets Hesiod and Homer in the eighth century BCE, as well as the religious worldview of the surrounding cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The world described is a world divine, an ecology of divinity, where the trees, rivers, animals, and stars are respected and honored for the living force within, for the nurturance and sustenance they provide, and for their kinship with mortals. It is in this setting of ancient Greece that research from Babylonian 1

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

astronomers found such fertile ground, providing fodder for the Greek mind. From the astronomical data, it was discovered that the planets, constellations, sun, and moon moved in orderly periodic fashion. Before, there had been a world of divine beauty. Now, there was a world of beautiful order as well. The Greeks struggled for centuries to try to comprehend the essence and nature of the divine source of the orderly creation which was just beginning to be contemplated. Whatever it was, it was divine, intelligent, self-moving, and connected to all that exists. It was the one source of the many things we see in the world around us. This source produces what Pythagoras called the cosmos, a Greek word meaning “the order.”1 This is where we get our term cosmology, the study of the order of the universe. Cosmological models from the pre-Socratic philosophers were put forth, only to be modified by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, who then influenced the rise of Middle Platonism, Jewish philosophy, Gnosticism, and eventually, Christianity. For six hundred years, Greek philosophers investigated and contemplated the world around them, producing a cosmology that would be inherited, and again modified by the early Christians. This chapter traces the development of the gradual shift in cosmologies brought about by the new scientific insights from the Babylonians and Greeks. The primary expression in these philosophical models is the rise of monotheism and the geocentric universe, in time replacing polytheistic models and the three-story universe. The focus of early philosophy was to explain how the one gave rise to the many, how the source of the evident order in the cosmos gave rise to the many things of creation. Theories of knowledge were also put forth by the Greek philosophers to answer questions of how we relate to the cosmos and the divine. The movement of thought of how the divine and world are connected will be traced from the earliest cosmologies to those of the early Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics—to the Gnostics. 1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library; Aetius, 2.1.1; G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge: The University Press, 1963), 229.

2

COSMOLOGIES IN THE PRE-CHRISTIAN ERA

Divine–Human Interaction in a Three-Story Cosmology Prior to the sixth century BCE, the three-story universe dominated theological cosmology in the Ancient Near East, with henotheistic models and anthropomorphic images being abundant.2 In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, this universe is described in terms of a round flat earth, with the sky as a solid domed hemisphere, bright and shining with the stars attached to the inside of the dome which was set atop of the earth.3 A strange concept to us, but a similar idea can be seen in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 1, where it says that God formed the “dome” of the sky. In this worldview, the planets and stars travel across the upper inside of the bowl of the sky. In between the earth and the solid hemisphere of the sky are air, mist, then aither in ascending order. Aither is the element of light and sometimes described in terms of fire.4 Below the earth is dark Hades, then the deepest, Tartarus. The threestory world was shaped like an egg with a hard shell, while around the world system is water, the source of gods and all things, according to Homer.5 When it rained, the windows of the domed roof of the sky opened, letting in the waters. The world of matter for the ancient Greeks was full of gods. Besides Olympian and Chthonic gods, there are terrestrial gods and goddesses of rivers and streams, grottoes and forests, sun, moon, and stars.6 Nature is alive with the divine. The earth is, first and foremost, the abode of the gods. Within this cosmology, there is a progression from light to darkness, from above to below: the brazen sky, Helios and shining Zeus above, in contrast to the dark, gloomy underworld below. While the configurations vary throughout the centuries, the progression of light above to darkness below would be a staple in cosmological descriptions. Hesiod, a Greek poet from the eighth century BCE, describes the

2. Henotheism is the belief and worship of one god as supreme among other gods. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human qualities and characteristics to deity. 3. The sky is described in terms of brass and iron by Homer and a molten mirror in Job in the Hebrew Bible. Homer, Iliad, 17. 425; 5. 504; Homer Odyssey 3.2; 15.329; 17.565. See Job 37:18 as well. 4. In the Iliad, a fir tree reaches through the air to the aither. Homer Iliad, 14.288; Kirk and Raven, 10. 5. Homer Iliad 18.607; 21.194; 14.200, 244. 6. Olympian deities reside above, on Mt. Olympus, while Chthonic deities reside below earth.

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earliest cosmogony.7 In his description of the birth of the cosmos, he credits his insight on this topic to the divine Muses who breathed into him a divine wisdom, offering him visions of the past, present, and future.8 Here, the transfer of information from the divine to human realm is anthropomorphically pictured as through the breath of the divine goddesses. In Hesiod’s cosmogony, the originating principle of All-That-Is is called Chaos, a goddess of material substance who births into existence the myriad of living forms.9 From this Divine substance emerges the Earth, a divine goddess who is regarded as the throne of immortals. Emerging out of Chaos also is Tartarus (the deepest depths of Earth), Eros (desirous Love), Erebus (Darkness) and Night—all considered divine.10 From Night comes forth Aither, “the bright untainted upper atmosphere.”11 Earth gives birth to “starry” Heaven, the Hills, and Pontus (the fruitless deep).12 From the union of Earth and Heaven emerges Oceanus, a river which surrounds the world and gives rise to gods and goddesses and countless streams and rivers, all portrayed as divine. Earth and Heaven’s youngest child is Cronos, Time, who is mythically portrayed as killing Heaven, effectively separating the two.13 In the genre of mythology, this action symbolizes the divide between Heaven and Earth. And for the Greeks, it is Time that separates the two.14 Hesiod provides the first Greek cosmology in which all things emerge from one divine source, a personal female Deity, with all of Nature described as Her divine offspring. A literary and linguistic analysis reveals further what the Greeks meant by the term chaos. According to Aristotle, writing centuries later, chaos means space or expanse, though the concept of “space” stems most likely from Pythagoras or Zeno, which would be centuries

7. Hesiod, Theogony; Hesiod, Works and Days; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.23. 8. Hesiod, Theogony, 2.29–35. 9. Gregory Riley, The River of God: A New History of Christian Origins (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancsico, 1990), 26. 10. Hesiod, Theogony, 116. 11. Ibid., 125, 87n2. 12. Ibid., 126f. 13. Ibid., 137f. Heaven had hidden his ill-formed children away, keeping them from the light, grieving Mother Earth, so her son Cronos avenges the crime. 14. Ibid., 157.

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later than Hesiod’s account.15 Linguistically, according to Stoic usage, chaos is derived from cheisthai, meaning that which is poured out. The Greek root cha means gape, gap, yawn and stems from the proto-IndoEuropean root ghen, meaning gape or wide open. The Greek root cha is in the word chasma, from which we get chasm. The idea of chaos being associated with a wide-open expanse is found in Hesiod’s Theogony. The context of Hesiod’s passage is that Zeus has hurled lightning bolts at the Titans, and it is said that The life-giving earth crashed around in burning, and the vast wood crackled loud with fire all about. All the land seethed, and Ocean’s streams and unfruitful sea. The hot vapor lapped round the earthborn Titans: flame unspeakable rose to the bright upper air: the flashing glare of the thunderstone and lightning blinded their eyes for all that they were strong. Astounding heat seized Chaos and to see with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together.16

In this case, it appears that Chaos is the expanse between Earth and Heaven; though this expanse is not empty, it is filled with air, mist, and aither, so the word “expanse” only captures part of the term. Hesiod continues: After the battle, the Titans were locked away in Tartarus deep below the earth. It is said, “there lives the Titans, beyond gloomy chaos.”17 Tartarus is called “a great chasma, a gulf.”18 It is so deep that “an anvil falling for nine days would not reach Tartarus until the tenth.”19 If one were to walk down, the floor would not be reached for a whole year, “but cruel blast upon blast would carry one this way and that.”20 It is dark, such that “Night spreads around it three times like a necklace.”21 Euripides, clearly following Hesiod, defines Tartarus as dark chaos, gloomy and windy. With these indications then and taking into account the Stoic idea of chaos as a pouring out, it would appear that Chaos is the deep, dark, expanse filled with cross currents 15. Aristotle, Physics, 4.1.29; Kirk and Raven, 26. 16. Hesiod, Theogony, 693f. 17. Ibid., 869. 18. Ibid., 738. 19. Ibid., 735. 20. Ibid., 736f. 21. Ibid., 727.

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of fine matter, such as air, mist, or aither. This dark expanse of finely particled and wave-like currents is Hesiod’s generative, primordial matrix of all that is: earth, heaven, gods, and humans. From these roots in religious mythology comes our modern notion of chaos. In contemporary scientific terms, chaos is the unstable period out of which new forms arise. Continuing in the Theogony, kings and heroes are described as the literal offspring of the gods.22 Both gods and humans are composed of material substance, with the gods made of lighter substance—in fact, usually light or air—and humans of heavier, darker matter.23 In Works and Days, the generations of humans is described in terms of a descent from nobleness and harmony to hardship and strife.24 As Hesiod relates, first, the Olympian gods make a Golden race of mortals in the time of Cronos. This is followed by a second generation of Silver, described as dishonorable and foolish. When they die out, Zeus makes a third generation, the violent Bronze Age, where mortals destroy one another. Before the last generation, there is a fourth generation, the Heroic Age, which is the age of demi-gods, an honorable, godlike race of heroes. Lastly, Hesiod describes the present age comprising a race of Iron made by Zeus, where the wicked hurt the worthy and there is no reverence for the gods. There is described here in Works and Days a downhill slide of ethics and morality from the earliest golden times to the present epoch in which humans are irreverent toward the gods, with the exception of the Heroic Age.25 While souls from the Silver and Bronze age are said to go to darkness below earth after death, the heroes are said to go to the paradise-like Island of the Blessed, and the Golden Age souls, daimones, stay above earth, watching over and protecting the innocent. The concept of a transcendent heavenly spiritual realm had not yet been envisioned. In Hesiod’s writings, he describes the physical environment from above to below as light to darkness and society’s passage through time from the light of love to 22. Ibid. 23. Riley, River of God, 26–27. 24. Hesiod, Works and Days, 110–201. 25. Ibid.

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the darkness of strife, with the exception of the heroes who take a stand for a just cause.26 The heroes are described as sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses, and after death do not go down to the dark underworld, but live above on earth in light as do the good and honorable souls of the daimones. A similar cosmology and cosmogony is found in Egypt. A creation myth from Heliopolis, outside of Cairo, and dated to ca. 3000 BCE describes all creation emerging out of Nun, divine swirling water. Out of the waters arises Atum, the shining sun god on a high hill. From Atum emerges the lightest elements: the god Shu who is associated with the air, and the goddess Tefnut who is associated with the mist. These two merge, giving rise to Geb the earth god and Nut the sky goddess. Together, they produce the anthropomorphic gods and goddesses Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nepthys, who then produce humans. Humans are considered the children of the gods. A generative divine substance emerges outward and becomes all that is, and in this cosmology, all is divine.27 An early cosmological image portrays the Air god holding up the Sky goddess whose body is stretched out as an arch, with Geb pictured as lying at the feet of Air. As in Greece, the Sky is as solid as Earth. For both ancient Egyptian and Greek cosmologies, the earth is considered to be of divine substance. The earliest creation myths from Mesopotamia likewise depict water as generative of the gods of nature. In the Sumerian creation myth, Nammu, the sea goddess, Mother of heaven and earth, births into existence An, the Sky god, and Ki, the Earth goddess. The myth states that there was a time before Heaven was separated from Earth, and Earth separated from Heaven. In an early Babylonian myth, Saltwater Tiamet and Freshwater Apsu come together, forming the primeval gods Lahmu and Lahamu, the parents of Anshar and Kishar, who are between earth and sky. Before they were generated, there was no space 26. See Riley's discussion of the heroic code. Gregory Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997), 36f. 27. In contrast, the idea of Khnum, who was portrayed as making humans and animals on his potter’s wheel, is a much later idea from the fourteenth century BCE from the temple of Esna, an idea which was employed to legitimize monarchial claims to the throne as Khnum was portrayed making particular individuals as kings.

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between earth and sky. The Mesopotamian myths depict a structure developing from a watery divine source. Humans are not, however, described as the offspring of the gods. Humans are made out of clay, with a divine substance mixed in, and are created as workers for the divine assembly. While made in the image of the gods in one Sumerian myth and portrayed in general as generated from earth, humans are not depicted as sons and daughters of the gods, as in the earliest accounts in Greece and Egypt. In the three-story universe, throughout the Mediterranean, the gods live on the earth—whether land, sky, or water—and relate to humans in anthropomorphic terms. In ancient Mesopotamia, the god Anu is thought to reside “at the source of the twin rivers,” source of the fertilization of the land.28 The storm god Ba’al resides on a mountain in northern Canaan; the Greek gods on Mt. Olympus, though technically, Zeus’s domain is the sky and aither.29 In such polytheistic cultures, there are also gods of particular domains of nature and of function. There are gods and goddesses of the sea, the rivers, the winds, with such earthly elements being considered divinity itself. There are fertility gods and goddesses of crops and humans, love, the cultural arts, music, disease, and healing. Each of the gods and goddesses are assigned their respective earthly abodes. For example, the gods of the winds come from the cardinal direction in which the wind is associated and are considered the wind personified. Gods of the underworld live below the earth. The Sumerian underworld domain is ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and comes with a gate and a gatekeeper, Neti; and in a famous story, it is the goddess Inanna who visits the underworld and rises again, conquering death.30 For the Canaanites, the god of Death and the Underworld is Mavet who rules the underworld city of Miry. For the Greeks, Hades has a house with a gate and a basement, Tarturus. The Greeks divided their world into thirds, with Zeus ruling 28. Alan Millard, “Cradle of Civilization: The Ancient Near East,” in Eerdman’s Handbook to the World’s Religions, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 69. 29. Homer, Iliad, 15.192. Zeus’s brothers, Hades, ruled the underworld and Poseidon, the sea. The world was divided into thirds, each ruling his own domain. 30. “The Descent of Inanna in the Underworld,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. James Pritchard, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).

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the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, and all three sharing the earth. Earth and everything in it is divine. The connection between the divine and human is portrayed in terms of personal relationship, superior to inferior. Permission or blessing is required to tread upon the deities’ specific domain as one would ask permission from a wealthy landholder. Before sailing, prayers and offerings are made to Poseidon, who rules the sea.31 Before planting, prayers and offerings are presented to fertility gods and goddesses for their protection and blessings on the new crops. If one kills the cattle on the island of Helios or a stag in Artemis’ sacred grove, a price is exacted just as if a commoner was found hunting on the landowner’s property.32 Religious insights from a three-story cosmological worldview elaborately describe the gods as personal beings who live among us, while the essence of nature itself comprises deities personified. In a world inhabited by divinities, miracles are expressed as aid and gifts, as one person helping another. A very heartfelt prayer is offered by the king of Hatti (ancient Turkey), beseeching the god for rain at a time of drought, wondering what the community could have done wrong to have the god withhold the rain, and promising better behavior.33 In Greece, the goddess Athena helps individuals in difficult times. She offers inspiration for invention and was known as the goddess of nearness, giving forethought to Odysseus in his time of need.34 Some deities specialized in healings, with votive offerings well attested and symbolizing gratitude from those who experienced restored health. Epigraphic evidence for the god Asclepius is particularly abundant.35 His temples flourished from 400 BCE to 400 CE and provided a place for adherents to sleep and dream and through this means receive a miraculous cure. Miracle, derived from the Latin mirus, a wonderful happening, was in Greek expressed as dynamis, 31. Homer, The Odyssey, 4.351–54. 32. Homer, The Odyssey, 12; Myth of Iphegenia. The animals were cherished as pets. 33. Millard, 69. 34. Homer, The Odyssey, 5.437. 35. Fritz Graf, “Asclepius,” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 85–87.

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power, and associated in literature with arete, the “virtue” or goodness of the gods. Basically, miracles were viewed as a wonderful gift bestowed on behalf of the goodness and power of the gods. The gesture implies relationship and calls for appropriate reciprocity on the part of the recipient in terms of worship or devotion. In ancient Greek society, it is considered the right and honorable thing to do—to give reverence to the gods for life, sustenance, and gifts imparted.36 Called upon in prayer and spoken to as gods of light and air, enlightenment can also be bestowed.37 For example, the Greek god Apollos was known as the god of light, truth, prophecy, music, and healing. The Persian god Mithras was also known as a god of light and truth, who was associated with Ahura Mazda from the religion of Zoroastrianism. Archeological evidence from the first century of cave temples to Mithras found throughout the empire, particularly where soldiers were stationed, demonstrates the spread and popularity of the Mystery Religions. Mystery Religions, in general, specialized in offering divine truth to their adherents. Certain individuals could specialize as intermediaries of communication with the gods.38 For example, the Pythia at Delphi, generally female priests, were wellversed in reaching a trance state to make inquiries to the god Apollos on behalf of the public.39 The Naditu of Sippur were daughters of highranking officials who were cloistered for the purpose of praying for the state, again showing the value placed on women for their ability to communicate with the Divine.40 Written texts could also be consulted to attain advanced wisdom. Babylonian priests compiled encyclopedias of divination, basing future predictions and causes for disease on signs and symptoms in nature. With all the various means and methods for consultation, communication with deities could be attained directly as Person-to-person, via priestly intermediaries, or reading the signs in nature. 36. Hesiod, Works and Days, 185. 37. Riley, River of God, 40. 38. Priestly offices could also be regarded as civic positions which required appointment or election. “Priests” in Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, 570. 39. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, “Delphic oracle,” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, 217. 40. Amelie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC (London: Routledge, 1995).

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This divine world of matter, as home of gods and humans, could become physically, morally, and spiritually defiled, requiring either divine or human action to cleanse from pollution. A primary means to re-establish connection between humans and the divine was to perform purification rituals, with priests aiding as professional intermediaries in difficult cases. Ritual cleansing could be achieved through water, fire, fumigation, or blood.41 In Homer and Hesiod, one is cautioned to wash hands before crossing a river, as rivers were considered divine.42 In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s bloody retribution against the suitors who have abused his household in his absence restores justice, while also requiring a cleansing of the home to remove the defilement of the bloodbath. Violence, cruelty, and oppression are considered pollution of the divine world of matter, which requires a counter-balancing action to set the world back into equilibrium, hence Zeus’s “scales of justice.” But for those who practice violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronos, ordains a punishment. Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and devises presumptuous deeds, and the son of Cronos lays great trouble upon the people, famine and plague together, so that the men perish away, and their women do not bear children, and their houses become few, through the contriving of Olympian Zeus. And again, at another time, the son of Cronos either destroys their wide army, or their walls, or else makes an end of their ships on the sea. 43

Hesiod makes particular mention of the world of matter becoming defiled by leaders who accept bribes, render unjust decisions, and generally pervert justice.44 In Hesiod’s Works and Days, justice is portrayed as a daughter who, when wronged, understandably must be avenged by her father.45 After plague and war, ritual purification is performed by a priest to purify an entire city.46 From Homer’s Iliad, after a battle, King Agamemnon’s troops are overcome with a plague 41. Burkert also mentions purification affected through the winnowing fan and sea scallions. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 76. 42. Hesiod specifically mentions washing away wickedness before crossing a river. Burkert, 76–77. 43. Hesiod, Works and Days, 238f. 44. Ibid., 248f. 45. Ibid., 256f. 46. Epimenides of Crete ritually purified Athens after the Cylonian pollution. Burkert, 77.

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as a divine price extracted for the king’s unjust behavior, and ritual cleansing is then mandatory.47 The problem of “sin” required a penalty to be paid from the offender, as well as those who were peripherally involved, and cleansing action to bring back to a purified state the divine world of matter. Beliefs concerning the underworld of the three-story universe varied. In Egyptian religion, death is defined as the departure of the ka from the body. The ka is the vital force for life; it is passed down from primeval gods to younger gods, and onward from parent to child. It is said that Shu, the god of air, is the source of all kas. At death, the ka departs from the body; then, after a time of rituals, the ka reunites with the mummified body in the afterlife. The ba is the power of transformation in the afterlife, uniting with the ka to empower the person to be able to move about freely, while the akh is the spirit, transfigured and shining.48 Salvation in the afterlife was at first reserved for the pharaohs who were provided for by the living with elaborate material dwellings to make life after death comfortable. Eventually, the nobles were believed to live on in the underworld after death, and finally, the average person as well; however, salvation is dependent upon ethics. The Book of Going Forth by Day includes the negative confession, listing wrongs that one must not commit in order to experience a joyful afterlife. Such offenses include murder, theft, child abuse, quarreling, trespassing, gossiping, and kicking a cat! Cats, of course, are considered divine.49 There is also a positive confession, wherein one must confess that she or he brought forth goodness into the lives of those in need, such as orphans and widows. The heart is also weighed and if not weighed down by sin, and light as a feather, the individual could achieve a happy existence in a sun-filled, bright afterlife. If the tests could not be passed, then one is simply obliterated, with no afterlife existence whatsoever. In Egypt, the belief was that the sun went below the earth daily, while its brightness illuminated the realm of souls in the underworld at night. 47. Homer, Iliad, 1.313. 48. Stevan Davies, “Soul: Ancient Near Eastern Concepts,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion. 49. There were at least nine different cat-centered religions in Egypt.

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In contrast to the Egyptian underworld, in the Semetic and Greek cultures, the underworld is portrayed essentially as dark and dreary. In Genesis, the Divine breaths breath into the body to give life (Gen 2:7); when the breath leaves the body, the person is no longer considered among the living. In a rare biblical story of the Hebrew Sheol, Samuel is depicted as sleeping in the underworld. When he is awoken, he is recognized as an old man wearing a cloak and cognizant enough to converse with the medium at Endor and King Saul, even to reveal the future (1 Sam 28:15). His soul or mind is still present with the body, though sleeping. The idea of resurrection from the dead is in the little apocalypse of Isaiah 24–27 and the book of Daniel.50 Isaiah 26, which dates to the sixth century BCE, figuratively envisions the rise of rephidim, shades from the netherworld, as the narrator looks forward to Yahweh triumphing over them and other mythological forces of destruction.51 Daniel 12 envisions the dust of the earth giving up its dead, who are pictured, like Samuel, asleep and will wake to judgment and everlasting life. While Daniel 12 is a much later text, and considered to be from the second century BCE, it repeats the concept of the dead as asleep in the ground. A dark, dusty, food-deprived place of no escape is how the Akkadians of Mesopotamia described the underworld.52 For the Greeks, shades of the deceased could live on in a weak state in the afterlife in Hades, described likewise as dark and dreary. A ghost of the person survived death, semi-conscious in the underworld, and while it has the power to continue on, it is not enough power to dwell above in the light. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’s visit to the underworld reveals the dead as ghostly images languishing in a bleak existence, longing for food and drink.53 While the general idea of the underworld for the Greeks was dismal, an important development in the concept of the afterlife for the 50. Jack Bemporad, “Soul: Jewish Concept,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion. 51. The rephidim are “shades from the underworld who threaten the living in Ugaritic mythology.” The other mythological forces in chs. 24–27 are Chaos, Mot, and Leviathan. Marvin Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39, Forms of the Old Testament Literature, vol. 16 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 322, 341. 52. “Epic of Gilgamesh,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 87. 53. Homer, The Odyssey, 11.

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eternal soul is provided in the poetry of Orpheus, which is dated to the mid-sixth century BCE.54 It is important to note that such ideas begin to appear with the new shift in cosmological models brought about in the Axis Age. There is evidence that Orphic books existed in the sixth century and orphikoi (followers of the religion of Orpheus) in the fifth century BCE.55 In the Orphic myth of Zagreus, Zeus slays the Titans with his thunderbolt for consuming the infant god Dionysus, and out of the ashes, makes humankind. In Greek fashion, human beings are not made of clay and a divine element such as breath or saliva, but two divine elements—a Titanic body and a Dionysian soul—rendering the human being ontologically a composite of body and soul. In Orphic poetry, the soul, like the gods, is considered eternal, and transmigrates through multiple lifetimes. Pindar expounds on Orphic body/soul dualism in a fifth-century BCE work, his second Olympian Ode. In the afterlife, the deceased faces judgment, with the goddess Persephone as judge. There are three possibilities based upon one’s deeds in life: for the pious, a shining underworld awaited free of cares (the first possibility), while for evildoers, there is a dark path which leads to suffering in the underworld (the second possibility). One’s fate is determined by previous deeds, such as in Egypt. For those who have lived three lives in succession piously, the Island of the Blessed awaits (the third possibility). In Greek Orphism and for Egyptians, a good afterlife is associated with ethics and justice.56 Likewise, salvation, in the sense of a bright, happy afterlife in opposition to darkness and a weak ghostly existence, was offered in the Greco-Roman Mystery Religions. Some of the Mystery Religions included those of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis, the Andian Mysteries of Messenia, the Greek Mysteries of Dionysus, the Anatolian Mysteries of the Great Mother, the Egyptian Mystery Religion of Isis and Osiris, and later, the Roman Mysteries of Mithras.57 The elements of Mystery

54. Burkert, Greek Religion, 296f. 55. Kirk and Raven, 37–39. 56. Burkert, 299. 57. The mystery religion of Mithraism reflects the new scientific cosmology of the planets and heavenly bodies occupying spheres around the earth identified with each increasing stage of

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Religions included salvation and blessings in this life and the next, a new birth experience, rituals including baptism, community meal, prayer, and fasting, with miracles experienced. In the mystery religion of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis, which was one of the oldest mystery religions, adherents participated in a series of initiations—in essence, to assimilate to the journey of the suffering of the Goddess.58 They literally walked the walk of the goddess Demeter, emulating her time of anguish as she searched for her lost daughter, Kore. Purity rituals, prayer, and fasting were undertaken as well. Once assimilated, they were said to “behold the light of the goddess,”59 and in the afterlife, promised a blessed existence below, not in darkness, but rather, with Her shining light.60 Connection with the deity involved imitation of Her trials, at least in ritual action, and the purity rituals of fasting and bathing, which rendered perception of the Goddess possible. Another theme in the relationship between gods and humans, besides deities providing sustenance and gifts, is that of teacher to student. In Babylon, Emperor Hammurabi credits the god Shamash with providing a legal code for the rights of the people. In Israel, Moses receives the Ten Commandments from Yahweh on Mt. Sinai. In Greece, while many point out Zeus’s license to take privileges (and perhaps Gen 6:1–4 is a commentary on this) for the Greeks, he represented the advocacy of justice. In stories of gods and heroes, the gods commission a hero to an unjust situation and employ the hero to bring justice, setting things right.61 The stories of heroes bravely fighting against injustice serve as role models for behavior.62 Such heroes demonstrated the heroic code: the values of honor, courage, wisdom, hospitality to strangers, and reverence to the gods. In the model of the heroes and the initiation steps in the Mystery Religions, one models not only the development for adherents. Marvin Meyer, ed. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987). 58. Burkert, 285. 59. Plutarch, Virtues, 10. 60. According to Jan Bremmer, “there is no mention of the soul in the mystery religions; the initiates apparently expected to arrive in the underworld in person.” “Soul: Greek and Hellenistic Concepts,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 437. 61. Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs, 31–60. 62. Ibid.

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heroes’ behavior, but godly behavior as well. One learns, grows, and transforms his or her character under the tutelage of gods and heroes. This was yet another connection between the Divine and the world in the three-story universe; the gods promoted our advancement in ethics. In summary, the early cosmologies describe a progression from unstructured to structured existence, while the Greeks spoke of the sophisticated concepts of Chaos and Time as primeval. Nature is described as generated from Divine substance, while lightweight elements give rise to heavier, more structured elements. Deities are of a lighter substance than mortals, while humans are considered the offspring of the gods in early Egypt and Greece. The earth is the home of the gods, while all of nature is divine, from waterways to mountaintops and the forests between, as well as the stars, sun and moon. The environment itself enfolds the earth’s inhabitants in powers and essences of living divinity. The growing crops in the field, the rains of the storm, the light and heat of the sun, the winds bearing pollen, all declared the presence of deities in their midst. The senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch only confirmed this presence. Enhancement of the connection could be achieved through priestly specialists, and through the rendering of aid and wisdom directly from divinities in time of need. Light, power, advanced knowledge, and justice were some of the physical and spiritual qualities of the divine cited. The relationship and connection could however be severed through physical, moral, and ethical pollutions. In a divine cosmology, injustice must be righted, just as a bleeding wound requires washing, bandaging, and healing. Death, in general, was not a happy or bright prospect, but exceptions existed through the heroic code, the Mystery Religions, and elevated ethical standards that assured the individual of light and divine presence in the afterlife. In a three-story universe, we are children of the gods, living in their divine abode, learning justice and being led toward the light, both literally and figuratively.

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Interconnection in Greek Philosophical Cosmologies The rise of Greek natural philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics in the sixth century BCE would greatly impact theological perspectives, significantly altering the cosmological model of the three-story universe. What emerges over time is a shift away from anthropomorphic considerations to the divine as the intelligent, energetic principle and source of the cosmos, with the cosmos increasingly pictured in geocentric terms. In particular, the arche, the beginning, would be a primary topic of analysis.63 The nature of creation itself, what constitutes soul and matter, and how the divine and world interact would be greatly impacted by the new scientific cosmologies. In this section, the pre-Socratic philosophers from Thales to Democritus will be reviewed, offering a brief description of their cosmogonies and cosmologies and outlining conceptions of the connection of the divine to the world. These “natural philosophers,” as so often referred to in contemporary literature, are literally the first “physicists”—the word physics itself stemming from the Greek word for nature.64 Cosmological models of the pre-Socratics would be modified by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, who then would influence the rise of Middle Platonism, Jewish philosophy, Gnosticism, and Christianity. One of the earliest civilizations in Western culture, exiting since the third millennium BCE, was that of the Mesopotamians, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Babylonians, in particular, excelled at astronomy, writing extensive encyclopedias that included the patterns of the movement of the planets, sun, and moon.65 Their record-keeping covered centuries of observation through stable priesthoods and guilds of father to son.66 They produced the first almanacs, predicting the time for sunrise, sunsets, solstices, equinoxes,

63. Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 1.3.1. 64. Aristotle himself refers to the natural philosophers as physicists in his work entitled The Physics, while Aristotle’s student, Theophrastus wrote sixteen books on the Opinions of the Physicists, the early natural philosophers. Aristotle, The Physics, 1.2.17; Kirk and Raven, 3. 65. David Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology Cuneiform Monographs (Groningen, The Netherlands: Styx, 2000), 107. 66. Ibid., 102. Brown’s point is that the astronomer-astrologers were scholars and not magicians.

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eclipses, high tides, the first frost of the season, and droughts. Such records revealed a divine world of order. David Brown regards the spread of Babylonian astronomy to neighboring cultures between 750 BCE and 612 BCE as “a paradigm shift” for a new “science.”67 To better chart the movement of the planets through the sky, the Greeks created the “zodiac” classifying the stars into constellations.68 In Judea, it was reported by the first-century historian, Josephus, that the zodiac was inlaid on the floor of the Jewish temple. In the bible, Genesis 1.14 states that the lights in the sky were for signs; in Matt 2.1–2, Persian astronomer-astrologers were said to have come to Judea to visit the future king, based on a sign in the sky, and in the gospel of Luke 21.25, Jesus states that the signs in the heavens would signal the coming of the Son of Man. The new science indeed made its way throughout the Mediterranean. The Pre-Socratics With Thales of Miletus (b. 620 BCE), there is the beginning of Greek natural philosophy.69 Thales constructs a cosmological model, according to which, water was the primary source of all, the arche.70 Plutarch and Simplicius conjectured that Thales’ choice of water stems from the earlier mytholicial cosmologies, such as that of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Babylonians, in which water has a generative function.71 Thales is reported to have investigated the substance of matter, and possibly based on his research on magnets and amber, concludes that there is a “motive force” permeating and enlivening the entire cosmos, and this force, he calls soul.72 Anaximander (610–546 BCE) was a younger contemporary of Thales in Miletus. In his cosmogony, he proposes that the origin of all things is not water, as described by Thales, for it is too heavy, but instead, 67. Ibid., 126. 68. Ibid., 153. 69. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.3.1; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.1. 70. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.3. 71. Kirk and Raven, 89. 72. Aristotle, De Anima, 1.2; Kirk and Raven, 96.

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envisions the Source of all matter as the apeiron—that is, the Indefinite.73 The world and the things of the world arise from one divine Source, which surrounds it, steers it, and all things will return to their divine eternal source.74 The apeiron comprises an undefined, lighter-than-air divine substance in eternal motion, sounding similar to Hesiod’s concept of the divine primordial goddess Chaos. As the elements emerge from the apeiron, they mix with other forms of matter which have separated off, becoming the heavier elements. The earth eventually forms and is first fluid with creatures, and then, as it starts to dry, land creatures emerge. Based on astronomical data, he constructs a geocentric cosmological model with the earth at the center, surrounded by the circling sun, moon, and planets each attached to rings of fire and air, like chariot wheels at inclined planes.75 Anaximander’s cosmological view would be foundational for the Western concept of the geocentric universe, which would not be overturned until the sixteenth century CE, when Copernicus put forth his solar-centered model.76 For Anaximander’s student Anaximenes (d. 528), also from Miletus, “air” is considered the Source of all things, but this air is also of a divine nature, according to Aetius.77 The things of the world become forms through a process of rarefication and condensation.78 Even the gods arise from the infinite air.79 The divine nature as air is within humanity, and within all of nature as its ontological essence. For the physicist Anaximenes as well, matter is fundamentally divine in nature and generated from one Divine Source.80 Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570–ca. 475 BCE) promoted the idea 73. Preserved by Simplicius, Hippolytus, and Pseudo-Plutarch, cited in Kirk and Raven, 104–5. 74. Aristotle, The Physics, 3.4.10–15; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.5. 75. Kirk and Raven, 134. 76. Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, 13th ed. International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 29. Anaximander also speculates that there could be other worlds. In Simplicius’ quotation from Anaximander, he states that from the apeiron nature “come into being all the heavens and the worlds in them.” Simplicius, Physics, 24.13, cited in Kirk and Raven 121–22. 77. Aetius 1.7.13; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.6, cited in Kirk and Raven, 144. 78. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.6; Simplicius, Physics, 24.26, cited in Kirk and Raven, 144. 79. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.5. 80. Kirk and Raven, 150.

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that anthropomorphic imagery for the divine should be abandoned. Reasoning that people of other races and lands envision the gods looking like themselves, he poetically states that “if horses could paint they would paint the gods like horses.”81 Mortals have made the gods into their own image, he said, and such images are subjective. There is “one god, greatest among gods and men, in no way similar to mortals either in body or in thought.”82 The One (the Monad) does not “flitter about” among mortals, for this, according to Xenophanes, would be unfitting. Instead, he envisions the One as not moving at all, but rather, as the Source of motion in the world, which is brought about through the divine Mind.83 The Divine is the source of intelligent, orderly motion and all that is. For Heraclitus of Ephesus (b. 535), the Arche, the one fundamental beginning and Source of the many, is described as fiery Reason, which he calls the Logos.84 The Divine flows outward and becomes the world, giving shape to matter as it forms.85 Fire has power and motive force and is associated with light, while Reason accounts for the formation of things. There is a world of change, but it is not chaotic; there is a deeper continuity of oneness that shapes and harmonizes and unifies the world. The Divine Reason is just as much in day, as it is in night, it is in summer and winter, in peace and war, and it informs the laws of government.86 Heraclitus defines the soul as comprising the same element as the stars, the lightest of all material substances, a vaporous fiery matter. Matter is defined as Logos and soul. According to Heraclitus, we become wise by drawing into the Divine Logos throughout creation through perception (seeing the forms in nature), 81. Ibid., 168–69. 82. Fragment 23, Clement, Stromata, 5.109.1, cited in Kirk and Raven, 169. 83. “Always he remains in the same place, moving not at all; nor is it fitting for him to go to different places at different times, but without toil, he shapes all things by the thought of his mind.” Fragment 25 and 26; Simplicius, Physics, 23.11; 23.20 cited in Kirk and Raven, 169. Regarding location of the One, Xenophanes did not elaborate as to whether the One was within or outside of the world. According to Kirk and Raven, Aristotle’s view is misleading, for “if Xenophnes had even implied that the god lay outside the world, then Aristotle or his elaborators could have seized upon this as an anticipation of the Prime Mover.” Kirk and Raven, 172. 84. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.4. 85. Plato, Cratylus, 402a; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 9.4.5; Fragment 30 and 67; Clement, Strom, 5.104.1 cited in Kirk and Raven, 197–99. 86. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 9.4.5.

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through breathing, and through dreaming.87 Following Heraclitus, Critias states that perception is the most characteristic attribute of soul.88 Empedocles of Acragas (492–432 BCE), a contemporary of Anaxagoras, follows the geocentric model and the concept of his predecessors that the many come from the One; he regards the whole world as One, with four eternal divine elements—water, air, fire, and earth, combining and re-combining to form the things of matter.89 Motion is imparted through the first principles of Love and Strife.90 In Empedocles’ cosmology, all of nature is a compound of “divine things mingled” together.91 As Empedocles continues, the changes within the world system are cyclical in nature and produce a buildup of forms, described as evolutionary and mythical in character—ill-shaped forms are re-mixed to produce the viable forms of nature. Organisms arise out of the compounds, producing human beings with souls. The cosmic cycle of changes covers 30,000 years, with one stage being pure Love and the polar opposite stage regarded as Strife. The world fluctuates from a state of Love and harmony to a state of separation and strife, and back again. The individual soul also undergoes a cyclical existence in love and harmony. A fall is described as the rise of bloodshed in general, and the soul progresses through a journey of transmigration.92 The soul “learns to love” as it traverses through the stages.93 Learning, in general, occurs through sense perception. In his theory of sense perception, all things give off effluences which are taken into the sense organs. The sensory information leads to perception,94 while wisdom leads to the souls return to the eternal. In the cosmology of Anaxagoras of Clasomenae (ca. 500 to 428 BCE), in the beginning, all things are eternal and together in a swirling 87. The Logos could be taken in through perception, breathing, or dreaming. Kirk and Raven, 207. 88. Aristotle, On the Soul, 1.2. 89. Kirk and Raven, 324. 90. Simplicius, Physics, 25.21; 159.21 cited in Kirk and Raven, 329, 350–51. 91. Simplicius, On the Heavens, 587.20, cited in Kirk and Raven, 337. 92. Kirk and Raven, 350–51. 93. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 7.29, cited in Kirk and Raven, 351–52. 94. Theophrastus, On Sensation, 7; 9 cited in Kirk and Raven, 343.

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vortex; then, due to the motion, separate off in a series of opposites to form objects.95 From the primordial substance emerges wet and dry, hot and cold, bright and dark, earth and “an unlimited number of seeds.”96 The opposites are together in the beginning in a mixture in which nothing is identifiable and “all things are in everything.”97 Motion causes the elements to separate off, with the lightest of the elements forming first, and eventually combining into heavier elements, and the earth is formed.98 As Anaxagoras describes, the Initiator and Guide of the whole process is Nous, Mind, as cause of movement and cause of formation.99 The whole rotation of the world of planetary bodies, sun, and moon is set in order by Mind.100 Mind is described as “the finest of all substances and purest of all things,” “a corporeal entity” who “knew them all: the things that were being mixed.”101 According to Hippolytus, for Anaxagoras Mind and matter are together the originating principles;102 Mind is the efficient cause; matter that which was being formed.103 Mind is everywhere guiding and “everywhere present.”104 A portion of Mind is in the particular formations of matter, to varying degrees. But Mind, which ever is, is assuredly even now where everything else is too, in the surrounding mass and in the things that have been either aggregated or separated.105

In Anaxagoras’ theory of sense perception, “every sensory act is accompanied by some sort of irritation” such as loud noises hurt the ears, bright light irritates the eyes, and so on.106 Sense organs, he said, meet in the brain.107 Nourishment is obtained for body and mind in the 95. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.3 cited in Kirk and Raven, 373–76. 96. Kirk and Raven, 372–77. 97. Simplicius, Physics, 164.26, cited in Kirk and Raven, 375. 98. Kirk and Raven, 375. 99. Ibid., 373. 100. Simplicius, Physics, 164.24; 156.13, cited in Kirk and Raven, 372. 101. Kirk and Raven, 374. 102. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.7. 103. Ibid. 104. Kirk and Raven, 373-74. 105. Ibid., 374. 106. Theophrastus, On Sensation, 27ff, cited in Kirk and Raven, 394. 107. Zeller, Outlines, 63.

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things we take in, “everything derives its growth from these things.”108 Anaxagoras’ system would be modified by his student Archelaus of Athens. Archelaus describes matter as a mixture with Mind, and that “Mind is inborn in all animals alike; for each of the animals, as well as human beings, make use of Mind, though some more rapidly than others.”109 Archelaus would become the teacher of Socrates. A very different approach to how the world is generated through one Divine Source is provided by the Greek mathematician Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE. The Source of all is the Monad, the One, a unity and Deity.110 The fiery center of the Monad (One)111 draws in the Dyad (Two), the Undefined. From the connection of the Monad with the Dyad comes forth numbers; from numbers, points; from points, lines; from lines, plane figures; from plane figures, solid figures; from solid figures, sensible bodies.112 Sensible bodies are composed of fire, water, earth, and air from the original numerical foundation. These elements interchange and turn into one another. They combine to produce a cosmos, which is animate, intelligent, and spherical, with the word cosmos itself meaning “order,” and Pythagoras the first to use the term in this way.113 According to Aristotle, Pythagoras was different from other philosophers of the time who were saying that the earth was at the center of the cosmos.114 For the Pythagoreans, what is at the center of the Universe is a Divine Fire.115 The sun, moon, and planets, including the earth revolve around the divine center of the universe in concentric circles. Pythagoras was probably the first to adduce that the earth is a sphere, rather than a disc, with a numeric periodic revolution around a fixed point.116 Not only was matter mathematical in essence,

108. Kirk and Raven, 385. 109. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2.6; Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1. 9. 1, cited in Kirk and Raven, 395–97. 110. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.2. 111. Simplicius, On the Heavens, 511.26, cited in Kirk and Raven, 259. 112. “Unit-points are the basis of physical matter; they were regarded as a primitive form of the atom.” Kirk and Raven, 247, 252–53. 113. Kirk and Raven, 229. 114. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.13. 115. Ibid.

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but music was mathematical as well. Pythagoras discovered that the “pitch of musical tones depends upon the length of the strings of musical instruments,” and more specifically, that the primary musical intervals are simple numerical ratios of the first four integers.117 His discovery had a profound effect upon the development of music, as well as on his theory of matter and cosmology.118 It is this discovery from music that led Pythagoras to the idea that the planets travel around a center in intervals. Relating this to the orbits of the planets, he reasoned that because bodies in motion make noise, the planets, being in motion and moving along intervals, would also make a harmonious sound, “the harmony of the spheres.”119 Along with the mathematical essence of the cosmos, there is harmony ingrained as well in its form and substance. The soul, defined as mathematical, was said to be comprised of mobile minute atom-like units, “resembling the motes of the air.”120 Ontologically connected with the Monad, the soul is considered eternal and continues on after death, transmigrating into other forms.121 Based on his belief in reincarnation, Pythagoras was known for his strong ethics: he included women in his philosophical society, promoted humane treatment of slaves, and was a vegetarian.122 A purified soul would end the cycle of reincarnation and allow one to achieve a greater connection to the Divine. In order to purify the soul, he proscribed studying mathematics and the numerical relationships and harmonies within the natural order. Music, with its mathematical essence, is understood to be cathartic in nature, able to purify and strengthen the soul.123 Leucippus of Miletus (fifth century BCE) carries forward the

116. According to Theophrastus, the Pythagorean Parmenides was the first to speak of the spherical earth, and the concept is traditionally accredited to his teacher Pythagoras. Zeller, Outlines, 36. 117. Zeller, Outlines, 35. An octave is 2:1, a fifth is 3:2, a fourth is 4:3, with the first four integers adding up to 10, mystically considered the perfect number by Pythagoras. Kirk and Raven, 229–30. 118. Kirk and Raven, 259. 119. Ibid., 230, 259. 120. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.5.2. 121. Attested in Diogenes Laertius and Herodotus as cited in Kirk and Raven, 222–23; Plato Laws 6.782c. 122. Kirk and Raven, 221–23. 123. Kirk and Raven, 229.

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Pythagorean concept of points, or minute particles, as foundational for the soul and matter. Atoms, meaning in Greek literally “not cut,” are described as the smallest elements conceivable, minute, invisible, indivisible particles moving in space.124 He conceived of the arche in terms of a theory of atoms and the void.125 The void was the space between atoms, allowing the particles room to move about. The movements of these invisible floating atoms, and their shape, order, and position, cause them to combine while falling down from above, giving rise to the things of the material world. According to Hippolytus, Leucippus’ view of change and generation are eternal.126 If the movement of the falling atoms forms a vortex, it brings into being a universe. Though he was called a materialist, his view is not the materialism that arises centuries later, for he can see meaning and purpose to the movement, saying “naught happens for nothing, but all things from reason (logos) and necessity.”127 For Leucippus’ student Democritus (460–370 BCE), the soul is said to be composed of spherical atoms of fire.128 According to Aristotle, Democritus proposed atoms of fire for the soul because fire is “the subtlest of material, the closest to in-corporeality.”129 The soul is composed of “finely particled matter,” fiery in essence.130 In his theory of perception, sensory objects emanate fine atoms, the same atoms which comprise the soul.131 These emanations then convey the image of the object, which is taken in by the sense organs.132 The mind receives a copy of the image. From sensation, aesthesis, comes thoughts, noesis.133 This is how matter interacts with soul. According to Democritus, a truer perception however, comes from inquiry through logos, reason, that is, pure thought. He said that the gods also are

124. Philip Wheelwright, The Pre-Socratics (New York: Odyssey, 1966). 125. For Kirk and Raven, the void is the gap between atoms. Kirk and Raven, 408. 126. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 2.10. 127. Kirk and Raven, 401–16. 128. Ibid. 129. Aristotle, On the Soul, 1.2. 130. Aristotle, On the Soul, 1.2. 131. Kirk and Raven, 401–16. 132. Ibid. 133. Ibid.

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composed of fine atoms, finely particled matter. Because of Democritus’ belief that the soul was maintained through inhalation of air, he did not however believe that the soul survives death. In the cosmologies developed from sixth-century BCE Greece, the world of matter, gods, and humans is described as being generated by one Divine Source, while models of the universe are increasingly constructed in geocentric terms. For the majority of the early physicists, there is no gap envisioned between the Divine and the world; the world is divine, an extension of the Divine Source, while senses inform the mind and soul, literally taking in divine matter. Matter itself is generative of further matter, divine and energetic in essence. Matter contains soul and intelligence, with the soul described as the lightest of all substances. The Greek term Logos is employed by Heraclitus to indicate the rational principle within. The divine soul is capable of reincarnation and a happy afterlife, as expressed by Orpheus, Pindar, Pythagoras, Empedocles, the Mystery Religions, and the Heroic Code. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics Plato (428–348 BCE), a student of Socrates (470–399 BCE), instituted the Academy outside of Athens in 387 BCE. The grounds included a gymnasium, a garden, and an olive grove, and originally belonged to a man named Academus, which is where the name “Academy” was derived, according to tradition. The school existed for nine hundred years, finally closing in the sixth century CE. As teacher, writer, mathematician, and philosopher, Plato develops further the ideas of the originating chaos, divine matter, the mathematical essence of nature from Pythagoras, the intelligent Logos from Heraclitus, and the idea of the eternal soul capable of reincarnation from Orpheus, Pindar, Empedocles, and Pythagoras. While, for the pre-Socratics, there was generally one originative source of the cosmos, for Plato, there are three originating principles. According to Hippolytus, the three are “god (that is, the demiurge), matter, and the eternal realm of Ideas as originative of all that is.”134 In Plato’s cosmology, he describes a 26

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dualism of a transcendent immaterial realm and the world of corporeal matter.135 A clear trajectory of concepts builds upon the cosmologies of Hesiod and the previous philosophers in his work. That there is an anthropomorphic creator god, the demiurge, stems from the anthropomorphic deities of the three-story universe. The earth is considered semi-divine in Plato’s cosmology, an idea found repeatedly in the writings of Hesiod and the works of the pre-Socratics. The concept of a divine intelligence providing form, such as in the cosmologies of Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras, becomes, in Plato’s cosmology, the immaterial ideal realm and the active intelligence of the anthropomorphic deities who form the earth and humans. For Plato, there exists the eternal realm of ideas, immaterial and unchanging, which bring form to matter. In Plato’s Timaeus, the character Timaeus, who is an astronomer, relates his opinion of the origin of the Cosmos.136 The creator god, like an artisan, creates the earth based on a model of the world in the immaterial eternal realm of Forms/Ideas.137 In the later work, The Republic, Plato describes the transcendental realm beyond space and time as permanent and unchanging, and the material world of change and sense perception.138 This concept will be crucial to the development in later writers of the vision of a blessed afterlife for the transcendent soul. In the transcendental realm of ideal forms, the highest form is “the Good” which provides the order we see around us. The material objects of the world are regarded as copies of the Forms in the Eternal realm. The model of the earth used by the demiurge is a living creature, zoeon, with the earth having reason in soul and soul in body.139 In the god’s construction of the earth, a receptacle is used. This receptacle is likened to a mother, a clear movement based on the 134. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.3. 135. Plato, Timaeus, 34b, 35a. 136. Plato, Timaeus, 27a, 90b. 137. In 29a, demiurge, in 29e, o theos, meaning god, the demiurge; Plato, Timaeus, 28a. Plato’s idea of the invisible Ideal Realm may be derived from Pythagoras’ Counter-Earth concept. 138. Plato, The Republic, 6. 139. Plato, Timaeus, 29e.

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goddesses of the Homeric world.140 In “the Receptacle of all Becoming,” matter is pictured as in a state of circling flux.141 At its most basic, matter consists of aggregates of earth, air, water, and fire, with fire regarded as the most elementary.142 Inside the receptacle, aggregates coalesce to form compounds being compressed through the circular motion within.143 Three-dimensional depth and width are achieved by what is regarded as the most basic mathematical form, the triangle, a movement based upon Pythagoras’ foundational ideas.144 Fire itself is composed of triangles, which combine together to form fire’s fundamental shape, the pyramid.145 Visible elements of the natural world emerge due to being impressed upon with an eternal Form. Matter is also composed of soul. In Plato’s Philebus, Socrates asks rhetorically, “Where can a human body have received its soul if the body of the universe did not possess a soul?”146 This view of the World Soul is then made more specific in Timaeus and The Laws Book 10. In The Laws, the soul is defined as that which is self-moving, a divine power, a goddess. She (the soul) is prior to the basic elements of fire, air, water, and earth. She inhabits, orders, and guides all things that have movement, all things in heaven and earth. In Timaeus, the soul is said to comprise mathematical and harmonious patterns (Immaterial Ideas) always in motion and corresponding to the notes of musical scales.147 Things akin to the soul and prior to the elements are Ideas in the Eternal realm, such as Thought, Attention, Mind, Art, Law, and the Good. When one participates in the eternal ideas, whether through the sense perception of the Forms in nature or directly through the mind, the soul “guides all to happiness, to a closer connection with the eternal realm.”148 The calculations of the mind and the movement of the heavenly bodies are of the same nature, according to the Laws, Book 140. Ibid., 56c. 141. Ibid., 30a, 51a. 142. Ibid., 56c. 143. Ibid., 57c. 144. Ibid., 55. 145. Ibid., 57b. 146. Ibid., 30a. 147. Ibid., 36c. 148. Though the soul can also be led astray when aligned with bad influences.

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10, and because the world and all in it possesses a soul, the connection to the eternal is through contemplation of the mathematical and harmonious patterns in nature. The earth itself is considered a god, as are the other planets and stars.149 As gods, they generate children who are divine as well, such as Oceanus and Cronos, following Hesiod’s conception.150 These primordial gods, in turn, generate the familiar anthropomorphic gods and goddesses such as Zeus and Hera, with the generations continuing forward. Humans are constructed by these gods,151 and are composed of three primary parts—intelligence, soul, and body, a tripartite anthropology. While the gods construct the human body, the demiurge is credited with creating the materials used to make the human body.152 Bone marrow is considered the universal seed material for every mortal body and is composed of earth, air, water, and fire.153 The marrow is mixed with soul to give it animation by the god. There are three levels of soul throughout the human body: nous, thumos, epithumia, or mind, emotion, and desire.154 Divine seed, to theion sperma, is put into the brain of each living creature.155 While the part of the body in general that is exercised more becomes stronger, the bodily parts used for sense perception are considered to have more soul.156 To increase the immortal part, one is encouraged to educate oneself in the intellectual patterns found in nature.157 It is also said that in so doing, one’s assigned guardian spirit also increases.158 Having devoted time to learning about the patterns and harmonies of the Universe, one is then more inclined to think thoughts that are immortal or divine.159 While the human being is composed of body, soul, and mind, the connection between the Ideal and material realms 149. Plato, Timaeus, 40bc. 150. Ibid., 41a. 151. Ibid., 42e. 152. Ibid., 73b. 153. Ibid., 73c. 154. Ibid. 155. Ibid., 73d. 156. Ibid., 75a, 89e–90a. 157. Ibid., 90d. 158. Ibid., 90d. 159. Ibid., 90c.

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is greatly increased and divine thoughts are more apt to be experienced, as one devotes more learning to the Eternal Forms which are visible in the created realm. A return to the immortal divine stars is possible if one has exercised and increased the divine seed within. A further connection between the divine realm and that of humanity may be achieved through divine inspiration conveyed through a spirit or Muse. Socrates often spoke of a warning voice or sign protecting him.160 Diviners refined methods to enhance their receptive state to divine inspiration, while poets and musicians sought the aid of the Muses to enhance their art.161 In Ion, it is said that the Muses inspire the poets directly, who in turn, inspire the rhapsodists and dancers, who in turn, inspire the spectators. Divine inspiration is envisioned metaphorically as a chain, with the power of a magnet linking the rings together.162 Inspiration directly connects the artist to the Divine realm of Ideas and the spectators are said to be connected to the divine through art. It is related in Plato’s Timaeus that sense perception provides a means to identify the intelligence and harmonious patterns in the cosmos; though sense perception may not always be accurate, studying mathematics as an ideal form enhances a clearer perception of the unchangeable Realm of Ideas. One is advised to exercise both body and soul, as both are considered a generative product of the cosmos.163 Exercise of mind (through mathematics and philosophy) and body should also be balanced with the cultivation of music, which reflects the harmonies of the universe.164 One is to “imitate” the natural rhythms and vibrations of the Universe in order to maintain health and salvation of the eternal soul.165 Plato describes a very holistic cosmology. The world is a vibrant, living soul-filled model based on an eternal idea, and we, as its generative products, are again a copy of this model. To connect to the divine realm of ideal forms, one is 160. Plato, Phaedrus, 242b; Apology, 31c–d, 41d; Euthyphro 3b. 161. Plato, Apology, 22b–c; Lachus, 198e–199a; Ion, 533d–536a, 538d; Meno, 99c. 162. Plato, Ion, 533d–536a; 538d–e. 163. Plato, Timaeus, 88c. 164. Ibid. 165. Ibid., 88Bd.

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to draw into, contemplate, and imitate the eternal model provided by the harmonies and mathematical revolutions of Nature. Divinely inspired art also serves as connection to the eternal realm. In chapter 6 below, neurological research on how sense perception enhances the brain and mind, and how transcendence and enlightenment occur will be discussed, with Plato’s conceptions finding strong resonance and compatibility. Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 BCE) would take a profoundly different trajectory from that of his teacher, leaving behind the soulfilled animated cosmos, and replacing it with a mechanistic model. Borrowing from earlier geocentric models, Aristotle put forth a geocentric cosmology with concentric interlocking solid crystalline spheres.166 The outermost sphere is that of the fixed stars with the inner spheres of the planets, sun, and moon circling around a spherical earth.167 The planets, sun, and moon do not move on their own, according to Aristotle, in stark contrast to the soul imbued cosmos of Plato. They are attached to the spheres.168 The spheres move at different speeds and directions creating variations below. At the sublunar level are the spheres of the four elements: fire, air, water, and finally, the spherical earth.169 In On the Heavens, the outermost Heaven, the realm of the fixed stars, is described as eternal, divine, not subject to change and un-generated.170 From heaven, all being and life is said to be derived.171 In The Physics, Aristotle discusses the concept of the divine Unmoved

166. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.4; Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 12.10. 167. In On the Heavens, there are three spheres above those of the spheres of the four elements. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.3. In The Metaphysics, Aristotle envisions fifty-five concentric spheres, some rotating in the opposite direction. Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 12.8. 168. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.8. 169. Aristotle, The Physics, 12.4,14; Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.4. 170. Heaven is used in three senses: “(a) In one sense, then we call ‘heaven’ the substance of the extreme circumference of the whole, or that natural body whose place is at the extreme circumference. We recognize habitually a special right to the name ‘heaven’ in the extremity or upper region which we take to be the seat of all that is divine. (b) In another sense, we use this name for the body continuous with the extreme circumference which contains the moon, the sun, and some of the stars; these we say are ‘in the heaven.’ (c) In yet another sense we give the name to all bodies included within the extreme circumference, since we habitually call the whole or totality ‘the heaven’.” Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.3. 171. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.9.

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Mover, the original cause of motion in the world. The Unmoved Mover is outside of the universe, beyond the sphere of the fixed stars.172 Taking Xenophanes to the extreme, Aristotle said that the only movement proper for the Divine is self-contemplation; other than that, there is no motion for the divine. Neither does the Unmoved Mover have contact with the rest of the cosmos. The next celestial sphere down from the Unmoved Mover begins the movement witnessed in the cosmos due to its contemplation of the beauty of the divine. This contemplation starts its movement, which is described as circular, with circular motion considered to be the perfect motion by Greek philosophers. This movement of the outermost sphere mechanically triggers the movement of the spheres below, one by one, each again moving in perfect circular paths. The celestial bodies of the heavens, the planets, stars, sun, and moon, are said to be composed of a fifth element—the lighted fiery aither—and are considered divine and intelligent, though with no movement of their own.173 With Aristotle’s cosmology, and particularly, his invention of the concept of the Unmoved Mover, there is again a critical development in the divide envisioned between the Divine and the world, a gap that still can be seen in religious cosmological models today. In his cosmology, matter is regarded as a combination of the four elements, earth, water, air and fire, plus the interaction of the primary opposites hot, cold, dry, and wet.174 The many things of the material world are due to the four causes: the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient, and the teleological. The material cause concerns what something is made of. The formal cause concerns what form something acquires. The efficient cause concerns the prior conditions which bring about the object in question. And the teleological cause pertains to the directed goal of a thing, and answers why or for what purpose it is made. In The Physics, Aristotle describes the (efficient) cause of things coming into being as originally from the Unmoved Mover and 172. Aristotle, The Physics, 8.10. 173. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.6; Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 7.7. 174. They shine due to friction and speed, not due to being a fiery substance. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.3; 2.7.

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the eternal motion of the heavenly bodies. This motion of the heavenly bodies causes, in turn, the movement of the sun. The heat and movement of the sun cause the mixing of the four elements, the generation and decay of plant and animal life, the seasonal changes and meteorological effects of excessive heat, drought, cold, and rain.175 The things of matter arise due to generation, alteration, and growth. Generation is the transformation of one thing into another. “The destruction of one substance is the generation of another, and vice versa.”176 Alteration is distinguished as a new quality arising out of a substratum, while growth is considered a change of size and place.177 In his doctrine of the four prime contraries of heat and cold, and moist and dry, heat and cold are the active factors which cause generation and decay of matter.178 The sun’s heat and light is the source of change of matter on earth,179 while the sun’s movement is due to the eternal heavenly bodies. He states in Metaphysics that “the world is not such that one thing has nothing to do with another, but they are connected. For all are ordered to one end.”180 The formal cause in regard to sensible shapes is the plan of the structure.181 In Aristotle’s system, matter is described in terms of organisms with goals, the teleological cause. Even minerals are considered to grow, and grow toward a goal. Instead of forms and a world soul as in Plato’s system, Aristotle has teleological organisms, each individual member of a species striving toward a common structure for that species.182 The things of matter arise in a movement from “potentiality” to “actuality.” In De Anima, Aristotle discusses the nature of the soul. After reviewing several views on the nature of the soul from previous philosophers, he concludes that animation and sensation are 175. Aristotle, Meteorologica, 1.3. 176. William D. Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen and Compnay, 1964), 101–2. 177. Ibid. 178. Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. H. D. P. Lee, Loeb Classic Library, 397 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), introduction, xxviiiii. 179. Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 12.5.16. 180. Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 12.10. 181. Ross, 74. 182. Ibid.

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considered the characteristics of soul.183 While the soul is considered “the principle of life” for philosophers, based on his observation, he concludes that the soul “in the majority” of cases does not act without a body; therefore, soul is defined by Aristotle as en-mattered.184 His soul is not defined as eternal, a view compatible with the materialism of Democritus, though representing a clear break from the majority of previous philosophers. In Book II of De Anima, he defines the soul as a substance that has innate directed movement from potentiality to the actualized form of a living body, with living characterized as the power of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and movement.185 There is no world soul for Aristotle; whether a body has a soul corresponds to its form, how it is organized.186 Whereas Plato described three levels to the soul, Aristotle describes three degrees of soul, depending upon how a body is organized. The three categories of soul are the vegetative, sensitive, and rational.187 Each distinction represents the kind of activity possible for a body. The vegetative body/soul has the capacity for life. The sensitive soul has the capacity for both living and sensing. And the rational soul includes thinking as well. Unlike Plato’s view in which the entire universe is described as a creature with a soul, Aristotle constructs a hierarchical cosmology in which the higher levels have more soul and the lower levels have less and less soul.188 This will be an important movement which philosophers of the division model will build on. In Aristotle’s scheme, even entities with souls do not necessarily have any mental capacity. For example, in On Plants, he describes plants as having only part of a soul because while they are living, there is no movement observed in that they are attached to the earth and have no observed mental capacity.189 He associates the degree of mental 183. Aristotle, On the Soul, 1.1. 184. Ibid. 185. “The soul must be a substance in the sense of the form of a natural body, having life potentially within it.” “It is substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence.” Aristotle, On the Soul, 2.2. 186. Ibid., 2.4. 187. Aristotle, On the Soul, 2.4. 188. The divine is not composed of soul, but aither. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 1.3.22. 189. Aristotle, On Plants, 1.2.30.

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capacity with the organization of the body; the more complexly organized, the more mental capacity, while less complex bodies for Aristotle have soul, but not mind. In Book 7 of The Metaphysics, he explains that in the activity of thinking, thought is actualized, “unmixed with that which is bodily” and attains a share in the Divine whose vitality is defined by Aristotle as active thinking. For Aristotle then, it is undefiled pure thought that is the means of connection to the divine. Teleology is an element of the fabric of the cosmos, at least for organisms, there is a striving in the soul after perfect form and the divine.190 Besides the connection to the divine from pure thought, another connection to the divine is the innate drive for perfection of form witnessed in all organisms.191 In On Prophesying by Dreams, Aristotle provides an account for how dreams of a future event might be possible. Borrowing from Democritus the idea of emanations from the motion of matter, and owing to the stillness of the night, what happens above translates in a mechanical model into what will happen in the future because all levels are mechanically connected from the highest sphere downward. Such vibrations could be received by the senses due to the stillness of the night which would not necessarily be the case in the day, with interference from activities. Overall, his view is mechanical in nature—movement above in the divine realm triggers movement below, while movement below is restricted to the form of a body. The Unmoved Mover has no contact with the world of matter; the highest divine sphere, instead, responds to the divine Unmoved Mover and is moved by contemplation, in turn causing motion below, including the sun’s movement. Aristotle gives primacy of place to the power of the sun, considered to be divine, the light, or heat of which is considered the cause of life, change, generation, and decay on earth. Overall, the geocentric model Aristotle adopts would be further modified by Ptolemy, with Ptolemy’s model

190. “As far as its nature allows (regarding plants, animals, humans) they may partake in the eternal and divine,” with the soul being the final cause of its body. Aristotle, On the Soul, 2.4. 191. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 2.6; Aristotle, The Metaphysics, 12.7.

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holding sway until the heliocentric model would be put forth by Copernicus in the sixteenth century.192 A very different model of the cosmos is envisioned by the Stoics who did not subscribe to the idea of a divide between the Divine and the world. Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium (334–262 BCE) who studied in Athens and taught from a painted porch (with Stoa in Greek, meaning porch). In Stoic cosmology, the world begins as the Divine and the divine becomes the world.193 Following the tradition of the pre-Socratics, every finite thing which exists is a procession from the Infinite. The world begins as deity, as a fiery, gaseous or vaporous state and develops outward into its forms.194 This fire, re-defined by the Stoics, is not simply one of the four basic elements, but borrowing from Heraclitus, the divine fire is imbued with intelligence in the form of shaping seeds, logoi spermatikoi. These fiery seeds of logic become matter and give matter its form.195 The fiery logoi are also defined as pneumata, or spirits, while Spirit is defined by the Stoics as a creative, intelligent “artistic fire,”196 giving matter form. Eduard Zeller describes the Stoic view of nature as dynamic, materialistic, and panentheistic (the world is in God).197 Their materialism, however, is not that of Democritus, nor is it mechanistic, as in Aristotle’s cosmology. Matter is re-defined. Divine Logos is in matter as Heraclitus had said, and matter is imbued with spirit and conceived of as having an active principle, as well as intelligence.198 Matter is further defined as anything which has the capacity to act, or to be acted upon.199 This re-defined matter would then include what previous philosophers defined as soul, thoughts, emotions, even Plato’s Ideal Forms and the Divine. Such things are categorized as matter for

192. Babylonian astronomers kept meticulous records of astronomical phenomenon, but derived from these no new cosmological models. 193. Eduard Zeller, The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, trans. Oswald Reichel, new and rev. ed. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1962), 156–58. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1.18. 194. Ibid., 156–58. 195. Ibid., 135, 139, 158, 161, 172. 196. Ibid., 139, 158, 161. 197. Ibid., 126. 198. Ibid., 135, 139. 199. Ibid., 128–30.

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the Stoics simply because they can act, or can make an “impression,” tuposis, on the soul.200 In the Stoic system, the connection between matter and spirit is through the world of experience.201 “The world of objects forms an impression on the soul through the senses.”202 Cleanthes compares this impression to that made by a seal on wax.203 One becomes literally more in-formed through experience; the ideal forms in matter make an impression on the soul of the observer with this information brought in through the senses. While the world of matter is spirit for the Stoics, the connection to the divine may be enhanced further through the senses. The three cosmological views above of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics would continue through the centuries, with each receiving modifications. In Plato’s cosmology, there is the transcendental realm of ideas above, with the Good at the apex. There are gods and goddesses, including a creator god, and a world of matter which has a divine soul, as do all things of nature. Mind is in soul, and soul in body. The bodily parts used for sense perception have more soul than those with merely mechanical function.204 The parts of the body that are exercised more become stronger, including the soul.205 To increase the immortal soul, one is to educate one’s self in regard to the divine, intelligent patterns, and harmonies displayed throughout the cosmos.206 This is the connection to the divine, participating in the intelligent principle which surrounds us through the senses. Also, having devoted time to learning about such things, one is more inclined to think thoughts that are immortal or divine.207 Plato also describes a connection to the divine in terms of inspiration, that by hearing something which is divinely inspired, such as music (the harmonies), or reading something which is inspired, we become divinely inspired. 200. Ibid., 92–93, 129–30. 201. Ibid., 77. 202. Ibid. 203. Ibid., 78. 204. Plato, Timaeus, 75a. 205. Ibid., 89e–90a. 206. Ibid., 90d. 207. Ibid., 90c.

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In Aristotle’s cosmology, there is the divine Unmoved Mover above, the planetary realms which are also considered divine, and the world of matter below, all pictured as concentric interlocking spheres. Movement in the celestial realms is conveyed through interlocking levels, which causes movement in the levels below. Likewise, there is soul and form in matter, which is another source of movement, and this too is described in decreasing degrees, from humans to animals to plants. The soul and mind are innately drawn to the divine above; however, there is no direct connection. The potential within draws Forms upward to the divine. The Stoics take the opposite view. The divine is in nature, as fiery, shaping seeds of reason, logoi spermatikoi, and the way to connect to the divine is through the senses as the intelligent principle in Nature is impressed on the soul. For Herclitus, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics contemplating rational beauty, the order and harmonies of the Cosmos causes the soul to grow, thus enhancing the connection to the Divine. The concept of the fiery divine Logos as source of the intelligent and energetic principle in matter, giving form and vitality, would be further developed by the middle Platonists, particularly Philo, as well as the Manichaeans and Hermetics, while the Greek worldview, in general, with its foundational cosmologies would be promoted throughout the Mediterranean and inherited by the early Christians. Middle Platonism and Gnosticism Middle Platonism is a stage in Platonic philosophy between the time of Plato’s writings and those of Neoplatonism, which began in the third century CE. The philosophers of Middle Platonism (90 BCE–150 CE) carried forward and modified concepts from Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, and the Stoics. These ideas would have great impact on Jewish and early Christian cosmological models, including Pauline and Johannine biblical writings, and the Christian theologians of the second century and beyond.208 A primary trend in Middle Platonism is 208. J. Rebecca Lyman, Christology and Cosmology: Models of Divine Activity in Origen, Eusebius, atrand Athanasius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

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the increase in the number of spheres from the transcendent divine realm to the material realm, thus expanding the distance between the divine and the world. In the same time period, in Gnostic cosmologies, an increasing number of mediating deities is also envisioned. Gnosticism originated as a Hellenistic-Jewish religious movement in Syria-Palestine in the Middle Platonic Period. Early concepts of the philosophic mediating principle between the Transcendent and matter, the Logos, would also be developed further. Before a review of the cosmologies from Middle Platonism is undertaken, important developmental concepts from Plato’s immediate successors at the Academy will be briefly touched on, which will find their way not only into Middle Platonic philosophy, but also, Gnosticism. A primary concept is of the One and the Dyad from the Pythagoreans. In Middle Platonism, the demiurge and world soul in Timaeus are replaced by the Dyad from Pythagoreanism. Speusippus (407–339 BCE) was the first to teach at the Academy after Plato. In Speusippus’ cosmology, the divine One is removed further back, as he describes a total of ten levels of reality, eternally generative and existing above the world of matter.209 With Speusippus’ successor, Xenocrates (396–314 BCE), there is a crucial development. He said that the eternal forms are thoughts in the mind of the One and he identifies the One as Father. Here, he combines the concept of the Monad with that of Zeus, known as “father of gods and humans,” and with Plato’s eternal Ideas. There is also a divine Mother in Xenocrates’ account as he combines Plato’s receptacle of all becoming with Pythagoras’ Dyad and divine goddess images.210 Xenocrates identifies two different classes of gods: the good Olympic gods and the Titanic daimonia—the first derived from heaven and the second from the earth. Offering a theory of knowledge, Philip of Opus, editor of Plato’s Laws, regards the greatest wisdom to be from contemplating the celestial bodies. Wisdom comes from the stars. Such concepts as those of Speusippus,

209. Zeller, Outlines, 165–70. 210. Theophrastus, Metaphysics.

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Xenocrates, and Philip of Opus would form a bridge to Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. Middle Platonism begins with Antiochus of Ascalon (130–68 BCE). As head of the Academy, he strongly incorporates Stoicism into his cosmology, identifying intelligent fire as the primary substance of the Cosmos. The stars, the human mind, and god are made of fire. Incorporating Stoic epistemology as well, he taught that objects make an impression on the mind which can be trusted. Antiochus replaces Plato’s idea of the Demiurge in Timaeus and the World Soul with the one concept—the Logos. The fiery Logos, consisting of a motive force and intelligent principle, is throughout the cosmos and forms the connective link between the Divine above and the world below. As we will see, this concept, further modified, would be fundamental in the development of early Christian theology. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, Egypt (20 BCE–50 CE) builds upon Antiochus’ concept of the Logos, and would forge a synthesis between Greek philosophy and Jewish theology, which in turn, would profoundly influence Christian philosophical thought in its earliest writings, particularly regarding the role of Jesus in cosmology. In Philo’s theological cosmology, God is removed further back from the world of matter and is portrayed as dwelling in Light.211 While in Genesis 1, God is described as transcendent and above the world of matter, and the first creation is light, Philo nuances this to say that God dwells in light. He combines the God of Israel with the Greek concept of lighted elements above, which include the brazen dome of the three-story universe and the shining stars as gods of fire and aither. Like Antiochus, the Logos is used extensively by Philo for a conceptual link between God and the world. While it states in Genesis 1 that “God created,” Philo’s rendering of God is so transcendent that it is now the Logos who creates the world. Philo states, for “it was not lawful for the all-wise and all-blessed God to touch material which was all misshapen”—clearly, a movement from Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover who does not interact with the world of matter.212 The method of 211. Philo, On Rewards and Punishments, 47.

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creating by the Logos is through speaking and acting, and this creating of the world is said to be in the image of the Logos. Philo anthropomorphizes the Logos. Besides the Logos being referred to as the sum total of Ideas, the pattern of all creation, the idea of Ideas, and suppliant, it is also referred to as a man, as ambassador, “neither unbegotten nor begotten,” who gives form to primordial matter. Such concepts and language would be employed by the writer of the gospel of John, developed by the Christian theologians of the second and third centuries, and eventually, find their way into the Christian Nicene Creed in the fourth century.213 The Logos being referred to as a man for the first time stems from a combination of Heraclitus’ Logos, the God of Israel, Plato’s demiurge who is described by Plato in a very hands-on manner in terms of creating the world, and Antiochus of Ascalon’s replacement of the demiurge and world soul with the Logos. Philo’s work would form an important conceptual bridge between Greek philosophy and the writer of the gospel of John, who would identify Jesus as the man of the Logos, with Logos in Hebrew rendered davar, and in English, the word. For Philo, what separates humans from the animal and plant world is mind and freedom. Only humans were said to have mind and this was their means of access to the divine Logos. Philo describes two approaches to apprehend the divine—one indirect, and the other, direct.214 The first involves training in scripture and meditation. The second way is to go beyond the sensory world through a purified mind and receive an intuition or a mystical vision, described as gift, following Aristotle’s view that the best approach to the divine is pure mind.215 This state was achieved by “numbing” the appetites, and then, “the better part of the soul expands.”216 Philo identifies three levels of humanity and their respective approaches to the divine: for the highest level of humanity, the best approach is through a purified mind

212. Philo, Allegorical Interpretation, 1.329. 213. Philo, Who is the Heir of Divine Things, 205. 214. Philo, On Rewards and Punishments, 43. 215. Ibid., 28–30, 40–66. 216. Ibid., 48.

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in a vision apprehending the Logos.217 Those at the next level down can only recognize the Logos through reasonable calculation based on the order in the natural world.218 Others at the lowest level of humanity cannot even identify the intelligence of the divine Mind evident in the mathematical forms and patterns of the natural world.219 As in the writings of Xenocrates’ and his two classes of gods which reflected Zoroastrian conceptions, Philo describes two powers active within the human being—one beneficial, and the other destructive. In Persian Zoroastrianism dualistic cosmology, there are two cosmic forces, one good and the other evil. Previously in Greek thought, the damonia had been described as good, protecting spirits, but with Xenocrates and Philo, the same term references evil spirits. Only those who have overpowered the destructive powers within and having a purified mind, connect, not with God, but with the Logos who is, in turn, connected with God. For Philo, God is eternally creating the intelligible Ideas of the Logos. Creation is considered ongoing and continuous through the Intelligent principle; it is not a one-time event. Borrowing from the materialists, even space and the Void are ideas which are created through the Logos and do not exist prior to creation. Plato’s basic geometric shape of the triangle to form the elements of matter is advanced with Philo’s concept of the cube as representative for the element of earth, the pyramid for fire, the octahedron for air, and the icosahedron for water, which gives the four basic elements more complexity in form, with the very essence of matter being mathematical as with Pythagoras. Because creation is continuous, miracles could occur naturally and are not regarded as an interruption of what would later be called the laws of nature. In Philo’s philosophical cosmology, the Jewish concept of monotheism has merged with the Greek philosophical concept of the Monad, with the Logos employed as “man” forming the connective element between the divine and the world of matter.

217. Ibid., 43. 218. Ibid., 41–43. 219. Ibid., 40.

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The Middle Platonism of Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism Historical traditions necessary for the emergence of Gnosticism include Judaism, Platonic philosophy, and Zoroastrianism. According to the heresiologists, Gnosticism was evident in the first century in Syria-Palestine. While there is great diversity among Gnostic sects (Bentley Layton identifies five schools of thought),220 there are common characteristics among the various schools: the unknown God beyond all that is, associated with the pleroma (fullness) of the spiritual realm, the assertion of a divine spark or spiritual seed within humanity which calls for an awakening, a journey of the soul from the home of the spiritual realm to the earth and back to the spiritual realm, and a dualist cosmology of light and darkness. Hans Jonas identifies two basic types of dualism: the Syrian-Egyptian type (which includes the majority of Gnostic texts as well as those of the Nag Hammadi library) and the Persian Zoroastrian type found in Mandeism and Manichaeism, which will be discussed in Chapter 2.221 For Syrian-Egyptian Gnostic dualistic cosmology, there are two primary principles—light/spirit and dark/matter—set upon a monistic background linking humans and the Divine.222 In the Persian Zoroastrian cosmology, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness exist separately, while their contact sets the history of the world in motion.223 In Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism, a classic narration of Gnostic cosmology from the Nag Hammadi library appears in The Apocryphon of John. This text provides a representative cosmogony in four acts, describing the world of matter in very dark terms, distant and distinct from the divine realm of light. In the first Act, the divine source emanates the spiritual universe in successive stages.224 The successive 220. Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), xvi. 221. Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987), 64. 222. Ibid., 57–58. 223. Ibid., 64. Rudolph also identifies a three-principle system within Gnosticism. In this system, there is a distinction between light, spirit, and darkness, with spirit coming between the two. Rudolph, 85. 224. Layton, 12–15.

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stages together constitute the pleroma, a fullness of aeons. The aeons are, at once, angelic realms, extents of time, places, and abstract concepts with names such as forethought, incorruptibility, and wisdom as the lowest spiritual realm.225 The Divine Source, on the contrary, is the “unknown god . . . deep and hidden”226 described in Gnostic texts in apophatic terms, such as ineffable, invisible, immeasurable, unnamable, even indescribable as divinity.227 Yet, some descriptions are provided such as invisible spirit, who exists in uncontaminated light; God is immeasurable light, both male and female, who gives power, goodness, mercy, and grace to the aeons,228 Continuing with the cosmogony of the Apocryphon of John, after the expansion of the spiritual realms, in Act two, a crisis has occurred at the spiritual periphery, the realm of Sophia/Wisdom. She has given birth to an illegitimate child, Yaldabaoth, child of chaos, who having been cast off, becomes the creator of the world of matter. This world is not just a copy of a spiritual universe, but considered a counterfeit copy.229 Surrounding the earth and air are eight heavenly spheres (the Moon, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the realm of the fixed stars), which are not there as shining objects reflecting the order of the universe, but instead, are referred to as tyrannical archons/rulers of fate.230 From the astronomy-astrology of the time, the belief that the planets above effect movement through the lower realms, which in turn, then effects earth, has now advanced to these same planets being looked upon as controlling. Although the creator god Yaldabaoth, with the aid of the archons makes human beings, these humans are described as deficient, they are inanimate. 231 In Act three, Sophia desires to regain her lost power, power which had been stolen by her offspring Yaldabaoth in order to make the 225. Ibid., 15. 226. Rudolph, 88. 227. Apocryphon of John, 3. 228. Ibid. A later Valentinian text, the gospel of Philip, states that the Monad is not to be equated with words such as light, god, or holy spirit, because earthly language is inadequate, it is “deceptive.” Gospel of Philip, 53.23f. 229. Apocryphon of John, 2.12,13. 230. Rudolph, 67–68. 231. Ibid., 83.

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world.232 She tricks Yaldabaoth to “blow” some of this “spirit” into the face of the first human (transferring the spirit from Yaldabaoth to humanity), which then causes animation. This act enables the material body of the human to “shine” and come alive, which reflects the Gnostic concept of the soul as light-based.233 The Archons become envious and cast the human into the lowest part of matter, which causes the human being to become forgetful of the spirit within.234 The human is now, in essence, enslaved, even though spiritual power resides in the first human as well as successive generations. As Rudolph states, the spirit is encapsulated in the body and the body is encapsulated in the world.235 In Act four, a heavenly savior is sent to awaken the people to their divinity within. This redeemer figure is the only-begotten child of the divine “Mother-Father,” the Monad.236 He is begotten from Light with light.237 The knowledge which the only-begotten brings is knowledge of the self and knowledge of the divine, which, together, are salvific. Knowledge (gnosis in Greek) is salvation. The Gnostic cosmology is unique in that there are two sets of concentric spheres, one spiritual and one material. The connection between the two distinct realms is in terms of a redeemer of light who ignites the sleeping spirit within humanity. Other redeemer figures are found in Gnostic texts as well. They are referred to as illuminators and light bearers. Rudolph lists several such light bearers in Gnostic texts: the heavenly Adam, the heavenly Eve, Seth, Enosh, the high priest Melchizedek, the angel Baruch, the angel Eleleth.238 The illuminator redeemer figure is also associated with the Logos.239 In the Trimorphic Protennoia, a woman appears as the Protennoia, who is at once “the mother of the call” to awakening and “the reason which is in every creature.”240 In the third section of the 232. Apocryphon of John, 13.1–4, 27–28. 233. Ibid., 19.32–34. 234. Ibid., 2.12. 235. Rudolph, 70. 236. Apocryphon of John, 6.10–20. 237. Ibid. 238. Rudolph, 131. 239. Ibid., 120.

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Trimorphic Protennoia and the Gospel of John, the Redeemer figure is equated with Christ, who is the Logos. Such individuals and concepts provide the bridge between the world of matter and the world of light. Illuminating wisdom itself can also be a bridge between the spiritual and material realms. The spiritual seed, trapped and dormant could become activated through a person, but also a concept.241 Besides an illuminator/phoster, Rudolph lists six other entities which have a soteriological function in Gnostic texts: wisdom/sophia, the spirit of truth, mind/nous, insight/epinoia, power of thought/ennoia, and reason/logos. In Against Heresies by Irenaeus, he states that in Gnostic mythology, the first couple, Adam and Eve, were “led by wisdom.”242 An example of the spirit of truth as leading and connective element to the Spiritual Realm can be found in the Hypostatis of the Archons (2.4), while in the Second Logos of the Great Seth, the speaker of insight “needs few words” because communication occurs by way of insight to insight. In The Hymn of the Pearl (110), it is not a person, but written words in a text which bring illumination.243 The story of The Hymn of the Pearl, from the Gnostic School of Thomas and written ca. 200 CE, begins symbolically in a heavenly home of luxury and ease in “the East.”244 A young prince, actually referred to as an infant in the first part of the story, is assigned a task from his heavenly parents, metaphorically representative of the divine Monad. He is to “go down” to a distant land and retrieve a pearl. His parents equip him for the journey, but he must leave his yellow jeweled garment behind, which the text notes, fits him perfectly. His task is said to be “written” on his “mind” by his parents so he would not forget. He is also given two guides. Once he reaches the foreign land, his two guides depart and he is on his own. He finds the dragon lair where the pearl is kept and lies in wait for it to fall asleep so he can accomplish his mission. Meanwhile, he puts on a disguise, with the 240. Ibid., 124. 241. Ibid., 131. 242. Irenaeaus, Against Heresies, 1.30.9. 243. The Hymn of the Pearl is also referred to as The Hymn of Jude Thomas the Apostle in the Country of the Indians. 244. Layton, 367.

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literal words saying “I became foreign in appearance.” He meets a “cousin,” another child of the royal court, who helps him in the foreign land and they become friends, traveling together. Again, the text states that he changed in appearance, putting on foreign clothes so as not to be detected by the locals thinking this might help him to accomplish his mission. But they found out he was different, they treated him with cunning and cruelty. He ate of their food, and in time, no longer recognized himself as a person of royal heritage. In fact, he acted like a servant, “fell into a deep sleep” and forgot about his mission. From the royal court, his parents see his suffering and help is sent, a written text, a letter from home. The letter is his wake-up call, reminding him of his true nature: “you are a child of kings.” The message of the letter reminds him of what was written on his “heart.” He had simply forgotten who he really was and why he was in this foreign land. Claiming his divine heritage, he went straight to the dragon and snatched the pearl without hesitation. He took off his foreign clothes and set out on “the road leading to the light of our Eastern home.” A female guide leads him to the light, past any treacherous traps. He sees his jewel studded garment “as reflected in a mirror” and perceives it in his heart. The two become one: he and his heavenly garment, and the fit is perfect. His garment of light had grown, while he had matured on his journey. At his royal home, he presents the pearl and is rewarded and celebrated for completing his mission. The Hymn of the Pearl presents the anthropology of the Gnostics. Accordingly, we are from the realm of light and come here with an assigned mission. We are given guides, abilities, and friends who we recognize as from home. But we go off course, become trapped and forgetful of both our mission and our true nature. Something sparks our memory. It can be as simple as a written text and we become conscious again of why we are here. Focus and energy return and the mission is accomplished. We still, however, need to be aware of entanglements which will keep us from our true home. In the end, there is a homecoming. Through it all, the spirit within has grown,

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evidenced in the prince being described as an infant in the beginning and mature at the end, but also, represented by the garment fitting him perfectly in the beginning, and yet, perfectly at the end too.245 According to Joseph Campbell, the idea of “the two becoming one” is encountered in religious texts from around the world.246 This occurs when the individual soul unites with the spiritual realm. The Hymn of the Pearl is the journey of the soul in metaphorical language. The purpose of the journey conveys the meaning of life for Gnostics: we are spiritual beings from the world of Light, we come to the physical world with a task to accomplish, and upon completion, return to our home of Light, having grown in spirit because of the trials and tribulations on the journey, no longer a spiritual “infant.”247 In Gnostic anthropology, in general, a tripartite division of the individual is described as consisting of body, soul, and spirit.248 Plato had conceived of a three-part nature to the soul: desire, emotion, mind. In Plato’s Timaeus, the creator god places the spiritual seed in soul and soul in body. With the same anthropology for Gnostics, the spiritual seed is in the soul, and the soul is in the body. It has been said that the spirit within relates only to the spiritual realm and is said not to be connected to the world of matter.249 This is similar to the idea in Aristotle’s view that the highest divine realm does not touch the realm of the Unmoved Mover, and in Philo’s concept that there needs to be a creator intermediary, such as the Logos, between God and the world. However, Rudolph points out that it is in the pre-awakened state that one must discover the truth in order to experience it.250 That the seed of salvation is internal classifies Gnosticism as having a natural theology, as opposed to supernatural theology.251 The higher

245. The shining yellow jeweled garment is a reference to his spirit, part of which stays in the realm of light while the prince is in the physical world. The idea that the spirit can split apart and be in two different places is found in the native religions of Australia and Africa as well. 246. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008). 247. This same concept that we are here to grow in wisdom is found in India in the iconography of the androgynous god/goddess Shiva. 248. Rudolph, 91–92. 249. Ibid., 88. 250. Ibid. 251. Ibid., 117.

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part of the immortal soul pertains to intellect and enlightenment, and this transcendent aspect of the soul is called spirit. To connect to the dormant divine spirit within, there is insight itself or wisdom from a heavenly redeemer figure. In ascetic Gnostic sects, purification from psychic and bodily defilement is emphasized.252 In such texts, one must be proven superior against the passions, as well as against traps set by the rulers of fate. With this, the light within can reconnect with its spiritual home. Sounding very much like Plato, if one has been united with the power of light in one’s earthly journey, then there will be a return to the spiritual realm.253 This uniting gives the soul power for life. The ascent of the soul, in this life and the next, depends upon whether the material and psychic enslavements have been set aside over time.254 For ascetic Gnostics, it is the element of light itself which needs to be thoroughly purged of dross.255 In the Authoritative Teaching, it is said that the soul who attains to knowledge of God will find rest in the realm of Light.256 The ascent of the soul to its heavenly home is dependent upon having received gnosis, knowledge of and acquaintance with God, and in ascetic texts, purging the self of physical and emotional barriers. The connection of matter to Spirit is ontological, the internal pneumatic seed allows for communication, insight and power for life, and return to the spiritual home, while the activation of the spiritual seed occurs through a heavenly light-bearer or through insight itself. Conclusion The new science of Babylonian astronomy greatly impacted theological perspectives, bringing a shift in worldview across the Ancient Near East. In Greece, prior to the new insights, the earth was considered 252. According to Ireneaus, there are libertine Gnostic sects who must experience all the world has to offer in order to pass through the realms of Archons after life, having paid their debt to each. Iraneaus Adversus Haereses I.25.4 cited in Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), 273. 253. Rudolph, 184. 254. Ibid., 186. 255. Ibid., 188. 256. Authoritative Teaching, 6 3.34.32–35.18.

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divine; matter was living, generative, and the source of abundance. It was the home of gods and humans, and as such, was honored and protected from pollutants. Stemming from the new scientific findings that the celestial bodies moved harmoniously in mathematical patterns, Greek philosophers in the sixth century BCE began constructing new cosmological models that could incorporate a larger view of the divine. Just as in the earlier creation account from Hesiod, this larger divinity was regarded as Source of all, a generative, living power, but now with Intelligence emphasized to account for the mathematical properties scientists were discovering. The first pre-Socratic philosopher-physicists envisioned the Arche, the beginning of creation as one Divine Source. For Thales, it was divine water; for Anaximander, the divine Indefinite; for Anaximenes, divine air; while for Heraclitus, the One was divine, intelligent fire, an energy of light, that he called Logos, emphasizing the logical, orderly, mathematical aspect of the Source. Complexity of the Arche arises with succeeding philosophers. Pythagoras describes the source as divine fire, the Monad, which draws in the undefined, the Dyad, generating numbers, points, lines, plane figures with an orderly harmonious cosmos emerging from the development outward from the Source, coupling with the undefined. Empedocles cites the four original divine elements as water, air, fire, earth, and two original divine forces as love and strife together as One, with sections separating off, combining and re-combining to produce the forms in nature. In such models, the anthropomorphic father god Zeus was no longer the height of divinity; the divine was something far more encompassing, an intelligent source who initiated and guided all of nature, whether celestial or terrestrial in an orderly path. Taking a very different approach from those of the holistic cosmologies, the materialist Leucippus and Democritus proposed a cosmological Arche in terms of tiny particles moving in space, with their aggregation leading to the Forms in Nature and a universe. Earlier precedents for this model would be the concepts of primordial chaos as swirling particles in an expanse and the elementary points in

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Pythagorean physics. Taking into account the living, energetic, orderly, and mathematical aspect of the cosmos, the minute atoms were defined further as consisting of fire, which build up to form a world of logic and necessity. To further account for the logical properties evident in the cosmos, Xenophanes regarded the one as Mind, while Anaxagoras proposed that the divine mind was both inside and outside of creation. Plato put forth the concept, for the first time, of an immaterial realm of ideal Forms outside of the world of matter. Matter achieves form by partaking of the eternal forms, but matter also is composed of a divine soul. As art needs an artisan, the demiurge, one of many gods, is the craftsman god who fashions the material with the employment of the divine receptacle, which then is used by the other gods to create humans. Aristotle’s cosmology builds upon Plato’s unchanging nature of the eternal realm, drawing a sharper divide between his divine Unmoved Mover and the world of change. In the middle of the cosmos was a spherical earth surrounded by the concentric sphere of the heavenly bodies, with the realm of the fixed stars as the outermost sphere closest to the Prime Mover. The world egg of the three-story universe now was perfectly round with interlocking layers. Instead of water surrounding the egg, there was the divine; instead of a divine world, for Aristotle, there was decreasing divine soul based on form. The more complex form, the more soul a body has. The drive in nature toward form is a drive toward the divine. With these movements from Anaxagoras, Plato, and Aristotle holism gives way to division. On the contrary, in Stoicism, the concept of the intelligent cosmos is expressed as Deity developing outward becoming the world of matter. Instead of atoms, there are divine seeds of logic which become the forms of nature. Divine fire flows from the Source becoming the generative, living, intelligent, spirit-filled world of nature. This view would be taken up by the philosophers of Middle Platonism. For Antiochus, the intelligent logos of fire is in all matter, and forms a link between the divine above and the world below. With the earlier Platonist Xenocrates, what was envisioned above was the eternal

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forms, which he regarded as thoughts in the mind of the Monad, referred to as Father. Gnosticism described the Monad variously as Mother/Father, or unspecified in gender, and divine light radiating outward. The incorporation of science into the Greek religious worldview has led to the rise of monotheism, according to which, one God is responsible for the order and harmony in the world. What also increases is the divide between the world above and that below, but with this, the concept of the connection between the two is also developed. In the cosmology of the three-story universe, how the divine and the world of humanity connect and interact was described as Person-to-person. With the insights in mathematical research and astronomy, the means of connection became more subtle. To achieve connection to the divine Monad in the mathematical, orderly, and harmonious cosmos envisioned by Pythagoras, one purified the mind by contemplating the mathematical order and forms in Nature. For Heraclitus, we become wise by contemplating, dreaming, even breathing in the fiery reason in nature. For Plato, the connection between the Immaterial realm and the material realm could be increased and divine thoughts more apt to be experienced when one devoted more time to educating oneself to the Eternal patterns and harmonies visible in the created realms. Even a return to the divine stars awaited if one has exercised and increased the divine seed within. In the Stoic world, the divine Logos became matter, and so, interconnection was not only intelligible and sensory as Plato described, but ontological. Plato had described the sensing part of the body as having more soul, for the Stoics with the divine Logos in nature itself, the senses allowed for conveyance of this divine information impressed upon the body and soul. The Stoics were building on the ideas of Heraclitus and Democritus that the soul was comprised of fiery particles and that objects emanate the same type of minute fiery particles conveying information. In opposition, in Aristotle’s cosmology, the Divine is far removed, and matter is ensouled by degrees, with complex forms above having more soul, and animals and plants below having less. The connection

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between the divine and material world was through mechanical movements of the heavenly realm, which translated to alterations below. A further connection was achieved through mind, thinking pure, undefiled thought, unencumbered by the body. Nature itself did not convey connection between the divine and world. Following with the Middle Platonic idea of increasing layers between the divine and the world, Philo employed the concept of the Logos as a means of access, but also, as one more additional layer between God and the world, seeking to maintain the purity of God. Antiochus had replaced Plato’s demiurge with the Logos, and taking the next step, Philo identifies the Logos as man, as creative agent of the cosmos. Apprehension of the Divine was possible in two ways, indirectly through observing the intelligible forms in creation and through study of the scriptures, followed by meditation, while only those of a purified and strengthened mind were said to achieve connection directly with, not God, but the Logos. The Gnostics regarded Nature negatively; it was a counterfeit copy of the Spiritual realm, and building upon Aristotle’s mechanistic model, the orderly movements of the planets produced a controlling influence on the realms below. Access to the divine was not possible through nature itself, which was considered a dark prison, but rather, through the divine spark of light within the individual. This divine seed within could be activated through an illuminating spiritual insight or through a light bearer, who came directly from the Monad bringing truth and knowledge. While others had described the connection as mind to mind, even forms to forms, the Gnostics describe the connection as light to light. Even in a world of darkness, the human soul can increase according to the Gnostics. We are here to accomplish a divine task, and in so doing, the divine spirit grows, providing meaning and purpose for life. The idea that the soul can increase has developed in the cosmological models proposed since the Babylonians discovered the intelligent, mathematical patterns in the world. In the Homeric world, god and goddesses taught values. In the divine world where both love and strife

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are foundational, for Empedocles, the purpose of life is that we are here to grow in the wisdom of love. For Pythagoras, studying the intelligent aspect of nature, mathematics, enhances and purifies the soul, allowing one to return to the divine source. For Plato, to increase the immortal spirit, one is encouraged to educate oneself on the intellectual patterns found in divine nature. In Aristotelianism, there is potential and a striving toward perfect form, toward true actuality. It was the stars and the shining planets that pulled the scientists and religious philosophers toward new horizons in thought. The light principle has been prominent in the work of Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Democritus, the Stoics, Antiochus, and the Gnostics. The Monad, the spiritual realm, the stars, the Logos, the human soul, have been described as comprising intelligent fire and light, with the Gnostics specifically identifying the connection between the individual and the Divine as light to light. In the following chapter, cosmologies of light and avenues to the Divine through light will be the focus.

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2

Cosmologies of Divine Light and Logos in the Christian Era

In the first centuries of the Christian era, a diversity of cosmological models existed prior to the development of creedal formulas and doctrinal statements beginning in the fourth century.1 The nonorthodox and alternative traditions considered in this chapter will be the religious and philosophical movements of the Hermetics, Manicheans, and the Neoplatonists, as well as mystics from a variety of backgrounds. The focus will be on the connection between God and the world inherent to each. The primary purpose for reviewing these traditions is that they all proscribe to a view that matter contains light, divine energy, and Logos, the intelligent principle of the cosmos. This view, as we will see in chapter 6, coincides well with what contemporary researchers are discovering about the nature of matter. In chapter 3, the rise of orthodoxy will be charted. The goal here is that by tracing these alternative traditions, valuable insights will emerge—insights which coincide well with both experience and 1. Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971).

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contemporary science. Such cosmologies provide a means to narrow the divide between God and the world. In this chapter and the next, the growth of the history of Western cosmologies will be charted and compared and contrasted in terms of the definition of matter for each, and in terms of the connection between God and the world. In a review of Hermeticism and Manichaeism the genre of mythology is encountered. This is a common phenomenon in early societies, such as the Gnostics, the Greeks, the Mesopotamians, the Hebrews and the early Christians, as well as many other cultures. Myth is a means to convey spiritual truths in story form. While religious mythology may sound unsophisticated to the modern ear, in former ages, it was a prominent mode of religious expression. Its value lies in its rich symbolism while story itself allows a means for easy remembrance in days when paper was not as readily available. Joseph Campbell, in his book, The Power of Myth, states, “mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been said that mythology is the penultimate truth—penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words.”2 Hermeticism The origin of the Greco-Egyptian religion of Hermeticism dates to the first century CE in Alexandria, Egypt.3 It would survive throughout the centuries and have a great impact on the Greek Renaissance in Italy, with many copies of Hermetic texts appearing in Europe in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries.4 According to archeologists today, the Corpus Hermeticum includes eighteen tractates and fragments originating from as early as the second century CE in Egypt,5 while according to Clement of Alexandria, there were, at one time, forty-two 2. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers (New York: Doubleday, 1988). 3. Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), 451; Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, ed. Robert McLachlan Wilson (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987), 25–26. 4. Layton, 451; Rudolph, 25–26. Hermeticism is mentioned in the writings of Plutarch, Clement, Tertullian, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Porphry. 5. Other Hermetic texts include The Emerald Tablet, which according to legend, was found by Alexander the Great in the tomb of Hermes at Hebron, though usually dated to the ninth century CE, and the Kybalion, published in 1912 and attributed to three anonymous authors.

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sacred writings. Hermeticism arose out of a confluence of religious and philosophic sources: there are elements from Gnosticism and Greek philosophy, as well as Egyptian religion with its affinity for spells, medicinal incantations for healing, and the emerging new science of alchemy, our precursor to modern chemistry. The earliest works of the Hermetica are of a technical nature, concerning the power of gemstones, plants, and astrology.6 These elements also inform their cosmology. The writings are pseudepigraphically attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the “thrice-great Hermes” who was an amalgamation of the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes. Combined, they are the gods of wisdom, knowledge, writing, communication, magic, and boundary crossing. The cosmology expressed in the Corpus Hermeticum is panentheistic: All is in God, while God consists of more than the world. The tractate entitled Poimandres (meaning the Shepherd, and dated to the fourth century) presents a cosmogony of the world as emerging from Divine Light and created through Divine Intellect. The “birth of the cosmos,” begins as a Light realm of spiritual powers.7 All starts out as light, then there is an animated downward movement and the light becomes darker and with this, a copy of the spiritual world is made, constituting our material world.8 Dark matter is simply a movement away from the light, it is not evaluated negatively in Hermeticism. The Logos of light and life descends on the natural world causing spirit, fire, and air to ascend upwards, while earth and water begin to move in a circular motion.9 The circling motion brought about by the Logos causes creatures to emerge.10 The Logos makes seven controllers (not viewed negatively) who circle the world. These are the planets moving in orbits who control fate. The first human, who is an androgynous being, is made in the image of the Logos. This spiritual archetypal human desires to create as well and unites with the seven

6. Layton, 447. 7. Poimandres, 2.7-9. The pseudepigraphic author is Hermes. Layton, 447; Rudolph, 25. 8. Ibid., 2.8. 9. Ibid., 2.5. 10. Ibid., 2.11.

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celestial bodies. From this union, seven androgynous beings are created, half-immortal and half-mortal.11 After a time, the androgynous beings split apart and the creatures populate the earth. This creation myth symbolically portrays that our world is an extension of divine Light and Intelligence. Near the end of the text, Poimandres proclaims the nature of true wisdom for creatures: To know the true self from above, and to attend to this nature leads to immortality, while attending to the fleshly nature reaps death. Those who attend to their soul will receive help from above; those who attend to their bodily nature will receive further promptings from the dark nature of the cosmos. God is not considered “invisible” in Hermetic literature for God is manifest in nature.12 The text asserts that the connection to the divine is dependent upon human effort, reaching out to the divine. This connection is enhanced when the divine nature within each person is nourished. In the Poimandres text, ascent to the divine is said to be possible as the individual contemplates and meditates on the essence of nature. The text advocates that to meditate on the divine in nature increases connection to the divine, building upon the trajectory of thought from Heraclitus, Plato, and the traditions of Philo. In Hermetic literature, the mind which receives information through the senses is described as connected to God. In the Hermetic text On Thought and Sense, it states “one cannot think without sensing and one cannot sense without thinking.”13 Mind and body are not divorced, as the mind employs the body through the senses.14 To understand God, one is to investigate Nature. In the cosmology of Hermeticism, nature is also viewed as connected to God because the cosmos is understood as in God; the two are not regarded as separate, according to the Hermetic text, The Key.15 To obtain gnosis/knowledge of God, one is instructed to go through the

11. Ibid., 2.17. 12. Mind of Hermes, 22. 13. On Thought and Sense, 2. 14. The Key, 9. 15. The Key, 14; On Thought and Sense, 9; About the Common Mind, 14, 20; The Cup or Monad, 5.

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episteme/science of nature.16 Because the divine realms and the world are connected, the movement of the planets influences the Earth, as in Aristotle’s thought. One is advised to gain knowledge of these movements, as well as knowledge from the other sciences, so as to be more aware of the influences around us. Investigating the unique powers of plants, the Hermetic philosopher promotes healing through what they consider to be the divine energy in plants. Studying mathematics allows one to understand more fully the formal structure of matter, and in turn, to understand the source of matter, the mind of God. Thus, learning about nature is said to enhance the connection to the divine.17 Throughout the Hermetic Corpus, cosmology is described in panentheistic terms. The cosmos is in God and is described as God’s child,18 while the human being is the child of the cosmos.19 This same enveloping structure is applied to human beings as well, illuminating the great chain of being: Mind is in Logos/reason, reason is in soul, soul is in spirit, and spirit is in body, the body is in the cosmos, and the cosmos is in God.20 God’s pervasive and penetrating “energies” flow through the levels of creation to the soul, according to The Key.21 All of creation is described as energized by God, while matter itself is defined in terms of energy.22 Energy is described as both power and light, and said to be pervasive throughout nature.23 In The Key, it states that God’s rays are his energies; the rays of the cosmos are nature; the rays of the human being are the arts and sciences.24 For the Hermetics, knowledge is through the science of nature, which investigates and unfolds God’s energies that shine through creation, increasing vision and knowledge of God.25 All senses are involved in achieving a connection to the

16. The Key, 9. 17. Ibid., 6. 18. On Thought and Sense, 8; The Key, 14. 19. The Key, 14. 20. Ibid., 13, 17. 21. Ibid., 22. 22. Ibid., 21, 22. 23. Mind Unto Hermes, 5, 7. 24. The Key, 22. 25. Ibid., 4.

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Divine—the sense of sound, smell, taste, touch, as well as breath.26 Contemplating and absorbing the shining “beauty of God” is said to transform the soul of the individual.27 A primary text in later Hermeticism is the Emerald Tablet, which first appeared in the West when translated into Latin in 1140. It was included in the Secretum Secretorum, a book of advice to kings. A short work, The Emerald Tablet contains the philosophy of correspondence: “that which is below corresponds to that which is above, and that which is above corresponds to that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of the one thing.” This philosophy stems from their cosmology where layers are embedded within layers in nature. Carrying forward practices from Egyptian religion, Hermetic rituals include speaking over matter with the belief that the individual, as a microcosm reflective of the world of matter, could convey divine power upon energetic matter. In Hermetic alchemical research and practice, matter is described as going through a transformation of birth, growth, death, and resurrection, and attended with religious rituals. This positive attitude of nature and the individual as divine and empowered, and science as providing a door to the mind of God would have great impact on the Renaissance. Hermetic works came to prominence in Italy in 1460 when a monk, Leonardo de Pistolia, found a copy of the Hermeticum in a monastery and brought it to Cosimo de’ Medici, who was seeking philosophical works in order to stock his library. Soon after, Hermetic philosophy would appear in the writings of several Renaissance writers, and the god Hermes associated with the Logos would appear in many works of art from the period.28 One such Renaissance writer, Lodovico Lazzarelli espoused the synthesis between Christian and Hermetic truth in the fifteenth century in his work, Crater Hermetis. However, by the seventeenth century, the Lutheran priest and theological professor at Heidelburg, John Zimmerman lost his position for teaching Hermetic, panentheistic views. Morris Berman provides many writings from 26. Mind Unto Hermes, 12, 22. 27. The Key, 6. 28. Lodovico Lazzarelli, Marsilio Ficino, Cornelisu Agrippa, Picodella Mirandola, to name a few.

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clergy from this era who regarded Hermeticism not only as a heresy, but also, a threat to the social order which must be silenced.29 Because such oppression had become widespread, by the late sixteenth century, the secret society of Rosicrucians was established in Germany by religious scientists who sought to express and share their scientific research in the fields of medicine, alchemy, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology, based on the philosophy that matter has inherent powers.30 Experimentation, rather than tradition was strongly advocated among Hermetic philosopher-scientists in the Renaissance in general.31 Their experiments on the nature of matter revealed an energetic power within nature itself (such as Thales’ research on magnets and amber centuries before) which, for Hermetic interpreters, showed that the divine was in nature. The connection for Hermetic scientists between God/Spirit/Light and the world of matter was that matter itself manifests the divine power of the light and Logos of God. Through the senses and through science, one becomes closer to God. Hermetic societies still exist today, often maintaining the tradition of secrecy carried over from the days of persecution in the seventeenth century. Manichaeism Manichaeism began in the third century CE in Babylon and spread throughout the Roman Empire. The founder of Manichaeism was Mani (210–276 CE), a Persian prophet who based the Manichaean religion on his revelatory experiences. He was known as the Apostle of Light and his teachings were called the teachings of light.32 His message and influence spanned from Egypt to China, and though Mani and his followers were persecuted by the Persians, the Roman Empire, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam, the religion still continued through 29. Morrow Berman, The Re-enchantment of the World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 123. 30. By 1616, two Rosicrucian manifestos had been circulated: Fama Fraternitatis RC and Confessio Fraternitatis. 31. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 111. 32. Rudolph, 331.

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the Middle Ages, particularly strong in the East. Light is a primary element of this religion. Light represents the divine essence, it constitutes the soul, and also is the primary means of connection between the spiritual and material realms.33 The cosmology of the Manicheans builds upon earlier precedents, particularly classic Gnostic cosmology, Greek philosophy, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism as well. A primary text in Manichaeism, attributed to Mani, is The Fundamental Epistle. It strongly employs the genre of mythology. While the Manichaean cosmological myth expands as the religion grows, opponents tended to get lost in its lengthy descriptions, focusing on debating the details and losing sight of the essence of what was conveyed. In contrast to Hermeticism, in this myth, Mani described a dualistic cosmology of light and darkness. According to The Fundamental Epistle, there are two primordial realms—one light and the other dark. In time, a merging of the two at their borders occurs, which represents the present condition of the world as constituted by both light and darkness. Light particles are said to be trapped in the darkness; human souls are considered to be light in a world that contains both light and darkness. As the myth unfolds, the God of Light (also referred to as Zurvan, God-Time) takes action to counteract the invasion of the darkness upon the light.34 A goddess proceeds from the light realm and gives birth to a primeval man, who descends to battle the world of dark matter. However, his soul is captured and trapped, but this is seen by the Manicheans as a necessary process to begin to transform the dark realm.35 The rulers of the dark realm create the cosmos out of both particles of darkness and light. They also create the plant, animal, and human realm, including the first pair of humans Adam and Eve, all constituted by a mixture of light and dark matter. For the salvation of the humans, another envoy is sent, Jesus the Illuminator. It is said that the light of Jesus enlightens humans, providing saving knowledge.36 33. Ibid., 339. 34. Other names for the Manichaean God include King of the Paradise of Light, most blessed Father, Father of Greatness. Rudolph, 336. 35. Ibid., 337.

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Other messengers also have been sent throughout history, such as Abraham, Buddha, Seth, Enoch, Paul, and Mani, each offering enlightenment as a way back to the pure Spiritual Realm.37 The Milky Way itself serves as an image of the perfect human being, which functions as a call to those below.38 Within the Milky Way are the twelve constellations regarded as the daughters of the God of Light and their light shines as a beacon guiding souls back to their home above. Within nature itself, there are light particles and these too assist in aiding individuals back to the light realm. Mani advocated vegetarianism, believing that eating the earth’s light-filled produce would strengthen the soul.39 He also cautioned against eating meat, which he believed empowered the dark, aggressive animal spirit within. Further means of connection are provided within the religious community and through rituals in particular. There are two levels of devotion in the Manichaean religion, the elect and the hearers. Rigorous ethical demands are set for the elect, such as celibacy. In general, one is to keep oneself morally and physically pure, with periodic fasting and vegetarianism as proscribed practices. Studying sacred texts, singing hymns, and attending to daily prayers seven times a day serves to strengthen the soul, transforming it to spirit. The religious community provides strength and protection for the individual to keep the soul purified and enlightened. It is not, however, only the human soul which is to be saved, but the entire cosmos as well. Manicheans are instructed not to torture or pollute the world of matter, seeking to preserve and protect the light particles within creation. In Manichaean cosmology, there is the belief of recurring periodic eons in which dark matter will be completely transformed into light and the process begins again.40 In Manichaean cosmology, many earlier philosophical concepts have

36. Ibid., 338. 37. Ibid., 339. Mani would consider himself the final prophet, as would Muhammad centuries later. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Rudolph, 335–36.

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been brought forward. The idea of recurring periodic cosmic cycles was also present in the cosmology of Empedocles, as well as in the Buddhist tradition. Zoroastrianism provides the dualistic cosmology of good and evil. In the older three-story universe model, the concept of the shining heavens above is combined with Greek philosophical renderings of the transcendent divine intelligent source of good, yielding for the Manicheans the transcendent realm as divine source of light and goodness above. Earlier Gnostic cosmologies had come to the same conclusion. In Platonism and Pythagorean philosophy, the orderly revolutions of the stars are a beacon to the soul, connecting the human soul to the divine realm. In Manichaeism, it is light itself from the constellations which functions as a beacon. It is the same light that is within creation and constitutive of the soul. Heraclitus and the Stoics spoke of the divine Logos as fiery reason within creation, while the Manicheans identify the divine intelligent aspect within creation as light. For Plato, plants were considered to have souls; in Manichaeism, the light particles in plants feed the human soul. For both Pythagoras and Plato, music reflects the harmonies of the universe. Plato spoke of music which is inspired as capable of inspiring the listener. The Manicheans emphasize singing hymns as a means to connect the human soul with the divine. In Stoicism, wise individuals throughout history were said to be endowed with an exceptional amount of the divine logos, while in Manichaeism, exceptionally wise individuals throughout history provide enlightenment from the realm of light. Manichaean cosmology replaces Greek logos terminology with the concept of light, which is constitutive of the divine realm, the human soul, and within nature itself. Neoplatonism In Neoplatonism, and mysticism as well, God is expressed as light, either metaphorically or actually. The founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (204–270 CE), originally from Egypt, studied under Ammonius Saccas, then founded his own school in Rome.41 He conceived of the cosmos as a chain of pre-material emanations consisting of the One, 64

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the intelligence/Logos, and the soul, with the furthest emanation encountering the material substratum (hupokeimenon) of dark primal matter to form the material world. The One is not the source, but the center of eternal potentiality. The process of formation is dialectical as is the connection of the individual soul to the realm of eternal Forms. According to Neoplatonic cosmology, in the beginning, the One overflows and radiates intelligence by reflecting upon itself. Divine intelligence thinks of the One and brings the cosmic soul into existence. The cosmic soul thinks of intelligence and the One and brings life into being. Intelligence contains the seeds of form, the logoi spermatikoi. The logoi spermatikoi become part of the cosmic soul when it is generated, while the seeds constitute the generative principle within life. By bringing its thoughts, logoi spermatikoi, into the substratum, the material world is generated.42 The material world becomes a living image of the spiritual cosmos. Matter is soul infused, and as such, contains divine energetic power and intelligence/logos. Neoplatonism describes a graduated scale of existence, with less and less light in each lower level.43 Each individual soul is a fragmented segment of the cosmic soul. Plotinus likens the individual soul to a ray of light from the cosmic soul refracted through the “prism” of matter. As such, the individual soul is always in connection with the cosmic soul. We are “of” the cosmic soul. The soul of living beings consists of a higher and lower part. The higher part of the soul stays in connection with the cosmic soul and is in connection with intelligence/Logos through contemplation. To transcend from the lower soul to the higher, one thinks of eternal forms in the realm of intelligence/Logos. This thinking is dialectical, a mirror of the dialectical process which has brought the cosmos into existence. Individual souls think dialectically by considering the 41. See Zeller’s distinction between Ammonius Saccas who traditionally has been named as the founder of the Neoplatonic school, and his student Plotinus. Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, 13th ed. International Library of Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), 291–92. 42. According to Zeller, the lowest level, the substratum of primal matter is considered evil, in opposition to the highest level, the One, God. Zeller, Outlines, 294–96. 43. “Light must finally become darkness at the greatest possible distance from its origin.” Zeller, Outlines, 296.

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differentiation and synthesis of things, alternating between the two, until the principle of unity is reached. In this way, the individual contemplates the nature of the cosmos in terms of its intellectual beauty and unity, and in so doing, transcends the material world. The goal is to achieve the highest union by going beyond thinking to transcend thought, wherein one may become “filled with divine Light.”44 Neoplatonism promotes mystical experience to achieve connection with the One, with this path being less sensual and more ascetic than Hermeticism in its approach45 Early Christian theologians such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine would appropriate aspects of Neoplatonism within their Christian theology. Mysticism In the history of Western mysticism, there is a recurring theme which should be considered. Jürgen Moltmann states that from the Desert Fathers to Hildegard of Bingen, the mystics “have repeatedly described the closeness of God as “illuminating and flowing waves of energy.”46 In such experiences, light is the medium of the divine essence. This light, through the embodied senses and through education of spiritual matters, brings insight, intuition and consciousness. What mystical experiences reveal is that light is associated with the immediate presence of the divine here in the world of matter, and this appears to be the case for a wide range of mystics throughout the centuries—whether Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, or Christian. In the second century, Apuleius of Madaura who had been schooled in Carthage, Athens, and Rome wrote, among other works, The Metamorphosis, a novel foundational for Western literature. In this story, the main character, Lucius, becomes initiated into the mystery religion of Isis. The worship of the goddess Isis originally dates back over five thousand years in Egypt and would experience many transformations in its encounters with surrounding cultures. Prior to 44. Ibid., 300. 45. Porphyry (232–301) a student of Plotinus, incorporated asceticism in his philosophy more than Plotinus. Zeller, Outlines, 301. 46. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 275.

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Christianity, a version of Isis religion achieved popularity throughout the Roman Empire. Isis was regarded as a savior goddess and on a steele in Memphis, Egypt it states that she “overturns fate,” that through worship and devotion to the goddess, one’s life could be restored and salvation in the afterlife could be attained. In his novel, Apuleius describes in great detail and depth what an initiate experiences in this mystery religion, suggesting to some that Apuleuis himself was speaking from first-hand experience. In the mystical experience described in the Metamorphosis, a primary element experienced is Light.47 In the story prior to this experience, the main character Lucius had undergone depth of suffering, a turning away from his former life, an embracing of a new life as an initiate, ritual cleansing, prayer, vigil, fasting, and a new birth experience. Once Lucius is saved by the goddess Isis through prayer and initiation into her mysteries, he has the following vision: I was . . . rapt through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining as if it were noon; I entered the presence of the gods of the underworld and the gods of the upper-world, stood near and worshipped them. 48

He is here rapt through all the elements and equates this place to one which holds both the underworld and upper-world deities. This, then, is not merely a location associated with the normal three-dimensional understanding of space. Here, distinctions of up and down no longer apply. He seems to be describing going beyond the bounds of space and time. Besides the divine gods, the only other description is that it is a place of light. The primary elements of this vision are the divine (gods), light, and a place out of our usual sense of four-dimensional space-time. In chapter 6, a scientific analysis of meditative states of consciousness will be presented, and in terms of this analysis, the mystical vision presented by Apuleius offers an experiential description of what James Austin describes scientifically as the highest state of mystical experience.49 Apuleius has written about a mystical 47. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, trans. Robert Graves (New York: Noon Day Press, 1997), 278. 48. Apuleius, 278.

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experience where the distance between the divine and human is bridged, with light as a primary element and one’s life is restored. The next mystic to be considered is Dionysus the Areopagite, or Pseudo-Dionysus. He is believed to be a fifth-century Syrian monk,50 who promoted a Christianized Neoplatonic cosmology with a mystical approach to the Divine that would set the model for mysticism in the Middle Ages.51 His works would also experience a great revival of popularity in the fifteenth-century Renaissance along with Hermeticism.52 His cosmology follows, to a degree, that of the Neoplatonist Plotinus, that the All emanates from the One Source. The One, who is the Good, emanates the Intellect, from which arises the world soul; from this, arises matter in interaction with the unformed substratum.53 Dionysius elaborates further hierarchies of nine angelic realms between the Divine and the world, forming three triads. Each realm reflects perfection and illumination. In his affirmative theology, he describes processions of God’s unity from the Immaterial Ideal Forms through the angelic realms to the sensible world.54 The way of return to the Divine is not through reason “for then we can only affirm God’s attributes,” but rather, through mystical experience, for only then can we know God in God’s essence.55 He describes his via mystica or negative theology in three stages: purification, illumination, deification.56 In the first movement, the mind and soul must be purged of thoughts and desires, going beyond thoughts and senses.57 The soul then becomes aware, experiencing in the darkness, the divine “impulse” and unites with it. Illumination 49. James Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward and Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 303. 50. Stanley Burgess, The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 33. 51. Ibid., 38. 52. Ibid., 33. 53. For more in-depth coverage of Dionysius’ cosmology, see Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Also, Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005). 54. Donald Duclow, “Dionysius the Areopagite,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 4, ed. Lindsay Jones, et al. (Farmington Hills, MI: ThomsonGale, 2005), 2355. 55. Burgess, 35. 56. Ibid., 34. 57. Ibid., 36.

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“brighter than all the stars in the universe” pours into the soul.58 In this light, God is known. This intimate union is considered deification by Dionysius, as it is a sharing in the divine essence. In the eleventh-century, Saint Symeon, an Eastern Christian mystic from Greece was known as the theologian of light, emphasizing light as an essential element in mystical experience of the divine.59 Educated in Constantinople, he became abbot at St. Mamas monastery, where he wrote many sermons, discourses, and hymns emphasizing spiritual practices and mystical experiences. From his embodied mystical experiences, he encounters God as light, and light acts as an agent transforming the soul, leading to the deification of the individual. Symeon writes that God is the Light which never ends and all manifestations of God are light.60 Experiencing this light as a pulsating energy, Symeon calls on God’s light to “always shine upon the senses of my soul, to pulsate mystically to your divine words.”61 Light is described as the awareness of the divine presence and the medium of the invisible spirit.62 In Symeon’s theology, light forms a bridge “between the visible and invisible.”63 Connection with the divine light produces internal transformation, translating the soul from “darkened spirit” into the spirit of light.64 In Hymn 103, he states “the mind is immersed by your Light. It becomes effulgent and is changed into Light.”65 Symeon advocates a series of stages and spiritual practices for encounter with the divine light: spiritual education, moral living, asceticism, contemplation, and prayer. In Hymn 1, the Divine presence is likened to the ”light of the sun, it appears luminous and the entire soul is transformed by divine clarity.66 The light Symeon describes becomes indwelling, transforming the darkness of the soul to light and “makes one 58. Ibid., 35. 59. Maria Jaoudi, Christian Mysticism East and West (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1987), 28. 60. Ibid., 29, 37–38. 61. Symeon, Discourses, 22.19 cited in Jaoudi, 39. 62. Jaoudi, 32–33. 63. Ibid., 30. 64. Vision 145 cited in Jaoudi, 36. 65. Symeon, Hymn, 103 cited in Jaoudi, 37. 66. Symeon, Hymn 1 cited in Jaoudi, 38.

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conscious and symbolizes consciousness itself.”67 It is a light bringing divine wisdom, but more than wisdom, as Symeon regards the transforming power of divine light as a divinizing process, uniting the individual soul to God.68 In the cosmology of the twelfth century western mystic Hildegard of Bingen, she envisions fire as a divine element within creation. In Scivias, she relates a vision of divine Light which enlightens: When I was forty-two and seven months old, a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but kindles. It inflamed my entire heart and breast, like the sun that warms an object with its rays. All at once I was able to taste of the understanding of books—the Psalter, the Evangelists and the books of the Old and New Testaments.69

For Hildegard, divine Light brings wisdom. She wrote two books on nature and medicine, offering numerous herbal and mineral remedies wherein she describes the power of healing to be within matter itself: lavender for clear breathing, nutmeg and chalcedony for clear thinking, linseed for healing burns, jasper for congestion, onyx for high fever. She wrote of the greening power of creation, experienced through the senses; the living power in nature becomes the regenerative power of the soul. For Hildegard, not only does divine Light which is experienced through the senses bring divine wisdom, but also regeneration. From Jewish mystical experience, Philo relates the Light of God to the light of the world. He writes in On the Creation that what we see in creation is a dim version of the pure light of God.70 He expresses that visions of Light bring enlightenment “pure and untampered rays of concentrated light stream forth like a torrent, so that by its gleams the eye of understanding is dazzled.”71 In Kabbalism from the thirteenth century, in the Aramaic Zohar, meaning Splendor, there are many 67. Jaoudi, 37. 68. St. Symeon, Action de Graces, 2: 82–89 cited in Jaoudi, 29. 69. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias. 70. Philo, On the Creation, 25. 71. Philo, On the Creation, 57.

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visions which convey connection with the Divine as Light. In one example, Rabbi Shim’on who has been in a cave for thirteen years, is described by Rabbi Rehumai as metaphorically possessing a radiant pearl: “I gazed at the light of the pearl, issuing like the radiance of the sun from its sheth, illuminating the entire world.”72 Rabbi Rehumai is describing Rabbi Shim’on body and soul, as radiating a divine light brought on by years of mystical practice. The mystical connection to the Divine is expressed by the Jewish mystics as light and said to cause illumination for one who has experienced this light. Borrowing from Neoplatonism the concept of the Divine as an overflow of abundance, the German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) wrote of the “Unmanifest” and “Manifest Absolute,” forming one continuous non-dualistic stream. In Sermon 5, he speaks of God’s immanence. “He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere.” Creation is described as intimately interconnected to the divine, a connection which could be experienced through depth of soul and not just from an intellectual understanding. Against the overly rational approaches to the divine, Eckhart emphasized feeling as connection to the Divine. He wrote on the stages of union between the soul and God: by going beyond the world of sensory objects, a oneness with the divine could be experienced. Eckhart describes the mystical experience in terms of light and recurring new birth. This birth “always brings new light . . . God pours light into the soul which spills over into the faculties and fills the body with radiance.” In his commentary on John 1:5, he states, “sinners cannot receive this light for the paths which this light should take are blocked with falsehood and darkness.” Conclusion The experiences of the mystics described above represent a portion of the traditions which existed within and alongside the orthodox traditions. Mysticism has continually given its voice to a natural 72. Zohar 1.11b.

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connection experienced between the individual and the divine. Often, this connection is through the senses and a going beyond the senses, and often, in terms of light as bringing divine enlightenment. In Manichaean and Hermetic cosmologies, light is not only associated with the divine, but it is in nature itself, mixed with darkness. Light functions as a bridge to the divine. In Manichaeism, the soul itself is composed of light. In Hermeticism, nature is considered light and divine. Both senses and the mind are the avenue of connection to the divine. For Plotinus, the individual soul is a fragmented segment of the cosmic soul. The higher part of the soul stays in connection with the cosmic soul, and by extension, divine intelligence, through contemplation, while the lower part of the soul tends to become marred down in the material world. To transcend the material world, one contemplates eternal forms. This thinking is dialectical, mirroring the dialectical processes which brought the spiritual realm into existence. The Hermetic-Neoplatonic movement in the fifteenth century would combine the new findings in science, mathematics, alchemy, astronomy, astrology, and medicine.73 Rather than a strict reliance on tradition, as will be the case with the Aristotelian-Thomistic trajectory, experimentation was valued.74 What the spiritualists discovered was the inherent powers within matter itself. Such powers were interpreted as “divine powers,” whereas in later contemporary science, such powers would be regarded as natural.75 In the HermeticNeoplatonic trajectory, matter is regarded as having “powers, aim, sympathies, and antipathies of its own.”76 God is in nature, and nature in God.77 For the spiritualists, matter was defined as having internal power and filled with light. The connection between God and the world of matter was found to be within nature itself.

73. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 111–12. 74. Keith Ward, Pascal’s Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006), 10. 75. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 112. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid.

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Orthodox and alternative religious cosmologies would exist side by side throughout the centuries, and with the advent of modern science in the seventeenth century, a three-way battle of cosmologies ensued.1 The first of these three traditions arose from Platonism and Stoicism, and included Hermeticism, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, and the mystical movements, as discussed in chapter 2. The second and third traditions—the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition and the LegalMechanistic tradition stemming from Aristotelian cosmology—would both incorporate the developing orthodox theology of the Catholic Church, which was greatly dependent upon Logos theology, the subject of this chapter. Interconnection through Jesus as Logos The Greek philosophical concept of the Logos, the divine intelligent principle, was crucial early on for the development of Christian theology. The first identification of Jesus as Logos is found at the end 1. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 110f.

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of the first century in the Gospel of John, possibly originating from the city of Ephesus. Written in Greek, the author proclaims: “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God” (John 1:1), with the term “logos” typically rendered “word” in English translations. The writer of the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the agent of divine intelligence, a concept derived from Greek philosophy. The philosopher Heraclitus, also from Ephesus, had written in the sixth century BCE that in the beginning was the Logos, the Divine rational ordering principle of light and energy within nature which gives matter form and reveals the mind of the One, the divine source of the world. In the earliest manuscript, Papyrus 46, of our earliest Christian gospel, the Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as “a son of God,” a view that reflects the Greco-Roman social-historical context.2 According to the Nestle-Aland Greek apparatus of the New Testament, in later manuscripts, “a son of God” would be turned into “the Son of God” by scribes hand-copying the manuscripts. Early Christian hymns as well, such as those quoted by Paul in his letter to the Philippians (and in the Deutero-Paulinist letter to the Colossians), present Jesus as divine. The opening line of the Gospel of John quoted above is also considered a hymn and written approximately half a century after Paul’s letter to the Philippians.3 The concept of Jesus as divine Logos would be greatly developed by Christian writers over the next several centuries. The Patristic period began in the early second century after the writings of the New Testament were complete and lasted roughly until the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. While the relationship between Christianity and Judaism would be one of the first issues Christian theologians addressed, apologetics would soon emerge as a defense and justification of Christianity to the surrounding Greco-Roman culture where Christianity was an illegal religion. In Judaism, concepts such as the Davidic son of God and the Messiah would easily allow for followers to identify Jesus as such, but in the wider culture of the 2. Nestle-Aland Greek text and critical apparatus for Mark 1.1 and 15.39. 3. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, Vol.1. Anchor Bible, v.29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 21.

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Greco-Roman world, the defenders of the faith needed a concept which would bridge the cultural divide. Following the Gospel of John, they built upon the concept of Logos. Major Christian theologians from the Patristic era through the Middles Ages and into the Reformation would appropriate many elements of the Greek philosophical concept of the Logos and extend the technical ramifications of these in reference to the person of Christ and the development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. These theologians included Justin Martyr of Rome (100–165), Irenaeus of Lyons (130–200), Tertullian of Carthage (160–225), Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), Origin of Alexandria (185–254), Athanasius of Alexandria (296–373), the Cappadocian theologians of the fourth century, Ambrose of Milan (340–397), Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Thomas Aquinas of the thirteenth century, and John Calvin of the Protestant Reformation. One of the earliest Patristic writers was Justin Martyr, who grew up in a Greek-speaking family in Palestine. He studied Greek philosophy in Ephesus, including the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism. Later, he would move to Rome and open a philosophical Christian school. The title of martyr was affixed to his name following his martyrdom under the prefect Junius Rusticus in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. In Justin’s Second Apology, he combines the middle Platonic concept of the transcendent God, the concept of the Logos (following Heraclitus, Philo, and the Gospel of John), and Christian ideas of Jesus’s agency as the Logos in the act of creation, thus creating a new Christian cosmology.4 In this cosmology, God is the transcendent Other, which Justin describes in the apophatic language found in Gnosticism and Aristotelian philosophy, the invisible, unknowable, unmovable God.5 In order to rectify the appearance of incompatible concepts, such as the absolute transcendence of God, with the accounts of divine theophanies as recorded in the Hebrew Bible, Justin conceives of Jesus

4. J. Rebecca Lyman, Christology and Cosmology: Models of Divine Activity in Origen, Eusebius, and Athanasius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 22–25. 5. Justin wrote against Gnostics, particularly in terms of their view that creation was a world of darkness. What he has in common with the Gnostics is the view of God as monad as invisible and indescribable. Lyman, 21.

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as Logos as the mediatory figure between the transcendent spirit realm and the world of matter and as the active principle between the impassible God and the world of change. He also borrows the Stoic concept of the logoi spermatikoi. The Stoics had regarded the seeds of divine reason spread throughout creation and as identified with and embodied by certain wise individuals. For Justin, the divine Logos is evident not only in creation, but in the mind of human beings in general, and especially in philosophers, prophets, and the law, but that the fullness of the Logos is revealed in Christ.6 The order and purpose of the philosophical Logos was applied to the Son who fulfilled not only the Hebrew Scripture prophecies, but the Divine “will” for the cosmos.7 As obedient Son, the Logos was sent to redeem humanity. As active divine principle, Jesus brings not only the followers of Jesus, but the entire creation into union with God.8 Whereas with the Stoics the logoi spermatikoi, seeds of divine reason, functioned to bring humanity nearer to the Divine, for Justin it is now Christ’s own logoi spermatikoi which are present in Creation and function as the immanence of God to all of creation9 The logoi spermatikoi are also found in the “light” of reason in human beings.10 Employing an imagery of light to describe the relationship of God to the Logos/Son, Justin writes that it is like the sun to the sunlight, or as one torch is lit from another. As the original concept of the Logos by definition is divine, as set forth by Heraclitus, for Justin, Jesus as Logos is also ontologically divine. This identification has implications for creation and the redemptive enlightenment of creatures,11 as did the Logos in Plato’s theology. The original concept of the Logos as that which provided a means of universal access to the Divine and was considered immanent throughout creation, on the one hand provides a means of communicating who Christ is to the wider Greco-Roman 6. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, The Pelican History of the Church, Vol. 1 (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1968), 76–77. 7. Ibid., 24. 8. Ibid., 23. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 86.

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culture, but on the other hand is employed now in exclusively Christian terms. Justin is more inclusive, however, in his presentation of Jesus in his First Apology addressed to the Roman Emperor Antonius Pius. In this, Justin states that the story of Jesus as teacher, born of a virgin, who was crucified, died and ascended, was “like so many stories told of the sons of Zeus honored among their culture.”12 The “sons of Zeus” which Justin speaks of were heroes who lived honorable lives, sacrificing themselves for the cause of justice.13 This analogy of Justin’s should not be dismissed because it speaks to the pattern and “form” of the life of Jesus, a model which the early Christian martyrs, including Justin, followed, a concept to be developed further by the next theologian. 14 Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, carried forward Justin’s view of Jesus as Logos and wrote against the Gnostics in defense of the orthodox faith. He had studied under Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who in turn, had been a disciple of the apostle John. Later, Irenaeus moved to Rome to study in the Christian philosophical school of Justin Martyr. Writing in Greek, he addressed the Gnostic idea of “creation as error,” and instead, wrote of creation as good, as a product of the “divine will.”15 Irenaeus emphasizes not only the transcendence of God, but also, the power of God. Creation, for Ireneaus, is ex nihilio (creation out of nothing). For Irenaeus, the power of the divine is not in creation, for creation is a product of the divine will, but rather, the power of the divine extends to humanity in the Logos, which he equates with the Son. The Son makes God visible and reveals the nature of true humanity made in the image of God.16 Now the way to the divine is not through the mind in comprehending the divine forms in nature, but through the will in conforming to the image, the pattern of life, revealed by the Son. In this concept, Irenaeus draws upon Paul’s concept of imitating Christ found throughout his writings (1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; 1 12. Gregory Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs: How Jesus Inspired Not One True Christianity, But Many (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 19. 13. Ibid, 31–60. 14. Ibid. 15. Lyman, 27. 16. Ibid.

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Cor 4:16; 11:1; Phil 3:17; 4:9; Gal 4:12). Imitation, of course, is found profusely in the Greek tradition, particularly in the heroic code.17 In Paul’s writings, Jesus as the divine and human mediator was regarded as a model for human virtue and ethics. The Son revealed the form of life the Christian was to follow in order to be restored to the divine image of humanity, an image which had had been damaged in the fall—a restoration revealed and carried out by the Son himself. For Irenaeus, sin is regarded as a result of human freedom and erroneous choices, a matter of the will.18 The sinful individual is to con-form to the image set by Christ as Logos. Even more, Irenaeus writes of the Logos co-existing with God from all eternity, as well as the Spirit, who he identifies as divine personified wisdom.19 As the Son makes known the Father, the Spirit makes known knowledge and wisdom of the Son. 20 Tertullian (160–225), writing in the West and considered the founder of Latin theology, advances the Logos and Trinitarian theology emergent in Justin and Irenaeus. It was Tertullian who provided the first systematic account of the doctrine of the Trinity and it is his terminology in Against Praxeas which “came to form a permanent part of western vocabulary” for discussing the Trinity.21 He is the first to use the technical term trinitas, three-ness, in referring to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit In Tertullian’s account of the triunity of God in Against Praxeas, he begins with the internal generation of the Logos—“for before all things 17. Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs, 31–60. 18. Lyman, 36–37. 19. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Rev. ed. (New York: HarperOne, 1978), 105–6. In Proverbs 3 and 8, personified Wisdom (Sophia in Greek) is referred to as female by the writer of Proverbs, and said to be present when God creates the world. In the Genesis 1 creation story, when God says, “Let us make humankind in our image,” Irenaeus makes the argument that the “us” refers to the Logos and the personified Wisdom of God. In ancient rabbinic commentaries, the plural pronoun of Genesis 1 is said to refer to the Heavenly Court, a myriad of divine beings as described in 1 Kings 22. Commentators have pointed out that the image of God indicated in Genesis 1 is both male and female, as the passage states, “Let us make humankind in our image . . . male and female He made them.” In order to equate the “us” with three specifically, rather than a myriad including both male and female, Irenaeus identifies personified Wisdom with the Spirit of God active at the beginning of creation, and refers to this Spirit as “He.” He then also cites the work of the Three not only in creation, but also in redemption. 20. Kelly, Doctrines, 106–7. This early concept of the Trinity will be greatly expanded upon by later theologians. 21. Chadwick, The Early Church, 92.

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God was alone. . . . He had within Himself His own Reason. This Reason is His own Thought, which the Greeks call Logos, by which term we also designate Word.”22 While the later tradition would modify Tertullian’s thought, he also identifies this internal generation with wisdom: “This divine Intelligence is also set forth in scripture under the name Sophia, Wisdom…and Wisdom says, at the first the Lord created me.”23 The Logos, for Tertullian, is, consequentially, the creative agent in bringing into being the world; the Father, in coordination with the Logos, creates the world out of nothing through God’s “thought” and “word,” the Logos.24 In this early effort at a Trinitarian theology, Tertullian was also the first to utilize the terminology of personhood. Tertullian wrote that the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost are three “persons.”25 The Latin “persona” originally had the sense of a mask, indicating different characters in Roman theatrical dramas.26 For Tertullian, a person is defined as a being who speaks and acts and relates to others.27 His description of the Logos coming forth from the mind of God reflects the original meaning of the word “person” as a character in a dramatic play, for he states: “The Logos assumes his own form and glorious garb, His own sound and vocal utterance when he says, ‘Let there be light’.”28 And the first words the Logos speaks concerns light. Tertullian performs an interesting parallelism in regard to the Logos in the act of creation and the incarnation of the Logos as Christ: In his Apology, he maintains that Christ himself is like a ray of light from God and that “this ray of God descended into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb.”29 In the birth of Jesus, God and man united.30 Christ came to “enlighten” those living under “illusions,” while his miracles “prove he is the Logos of God.”31 He is further described by Tertullian 22. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 5. 23. Ibid., 6. 24. Tertullian, De Praescriptione, 7; Tertullain, Against Praxeas, 5. 25. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 9. 26. Allister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 209. 27. McGrath, 209. 28. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 7. 29. Tertullian, Apology, 21. 30. Ibid.

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as “Enlightener and Trainer of the human race,” in terms of the model he set.32 His use of light here connects the acts of generation, creation, and incarnation, all set against the backdrop of the terminology from the Gospel of John.33 The third person of the Trinity is first introduced by Tertullian in Against Praxeas as the Paraclete mentioned in the Gospel of John.34 The three persons of the Trinity—the Father, the Logos (Son), and the Paraclete (Spirit) —are said to be of the same substance. Using an analogy to the sun to explain how the substance is the same for the three, he states that “when the ray is shot from the sun it is still part of the parent mass. The sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun.”35 The Holy Spirit, he said, was like the apex of the ray of light. Both the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to “proceed” and “emanate” from God.36 The three are one inseparable essence, yet distinct in their mode of being, a crucial distinction that will not only be the subject of further contemplation in the following centuries, but also will generate a set of controversies over the relation of these “modes” to the singularity of the divine essence and identity. 37 The acts of creation and incarnation are, in many respects for Tertullian, Trinitarian acts; the Logos and the Paraclete bring forth the created world and give light, breath, and life; and the Logos, in coordination with the Paraclete, comes to the world in the incarnate 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. The first mention of the virgin birth in literature occurs in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7, which describes a meeting between King Ahaz of Judah and the prophet Isaiah, which occurred in a public place near a water reservoir. The king is worried about the northern kingdom of Israel and Aram attacking Judah. Isaiah assures him that all will be well if he is patient. He provides a sign that what he is saying is true. A pregnant woman is in the vicinity. He says, look the woman (alamah in Hebrew, meaning young married woman) is with child and shall bear a son. By the time her boy reaches a certain age, the Lord will bring on Assyria who will attack Judah’s enemies. Matthew has the Greek version of this passage which refers to the woman as parthenos, which means young woman, but also carries the meaning of virgin. 34. In this gospel, Jesus is described as intuitively knowing that he would die soon and said to his followers, “I will send you a helper” (John 14.16). This helper is an advocate who would assist Christians facing persecution, advising them in what to say when indicted, as would a lawyer. 35. Tertullian, Apologetics, 21. 36. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 7–8. Tertullian uses analogies to describe these emanations. The Son comes forth from the Father like “a root puts forth the tree, like a fountain, a river, like the sun, a ray.” The Spirit is “as the fruit of the tree, as a stream of a river, as the apex of the ray.” 37. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 9, 25.

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person of Jesus. Even more crucially, however, the process of salvation and redemption is one grounded in and mediated through the work of the Logos and the Paraclete through the structures of the public, orthodox tradition of the Church: ultimate connection of the divine to humanity, in Tertullian, is through the Logos/Word as Christ, the revelation in the words of scripture as taught by priests of the church, the words and stories of Christ as cosmic reason and trainer, and the enlightenment these words bring through the Holy Spirit as Paraclete.38 A late contemporary of Tertullian, Origen (185–254) of Alexandria, Egypt had a high regard for Greek philosophy and incorporates it strongly into his Christian theology. One of Origen’s pivotal contributions is his refinement of Tertullian’s Logos-oriented Trinitarian theology. Origen, in fact, not only refines, for example, Tertullian’s rudimentary distinction between the “modes of being” and the singularity of the Godhead, but also supplies the technical terminology that would define the debates in Trinitarian theology over the subsequent centuries. For Origen, the Triune Godhead is a “triadic hierarchy of hypostases eternally generated.”39 Hypostasis is a Greek term which was often employed in Gnostic writings. The word refers to the “underlying principle or nature, essence or substance” and was employed to refer to the essence and being of divine personality.40 God the Father is the fountainhead of incorporeal deity and emanates the Logos-Son as a second hypostasis and the Holy Spirit as the third hypostasis. Each hypostasis issues forth from God and shares the same essence (ousia). Origen states in On First

38. Tertullian converted to Montanism, where the leader of this Christian sect claimed to be the Paraclete predicted to return in the Gospel of John 14. 39. Robert Berchman, From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition (Chico: Scholars Press, 1984), 135. 40. The plurality of hypostasis, for Origen, do not compromise the singularity and unity of God, but connote the fullness of the Godhead itself—realized principally and originally in God as the unoriginated ground of the plurality. According to Chadwick, God is a single monarchia to distinguish the usage of hypostasis from Gnosticism. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, 86. The Father, here, is identified by Origen as the “fountainhead of deity.” Berchman, 12; Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 131.

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Principles, God is not of any substance and the Son is generated from the Father “as will proceeds from mind.”41 The divine monarchy, as it has been called, generates and processes in internal plurality eternally. For Origen, the act of creation, on the other hand, is a volitional act of God, an external movement internally coordinated between Father and Logos. Creation is in two acts. In the first act, eternal souls are created (as opposed to generated) in the image of God.42 All intelligent souls, logika, are considered to be preexistent and united to God in the beginning. They are created to contemplate the divine mystery, but turn away—except the soul of Christ. These fallen souls will take on courser and courser material bodies, contingent upon the extent of their fall, and subsequent to the second stage of creation. In the second act, the material world is created.43 Matter is created out of nothing and then into the formless material substratum Christ as Logos causes material things to exist by implanting the logoi, the seeds of reason, into matter, which gives matter form.44 The created world serves as a place for fallen souls to recognize their alienation from God, to purify themselves, and by a combination of their own efforts and God’s grace, seek return to God.45 There are echoes here of Empedocles’ cosmology which become more evident as the details of Origen’s cosmology progress. Once again, it is the Logos which connects God and humanity. God can be known in the world through the Son as Logos and the Holy Spirit.46 The Son was “begotten” by God as Father, as Truth proceeds from God, not “created” as other beings.47 As the first-born offspring, he is the Logos of God. For our salvation, the Logos “took not only a 41. Origen, On First Principles, 1; Greer, 205. As mentioned above, the terms hypostasis and ousia will be used frequently by Trinitarian theologians after Origen—the formula, three hypostases in one ousia, will become the orthodox standard in the fourth century. Such terms are employed to convey the in-corporeality of the Godhead and the relationship of the members of the Triad to each other. The concept of eternal generation for the Son and eternal procession for the Holy Spirit distinguish them from all other beings created. See Chadwick, 86, 131. 42. Harry Boer, A Short History of the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 93. 43. Joseph Trigg, Origen, The Early Church Fathers (New York: Routledge, 1998), 27. 44. Berchman, 131. 45. Trigg, 28. 46. Berchman, 126. 47. Origen, On First Principles, 1; Rowan Greer, Origen (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 206; Kelly, Doctrines, 130.

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human body by entering a woman’s womb, but also a soul, one like our soul in its nature”—the Logos, in fact, takes the one unfallen soul.48 The Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from God, mediates the knowledge of God to the “saints.”49 Origen relates light and logos by saying, “the Light of the Logos enlightens through revelation, like rays of God.”50 Humans are considered enlightened to the mysteries of the Divine through the Holy Spirit who sheds forth the light of the Logos. Individuals have the ability to choose the Good, unite with the ChristLogos through the Holy Spirit, and find their way back by learning the divine mysteries, as each is able. He states that this may take several life times, and that souls return to their original unitive state through successive stages of restorative education and purgation—and in this process, there is the potential for all to return to the Divine. A generation after the death of Origen, another major Christian theologian would emerge in Alexandria, Egypt. Considered the Father of orthodoxy by the Church, Athanasius was born in the late 290s and became the bishop in Alexandria in 328. He had been schooled in Greek philosophy and Christianity in his early years, attending the same catechetical school as Origen. Athanasius clarifies the relationship of divine Triune identity, and further centers the creative and redemptive identity and acts of Christ as the divine Logos; these would provide the conceptual framework for not only the Cappadocian tradition, but also, the Nicene and Constantinopolitan creedal settlements. In his apologetic treatise, Contra Gentiles, Athanasius defines God as invisible, incorporeal, self-sufficient, beyond all substance, and beyond all created existence.51 As with Aristotle’s concept of the Unmoved Mover, distance and difference from that which is created are, a priori, regarded as necessary. As a corollary to this, Athanasius defends creation ex nihilio (creation from nothing), stating that matter is from God, from “the non-existent absolute,” otherwise God would be a mere 48. Greer, 208; Boer, 93; Trigg, 25. 49. Berchman, 128, 135, 140. 50. Origen, Commentary on John, 2.9. 51. Athanasius, Contra Gentiles, 1.1.28–9; 3.53.1.

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craftsman, like a carver of wood, rather than a creator of wood.52 As with earlier theologians, in Athanasius’ cosmology, an intermediary is necessary between God and the world—that intermediary being the Logos. As he makes clear in Contra Gentiles, the Logos is not merely an instrument speaking creation into being;53 rather, the Logos is the active rational, intelligent agent in the divine work of creation, producing the Order of all creation.54 Unlike the Stoic usage, for Athanasius, the Logos is outside of creation, sustaining and preserving it, moving all things by his organizing action,55 and, in keeping with Aristotle’s definition of divinity, the Logos “remains unmoved with the Father,” while the world moves due to its organized structure. 56 This identification of the Logos—as the eternal, divine mediator—will be pivotal to the subsequent orthodox theology, and it was not without controversy in the early fourth century. The development of Athanasius’ thought in this regard, in fact, was precipitated by fierce debate and struggle. Prior to Athanasius’ election as bishop, while he was secretary to then Bishop Alexander, Athanasius became involved in a controversy that would embroil the church for the next several decades. In the second decade of the fourth century, Athanasius became the chief respondent to Arius. Arius of Alexandria would be important in giving expression to what would be the minority opinion at the Council of Nicaea.57 The view of Arius can be gleaned from a letter to his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria written five years before the council of Nicaea where Arius describes his and his associates’ understanding of the relationship of Jesus to God.58 The letter is signed by six presbyters, six deacons, and two bishops. It begins with the statement that what is contained in the letter reflects “our faith which we received from our forefathers,” 52. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God, 1.2, 3. 53. Athanasius, Contra Gentiles, 3.39.5. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 42.1. 56. Ibid., 3.42.3. 57. Boer, 113. 58. “The Confession of the Arians, Addressed to Alexander of Alexandria,” in Christology of the Later Fathers, The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. 3, Edward Hardy, ed. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1955).

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a witness to the diversity of beliefs in the early Church. The first statement of faith is that there is one God, the Monad who is the only one without beginning, eternal, unchangeable, God of the Law, the Prophets, and the New Covenant. Before the ages, he begot his monogenes (unique) Son the Logos, through whom he made the ages and all things. “Begotten timelessly before all things,” Christ as Logos and Son of God holds a unique position to save humanity. For Athanasius, in response to Arius, the Logos is to be identified with God, and since God is eternal, there cannot be a time when the Logos, was not. The Son as Logos creates the world and guides the world and is of the same substance or essence with God, using the Greek word homoousios to describe this relationship.59 This debate would carry through to the Council of Nicaea, which will be discussed below. For Athanasius, human salvation is possible in the unique involvement and union between God and humanity realized in the incarnation. “In the incarnation, God assumed the form of a human, Jesus, who being born of a virgin, was undefiled, and like the rays of the sun, which brighten and enliven and purify, yet remain unpolluted, Jesus, in the image of God, consubstantial with God, brings knowledge of God.”60 We are deified through his becoming flesh, states Athanasius.61 The Son of God became man so that we might become God.62 For Athanasius, God and the Son must share the same essence in order for humanity to be restored63 In Greek philosophical thought, as the Logos of God guides creation, now the Logos as Son, as pure essence of the Father, comes as Christ to guide humanity.64 According to Athanasius, Christ “came to teach,” 59. Kelly, Doctrines, 245. Arius, on the contrary, described the likeness of Father and Son as one of will “comparable with any human’s voluntary imitation of a teacher he reveres.” Athanasius would counter Arius’ suggestion, arguing that the Logos proceeded forth from God “like a fountain” and shares the same essence with God, while the Spirit of the Son brings enlightenment. See Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 212. 60. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God, 3.17. 61. Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39; 3.34. 62. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God, 54.3. 63. Ibid., 31.2; 32.6; 57.1. 64. Ibid., 43.7.

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to bring knowledge of God and knowledge of immortality. These teachings “persuade humanity to virtue,” an honorable life, and lead to a desire for heavenly things.65 In this way, the image of God in humanity may be restored, as an old painting is restored. While connection between the world and God could have been achieved through the Logos evident in the harmony and order of the natural world states Athanasius, it is the vast corruption in humanity that calls for the restorative teachings from the Logos as savior. Within the human soul is the logoi which forms a connection to the Logos as Christ. Further connection to the Divine is achieved through the printed word. In Athanasius’ Letter 39, dated to 367 CE, he lists for the first time, the twenty-seven writings that constitute the New Testament canon of scripture for orthodox Christianity, along with the writings of the Hebrew Bible. While the early churches spread out across the empire did not have the same writings, this is the first time that we see this exact list of books which would become the New Testament. He expounds that these teachings have been handed down, guarded by the apostolic fathers, and it is their faith which serves as a model of faith. He describes these writings as having divine status, and lists other books as well which provide instruction in godliness, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Wisdom of Sirach. Therefore, reading scriptures, as well as other worthy books provides additional connection to the Divine. One such reading was written by Athanasius himself around the year 360 and came to be cited by many as providing a spiritual connection to God. This is The Life of Anthony, which is about a third century ascetic monk who lived a solitary life in the Egyptian desert for several years, devoted to the spiritual practices of fasting and prayer. Many miracles are associated with Anthony himself and this writing of his life. For example, it was an important influence in terms of Augustine accepting the call of God. Scriptures and other inspirational readings provide further connection to the Logos and to God. 65. Ibid., 31.2; 32.6; 57.1.

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The Trinity: Christ’s Spirit as Interconnection The doctrine of the Trinity as “one God existing in three co-equal persons” (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) became official Church doctrine at the Council of Constantinople in 381.66 The development of the doctrine of the Trinity took centuries.67 Theologians from the second and third century, particularly those examined above, were pivotal to the eventual creedal and doctrinal articulations of the Trinity—first through the clarification of the identity and role of the Logos as Christ, and then, the subsequent refinement of the interconnection of the person and work of Christ with soteriology. The dispute between Athanasius and Arius set the stage in the fourth century for a series of councils over the next century and a half that would establish the framework for Trinitarian theology up to the present day. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE was convened to address the disputes regarding the relationship of the Son to God, while the Council of Constantinople in 381 would address the person of the Holy Spirit. Emperor Constantine called for the Council of Nicaea seeking to achieve peace and unity in his empire concerning the differing Christian christologies. There were actually three parties at the council: The Arians, led by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, a second party led by Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and a third party led by Eusebius of Caesarea, noted historian of the church.68 At the council, it was agreed that Christ must be regarded as fully divine, as consubstantial with God, in order to save humanity. The council drafted a creed stating that the Father and Son were homoousios, of the same substance, which describes Christ as 66. Kelly, Doctrines, 88. 67. Ibid., 12. 68. Ayres, Nicaea, 88. The Arians, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, advocated a form of Arius’ teaching that the Logos was a created intermediary, the highest being created by God before the creation of the world; Eusebius of Caesarea, leader of a mediating coalition, advanced an argument that the Logos, incarnate in Christ, is unique, begotten before the ages, and in the likeness of God (employing a term [homoiousios] that would continue during the fourth century to be advanced as an alternative, potentially reconciling, position to that of the Alexandrian party of Athanasius and Alexander (and approved by the Council at Nicaea) [see Boer, 114]. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius won approval for the designation of the Logos as homoousios. Ayres, 90.

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begotten of the Father uniquely (monogenis), of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and those in earth, who for us and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and became man; he suffered and rose on the third day, ascended into heaven and is coming to judge the living and the dead. And we believe in the Holy Spirit.69

Compared to earlier baptismal creeds, the “most striking aspects” of Nicaea is its use of the technical terminology of ousia and hypostasis.70 These terms had been the subject of confusion since the mid-third century.71 Controversy ensued in the previous century and in the debates leading up to and surrounding Nicaea in sorting out this terminology—for some, such ideas seemed too materialistic, particularly Arius to speak of the substance of God, and some accused those who supported the adoption of homoousios in the Nicene Creed of being Manichaean.72 At the council, Eusebius of Caesarea had to ask for clarification of the terms homoousios and ousia. Regarding the terms homoousios and ousia, in their historical context, Gnostics frequently used homoousios (of the same ousia, of the same essence) to indicate the same ontological status, particularly in a framework of cosmological emanation, that is, a lower deity or aeon derived its being and essence from a higher deity or aeon.73 Origen, for example, had used hypostasis when referring to the Logos, that the Logos derives its essence from God.74 Homoousios could also mean duogenes, belonging to the same class, such as a root generates a plant.75 Arius seems to have understood the term as implying a materialistic division of God.76 For Eusebius of Nicomedia, the term implied two eternal co-ordinate realities, and so, he rejected it.77 Paul 69. “The Letter of Eusebius of Caesarea Describing the Council of Nicaea,” in Christology of the Later Fathers, 338. 70. Ayers, Nicaea, 92. 71. Ibid. Origen, for example, had used hypostasis when referring to the Logos, that the Logos derives its essence from God (Ibid., 86). 72. Ibid., 93. 73. Ibid., 93. 74. Ibid., 86. 75. Ibid., 94–95. 76. Ibid., 94. 77. Ibid.

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of Samosata had used the term in his theology and was condemned by the council of Antioch, so the word clearly was multivalent. When Eusebius of Caesarea asked for clarification of the terms, he was told that ousia simply meant that the Son was truly from the Father. For some, it meant that the Father’s generation of the Son was more like a human child from a human father, rather than like the creation of all other things. The word indicated derivation as from a biological or material base.78 Among the adjectives in the creed describing the substance or ousia of divinity was light. Traditionally, among the early Greeks and Gnostics, God, gods, and the Immaterial Realm have been associated with Light and enlightenment, and in the Gospel of John, Jesus is associated with light and brings enlightenment. While the Nicene creed established a framework for articulating the identity of the Son through the use of the term homoousios, the creed only implicitly supplied a corresponding status to the Spirit. The third article of the creed simply states, “and we believe in the Holy Spirit.” It would set the stage for further debates, leaving the settlement of the identity of the Spirit to be taken up by the council of Constantinople approximately fifty-five years later. But, from these beginnings, three theologians from the eastern part of the empire in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey) would build on the Nicene framework and construct what would eventually turn out to be the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Cappadocians—Basil of Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus—were students of Origen and Athanasius. Basil became bishop of Caesarea in Cappodocia in 370. Building on Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea’s doctrine that there are three hypostases (three individual substances) in one ousia (essence), Basil’s contribution was to argue more clearly for the divinity of the Holy Spirit, contesting prevalent views that the Holy Spirit was a creature.79 The personhood of the three hypostases was analogically compared by 78. Ibid., 95. 79. According to Burgess, his first statement on this subject came in a letter from a monastery in Pontus addressed to the Caesareans. Stanley Burgess. The Holy Spirit: Ancient Christian Traditions (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984), 134.

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Basil to human persons. “Human persons for Basil possess a peculiar dignity because in their rational minds they possess the image of God and are the most appropriate site for exploring the nature of God.”80 While the opposition regarded three divine persons as being tri-theist, Basil argued that the three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are three in number, not in essence, just as human beings are multiple in number, but singular in essence; for Basil, the essence of God is Source and shared with the Son and Spirit.81 In his discussion of the unity of the three, the Spirit is said to be one with the Father and Son as the spirit is within a human person.82 The mode of origination is that each is generated from the ungenerated divine source (the Father) as light from light.83 In addition, the three share a common activity in the economic work of creation and redemption;84 and, for Basil, common activity demonstrates a common essence.85 The coordinate—and common—activity of the Son and Spirit in redemption particularly demonstrates and grounds, for Basil, the consequential significance of ecclesial experience and tradition. The Holy Spirit is described as “a gift” to be received through the Church in baptism.86 This “gift,” however, Basil describes in terms of a process. Because “the corporeal” cannot receive the “incorporeal,” the first stage is purification.87 The ritual of baptism begins the process of purification of the soul.88 The next stage is that Christians are to conform to the “pattern” of what they see in Christ, which reflects the long-held view of imitation of a model, as expressed by the Greeks, particularly in the writings of Plato and the model of the Greek heroes throughout traditional Greek culture, and conveyed in the patristic

80. Ayres, Nicaea, 208. 81. Ibid., 206–7. 82. Ibid., 208. 83. Ibid., 206–8. 84. Ibid., 216. 85. Ibid. 86. Using analogical language of person, Basil describes the Holy Spirit as gift as breath from the mouth of God. Burgess, Ancient Christian Traditions, 141–42. 87. Ibid., 142. 88. Ibid., 141–42.

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writings. The Spirit and the ascetical practices mediated by the church conform the passions and the soul to the pattern of the life and words of Christ, through which and through whom come transformation and union with the divine.89 The baptized believer is transformed through a spiritualizing process, which Basil portrays as the body becoming transparent, where previously, it had been tainted and corrupted. This “transparency” allows for “illumination” by the “light” of the Holy Spirit bringing wisdom, just as a “sunbeam falls.”90 The individual is described by Basil as becoming “brilliant” and “shed[ding] forth a fresh brightness.” The illuminated become illuminators, and the soul is said to become spiritual and eternal “being made god.”91 According to Basil, deification, which begins through imitating the form of the life of Christ and receiving the wisdom of the divine light, reaches its goal in the union of the enlightened soul with the Source of all light. It was, however, Basil’s younger brother Gregory of Nyssa who composed the additions to the Nicene Creed on the Holy Spirit that would be incorporated at Constantinople in 381. Like Athanasius and Basil, Gregory speaks of the Son as generated by the Father and the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father. The Son is generated as thought is generated from the mind. The Holy Spirit is said to proceed “out of the Father and receives from the Son,” and in this sense, the Holy Spirit is “of Christ.”92 Because the essence of the Spirit is from the divine essence, the Holy Spirit is to be “worshipped.”93 After the Cappadocians, the teaching from the Eastern Church regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit is “out of the Father through the Son.”94 Gregory often employs the image of light to describe the relationships and activity of the members of the Trinity as did earlier theologians. Justin described the relationship of God to the Son as like the sun to the sunlight, and one torch lit from another; Tertullian 89. Ibid., 142. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Kelly, Doctrines, 262. Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, 2.9. 93. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit, Against the Macedonians. 94. Kelly, Doctrines, 263.

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said that Christ was like a ray of light from God and the Holy Spirit like the apex of the ray of light; for Origen, the light of the Son/ Logos imparts wisdom; in Basil, the light of the Son/Logos is an energy which enlightens creatures. The Nicene Creed would identify Christ as the Logos, one in being with God the Father, depicting this eternal relationship as Light from Light. Gregory applies this original christological formula to the procession of the Spirit, and compares the generativity of the Godhead to three torches in which the Fire of the first torch is passed to the second, the Son, and then, onto the Holy Spirit.95 There is an energy of intelligent divine light which processes or flows from one to the other. The Holy Spirit who is said to proceed from the Father brings the enlightenment of the Son. This chain of divine Power and Light grounds, for Gregory, the external process of salvation and transformation of believers through Christic enlightenment and the divinizing effect of the Spirit. In his Catechetical Oration, the Spirit is said to “deify” believers through the sacraments, through the material elements of water, oil, bread, and wine.96 The altar, baptismal laver, and elements are described as consecrated by priests through the Holy Spirit, and the elements, in turn, consecrate believers. Both Basil and Gregory describe a divinizing effect of the Holy Spirit as a chain of holy power from God through the Son. In earlier Greek thought, Plato had said that divine inspiration (meaning literally, spirit in) is as a magnetic power flowing from the divine goddesses to the artist to the art and onto the participants. Gregory of Nazianzus, a companion and coworker with Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, would defend and promote the concept of the Trinity in Constantinople, even presiding over some of the proceedings of the great council in 381. In his Fifth Theological Oration, entitled On the Holy Spirit delivered in Constantinople on the evening before deliberations began at the Council of Constantinople, he defined the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ—highlighting the unique, ontological co-equality and identity of the Spirit with 95. Burgess, 155. 96. Burgess, 147–48.

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Father and Son. Further, for Gregory, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge that fills the world. In this, Gregory both borrows and alters Greek philosophical tradition. Gregory states explicitly that “the Greeks referred to Him (the Holy Spirit) as the Mind of the world or the Eternal Mind,”97 Greek theology and philosophy understood the divine light and intelligence of the logoi in creation to draw individuals nearer to the eternal divine realm of light, while in Gregory of Nazianzus’ theology, the Holy Spirit in creation draws individuals into union with the light of God. In both this sermon, On the Holy Spirit and The Oration on Pentecost, Gregory of Nazianzus attributes enlightening and deifying aspects to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit “teaches” and brings “enlightenment.” One is said to be “remolded” by the light, and “created anew” and the Holy Spirit likewise is described as “the Author of spiritual regeneration” who “deifies” individuals.98 As Burgess notes, the Holy Spirit as described by Gregory of Naziansus is the creative Spirit, “forming the universe” and bringing individuals to their “ultimate potential in God.”99 Like Gregory of Nyssa, this creative process of the Spirit is described in energetic terms, symbolically as fire and light, similar to earlier Greek descriptions of the Logos.100 The light of God is equally and eternally shared by the Son and the Holy Spirit; in turn, the Son and Spirit pour out onto believers the enlightening and deifying energy in the acts of incarnation and transformation, bringing creatures to share in the divine light of the Triune God. As the Greek concept of the Logos conveyed divine Intelligence through the constituents of nature, bringing individuals closer to the Divine Mind, now “the Spirit” works through a process of transformation, guiding the individual to knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and leading toward perfection and deification. The fluid concept of divine emanation, often described in terms of light, provides a means to speak of the persons of the Trinity, and highlights 97. Ibid., 152. 98. Ibid., 155–56. 99. Ibid., 156. 100. Ibid., 155–56.

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the nature of the action of the Holy Spirit. For Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, the Holy Spirit is the agent through which one receives purification and sanctification, connecting believers with power and fullness of the divine life. In orthodoxy, the process of purification and sanctification is conveyed through the church’s teachings and sacraments, through imitation of the model of Christ and imitation of the faith of the Bishops, and through ascetical practices that train the mind and soul toward ultimate union. In the Western church, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan doctrine of the Trinity was defended and given further inflection by a host of bishops, theologians, and monastics, most notably, Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo. Ambrose defended the emergent Nicene position against the Arians who still held to their position in the midto-late fourth century. In Ambrose’s work, the Nicene framework for understanding the Trinity is even more closely connected to the church, the sacramental system, and the ecclesial experience of transformation. For Ambrose, the same spirit who spoke through the prophets and was given to the apostles is described as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, and it is this Spirit who he identifies as the light and the power of creativity, the spirit of life, purification, and renewal. In Book I of this work, he asserts that the Father is light, the Son is light, and the Holy Spirit is light and that believers are sealed with the light of the Holy Spirit.101 The Christian who draws near to God in the Spirit is enlightened with divine light, and is changed ontologically through union with Christ by the Spirit. In Ambrose’s view, believers become “partakers of the divine nature” through a gradual divinizing process.102 In the first stage, one is purified through Baptism and the Holy Spirit, symbolically depicted by Ambrose through images of water, light, and fire. To explain further stages of progress in morality and ethics, connected to one’s purification, he employs the Greek ideal of imitation and the Stoic ideal of striving toward virtue: “Let us follow nature. The imitation of 101. Ambrose, Three Books on the Holy Spirit to the Emperor Gratian, i. 14. 160–71. 102. Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit, i. 6. 79–80.

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her provides us with a principle of training, and gives us a pattern of virtue.”103 Through hearing the scriptures, the Spirit “leads” us into truth,” and little by little, “we receive so much as the advancing of our mind can acquire,” accumulating “what we are capable of receiving, we attain apportionments from the Spirit.”104 While there are “layers” of divine “mystery,” we ascend gradually through these layers. He states that though it “seems” to us that “the Holy Spirit comes down,” what actually occurs is that “our mind ascends to Him.”105 Over time, the Spirit is said to change human nature from “animal-like” to “heavenly.” This change is wrought by the Spirit and produces more truthful, knowledgeable, virtuous, and spirit-filled believers. Ambrose was known for his prolific preaching, preaching almost every day, and one of his congregants was Augustine (354–430) who became bishop of Hippo in 396. Augustine has become one of the most influential theologians in the Western Church. Throughout his career, Augustine wrote on topics such as the importance of a liberal arts education (a writing that may have been commissioned before his conversion),106 the usefulness of fasting, on the entanglements of the world on the soul, on marriage, on the nature and presence of God, writings on church doctrine and issues the church was facing in his time, such as that of the Donatist and Pelagian controversies.107 His Confessions and City of God remain classics in Western literature. His theology, primarily taken from his writing On the Trinity written later in life, will be summarized in terms of his cosmology and connection between God and the human mind. In this writing, the cosmos that Augustine portrays is sharply 103. Ambrose, The Duties of the Clergy, i, 84. 104. Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit, ii. 8. 93. 105. Ibid., I. 11. 121. 106. Augustine, On Order. 107. The Donatist controversay began when bishop Felix of Aptunga ordained Caecilian bishop of Carthage in 311. Felix had surrendered the scriptures during a persecution. Accusers then considered the ordination of Caecilian as invalid and elected their own bishop. Each side excommunicated the other, causing a split in the church. Constantine eventually took away the churches of the protesters, exiled their bishops, including Donatus, from whom the movement received its name. In the Pelagian controversy, Pelagius taught that everyone has the possibility and the will and power to live a sinless life, against Augustine’s view of original sin, that sin is inherited. The Pelagian controversy will be discussed in context in upcoming pages.

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dualistic. Above is God as Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with qualities described as eternal, immortal, incorruptible, unchangeable, good, blessed, living spirit.108 He makes it clear that “above” is not to be equated with that which is above the shining stars, but above as in spiritually transcendent.109 The “substance” of divine spirit is furthermore composed of such qualities as “incorporeal light” and love.110 Below is the temporal, corporeal world of change under the rule of the devil, demons, malignant spirits, “principalities and powers” who hold captive the world in sin and corruption.111 The divine Godhead is different in kind (genus) from the created, mortal world of change below.112 The divine Trinity is so different in nature from the world that even references to “place and time” do not apply.113 There is no before and after, for all things occur simultaneously, and the divine substance “cannot be spread out so as to occupy bulk and space.” 114 Under the category of ontology or “being,” the Trinity consists of a “substance,” a term used in the Latin writings, taken from the earlier Greek writings where the term used was ousia, essence.115 Augustine describes the Trinity as three persons, though he explains that this is not to be taken in the human sense.116 His usage of the term “persons” stems from the Greek word hypostases, which in Latin writings is generally rendered “persons,” but he states that this is an inadequate translation.117 The Trinity consists of “three somethings subsisting out of one matter.”118 He states “that no corporeal language will suffice,” or can adequately describe divinity.119 While God the Father is the Source (principium) of the whole divinity, the Son and Holy Spirit are there 108. Augustine, On the Trinity, 15.5.8; 15.6.9. 109. Augustine, Confessions, 10.16. 110. Augustine, On the Trinity, 6.5.7; 7.3.4; 7.3.6; 8.2.3; 9.12.17; 15.6.10. 111. Ibid., 3.8.13; 4,11,14; 4.12.15; 4.13.12; 4.13.17; 15.19.34. 112. Ibid., 7.6.11. 113. Ibid., 5.8.9. 114. This position arises from debates with the Arians. “In the Trinity, there are no intervals of time such that there could be a time when the Son was born of the Father and then afterwards the Holy Spirit proceeded from both,” according to Augustine. Ibid., 15.26.45; 15.7.13. 115. Ibid., 5.2.3. 116. Ibid., 5.9.10. 117. Ibid., 5.8.9; 5.9.10. 118. Ibid., 7.6.11. 119. Ibid., 8.2.3.

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from the beginning as well.120 The Son as Word/Logos and Wisdom “emanates” and issues forth from God the Father, while the Holy Spirit is said to “proceed” from God.121 The concept of emanation pertains to the Godhead only.122 Emanation is as light issues from light, for “God dwells in light” and “God is light.”123 However, he adds that this is “not corporeal light,” but “spiritual light.”124 He describes it as transcendent and associated with truth, eternity, love, being, mind, wisdom, perception, and understanding.125 The light in this world is but an “image” of the divine light.126 While “light” does not carry the same meaning when contrasting the world above from the world below, the terms “above, living and being” also convey different meanings for both worlds, as indicated by Augustine. Such concepts referring to the spiritual realm are “superior” and “transcendent” to the same terms referring to the everyday world. The creation of the world by God is not a molding of primal matter, but a creation out of nothing.127 Based on earlier precedents in philosophical writings, such as those from Heraclitus, the Stoics, and the Gospel of John, concerning the function of the Logos in the creation of the world and the association of the Logos with Christ in previous Christian writings, in Augustine’s theology, the Logos as Word and as Son creates through Wisdom.128 It is this Logos, Word, Wisdom through which creation occurs. Concerning the concept of light in creation, when God spoke the Word, saying “Let there be light,” matter became “enlightened.”129 Concerning the divinity of the Son, Augustine reasons that since the gospel of John states that all things were made by Him, it follows that he himself was not made, and therefore, not a creature. 120. Ibid., 4.20.27; 4.20.29. 121. “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.” Ibid., 4.20.29. 122. Ibid., 4.21.32. 123. Ibid., 1.6.10; 4.20.27. 124. Ibid., 7.3.4; 7.3.6. 125. Ibid., 15.5.7. 126. Augustine, Confessions, 13.2.3. 127. Carol Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 204–5. 128. Augustine, On the Trinity, 1.1.6; 4.1.3; 4.20.27; 15.6.9. Though, ultimately all aspects of the Trinity are responsible for creation, according to Augustine. Harrison, 111. 129. Augustine, Confessions, 13.3.4.

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And if not a creature, then he is “of the same substance with the Father.”130 Taking the concept of “form” from Paul’s quote of the Christ hymn in his letter to the Philippians, Augustine states that Jesus was in the “form of God” before he took the “form of man.”131 In the form of God, he is the Word/Logos.132 The substance of the invisible Word was transformed into a visible creature, being born of a virgin.133 And with this, the substance of divinity is joined to human nature.134 According to Augustine, because of his divine nature, only Jesus can offer salvation to a world that has turned to “darkness.”135 Originally, the world was created as good.136 The creatures of the world are made in the image of God, in Trinitarian form, such that each thing is a particular thing, it is distinguished by its own form, and it does not transgress the order of nature (meaning, the form of creatures is set).137 However, humanity has fallen and turned away from God, going after delights of the world and not “ordering” their “loves” with God as first priority.138 There is a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance which is God.139 Once made in the image of God, now the entire human race is held captive to not only the devil, but also, to the original sin of the first parents. The disobedience and conjugal passions of Adam and Eve pass onto their heirs, binding humanity to lusts of the flesh.140 Inheriting this original sin and sharing in “a collective alienation,” we are subject to death, both body and soul.141 Augustine states that we cannot transcend or reason our way to God and eternal truth because such impurities have so blocked and blinded us.142 In fact, he states that “every corporeal conception must 130. Augustine, On the Trinity, 1.6.9. 131. Ibid., 1.7.14; 13.18.23. 132. Ibid., 1.7.14. 133. Ibid., 2.5.9; 8.5.7. 134. Ibid., 13.17.22. 135. Augustine, Confessions, 13.3.4. 136. Brown, Augustine, 325–26. 137. Harrison, 111. 138. Brown, Augustine, 325–26. 139. Henry Chadwick, Saint Augustine: Confessions, Translated with an Introduction and notes by Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 126. 140. Augustine, On the Trinity, 4.13.17; 13.12.16. 141. Chadwick, Augustine, 111. 142. Augustine, On the Trinity, 4.15.20; 7.3.5; 10.8.11; 14.19.26.

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be rejected,” dismissing any philosophical approach to God that is not situated in a purified mystical experience.143 He goes so far as to say that we “need to remove all knowledge which is received from without, through the senses of the body.”144 While for previous philosophers in the Platonic tradition, the Logos and natural beauty of the world were beacons to the Divine eternal realm, now the natural world as a product of God, and endowed with the light from God, can entangle the soul in her ascent to God.145 It is clear in the Confessions, Book 10 that one purpose for this elimination of externals is to cut ties with past traditions which regarded the celestial bodies and elements in nature as gods themselves. The other purpose is a call toward asceticism and away from social enticements. He cautions that the “entanglement of depraved and distorted wills binds us,” while the corrupted body presses down on the soul, with the eventual outcome being that we will be “cast into the outer darkness.”146 Augustine’s concept of original sin was in response to Pelagius who said that “sin is not physically hereditary and that by free choice one can escape the corporately sinful social tradition.”147 Julian, who would later become the bishop of Eclanum, strongly disagreed with Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, stating that God had made humanity capable of virtue and “it makes it seem as if the devil were the maker of men,” and “that while still in the wombs of their mothers they are filled with bygone sins.”148 Augustine, however, would not modify his position and his conception of original sin would became a doctrine of the church.149 As Augustine describes, the remedy to the problem of humanity comes through Christ. It is only through Christ that we are able to receive atonement, to experience any union or connection with God.150 “He paid the debt” to “an angry God who needed to be appeased” for 143. Ibid., 4.17.23; 4.21.31; preface to Book 5. 144. Ibid., 10.10.14. 145. Augustine, Confessions, Book 10. 146. Augustine, On the Trinity, 11.6.10; 15.24.44. 147. Chadwick, Augustine, 111. 148. Peter Brown offers the background, historical precedents and social environment which led to Augustine’s position. Brown, Augustine, 387–88. 149. As with Tertullian, the soul is not eternal, but created through one’s parents. 150. Augustine, On the Trinity, 13.16.21; 13.20.25.

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our “shameful disobedience.”151 Being righteous, pure, of a virgin birth, and of a divine nature, Christ, taking on a human nature “conquered the devil who held human nature captive.”152 Being made a partaker of our mortality, he made us partakers of his divinity; being righteous, he intercedes with God as a blood sacrifice.153 “He becomes one with the offerer as an offering.”154 In the sacrament of baptism, which symbolically figures Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, one receives forgiveness and remission of sins.155 This cleansing begins the spiritual process of renewal and regeneration. The path to the divine is to be found when one is “conformed to the image of the Son” and “enlightened” by the Word of Wisdom.156 The ascent to God is described both in On the Trinity and in the Confessions in terms of light and enlightenment. In one passage, he states, “though didst gleam and glow and dispel my blindness.”157 In another, he describes the brightness of the light as the “pouring forth of beams.”158 In Book 7 of the Confessions, there is an encounter with the divine light and enlightenment. When I first came to know you, you raised me up to make me see that what I saw is Being, and that I who saw am not yet Being. And you gave a shock to the weakness of my sight by the strong radiance of your rays, and I trembled with love and awe. And I found myself far from you in the region of dissimilarity, and heard as it were your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.’159

As God’s nature has been described as light, and dwelling in light, in the union with God, one “participates” in the divine light and the eternal, and in this union, “becomes light itself.”160 There is an ontological 151. Ibid., 13.11.15; 13.14.18. 152. Ibid., 13.20.25. 153. Ibid., 1.6.10; 4.2.4. 154. Ibid., 4.14.19. 155. Ibid., 1.8.17; 2.17.28; 4.3.7; 13.12.16; 13.15.19; 13.20.25; 14.14.19; 14.17.23. 156. Ibid., 7.3.4; 14.18.24. 157. Augustine, Confessions, 10.27.38. 158. Ibid., 7.10.16. 159. Ibid., 7.10.16. Chadwick, Saint Augustine Confessions, 123–24.

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change which occurs within the individual, in terms of both form, in imitation of Christ, and now light, as one participates in the divine light. The church consists of those who have been rescued from, in Augustine’s opinion, the devil, the Mediator of Death, by Christ Jesus as the Mediator of the Divine. The church becomes, for Augustine, the only means of salvation due to Christ’s divine nature. In his Fiftyfifth sermon, he states, “outside the Church there is no remission of sins,” while “the Holy Spirit is given by the imposition of hands.”161 The soul is “purified, preserved, and enjoys God through the Holy Spirit.”162 For Augustine, the resurrection consists of both body and soul of the ontologically transformed human being.163 The elements of logos, light, and enlightenment in Augustine’s thought is not negligible. The Logos not only provides form, but in imitation of Christ as Logos, deformed humanity may begin to restore their once corrupted form. “There is now formed in one’s mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good which is God.”164 With purification of sins, and a desire and love for God, and an ascent through the mind, past the entanglements of even the beauty and light of the world, the individual may experience the pure divine light being transformed into light. Conclusion The emergence of Christian theology in the first four centuries, as can be seen, has borrowed heavily from Greek precedents. Imitation was an important concept in Greece, as one followed in the model of a hero (who later was regarded as a son of god) or imitated the harmonious patterns in nature, associated with the divine Logos or Reason. As one drew closer to the Divine, the soul become more spiritual. The seeds of 160. Augustine, On the Trinity, 4.12.15; 4.17.23; 4.18.24; 14.14.18; 15.27.49. Augustine, Confessions, 13.10.11. 161. Stanley Burgess, The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 185. 162. Harrison, 112. 163. Augustine, On the Trinity, 4.8.12; 4.10.13; 14.17.23; 14.19.26; 15.19.34; 13.9.12; 14.18.24. 164. Burgess, 185.

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Reason were considered to be scattered throughout the natural world, including within wise individuals in particular, and in the human mind in general, and in the law. There was a divide between the eternal, unchanging, Immaterial realm of light above and the world of darkness below, while the Gnostics envisioned emanating realms of light from the Godhead of the Monad. Besides the connecting link of the Logos, there was also the concept of inspiration, where divine spirit was conveyed from the goddesses to the artist, and from the artist to the art, and further still, from the art to the participant or observer. In Greek thought, the soul becomes strengthened through its connection with things divine. In the first four centuries of Christian theology, Christ is both model and divine Logos. The seeds of Reason in the human mind are Christ’s logoi. The Godhead is a trinity eternally generated, immaterial, unchanging, spirit and light, different in essence from the material world of change below. Christ as Logos and the Holy Spirit become the connection between the two realms, which purifies, deifies, and strengthens the soul, as the individual becomes more spiritual, more light-filled. Additional purifying and connective links are made possible through the sacraments, the faith of the bishops as model, and the reading of scriptures. The early Christian theologians have borrowed generously from the Greek philosophical tradition, allowing the development of a strong Christology and pneumatology which have lasted for centuries. However, in so doing, what has been lost from the original tradition of the Logos as reflective of the divine Mind in the mathematical harmony and order of the natural world, is the universal aspect that this spiritualizing power was originally considered available to all. Logos theology was critical for the development of emerging Orthodoxy, but as Latin replaced Greek through the centuries the terminology of logos gradually fell out of use, though the concept remains in the creedal formulas and doctrines of the Church. In the Greek speaking Eastern Orthodox Church, the terminology of logos is still prevalent.

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The orthodox tradition, emerging from and redefining the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions, which we saw in the previous chapter, reached its apex in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenthcentury Catholic theologian. With the Reformation of the sixteenth century, John Calvin also carried forward Logos theology, re-shaping it for one emerging stream of Protestant theology, supernatural theism. Supernatural theism is defined as the belief in a personal Deity who creates the world ex nihilo, out of nothing, and is active in it through the interruption of normal causal processes.1 Such “normal causal processes” were just beginning to be defined by scientists in the early modern era who were operating within a division model religious worldview, and will be discussed in the succeeding chapter. Medieval Orthodoxy The writings of Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century theologian, became the standard for Roman Catholic theologians by the Council 1. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 26.

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of Trent in the mid-sixteenth century, forming the AristotelianThomastic tradition becoming a contender in the battle of cosmologies of the seventeenth century. Aquinas (1225–1274) was born in the kingdom of Naples to wealthy parents. At the age of five, he was sent to a Benedictine Abbey for education, with the intention that one day, he would become the abbot.2 As a teenager, he continued his education at the University of Naples, which had secular rather than ecclesiastical origins—a new phenomenon since the time that the church had gained ascendency.3 It was here that the Greek philosophy of Aristotle was offered in full. At eighteen, he began studying under Albert Magnus at the University of Paris, who also promoted Aristotle as well as the teachings of the Neoplatonist Pseudo-Dionysius. Aquinas joined the Dominican order of mendicant (begging) priests who specialized in study, teaching, and preaching, which did not sit well with his wealthy family.4 He taught at Paris, Cologne, and Rome, beginning as a lecturer, an apprentice professor (bacalaureus biblicus) on scriptures. In 1256, he became full professor at the University of Paris. Here, he was called to resolve disputes among various Catholic groups. One such issue that he championed through his writings was to defend Aristotelian philosophy as compatible with the Christian faith. He also addressed the need for a comprehensive summary of Catholic teachings to be used for theology students by writing his three-part Summa Theologiae. Other works include Principles of Nature, Summa Contra Gentiles (a work commissioned for missionaries preaching against Jews, Muslims, and so-called heretical Christians in Spain and North Africa) and philosophical and biblical commentaries. He produced many writings, driven by an insatiable curiosity about God, truth, existence, human beings, and their destiny.5 He was so obsessed with his work that he demonstrated difficulty in socializing in that his mind was always focused on his research and writing.6 In 1273, after suffering what is 2. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 1. 3. Davies, 2. 4. His mother Teodora dispatched Thomas’ older brother to bring him home by force, where he stayed for two years. James Weisheipl, “Thomas Aquinas,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Lindsay Jones, ed. (Cengage Gale, 2005), 9160. 5. Davies, 20.

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sometimes referred to as a nervous breakdown, he is often quoted as saying “all that I have written seems like straw.”7 Brian Davies contends that this statement was not a rejection of his own work, but that God is fundamentally incomprehensible and that all our talk of God, “including what is in Scripture” fails to provide a clear picture.8 He was the first individual to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church as “theologian and teacher.”9 When it was pointed out that he never performed a miracle, as is usually the case for canonized saints, John XXII stated, “every question he answered was a miracle.”10 Aquinas was not simply content to say “God is” and devoted his life to the pursuit of God and truth.11 In an early writing, On the Principles of Nature, Aquinas put forth his natural theology. In the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and PseudoDionysius, he identifies three primary principles of Nature: privation, matter, and form.12 Privation is described as shapelessness and coming to be. Matter is defined as “substance striving to reach its potential Form.”13 Form is identified as that toward which coming-to-be moves. For Plato, Forms are abstract principles, eternal ideals of the perfect in the transcendent realm, with the highest form as the Good. For Aristotle, Forms only exist as the common features of things, and not in a transcendental realm. Aquinas agrees with Aristotle’s concept that the forms are in nature,14 but also, with Plato that the highest form is the Good. He continues to say in On the Principles of Nature that these three—matter, privation, and form—are not sufficient to explain coming to be. An agent is required, just as a bronze statue requires an artisan. This agent in nature could be regarded as a non-deliberating 6. Ibid., 8. 7. Ibid., 9. 8. Davies notes that “straw” was a conventional image for the literal sense of scripture. Note, 24, Davies, 9. 9. Ibid., 14. 10. Ibid., 14. 11. Ibid., 14–15. 12. Thomas Aquinas, On the Principles of Nature; Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 92. 13. O’Rourke, 92. Prime matter is defined as having some form and some privation, with no matter preceding it. 14. Davies, 46.

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agent, such as how a seed grows into a flower. Moving back further however, a First Agent is required for the Source and Cause of all matter which transforms matter from potentiality into actuality. This First Agent Aquinas identifies as God. God is pure intellect and God is Good, as he describes in his Commentary on Divine Names and Liber de Causis.15 God is defined as beyond being; God is infinite being in its fullness.16 As matter strives for being, it is continually striving for higher form, with the highest form identified by Plato as the Good. In this sense then, God is the Cause of the Good. Adding to Aristotle’s four causes, God was described as Actual and Efficient Cause, with efficient cause defined as the principle from which all movement exists. God was considered the cause of all movement of things in nature and the cause of all coming to be, as matter strives for the Good which is God. 17 In Summa Theologiae, the nature of God as Trinitarian is discussed. That God has a trinitarian nature does not come from observation of the natural world, but through the Bible as interpreted through the history of the Church, he states. The Trinitarian nature “rests on receiving God’s revelation within salvation history,” that is, within the writings of the Bible as interpreted by the Church.18 Aquinas spoke of the mysterium Trinitatis, the mystery of the Trinity, with “mystery” meaning “God in his revelation.” God “reveals” the mystery of God’s self as three distinct persons through the Bible, as taught by the patristic writers, states Aquinas.19 “Reason, intellect, or philosophy is not enough to attain to the trinitarian nature of God, though philosophy, specifically logic, can assist in demonstrating the rational nature of an argument.”20 We do not know God “as he is in himself,” asserts Aquinas; what we know, we know “by his effects.”21 He makes the argument that talk about God is necessarily analogical because there is nothing comparable to God.22 We can, however, make positive 15. Ibid., 88, 196, 207. 16. O’Rourke, 206. 17. Gilles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Trans. Francesca Aran Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 7–9. 18. Emery, 3–8. 19. Ibid., 3. 20. Ibid., 8; O’Rourke, 28; Davies, 190–91. 21. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.13.1; The Mystical Theology, Ch. 1; Davies, 68–72.

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affirmations about God, such as God is pure intellect and the creator of creatures, that God is everywhere and eternal, God is good, and goodness itself, that God is perfect and perfection itself, that God is Powerful and Power itself, that God is Wisdom and wisdom itself.23 He states in Summa Theologiae that God exists in everything, but not as part of their substance, but as “an agent is present to that in which its action is taking place.”24 God is the cause of existence in creatures, sustains their existence, and is wholly present.25 Since God sustains existence of everything, and since existence is more interior to things than anything else, it is in this sense he can say that God is in everything.26 Scripture reveals the second member of the Trinity as identified through tradition. The attribute of Wisdom is especially found in the Son. According to biblical passages and the interpretation of these passages by patristic writers, Wisdom/Sophia was there in the beginning, bringing creation into being. Creation, therefore, indicates the divinity of, not God, but the Son.27 “Since everything was made by him, according to John 1.3, believers acknowledge that the Word has the totality of divine power.”28 Scripture also reveals Christ’s divinity through his works in salvation, that is, his teaching and his actions.29 “Because he performs divine works (miracles) by his own power, we should believe that he has divine power within him,” states Aquinas, though he does not consider the miracles of other religions as from God.30 The names given to Christ by the disciples as related in scriptures also reveal his divinity.31 Quoting the Deutero-Paulinst writing of Colossians, Aquinas reaffirms that “the Son is the image of the invisible God.”32 Besides revelation in scripture, “the adoration of 22. Davies, 68–72. 23. Ibid., 73. 24. Ibid., 98–99. 25. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.8.1; Davies, 99. 26. Ibid. 27. Proverbs 8.30; John 1. Emery, 9. 28. Emery, 11. 29. Ibid., 8–9. 30. Ibid., 11. 31. Ibid., 9–11. 32. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, prologue.

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Christ in the Church” and the transformation in the life of believers, indicate, for Aquinas, the divinity of Christ.33 Concerning the third member of the Trinity, the primary aspect which reveals the divinity of the Holy Spirit is the Spirit’s life-giving aspect. The Holy Spirit is God and is eternal because it is through the Spirit that re-birth and eternal life is possible, as cited in biblical passages and the patristic writers.34 Aquinas relates that “it is clear that the Holy Spirit is God, since John states, unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, one cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”35 According to the interpretation of scripture by earlier Christian theologians, it was the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets. The Holy Spirit is attributed with revealing the mysteries of God and identified as the source of sanctification. Such operations as these reveal the Spirit’s divinity. From the book of Acts and the practice of the church, the apostles were instructed to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which he states also indicates the divinity of the Three. While the effect of the mission of the Son is to lead individuals to the Father, the effect of the mission of the Holy Spirit is to lead individuals to the Son.36 Mission indicates origin, therefore divinity, according to Aquinas. He affirms that the mission and work of the Son and the Holy Spirit still continue today. The three are distinct, equally divine, consubstantial, and there is a “unity of their identical divinity.”37 Scriptures speaks of the Son and the Spirit proceeding and being sent from God.38 Reference to “sending” usually takes place in time, and since God is immutable (unchangeable) for Aquinas, an idea stemming back to Aristotle, then “the sending of the Son and Spirit in history will reflect what is changelessly in God apart from the course of world events.” (Immutability for Aquinas concerns God’s attributes.) In some sense, there will be “a coming forth of the Son and the Spirit in eternity, 33. Emery, 13. 34. Ibid., 13, 15, 19. 35. Ibid., 14. 36. Ibid., 17. 37. Davies, 194. 38. John 8. 42; John 15.26; Galatians 4.4ff; Davies, 194.

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an eternal procession in God apart from history.”39 As with earlier theologians, he maintains that “the word proceeds as an intellectual activity as a thought from the mind of God.”40 “The Word is identical with God’s very being” since God is eternal intelligence.41 The procession of the Spirit is described by Aquinas as a procession of Love, it is the impulse toward love, an act of the will.42 Love is attributed to the Spirit because in 1 John 4.18, God is described as love and the Spirit saves due to the love of God. The concept of procession of the distinct persons of the Trinity (of the Father through the Son, and the manifestation of the Son through the Holy Spirit) is revealed in biblical passages expressed through the “saving acts” throughout the Bible, as well as expressed in the liturgical practice of the church.43 Such insights, he professes in Summa Contra Gentiles, are received by faith. In his cosmology, Aquinas describes a Great Chain of Being, hierarchically structured with interlocking levels, echoing concepts from Aristotle, middle Platonism, and Pseudo-Dionysius. In the highest realm is God as Trinity, followed by angels with principalities and powers. The next level consists of humanity, followed by animals, plants, and the four elements, air, earth, water, and fire. All levels are connected “without any gaps,” in this sense echoing Aristotle’s description of the divine spheres where there were no gaps. The angelic realm is said to be composed of pure intellect, while the animal realm is said to consist of matter with no intellect, directed only by appetites. Humanity is composed of body and soul, matter and intellect, “a compound whose substance is both spiritual and corporeal.”44 Within the world of matter, following Aristotle, Aquinas describes three gradations of forms, with the various species being generated from seeds. Plants precede animals, who precede humans, with the “less perfect” preceding the “more perfect.”45 Plants are 39. Davies, 194. 40. Ibid., 196; Emery, 61. 41. Davies, 196. 42. Ibid., 198. 43. Emery, 17; Davies, 194. 44. Davies, 209. 45. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheologiaeTheologica, Question 70.

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described as having vegetative souls, while animals have sensitive souls which are generated.46 In Latin, the word for soul is anima, and it is the soul which brings animation and is the principle of life.47 Humans, however, are described as having an immortal, immaterial “intellectual soul,” which is not considered to be generated, but created and infused into the body by God, reminiscent of the platonic divine seed implanted. The intellectual soul is defined as producing the ability or capacity for understanding and free choice, in opposition to animals who, he asserted, do not have any free choice. The elements of the world are created through the Divine Word as a multiplicity participating to a greater or lesser degree in the forms, whereas God is defined as a unity. How beings participate in the forms is, through the next level above in the hierarchy, while they also contribute to the perfection of those on the level below.48 The spiritual realm Aquinas depicts as the realm of pure Intellect, associated with the heavens and “light,” the realm of faith.49 Religious truths and values are considered transcendent to nature, a part of the spiritual realm. The Spiritual realm is said to be the true home of the soul, but not in the sense of an individual pre-existent soul, for soul and body are united together, forming a unity. For Aquinas, as with Augustine, there can be no soul without a body. Human beings as intellectual creatures may potentially return to God who is their Source of being.50 Resurrection is specified as body and soul together for Aquinas.51 The way to the Spiritual realm is extrinsically through Christ and the sacraments offered through the church (with Christ’s body and blood described as actually present in the Eucharist), and intrinsically through law, virtues, and grace.52 This is a participation in the body of Christ and the values of Christ. To remedy this, the “supernatural life” is ignited by God with the “supernatural gifts of 46. Ibid., Question 70, 76. 47. Davies, 209. 48. O’Rourke, 264. 49. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 61. 50. Davies, 21. 51. Ibid., 218. 52. James Weisheipl, “Thomas Aquinas,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircae Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 488; Davies, 370–71.

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grace and the virtues conferred through baptism,” a sacrament provided only by the church, conferred through the Holy Spirit. 53 In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas explains our salvation from the divinity of the Son and Spirit revealed in the Bible.54 It is the teaching and the acts of Christ (his miracles) which reveal his divinity.55 The Son sends the Spirit and individuals are spiritually reborn through the Holy Spirit.56 The Holy Spirit creates, instructs, inhabits human hearts, brings about justice, speaks through the prophets, reveals the mysteries of God and is the source of sanctification.57 Aquinas contends that the Holy Spirit is not a force or attribute of God, but a person, because the Holy Spirit teaches, witnesses, intercedes, reveals, and knows, which he considers to be exclusively personal actions.58 The Holy Spirit brings human beings together with the Son, and by adoption to the image of the Son, we are made children of God.59 By the Holy Spirit, not only is God in us, but we are in God, and in this sense, we return to God.60 His comment on John 10.35 is that an individual participating in the word of God becomes god by participation. 61 It is through grace that God draws individuals to God’s self.62 Grace is defined by Aquinas as “a partaking of the divine nature.”63 He calls it “a signified something bestowed” on individuals by God, and so, is also referred to as “gift.”64 This “something” that allows us to become partakers of divine nature is described as a “fire” kindled by God, which confers a new and transformed disposition.65 The fire of grace produces a healing of the soul and a willingness to do the good, which leads to actions for the good, as well as a perseverance in the good. All of this leads to an attainment of “glory,” with glory traditionally 53. Weisheipl, 489. 54. Emery, 13. 55. Ibid., 8. 56. Ibid., 14. 57. Ibid., 15. 58. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 4.18; Emery, 15. 59. Emery, 15, 17; Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 4.18. 60. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 4.20; Emery, 264. 61. Emery, 12. 62. Davies, 267. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid., 268. 65. Ibid., 267.

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associated with light.66 Aquinas identifies “prevenient grace,” which is the “leading to” the new dispositions and “subsequent grace,” which is the following up on the actions of goodness.67 Grace is God’s “action” leading individuals to God, to their sharing in the divine nature, and to acting on behalf of the Good. In this way, individuals are said to be “in God.” The virtues are the means by which individuals come to God and are ideal forms which draw the potentiality within the individual to attain goodness.68 Aquinas identifies the three theological virtues as faith, hope, and charity, based on Paul’s identification in 1 Corinthians 13 of faith, hope, and love. In the Greek New Testament, love is agape; in the Latin Vulgate, it is caritas, charity. Faith is defined by Aquinas as “the virtue of wanting and attaining God, as the ultimate Good.”69 It is our beginning to share in God’s life and goodness, a union with God.70 Hope is what leads us to our good.71 This is the hope to be in union with God and his goodness.72 It is a hope, as well, in our salvation and the salvation of others. Love, as the third theological virtue, stems from the love of God for the Son, and the love shed forth through the pouring out of the Spirit. God’s “life of love” has been projected into history and produces love in the creatures by the model God sets.73 He defines the divine essence as consisting of love, wisdom, and goodness.74 Stemming from 1 John 4.8, which declares that God is love, Aquinas proclaims that “to love is to participate in what God is from eternity.”75 Taken from John 15.15, love is also defined by Aquinas as friendship with God, in the sense of a deep, loving bond.76 Those who have love will love God, the source of goodness, and whatever is good, this includes the self, one’s neighbors, and the creation, which is declared good in 66. Ibid., 267. 67. Ibid., 272. 68. Ibid., 274. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid., 277. 71. Ibid., 285. 72. Ibid., 285–86. 73. Ibid., 292–93. 74. Ibid., 289. 75. Ibid., 288. 76. Ibid., 286.

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Genesis 1.77 Love directs the acts of all the other virtues to our end, and is therefore referred to by Aquinas as “the mother” of all virtues and the “form” of virtues.78 In Aquinas’ thought, humans are “conformed” to the properties of God, God’s love, wisdom, and goodness, becoming partakers in the divine nature.79 The connection between God and the world is through the Forms in nature (including the virtues displayed), the Word, and the Spirit, but Aquinas also describes light as a connecting element. First, the Divine realm is described as one of light.80 In terms of epistemology, he describes revelation as a gift from God of illumination of divine Light.81 In Summa Theologiae part 2, contemplation about God is described as receiving light. Study which is focused on God is said to bring light, while teaching and preaching confer light to others.82 Grace is a fire which kindles and leads to an attainment of glory, the light of God. Just as there is a connection described in terms of procession between God the Father, to the Son/Word, to the Spirit, likewise, a chain of light can be discerned in his theology from the spiritual realm of light, to the Grace of God kindling firelight in us, to the mind contemplating God, to the words about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit passed on which bring enlightenment. Concerning a dualistic divide in Aquinas thought, while the soul and body are described as a unity, there is a dualism between the intellectual part of the soul and the body. “The intellectual principle in man transcends matter, for it has an operation in which the body takes no part whatever.”83 And again, “the body has nothing whatever to do in the operation of the intellect.”84 And again, “the intellect is separate, it is not the faculty of a corporeal organ.”85 The bodily senses acquire knowledge about the world around us, and universals may be 77. Ibid., 286, 294. 78. Ibid., 294–95. 79. Emery, 274, 414. 80. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 61. 81. Ibid., Question 171. 82. Davies, 4. 83. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheologiaeTheologica, Question 118. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., Question 76.

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abstracted to arrive at truth, but this is an imperfect truth, he says. Faith and revelation are required for the intellectual soul to attain higher knowledge. There is not complete disconnection, however. The intellectual soul is of another world than the corporal world around us, yet it gives form to the body which is where movement is derived, and the intellect can attain truth from creation which contains the intelligent forms.86 The idea of division between the thinking soul and non-thinking material body will be highlighted and developed over the next few centuries. Davies states that Aquinas’ position is not yet that of the philosophical Dualism of Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century in which the mind is distinct from the body.87 After Aquinas, a divide would widen between faith and reason, mind and body. In the thirteenth century, in the Voluntarism of John Scotus (1265–1308), creation is viewed as a free choice of God, and not a reflection of patterns in the Mind of God. For Scotus, God can only be known through faith, not senses. For William of Ockham (1280–1349), Ideal Forms are considered mere terms, general categories found in particular things; they do not exist in a realm beyond the world, they have no metaphysical status. Again, God can only be known through faith. With Scotus and Ockham, the interconnection from the world of matter to the Divine is only through the mind of faith and no longer through experiencing the forms and patterns in the realm of nature. Ockham’s limited interpretation of the avenue to God, in effect, severed theological and philosophical truths, and is referred to as Ockham’s razor. There were now two separate sets of truth—one for the theologian and one for the philosopher/scientist. Each kind of truth is not derivable from the other, and such truths could theoretically contradict each other, setting up a divide between Religion and Science. In Europe, in the eleventh through fifteenth centuries, many radical poverty and piety movements emerged in objection to the power and opulence of the church, such as the Humilati, Beguines, Waldensians, 86. Ibid., Questions 76, 118. 87. Davies, 208.

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Cathars, and the Hussites. The year 1517 is often cited as the official beginning of the Protestant Reformation when the German Catholic priest Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. This document condemned the church’s practice of requesting donations in return for the promise that the soul would spend less time in purgatory. Luther was excommunicated and his followers began the Lutheran Church. Another primary reformer in the sixteenth century was John Calvin (1509–1564) from France. Calvin was raised Roman Catholic and received a liberal education learning philosophy, Greek and Latin, and majoring in Law. During his university years, he came in contact with Protestant reformers, and in 1533, made a complete break with the Catholic Church. He spent most of his life in Geneva Switzerland, where Ulrich Zwingli, another primary reformer had started the Reformed Church. Calvin preached, lectured and wrote, becoming a major voice of the Protestant reformation. It is here that supernatural theism reached its zenith. Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion became a best seller in his life time, and a classic in Reformation studies. In Calvin’s Institutes, God is described as infinite and incomprehensible, creating ex-nihilo, hidden yet revealing God’s self. While God’s home is in heaven and God is distinct from the world, when looking out upon the natural world, “we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold Him.”88 “On each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none can plead ignorance of God.”89 Calvin states that “the image of God is imprinted on the fair form of the universe.”90 However, the reason we cannot comprehend God through the forms is that we have turned away from God. After the fall, in the pre-redeemed state, humanity “is but rottenness and a worm,” and our “blindness and ingratitude” keep us from directing our attention to the image of God manifested in the natural world which could lead us to the transcendent God.91 88. John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, 1.5.1. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid., 1.6.4.

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Because of the fall, only through special revelation is it possible to see the Logos in nature. Special revelation is defined as God intervening to bring about knowledge. Because of the fall, the human being is so utterly polluted by sin, and the senses so blinded (a view stemming from Augustine) that communion with God can only be achieved through God reaching out to us. Christ is considered the only bridge to God. He redeems and restores humanity from the fallen state.92 It is through God’s initiation, through the sending of the Son, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and the scriptures which provide knowledge of God, that union between God and the world can be achieved. Then in reciprocation, the indivdual may respond in faith for salvation. This, however, is only for the “elect,” and not for the “reprobate.”93 Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is that only some are chosen for salvation by God and others for “damnation.”94 It stems from his interpretation of Ephesians 1.4 (God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world) as well as the idea of the free will of God to grant salvation. That salvation stems from God, rather than any works on the part of humanity is a theme voiced in the Reformation. 95 Calvin regards the scriptures as special revelation, as opposed to the general revelation of the image of God in creation. Scripture provides knowledge of God as not only creator, but redeemer as well.96 This special revelation of “scripture exhibits clear evidence of its being spoken by God,” Calvin states.97 “It came to us by the mouth of God through the instrumentality of men.”98 Against the view that “the importance of the scriptures comes only through the suffrage of the Church,” he states that the church is composed of mere men.99 “It is 91. Ibid., 1.1.3; Randall Zachman, “Contemplating the Living Image of God in Creation,” in Calvin Today: Reformed Theology and the future of the Church, eds. Michael Welker, Michael Weinrich, and Ulrich Moller (New York: T and T Clark, 2011), 34. 92. Brian Armstrong, “John Calvin,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 31–34. 93. Calvin, Institutes, 3.21–23. 94. Francois Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 272. 95. A similar argument is found in the work of Duns Scotus, Wendel, 273. 96. Calvin, Institutes, 1.6.2. 97. Ibid., 1.7.4. 98. Ibid., 1.7.5. 99. Ibid., 1.7.1.

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the Spirit of God who ‘enlightens minds’ to the words of scriptures.”100 “The word is the instrument by which the illumination of the Spirit is dispensed.”101 “The light of the word dissipates the darkness.”102 The word provides a safeguard from all sides, from “neglectfulness,” from “error and corruption,” but also, scripture “serves as a thread to guide our path through the labyrinth of the brightness of the Divine countenance.”103 As was found with many theologians before him, other religions are not looked on with tolerance, for he states that they are “laboring under vanity and error” if they do not follow the scriptures.104 This is the labyrinth which he cites. Bringing back the iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, the use of images, pictures, and statues employed by both the eastern Orthodox and the Western Roman Catholic Church, as aids to mediate a connection between the individual and God, are declared by Calvin to be “unfit to represent the mysteries of God.”105 Thus, in churches stemming from the Calvinist tradition, art in the church is regarded as superfluous. “Images are no substitute for books.”106 “It is the Word that is the teacher,” he asserts.107 By Word, he means the intelligent principles in the Bible about God’s saving action through Christ and the Holy Spirit.108 “The word of God” from scripture as guide and teacher “clarifies our vision of the living image of God in the universe as if he had assisted our sight with spectacles,” states Calvin.109 Only with this aid then can one see that “God dwells in light that is inaccessible” and “irradiates the whole world by his splendor.”110 The natural world is a “theatre of God’s glory.”111 The natural world is “the garment in 100. Ibid., 1.7.4. 101. Ibid., 1.9.3. 102. Ibid., 1.6.1. 103. Ibid., 1.6.4. 104. Ibid., 1.6.5. 105. Ibid., 1.11.4. 106. Ibid., 1.11.5. 107. Ibid., 1.11.9. 108. Ibid., 1.11.9; 1.13.1. 109. Zachman, 34. 110. Ibid., 35. 111. Ibid., 45.

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which he, who is hidden in himself appears in a manner visible to us.”112 In a very clear reference to the tradition of the concept of the Logos/Word in creation, Calvin affirms that the natural world “is the speechless proclamation that instructs us in the true knowledge of God, who is the author of all things.”113 “Let the world become our school if we rightly desire to know God.”114 The wisdom, power and goodness of God “shines forth” from creation.115 Humanity is depicted as a microcosm, the same powers that are seen in us are portrayed in the works of God in the cosmos.116 “Those who study the sciences gain a deeper insight into the secret workings of divine Wisdom.”117 So, while the Intelligent Divine principle is within creation, we must have the scriptures illuminated by the Holy Spirit, to clarify and appreciate the Logos in nature. Calvinist Protestantism replaces the necessity for receiving the sacraments and the teachings through apostolic succession, with the scriptures illuminated by the Holy Spirit, as the primary path to the Divine.118 Only the elect receive redemption and salvation through Christ as mediator. While the creation reflects the image of God, it is only after the Holy Spirit has been received that one can perceive this. The word is the word of scripture, but also, Calvin retains the historical idea of the Logos/Word in creation. God’s existence, power, wisdom, and goodness can be comprehended from nature itself, and nature should be studied to narrow the gap, to become closer to God. The element of light is seen throughout his writings. It is cited as an elemental part of the primary path to the Divine. This mode of access is limited further with the connection between not only God and creation, but also, the Spirit of God and the word, and the Spirit and the mind of the Divine through the scriptures only achieved when

112. Ibid., 35. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid., 36. 115. Ibid., 41. 116. Ibid., 43. 117. Calvin, Institutes, 1.5.2. 118. There are only two sacraments in Calvinism, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, while ministers are elected from among the congregation.

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illumination is supernaturally imparted from the other side of the divide, by the Holy Spirit. Christian tradition since the Gospel of John to the Patristic writers through Calvin have employed the Logos from Greek philosophy. While originally with Heraclitus, the Logos was divine intelligent light becoming the world, for the majority of Christian theologians, the world is created by God (or Christ) out of nothing and is different in substance from God. This creates an ontological divide between God and the world. For most theologians, divine aspects are in nature, infused by God, such as logoi and light. For Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus divine power is in nature as well. The human soul is said to be implanted with the divine seed, or mind, according to some theologians, while for Origen, souls are logiki, divine intelligence. In a natural state, humans could have knowledge and connection to God through the divine seed implanted in the mind, and the divine light and logos in nature, but there is a turning away, a corruption that blocks this access. The remedy is to identify Jesus as the Logos, and to view him as the same substance as God and the same substance as humanity, forming a bridge between the world and God. Regeneration of the mind is required in Christian tradition due to the fall, and this regeneration occurs, according to Christian theologians, through Christ as Logos and the Holy Spirit who makes known the knowledge of God. To become partakers of the Divine Spirit, a process is identified. Purification through ascetic practices, that is, a turning away from corruptions, as well as baptism is cited as a lustral washing. From the scriptures, one learns to follow the model of Christ and the virtues. One practices conforming to the pattern of his life. The teachings as revealed in the scriptures whether taught through the leaders of the Church or received through the illumination of the Spirit, leads to the learning of divine mysteries. This process allows for the illumination of the light of the Holy Spirit in the mind of believers. Over time, individuals experience deification, possessing the same qualities of divinity—light, virtue, love, knowledge, wisdom, goodness, and power. The intelligent

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light of God conveyed through Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the teachings and sacraments of the Church becomes the light in followers of Christ. After regeneration, the logoi and light in matter convey the connection to the Divine as well.

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5

Mechanistic Science and its Sponsorship by the Church

The seventeenth century witnessed the rise of modern science in tandem with supernatural theism. Supernatural theism is defined as the belief in a personal Deity who creates the world ex nihilo, out of nothing, and is active in it through the interruption of normal causal processes.1 Such “normal causal processes” would be defined by scientists in the early modern era who provided the mathematical laws of nature in mechanical terms, while defining matter as inert, not having any internal power of its own, in strong contrast to Greek philosophy, divine light and Logos theologies, and contemporary science, as will be discussed in chapter 6. Supernatural theism would be the dominant cosmological tradition for centuries, and remains so even today after scientific descriptions of matter are increasingly being described in energetic terms. In the seventeenth century, there was a three-way battle of 1. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 26.

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cosmologies. The three historical cosmological views stem from the Hermetic-Platonic-mystical tradition, the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition and the rising Newtonian-mechanistic science with its attendant laws of nature which would emerge into the LegalisticMechanistic worldview.2 With the exception of the Hermetic and Mystic traditions, the distance between the Divine Spiritual realm and the world of matter is increasingly widened, while the bridge between the two is narrowed. This trend will continue with the rise of Mechanistic science adopted in the seventeenth century. In Religion and Scientific Naturalism, David Griffin draws attention to the influence and motivations that the Church had in sponsoring the Mechanistic view.3 The early Greek philosophers such as the pre-Socratics, Plato and the Stoics had presented a worldview of soul in matter, giving life, activation, and imbued with divine intelligence of Form and light. In orthodox theologies, matter was described as infused with divine logoi and light, and in a few cosmologies such as that of Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, there was divine power said to be in nature as well. In the Mechanistic model, matter would be regarded as devoid of mentality and inert, unable to move unless acted upon. Although Newtonian-mechanistic science has ushered in great advances, philosopher of science P. M. Harmon points out that philosophical choices were made in favor of mechanistic interpretations at the expense of organic conceptions.4 Such aspects of Harmon’s two works Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy and Energy, Force, and Matter will be presented below conveying the specific options theoretical scientists faced in regard to research into the nature of matter in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.5 Furthermore, a transition in language can be identified between the employment of the terms and concepts of God, spirit, and spirits in the works of seventeenth-century scientists to the concept and terminology of 2. Ibid., 110f, 125. 3. Ibid. 4. Peter Harman, Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy: The Problem of Substance in Classical Physics (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, 1982). 5. Peter Harman, Energy, Force, and Matter: The Conceptual Development of Nineteenth Century Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

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“energy” in nineteenth-century scientific writings. Seventeenthcentury scientists would employ theological concepts and language such as soul and spirit to describe the active principle which moved inert matter. Such concepts and language would be replaced by scientists of the nineteenth century into “force” and “energy” to describe the active nature within matter itself. Scientific theories of the sixteenth and seventeenth century relied not only on observation, mathematics, and instrumentation to define reality, but on “metaphysical constraints.”6 Such metaphysical constraints were dependent upon theological orthodox beliefs. Ancient Greek texts, once banned by Christian authorities, were preserved by the Muslims through the Middle Ages, who made cultural advances based on these works. For example, while the Greeks made great developments in geometry, it was the Muslims who invented algebra, which would be a necessary tool for the advancement of science. The Greek texts and Muslim commentaries made their way into Europe through Muslim Spain spurring on new theories in the rising university systems in the Middle Ages. At the University of Cracow, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) studied mathematics, and at the University of Bologna, he studied canon law and Greek, affording him the opportunity to read first-hand the works of ancient Greek astronomers. He also studied medical astrology at the University of Padua. Copernicus made his own observatory and noted problems in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe, as had Muslim astronomers before him. In a short essay entitled Commentarialus, he put forth his heliocentric model, a model that Aristarchus of ancient Greece had originally developed in the third century BCE. This essay would be followed years later by his six-volume work De Revolutionibus with more detailed mathematics supporting the heliocentric model. The Church at the time, which had adopted Aristotelian philosophy and the geocentric model, was teaching that the earth was the center of the universe, and so, his work was placed on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books and remained there until 1835. 6. Harman, Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy, xv.

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Copernicus’s model attracted other supporters however, and within sixty years, the new sun-centered cosmological model was being taught in universities across Europe. One early supporter of the heliocentric model was the sixteenthcentury Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno. Formerly a priest, he left Italy in order to pursue philosophical truth. In The Ash Wednesday Supper, published in 1584, he not only defended Copernicus, but also argued against Aristotelian cosmology, particularly the distinction between God and the world. Bruno wrote of a Hermetic cosmology, that Form and matter are united in the One. In the Cabala of the Horse Pegasus, written in 1585, he describes the relationship of the human soul and the universal soul, with the former being an extension of the later. He would write twenty works, all of which would be placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. In these writings, he wrote of matter as composed of atoms with an active, intelligent principle in union with the Divine. At one point in his life, he joined the Calvinists in France, but was excommunicated for his unorthodox ideas, and experienced the same fate with the Lutherans in Germany. Back in Italy in 1592, under the authority of the Catholics, he was imprisoned for seven years, tried and condemned for heresy. He was executed in 1600. Among the list of charges brought against him was that he believed that the Holy Spirit was the same as the soul of the world. Galileo Galilei was a contemporary of Giodarno Bruno, and was tried for heresy for his support of the Copernican heliocentric view. Recanting his view considering the power of the Inquisition, he would live on to continue his investigations on the nature of matter and motion. In his writings, he opposed the Aristotelian categories of matter and motion. For Aristotle and throughout the Middle Ages, there were four basic elements, earth, air, water, and fire, with a fifth celestial element of aither. For Galileo, through instrumentation and observation, he asserted that there is just one kind of matter for both the terrestrial and celestial. The telescope had been invented and patented in 1608 in Holland, and Galileo then made his own telescope, improving upon the original. With this new instrument, he was able

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to see the terrain of the moon, and from this, concluded that the matter of the heavens was corporeal, like that of the earth. He was the first to formulate laws of motion in mathematical terms for falling bodies, while providing a mechanistic concept of nature. The laws of motion that he put forth state that bodies of motion or rest stay in this state until acted upon. There is no internal activation principle. This was the beginning of the modern field of Mechanical science. In Le Mecaniche, he describes the concept of mechanistic motion and momentum. Philosopher-scientists following Galileo would now focus on the nature of matter and would continue advancing this new mechanical philosophy of science. As Griffin relates in Religion and Scientific Naturalism, priest and mathematician Marin Mersenne, an important figure in seventeenthcentury France, backed Galilean mechanism because it provided laws of nature which Mersenne argued would give greater uniqueness to the Christian witness of miracles as supernatural events which defy such laws of nature.7 In Merseene’s Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, he wrote against Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and pantheistic philosophies, condemning magic and astrology, and the Rosicrucian philosophers of science. Chemist Robert Boyle, who was a proponent of Mersenne’s, explained that matter has no inherent motion, any movement was attributed to God at the beginning or to other bodies in motion which trigger movement.8 Griffin contends that in the seventeenth century, the Church’s promotion of the mechanistic view of nature was to preserve its authoritarian status.9 The mechanistic view was supportive of the social interests of the ruling elite, whereas power within nature, such as that expressed in the Hermetic view, was perceived as democratic and threatening.10 Evidence of the threat of such a view can be seen in the witch hunts promoted by the church that swept across Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.11 7. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 125. 8. Ibid., 119, 125. 9. Ibid., 117–18. 10. Ibid. 11. Jeffrey Russell and Sabina Magliocco “Witchcraft: Concepts of Witchcraft” in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), 9768–775.

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Thousands of so-called witches, proponents of the view that nature contained power, were executed across Europe, first by Catholic authorities, then by Protestants as well.12 The victims of such accusations tended to be single women—midwives and herbalists—whose wisdom of the power of plants to heal would be turned against them into accusations of witchcraft.13 Russell states that the “charge of witchcraft in association with the devil” was a phenomenon concocted by church authorities; the concept of the devil belonged to Christian theology, Zoroastrianism, and Islam and not to the nature religions of Europe. According to the Church, only God had the power for affecting matter at a distance, therefore it was reasoned that any adherents who held practices in association with the power of nature must, by logical inference if not in actual practice, be doing so with the assistance of the devil. It was simply a logical fallacy that cost thousands their life. The dualistic framework of mechanist nature and theistic supernaturalism, that God interrupts normal causal processes to effect change, would be greatly reinforced over the next centuries. The mechanistic view was explicated further by philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596–1650). Following in the trajectory of Aristotle who limited reason in nature by degrees, and Aquinas who allowed for no intellect in the natural world, Descartes sharply delineates a duality of substances with body and extension on one side and spirit and mind on the other.14 Only human beings have mind and spirit. The natural world is considered a machine by Descartes, a mechanistic entity which functions like a clock. Growth and movement witnessed in nature are consequently mechanical phenomena whose causes are efficient rather than final, meaning the natural world does not possess goal directed behavior or intelligence, no matter how minute. Referring to animals Descartes said, “the greatest of all prejudices we have retained from infancy is that of believing that brutes think.”15 For the natural, mechanistic world, Descartes 12. Ibid., 9772. 13. Ibid., 9773. 14. Samuel Stumpf, Socrates to Sartre, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1993), 246. 15. Quoted by Harman in Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy, 16.

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postulated three laws of motion and these laws were regarded to be part of the original Divine plan to keep the Cosmos in order. Bodies achieve motion based on the divinely ordained laws of nature, rather than on an active principle within nature such as a divine soul in earlier cosmologies. The mechanistic worldview put forth by Galileo, Mersenne, Descartes, Boyle, and later Newton won out against competing worldviews of Aristotelian-Thomistic and NeoplatonistSpiritualist traditions. This philosophy has the effect of fully removing the divine Soul from immanently functioning within Nature and ushered in the Mechanistic era.16 As Harmon points out, the mechanistic view was a philosophical choice made by scientists and not reflective of all data available. The problem arises as to how mind and body can interact in a mechanistic framework, if matter is defined as impenetrable.17 Descartes had said that matter occupied space in an impenetrable way.18 “The unintelligibility of mind-body interaction is usually considered the basic problem of Descartes’ dualism, to which he admitted having no solution.”19 Nicholas Malebranche, a seventeenthcentury French philosopher, provided his solution to the mind-body problem as “occasionalism,” mind and matter appear to interact because God causes them to do so.20 In correspondence with Descartes, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia raised questions about Descartes’ position.21 His preliminary answer was that the union of the two in the human body combines the modes of causation of the two.22 However, a longer answer is provided in his Passions of the Soul, dedicated to Princess Elizabeth in 1649.23 In this discourse, he explains that the soul is situated in the pineal gland, and radiates throughout the body by 16. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism; Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 17. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 141. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Correspondence to Descartes from Princess Elizabeth, dated May 21, 1643 in Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, ed. Margaret Atherton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 12–15. 22. Atherton, Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period, 13. 23. Ibid.

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means of “animal spirits.”24 External sensations excite the nerves in the body (in terms of parallelism, not electromagnetism) while animal spirits comprising very fine matter and situated throughout the body in a fine fluid, through slight movement, come in contact with the muscles, causing bodily movement. Descartes’ answer to the mindbody problem was to postulate “soul” and “animal spirits” within a mechanistic conception of the body. In the late seventeenth century, Isaac Newton reformulates Descartes’ three laws of motion in his Principia to give them their classical form. He also adds to Descartes definition of matter. Whereas for Descartes, extension and impenetrability are the fundamental properties of matter, for Newton, matter not only has extension and impenetrability, but includes the qualities of hardness, mobility which requires contact, and inertia.25 Nature consists of particles and bodies. Particles are mutually impelled toward one another and cohere to form bodies. Mechanistic nature, which had been set up by God according to Newton, operates on efficient causes needing mutual contact for the machine to function.26 There is no intellectual capacity, no goaldirected behavior, no spontaneity in Nature in this mechanistic system.27 Newton himself realized that there was a problem with this system. How does one account for those elements in nature of which motion and change are observed but no physical contact can be accounted for? How are the particles mutually impelled toward one another? How can one account for gravity, for example? Action at a distance was considered a “philosophical absurdity, something akin to magic, which in this scientific age was to be avoided vehemently.”28 Newton declared in a letter to theologian Richard Bentley in 1693 that it was “inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact.”29 Matter is considered 24. Descartes, Passions of the Soul, 1.31–35. 25. Harman, Metaphysics, 16–18. 26. Ibid, 22. 27. Griffin, 25, 118–19. 28. H. W. Turnbull, ed., The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Published for the Royal Society at Cambridge University Press, 1961), 254; Harmon, Metaphysics, 73.

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passive and inert, it achieves mobility only when acted upon. In the Newtonian system, there is nothing within matter similar to the Platonic soul in nature or the divine energies of Hermeticism. For Newton, God had set up nature as a machine, with no inner reality or activating principle. This view, however, did not fit the data. Realizing that this mechanistic construction was inadequate to what was observed in nature, Newton postulated that nature is composed of a duality of passive matter and active “forces.”30 The active forces in nature include gravity, electricity, chemical processes, and magnetism. These, interestingly, he attributes to God.31 In 1675, in his “Hypothesis Explaining the Properties of Light,” he suggests that nature may be nothing but various contextures of certain “ethereal spirits.”32 In this early modern scientific age, philosophers such as Malebranche, Boyle, Descartes, and Newton rely on religious concepts such as “God,” “soul,” and “spirits” to explain movement and mental capacity in their mechanistic cosmologies. Newton’s dichotomy of active principles and passive matter did not sit well with Gottfried Leibniz. Leibniz considered the active principle to be inherent in all substances and his view is one of the alternatives to mechanistic nature that Harmon points out.33 This active principle, Leibniz refers to as “force” and it is force which explains both the concept of gravity and the collection of matter into larger bodies. Force was considered to be in nature. He divides force into the “primitive force” and the “derivative force.”34 Primitive force characterizes the nature of substances and the inner, active power of matter. The derivative force is the force by which bodies act on one another or are acted upon by another, and mathematically analyzed to be mass times velocity squared. Derivative forces are further defined as grounded on their relation to primitive forces and to the nature of substances. Leibniz defines substance as primarily being constituted by force, not 29. Turnbull, 253. 30. Harman, Metaphysics, 28–29. 31. Ibid., 25. 32. Turnbull, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 365; Harmon, Metaphysics, 25–26. 33. Harman, Metaphysics, 32–52. 34. Ibid., 42.

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extension as Descartes had said, and not inert, as Newton had said. Extension is to be regarded merely as a manifestation of substance, with substance being a force imbued entity. Matter, however, is not experiencing or subjective for Leibniz. What Leibniz does is to redefine matter to address Cartesian and Newtonian conceptions. He adds back in the activating principle. The pre-Aristotelian Greek “physicists” had an active principle in Nature which they called “soul.” Leibniz calls the active principle in nature “force” and gives it mathematical precision. The inert “soulless” matter of nature as defined by Descartes, Boyle, and Newton has been given back its soul, its inner activating principle by Leibniz, and this inner activating agency is termed “force.” Though the two concepts “soul” and “force” are not necessarily the same, both indeed address the active principle inherent within matter itself. In a series of letters in the 1690s, Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli discussed the nature of substance and force. Both noted that in a collision, the transition from an object at rest to one in motion is a gradual one and this transition can be analyzed by the infinitesimals of Calculus.35 Newton’s concept of matter as characterized by the essential property of hardness could not allow for the intermediate changes of transition, even though this is how he analyzed movement mathematically. Bernoulli argued that matter needed to be defined as more elastic to allow for these infinitesimal transitions.36 He also noted that the primitive force in matter, which manifested itself through gradual infinitesimal changes into the derivative force, was a real physical entity and not just a mathematical expression.37 Matter could not be hard and inert, there must be an internal force. Immanuel Kant also contested Newton’s atomistic ontology, that impenetrability and inertia were the defining properties of matter.38 Like Leibniz and Bernoulli, he regarded forces as characterizing the essential properties of matter, but unlike them, did not explicate 35. Ibid., 48–49. 36. Ibid., 48. 37. Ibid., 51–52. 38. Ibid., 68, 71.

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matter in terms of primitive and derivative forces. Instead, he defines matter in terms of attraction and repulsion.39 According to Kant, matter fills space by its repulsive forces and coheres and maintains distance by its attractive forces. Like Bernoulli, he considered force to be a physical entity existing in nature and reasoned that if a body possessed force when it had been in motion for some time, then it must also have had force when it began to move.40 For this belief, however, Kant came under attack by Newtonians.41 Kant then employs the concept of the ether, a concept based on Newton’s “ethereal spirits” as being the underlying substratum which allows for the means of propagation.42 And so, in Newtonian physics (though not for Leibniz and his followers), the ether was a fundamental concept for the next century because matter was philosophically considered to be inert, having no power of its own. In the early modern era, there has been a transition regarding the activating principle in nature from the Greek concept of soul to the concept of force. For the pre-Socratic Greeks and Plato and his followers, divine substance (soul) was the activating principle in nature. A transition occurred with Aristotle and Christian theologians who increasingly regarded matter as soulless, though it did have divine seeds of intelligence within giving form for some expositors. With Descartes, there was a dichotomy between body and spirit, with nature considered to be devoid of mentality and operating via efficient, mechanistic causes. With Newton, a dichotomy was set up between passive matter and active forces, with forces being composed of ethereal spirits. With Leibniz and Bernoulli, a monism of force explicated nature. Force was the defining characteristic of matter, though this view would lose out to the mechanistic model. In spite of data to the contrary, the scientific community would follow the Newtonian-Cartesian trajectory. Nature was considered inert, mindless, and mechanistic, set within a Supernatural framework, even 39. Ibid., 65, 68. 40. Ibid., 62–63. 41. Ibid., 76. 42. Ibid., 25–26, 76.

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for the scientist/philosophers. The active principle in nature had been brought back in by some philosophers and scientists. For Leibniz and his followers, it was in matter itself; for Newtonians, the concept of the ether was necessary. It would take at least another century for mental capacity, albeit of a very minute degree, to find its way back into mainstream philosophers’ conception of nature. The next transition occurs with the change in terminology from “force” to “energy” in the nineteenth century. In 1849, working off of J. P. Joule’s demonstrations of the equivalence of heat and work, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) first used the term “energy” as a fundamental principle for the operations of nature. It was his belief that electricity was part of the essence of matter, but this would be left for others to prove. W. J. Macquorn Rankine put forth a “science of energetics” and defined energy as the power to produce change including ordinary motion, mechanical work, chemical action, heat, light, electricity, magnetism and all other processes known and unknown.43

In the seventeenth century, Newton had said that these phenomena could be attributed to “ethereal spirits” and Descartes used the term “animal spirits” to identify changes within the mind and body. Here, in the nineteenth century, these same phenomena were being called “energy.” Energy was classified further by Rankine as actual (kinetic) and potential, a movement in terminology from Aristotle to Leibniz’ classification of primitive and derivative forces, which in turn, had been replaced earlier in the nineteenth century to Thomson’s “statical” and “dynamic” energy. The active principle within nature had progressed since the Greeks from the “soul” to “mind” and “animal spirits” to account for a portion of the cause of movement in humans, to “force” with the early modern interpreters to account for the active principle in nature overall, and now, to “energy” in the nineteenth century to account for all processes of change. The mechanistic worldview, from its inception in the modern era 43. Harman, Energy, Force and Matter, 58–59.

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has always been linked with Supernatural Theism. The Newtonian worldview, with its laws of nature and definition of matter as inert, was a philosophical choice. Such a worldview added validity to the uniqueness of miracles associated with the Church. In the seventeenth century, the alternative view, such as that expressed by Leibniz and Bernoulli that matter itself was composed of internal power was rejected, partly based on theological grounds. Also, the alternative theological view expressed by the Hermetic-Neoplatonist-mystical tradition was a threat to the status quo of the church.44 It was because miracles were unique, unexplainable in any rational, scientific terms, which was a primary reason for the Church to sponsor mechanism. Modern biblical interpreters today, operating within a Supernaturalmechanistic worldview, are at odds when attempting to explain the connection between Spirit and matter, which includes miracles. While in the first thousand years of Christian orthodoxy, nature has not been described as divine, it did have some divine attributes such as intelligent form, with a few voices citing light and power as well, but with the Mechanistic model sponsored by the church, nature has all but lost its divine power, light, and intelligence. Yet, since the sixth century BCE, from the early Greek physicists to the Logos philosophy of the Stoics to Hermetic, Manichaean, Neoplantonic philosophies, and mystics across the centuries, the Divine is considered to be in creation expressed in various ways as energy, Light, and Intelligence. The connection for these “alternative” traditions between the Divine and the world of matter, is that matter itself is divine. The following chapter will present new conceptions of matter from contemporary science that describe matter as energetic, light-filled, and in-formed, exhibiting degrees of intelligence, and the ability to transcend previous forms.

44. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, 117.

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Beginning in the nineteenth century, innovative discoveries in science would give rise to new cosmological models. One of the most dramatic scientific findings concerned the nature of matter itself, the discovery of the electron. From this, a doorway into an electromagnetic and inter-connective world opened wide: atomic theory, quantum theory, relativistic atomic theory, astrophysics, string theory, chaos theory, and complex systems theory would each alter, but not completely replace, mechanistic, reductionist understandings. After centuries of biological research, the modern field of neurology emerged, dramatically heightening understandings of brain matter and mind. With the new worldview in the twentieth century, the field of Science and Religion arose in theological studies as a distinct area of research to begin to bridge the divide between the new concepts of matter and that of Spirit. In this chapter the nature of matter from contemporary science perspectives will be reviewed, while in the following chapter the connection between Divine Spirit and matter will be examined in light of research from contemporary science.

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The Nature of Matter from Contemporary Science Perspectives A major turning point in Physics would come at the end of the nineteenth century concerning the nature of matter itself. The Newtonian concept of matter as hard, impenetrable, and in essence, lifeless would experience major modification. In the nineteenth century, research in the concept of energy from scientists such as Michael Faraday (1791–1867), James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), and H. A. Lorentz (1853–1928) would advance the field, leading to the new quantum electrodynamics paradigm of the twentieth century. It was in the 1830s that Michael Faraday’s series of experiments with electrical conductors and magnets led him to discover and develop “field theory.”1 Wrapping two wires around either side of an iron magnet, and passing a current through one wire, he was able to produce an electrical current in the other wire. His field theory envisioned a “plenum of force” radiating out from matter. Particles of matter were in reality “centers of force” according to Faraday. This field theory was first rejected by the scientific community of his day; however, it would not be long before his electrical-magnetic insights were employed in technological innovations throughout the nineteenth century, eventually leading to the invention of the electric motor. According to philosopher of science P. M. Harmon, however, the field concept was still a mechanical model, for the lines of force were not selfpropagating but required a medium for conveyance.2 In Faraday’s field theory, all of space was filled with matter, and this matter was the means of propagation of the force.3 What electricity actually was had not yet been determined. James Clerk Maxwell, working off of Faraday’s discoveries, was the first to develop the mathematical equations for electromagnetic phenomena. His equations predicted that electromagnetism traveled in waves and these waves were indeed self-propagating. The field 1. Peter Harmon, Energy, Force, and Matter: The Conceptual Development of Nineteenth-Century Physics, Cambridge History of Science Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 76–77. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., 82–83.

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outlined by Faraday was a “repository of this energy.”4 Maxwell also discovered that waves in the electromagnetic medium had the same velocity as light waves. From this came the unification of optics and electromagnetism. Light and electromagnetism were part of the same phenomenon. For Maxwell as well, however, electricity was still due to an unknown cause. In 1895, H. A. Lorentz published his “electron theory” in which he conceived of matter not as hard, impenetrable spheres as in Newtonian mechanics, but comprised of atoms with charged electrical particles called electrons.5 This theory would then explain electricity as the forces exerted between particles.6 The positing of the “electron” would be used to explain light phenomena.7 Light waves were described in terms of the vibrations of electrons, according to Lorentz. He also defined inertia and mass in electromagnetic terms and he denied the constancy of mass, a fundamental principle of Newtonian mechanics.8 The electromagnetic field was a result of the motion of these particles. Besides the force of gravity in Newtonian mechanics, there was now the electromagnetic force, a power stemming from matter itself. Lorentz’s work was foundational in mathematical physics for succeeding scientists. In 1902 he won the Nobel Prize in physics with his student Pieter Zeeman for the Zeeman Effect, while Albert Einstein used Lorentz’s transformation equations for his Special Theory of Relativity, which was originally called the Lorentz-Einstein Theory. Within two years after Lorentz’s electron theory was put forth, it was confirmed with the empirical discovery of the electron by J. J. Thomson.9 Occurring within nature were minute particles that had their own activating power. Matter was energetic and Newton’s socalled “ethereal spirits” were in matter itself and in the processes between matter in motion. By 1900, electrodynamics rather than Newtonian 4. Ibid., 83. 5. The full title for Lorentz’s published work is Versuch einer Theorie der Electrischen and Optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpern. 6. Harmon, Energy, Force, and Matter, 118. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., 119. 9. Ibid.

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mechanics began to provide the conceptual framework for understanding nature, a framework that held that an activating principle was indeed in matter.10 What gave matter its animation was “energy,” a term that was shown in the previous chapter to have evolved in physics from the Greeks’ concept of divine substance. In 1900, Max Planck discovered that energy was not emitted continuously in waves, but rather in packets, or quanta, as Einstein called them.11 Energy emitted was only in multiples of an elementary unit E, equivalent to Planck’s constant times the frequency of the radiation. Such units of energy were real physical entities, and were referred to as photons by Einstein. Planck’s discovery was in contradiction to classical mechanics and would lead to the Nobel Prize in physics in 1918 and eventually a full quantum theory.12 In 1905, Albert Einstein put forth his theory of relativity from which arose his famous equation: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.13 His field theory for space, time, and matter, or the Special Theory of Relativity, showed the interdependence of mass, space, and time. In this theory, the gravitational force exerted by mass curves space and determines the time dimension for the field. This implies that time is also curved and that time as we measure it in our world is dependent upon the mass of the earth. In Newtonian physics prior to the discovery of the electron, the general concept of the atom was that it was hard and impenetrable. The discovery of the electron prompted research into the structure of the atom itself. In 1911 Ernest Rutherford showed that the atom is comprised of mostly space, with a nucleus 10,000 times smaller than the atom itself.14 According to his model, electrons circle around the nucleus, bound to it by the electrical force. The strong nuclear force of the atomic nucleus would be discovered shortly after Rutherford’s 10. Ibid. 11. John Barrow, The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe (New York: Pantheon, 2000), 201. 12. Ibid., 203. 13. Ibid., 154; Lawrence Fagg, Electromagnetism and the Sacred: At the Frontier of Spirit and Matter (New York: Continuum, 1999), 28. 14. Gordon Kane, The Particle Garden: Our Universe as Understood by Particle Physicists (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 1996), 31.

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discovery.15 The rate of speed for the electron was determined to be 2200 kilometers per second or 1367 miles per second.16 The nucleons, the neutrons and protons of the nucleus, were discovered to move at even higher rates of speed, approximately 40,000 miles per second17 Matter at its very core was determined to be most definitely not inert, but rather filled with vibrant motion. Based on these discoveries, the field of quantum electrodynamics emerged in the early twentieth century. Paul Dirac combined Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetic phenomena, theories of relativity, and the quantum theories of Max Planck to arrive at the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED.18 This theory described the interaction of light and matter. Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin’itiro Tomonaga worked on the final formulations of the QED theory.19 Feynman’s mathematical approach to QED was to treat quanta as particles, while Schwinger and Tomonaga expressed the quanta in equations as waves.20 According to QED, the electromagnetic force is carried by photons, which behave as both particles and waves. Photons are the particles that make up light.21 The electromagnetic force emitted by atoms gives rise to the force between atoms that leads to the formation of molecules.22 While the overall charge of an atom is zero, the electron at the edge of an atom provides the linkage to other atoms to build molecular structure by exchanging photons, the electromagnetic carriers, with nearby atoms.23 Light is exchanged between atoms to create matter. All of matter depends upon this electromagnetic interaction to form molecules and more complex organic structures of matter.24 Also, all matter emits electromagnetic 15. Ibid., 37. 16. Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility—Office of Science Education. [Accessed July 28, 2016]. http://www.education.jlab.org/qa/electron_01.html. 17. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, 4th ed. updated (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), 70. 18. Fagg, Electromagnetism and the Sacred, 43. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Kane, The Particle Garden, 202. 22. Ibid., 62. 23. Ibid., 61. 24. Ibid.

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signals. What atomic theory and quantum electrodynamics reveal is that the nature of matter is energetically dynamic at its most fundamental level, and interactive, rather than impenetrable and inert as in mechanistic models, while matter at its very core consists of light. In the Standard Model of particle physics, there are over two hundred elementary particles, all of them energetic in nature.25 There are eighteen fundamental particles: twelve of these particles are foundational for observable matter and are called fermions, and there are an additional six bosons which mediate force.26 Fermions are divided into two types: six quarks and six leptons (with additional antimatter quarks and leptons). The difference between quarks and leptons is that while quarks participate in the four forces of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong force), leptons do not participate in the last force. The most familiar lepton is the electron, secondarily is the neutrino, while the muons and taus are synthesized in the lab. Bosons are the force carriers for subatomic particles and there are five types: photons, gluons, weak gauge bosons, the Higgs boson, and the graviton. The photon carries the electromagnetic force. The gluon carries the strong nuclear force. The weak gauge boson carries the weak nuclear force and it is the weak force that triggers radioactive decay. The Higgs boson carries mass, while the graviton is theorized to carry the force of gravity. Bosons are constitutive of every atom and are the energetic force carriers of the subatomic world, theoretically carrying all four forces of nature. Quantum electrodynamics also provides a new description for the vacuum. The vacuum is no longer considered to be void. In actuality it is alive with “evanescent” particles of light, mostly electrons and positrons, materializing into and out of existence continuously.27 Paul Dirac first postulated the existence of the anti-electron, the positron in 1930. This antimatter particle was discovered empirically two years later and has been reproduced countless times in laboratories, though antimatter remains unstable. Today, the evanescent field is called the 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 62. 27. Fagg, Electromagnetism and the Sacred, 52.

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Zero Point Field, due to the fact that even at absolute zero, it is still filled with electrical activity.28 With all this energetic matter, a new cosmology was required. It was Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, who in 1927 proposed what would become the Big Bang Theory. Originally, Lemaître’s theory was called “the hypothesis of the primeval atom,” or “the cosmic egg.” According to today’s Big Bang model, 13.7 billion years ago all matter and space originally was condensed as a hot gas of energetic particles and expanded outwards, with all forces unified.29 The particles, leptons, quarks, and bosons, collided and then reacted, spreading outwards while the gradient change allowed for cooling, producing heavier elements.30 Quarks combined to produce protons and neutrons. A hydrogen atom consists of one proton and one electron. It was under the extreme environmental conditions of the Big Bang that gravity fused together hydrogen atoms so tightly that helium emerged, consisting of two protons and two electrons. According to particle physicists, after a while “the nuclei of the universe were ninety-three percent hydrogen and six percent helium, with a plethora of photons and neutrinos resulting from annihilations and decays of other particles.”31 This is the microwave background radiation, or the effervescent field described above. According to Einstein’s theory of gravitation, anything with energy will attract other things gravitationally. The neutrinos provide gravitational attraction for all particles. Gravitation slows down the expansion. The four forces have emerged with the cooling process. The universe began together as a single energy source, and though it expands, it remains fundamentally connected through the interactions of the electromagnetic force, which binds together atoms to form molecules to eventually form stars and galaxies and life. According to Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann, the expansion

28. Lynne McTaggart, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 18. 29. Kane, The Particle Garden, 154, 156. 30. Ibid., 155. 31. Ibid.

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of the universe is not from a center, but from all points. The expansion of the universe looks identical in whatever direction we look, and this is true if we are observing the universe from anywhere else. Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the red shift in all directions, rather than a blue shift in some, confirmed Friedmann’s concept that the universe expands from all points. What slows down the expanding universe is dark matter. While matter contains light particles as described above, between the matter of galaxies and clusters, physicists posit the existence of dark matter. Dark matter, possibly consisting of neutrinos, according to Stephen Hawking, cannot be seen but can be detected by its gravitational pull, which slows down the rate of expansion and may account for 90 percent of the mass of the universe.32 Contemporary cosmology also mathematically attests to additional dimensions beyond our four-dimensional space-time. Today, string theorists believe there are eleven dimensions of reality.33 Beyond our four-dimensional space-time reality are worlds consisting of antimatter, the particles Paul Dirac theorized. According to string theorists, each universe is created by a string of quantum matter that vibrates with a different frequency.34 These other worlds coexist with and interpenetrate our own.35 The Logos of Matter Historically, the philosophical concept of the Logos was used to describe the form, intelligence, and fiery energy in matter. In an expanding universe, matter achieves stability of form due to the electromagnetic energy within matter. In 1913, Niels Bohr, a student of Rutherford’s, provided the model of the structure of the hydrogen atom. Surrounding the nucleus, consisting of one proton and one neutron, are definite and discrete electron orbits. Sounding somewhat 32. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, updated and expanded 10th anniv. ed. (New York: Bantam, 1998), 42, 48, 121, 200. 33. Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003). 34. F. David Peat, Superstrings and the Search for the Theory of Everything (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988). 35. Ibid., 32.

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similar to Pythagoras’s theory of musical intervals, the energy states of the electron orbits were found to be multiples of whole-number integers. According to the Pauli exclusion principle, an orbital shell is filled according to the equation 2n squared (with n being the number of the shell). For any atom, the first shell is considered filled with two electrons, the second shell is filled when there are eight electrons, the third, with eighteen, and so forth. Molecules form when electrons on the outer edge of atoms seek to fill orbitals from another atom. An electron in the outer orbit of one atom couples with a “hole” in another atom’s shell, creating an ionic bond. Once the orbital is filled the atom does not seek a higher energy state and the form is stabilized. As Aristotle noted, there is a drive in nature to fulfill form, while the form is mathematical in essence. Nature displays intelligence at its most foundational level. Matter is comprised of three basic forms: solid, liquid, and gaseous. What causes a system—whether gaseous, liquid, or solid—to become unstable, losing its form, has to do with the external environment and in particular whether there is a temperature gradient.36 An influx of heat or matter causes a negative flow of entropy into a system (i.e., positive order), which is countered by a transfer of entropy (disorder) to the outside. When there is no significant gradient between the system and the environment there is no intake of energy and no buildup of a new order, or new form. The form of matter is in a state of “inertia” when its environment is stable. Inertia of form is due to electromagnetic bonding and whether the system has reached its stable energy state for that system; otherwise it seeks to fulfill form. Meanwhile, the electromagnetic forces within matter are quite vibrant and non-inert. One of the most stable forms in matter is the diamond, which is comprised of extremely rigid covalent electromagnetic bonds forming an internal repeating, symmetrical, geometric structure. The bonds will hold for extremely high temperatures; however, the bonds will break when exposed to temperatures in excess of 7,100 degrees 36. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam, 1984), 139.

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Fahrenheit. This causes the solid diamond to change into a molten liquid form. At 8,720 degrees Fahrenheit, liquid diamond reaches the boiling point and turns into a new form, the gaseous state. New forms can emerge and only emerge in the presence of new energy. In the early stages of the universe only hydrogen atoms existed, consisting of one proton and one electron each. Due to the pressure of extreme gravity exerted by these atoms and the high temperatures of the Big Bang, hydrogen atoms fused together, producing a new form of matter, the helium atom, consisting of two protons and two electrons—each with an excess of energy given off from the fusion process. From this, and again due to the extreme environmental conditions, new forms were produced, such as lithium (three protons and three electrons), carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms. Heavier atoms such as iron were created in supernovas. When there is an onslaught of energy, new forms can emerge. The process moves forward to produce life. When carbon and nitrogen come together with the added energy of heat, in particular as that found in the thermal heat vents in mid-level ridges in ocean valleys, amino acids are produced. Again, with an influx of such energy, amino acids come together to form proteins. Proteins electromagnetically bond together in a spherical envelope to form a cell. A nucleus then forms inside the cell. Structure depends upon function. The spherical configuration serves to protect the string of proteins, and then serves to protect the cell’s nucleus. Form arises based on what is best for the function of survival and through the influx of environmental energies. Prior to the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859 the dominant view was that the multitude of biological forms throughout nature, each distinct species, was due to an act of creation.37 In his work, Darwin points out the difficulty experts had in drawing a sharp line between different species.38 He also provides a great amount of evidence of how breeders since ancient times were 37. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 13, 378–79. 38. Ibid., 239–40.

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able to modify certain aspects in the color and form of plants and animals for their advantage. From plants and animals in the wild, he shows how changes have occurred within species depending on the struggle for survival within environments. Examples he cites include a parachute-like apparatus on some squirrels giving them the ability to fly, shorter legs on wolves who live off of sheepherders’ flocks compared to wolves with longer legs who depend on chasing deer for their subsistence, finches whose beaks become distinctly different shapes over time due to the food available in each one’s environment.39 Looking over the grand sweep of time, the geological record reveals an advance in forms from the less complex to the more complex. He envisions organs evolving among species and between species and states “the swimbladder of the fish converts to the lungs of land animals.”40 His research shows how species are mutable, changing forms across long lapses of time. Causes for change he cites are external conditions such as migration to different climates, the struggle to survive, use and disuse of characteristic elements of species, reproduction, growth, and inheritance of new features over time needed in the struggle to survive.41 Depending upon environment, new features emerge in successive generations that had never existed before due to need. “Natural selection acts by adapting the varying parts of each being to its conditions of life.”42 It is the evidence of the continual emerging of varieties of species and the rise of more and more complex organs that leads Darwin (who had a bachelor’s degree in theology and was very active in his church) to the conclusion from analogy that “all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype.”43 He theorizes that there is “one long and branching chain of life connecting all the past and present species,” with the variety of forms branching out like a tree and continuing to evolve

39. Ibid., 83, 152. 40. Ibid., 160. 41. Ibid., 384. 42. Ibid., 172. 43. Ibid., 380.

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over time.44 Form evolves in complexity from energy particles to atoms to molecules to cells to organs and mammals. That matter has form at all means it is literally “in-formed,” states John Puddefoot.45 From the field of modern biology, Harold Morowitz at George Mason University points out that matter even before the rise of organic life is “informatic.”46 Bits of matter behave as if they have knowledge of each other’s presence.47 Take the example of the molecular compound adenosine. The presence of adenosine in cells allows for energy storage and also signals energy transfer, “which indicates an information-rich characteristic.”48 It stabilizes nucleic acid structures. It is also one of the four bases of DNA and RNA, constitutive of a genetic code.49 The information in DNA is copied into RNA, while the RNA’s information is used to make proteins.50 Another primary form of intelligence transfer in matter is the process of photosynthesis of plants. In photosynthesis—literally the coming together of light—solar energy is taken in by plants and converted to chemical energy. Plants will turn toward light to better capture the sun’s photons, which are then used for its growth and transformation, the blossoming into a flower, a new form. Plants contain light from the sun, which is then consumed by animals and humans and converted into chemical energy for sustenance and growth. The transfer of information is also present at the most fundamental level of the quantum world. Research in the fields of information theory and quantum physics shows that elementary particle states are actually better information storage repositories than those used in computers.51 At the molecular level, when molecular bonds occur, one form of matter has been taken into another form of matter to achieve higher 44. Ibid., 242. 45. John Puddefoot, “Information Theory, Biology, and Christology,” in Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue, ed. W. Mark Richardson and Wesley Wildman (New York: Routledge, 1996), 312. 46. Harold Morowitz, The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 73. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. John Postlethwait and Janet Hopson, Explore Life (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole—Thompson Learning, 2003), 47. 51. Barrow, The Book of Nothing, 299.

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form. That matter contains and conveys information is found at all levels of nature, while the relational processes between matter lead to higher, more complex forms. Matter is not only comprised of the energy of light, but also intelligence. Another type of intelligence evident in matter besides information itself is problem solving even at the quantum level. The theory and discovery of the Higgs boson suggests that particles of energy show signs of intelligence. This particle, dubbed the “God particle,” actually adds mass where mass is needed in quantum reactions.52 In Richard Feynman’s work, he describes particles on a collision course exhibiting a form of intelligence. Such quantum particles can anticipate a possible interaction with another particle and change course or emit a photon as if a collision had occurred.53 There is a form of intelligence all the way down the evolutionary scale to the smallest bits of matter, with the electromagnetic energy of light critical for all processes in nature. From the field of biochemistry, nature at its most basic level also reveals an emotional side. Recent research shows that molecules actually receive and convey emotion. Studies from microbiologist Candace Pert on neuropeptides show that organisms experience emotion even before the brain can register a reaction.54 She also documents the past avoidance of the concept of emotion itself in scientific research,55 but as contemporary research reveals, emotion also is a constituent of matter. Larry Dossey cites several experiments on microorganisms responding merely to the mental intent of investigators, whether the intent is purposely negative or positive.56 Research by Bernard Grad at McGill University in Montreal reveals that plants respond both positively and negatively, reflecting the emotions

52. K. C. Cole, “Scientists Think They’ve Glimpsed the God Particle,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3, 2000. For a synopsis of the background research on this, see Leon Lederman, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (New York: Dell, 1994). 53. Richard Feynman, Q.E.D.: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Alix G. Mautner Memorial Lectures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 37. 54. Candace Pert, Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel (New York: Touchstone, 1997). 55. Ibid., 138. 56. Larry Dossey, Be Careful What You Pray For . . . You Just Might Get It (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 167–70.

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of the persons nearby.57 Emotion is a part of matter at its most rudimentary level. Matter described by contemporary science is strikingly different than the impenetrable, hard, inert, passive matter of mechanistic physics. It is energetic at its most foundational, light-filled, intelligent, emotional, and relational, functionally bonding to form larger entities through interactions of light. Contemporary cosmology describes the universe as one, emerging out of the dark void, but the void itself is alive with effervescent dynamic quantum wave-particles of light. In this context, we can speak of the connection between light and darkness. The light of the Big Bang is the merging and interaction of photons of light out of the darkness of the quantum field, forming increasingly complex forms of matter, all filled with light. Energy into Matter and the Natural Emergence of Higher-Order Systems Complex systems theory is a relatively new field of science that is emerging from the fields of chaos theory, systems theory, and mathematics,58 and is sometimes referred to as emergence theory, or complexity theory.59 Complex systems theory studies the spontaneous order of self-organizing systems brought about by the intake of matter, energy, and information from the environment.60 The new form brought about by this influx is more complex and displays emergent properties, that is, properties that are not merely the sum of the parts of the old form.61 Thus the new system transcends the old system. Findings from complex systems theory are being applied to the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, psychology, economics, linguistics,

57. Ibid., 179–80. 58. Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 59. Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 30. 60. Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 8, 25; John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 1998), 44; Grégoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine, Exploring Complexity (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1989), 8. 61. Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, 24.

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sociology, education, politics, and theology.62 In the field of theology, selective works that include insights from complex systems theory and its relevance for understanding Divine action include John Polkinghorne’s Science and Theology: An Introduction, Arthur Peacocke’s Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human and his more recent collaboration with Robert Russell and Nancey Murphy as co-editors, Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, and Michael Welker’s God the Spirit, to name a few.63What these works have in common is that they incorporate complex systems theory as a holistic systems approach to explicating Divine action. In Roger Lewin’s Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, he describes how research in separate fields led to the identification of patterns and parallel processes, which then led to the new science of complex systems theory.64 By examining the common features of organization, principles become apparent that were hidden in the reductionist approach. Classical (Newtonian) science abstracted substance and causal interactions between substantive particulars. Contemporary science (Systems Theory) concentrates on organization: not what a thing is per se, nor how one thing produces an effect on another thing, but rather how sets of events are structured and how they function in relation to their environment—other sets of things, likewise structured in space and time.65

It is the “remarkable parallelisms” found in the natural and social sciences that allow for the formation of the principles of this new theory.66 A complex systems theory approach seeks to identify such

62. Lewin, Complexity, 9–10. 63. John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 1998); Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human, Theology and Sciences (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Arthur Peacocke, Robert Russell, and Nancey Murphey, Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 2000); Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994). 64. Lewin, Complexity, 22. 65. Ibid., 25. 66. Ibid.

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parallelisms in the system under investigation.67 The specific system is then explicated in terms of the principles. What is found is that self-organization is ubiquitous in nature, but until recently this aspect has been overshadowed by the mechanistic view of nature, which focuses on parts rather than wholes, on closed systems rather than open systems.68 Systems in nature, including social systems, are open, requiring an input of energy to maintain their structure.69 The second law of thermodynamics, which describes an increase in entropy, with the system becoming dissipated and less organized, is for closed systems. The science of organized complexity takes a holistic approach, examining interrelations between parts, environmental influences, and the functioning of systems as a whole.70 Mechanistic science and complex systems theory are used in tandem; complex systems theory is employed as a guiding framework, and the findings from Newtonian science are placed within that broad framework. What complex systems theory reveals is that there is a drive in nature toward higher, more increasingly complex organization, more complex form. In The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo outlines “the science of organized complexity.71 He identifies the characteristics and properties of natural systems, which are, as it turns out, irrespective of the elements making up the system, regardless of whether the system is suborganic (traditionally called inorganic), organic, or supraorganic (pertaining to the social realm).72 The four principles he identifies for natural systems are: 1. Natural systems are wholes with irreducible parts. 67. Lewin vividly describes this process for several fields of investigation by various researchers in Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. 68. Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 40, 57. 69. Ervin Laszlo, The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time, Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 1996), 32. 70. Ibid., 4. 71. Ibid., 8. 72. Ibid., 6–8; Laszlo uses these terms instead of inorganic, organic, and social to describe the “levels of organization” and not as “categories of reality” (27).

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2. Natural systems maintain themselves in a changing environment. 3. Natural systems create themselves in response to self-creativity in other systems. 4. Natural systems form “liaisons” between the lower-level components within the system and the components of higherlevel systems.73 The central feature of complex systems theory is “emergence.”74 Spontaneous higher order emerges naturally in open systems, with the new system transcending the former system. The cause of a system emerging into a higher-order form is due to its intake of “energy, matter, and information” from the surrounding environment. Throughout the writings of systems theorists, the three—energy, matter, and information—are subsumed into the one—energy. Einstein defined energy in terms of mass and the velocity of light (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). Laszlo provides a general definition of matter and information based on the concept of energy: mass is “rigidly integrated energies” while information is coded patterns of energies.75 Interaction between and within systems is at the most basic level information exchange. When a system experiences an influx of in-form-ation it re-form-ulates itself to accommodate this new information. This influx can create an unstable period, which has been termed a “critical threshold,” “phase transition,” “far-fromequilibrium,” and in more poetic language, “the edge of chaos.”76 The influx of information causes a temporary chaotic stage. At the critical threshold, the “chaos offers an infinity of patterns” for systems to choose from. The term “chaos” may be misleading, for it is simply the creative period when possibilities are open temporarily, “where novel properties emerge.”77 The descriptive “infinity of patterns” is a statement of the general case; for the specific case, historical contingency plays a constraining role as to what new order may 73. Ibid., 53. 74. Lewin, Complexity, 175. 75. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 63. 76. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology, 92; Lewin, Complexity, 52–55. 77. Lewin, Complexity, 54, 188.

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emerge from the previous regime.78 Examples of common phase transitions are water reaching the boiling point, transforming from a liquid state to a gaseous state; strings of proteins becoming cells; cells becoming multicellular organisms; cities becoming states; consciousness breaking through after an accumulation of facts is acquired.79 The new formulation gives rise to a new emergent order, with new properties that are not the sum of its parts. A new vocabulary is needed for the new emergent order, states John Holland.80 When the former organizational barrier is breached and the system spontaneously re-formulates itself, a higher-order system emerges out of a lower-order state.81 There is order out of chaos and nature transcends itself.82 The first principle Laszlo identifies for natural systems is that natural systems are wholes with irreducible parts. Their formal structure depends upon interdependence between parts. It is only with interactive forms of communication that an aggregate of parts becomes a “system.” A hydrogen atom does not merely consist of a proton, neutron, and electron; it is the relationship between the parts, in this case the field of force, that comprises the atom. The brain is comprised of neurons, but it is how the neurons are organized that determines how well the brain functions. An educational institution may have the common elements of teachers, students, desks, and chairs, where the people and parts can be replaced, and still maintain its form as an educational social system. It is the way a system is formed, its “formal or configuration regularities” and not just the “stuff” it is made of, that will serve as “a basis for amplification” from which a higher order emerges.83 This is another way that contemporary science addresses the Intelligent Forms in the world 78. Ibid., 71. 79. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology, 92. 80. John Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (New York: Helix, 1995), 30. 81. For the three as a unit, see Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 21, 34; Holland, Hidden Order, 3; Murphy and Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?, 10. 82. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology, 44. 83. “Amplification” in its most fundamental form is waves of energy in coherence. Terrence Deacon, “Three Levels of Emergent Phenomena,” in Evolution and Emergence: Systems, Organisms, Persons, ed. Nancey Murphy and William Stoeger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 95.

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of matter: larger forms are comprised of smaller sets of forms, with communication among the parts vital for survival. The second principle is that systems maintain themselves in a changing environment. Systems either develop and evolve, or run down and decay; they cannot remain inertly the same due to the openness of the system. Requisite energy is required to keep systems running. If any given thing is to maintain itself in proper running condition, it must act as a subsystem within the total system which defines its energy supplies. . . . The subsystem must take in substances which contain energies in a form which it can use for its own purposes. 84

Systems maintain themselves in a steady state, and not in inert equilibrium.85 A steady state is a particular configuration of parts and relationships.86 In a system that maintains a steady state there is a center of organization, called an attractor.87 There is a flow of elements toward a center, while this center acts in a “top-down” manner to achieve organization of aggregate parts. Centers of attraction include the sun for a solar system, the brain of a mammal, the nucleus of a cell, the nucleus of an atom, the eye of a storm, the manager of a company. There is a balancing of energies and substances in the steady state, with highly organized energy being taken in and degraded forms of energy being exported. An attractor is a necessary element of the overall organization, and is yet another aspect of intelligence and form in matter itself. Maintenance of the dynamic steady state requires both internal and external information. Natural systems maintain their own internal environment. For example, the human body maintains its own body temperature and essential substances and conditions.88 Not only energy is required, but also information. Information is taken in by 84. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 32. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid., 32; Lewin, Complexity, 20–21, 27, 46. Systems can have more than one steady state that is settled into periodically. “Attractor” can be used to describe the state, or the centralizing, unifying element of the new emergent structure. 87. Holland, Hidden Order, 18. 88. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 35.

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sense receptors from the external environment.89 For the human body, receptors are the senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. Such sensory information is mediated through energy transference. When in danger, organisms take steps to protect themselves and they do this through their senses. Through communication of internal sense receptors, organisms can repair themselves through healing and regeneration. Information also entails anticipating the future. Systems “must be able to predict to some extent what is likely to happen.”90 An animal’s sense of smell may indicate the presence of a dangerous predator. Even at the suborganic level, quarks have been observed to anticipate possible collisions with high-speed particles and move in a trajectory as if they indeed had been impacted, even emitting a photon as if they had experienced the collision.91 Humans have highly developed predictive skills: we no longer respond by merely fight or flight, but by creative means to prevent danger.92 For a social group, maintenance is often achieved through rules, laws, and principles, even operating when unformulated. Such guidelines are set in place in anticipation of a future possibility that boundaries may be crossed. In the suborganic, organic, and supraorganic realms, “structures adjust and adapt, maintaining themselves in a dynamic-steady state or series of steady states rather than in inert equilibrium.”93 The third principle is that natural systems create themselves in response to the self-creativity in other systems. This principle has been touched on above in terms of systems taking in matter, energy, and information from the environment. Systems re-create themselves through creativity, through openness to the possibilities, by reaching up to patterns of the (historically constrained) infinite.94 This is not a vague reaching out to the infinite; this is new information carried in through matter and energy that has information internal to it. Laszlo 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. The quark does not move away in any direction, as one of only a few options; it may take the path as if it had met with collision. Feynman, Q.E.D., 37. 92. Ibid. 93. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 38–39. 94. Lewin, Complexity, 38.

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identifies two broad forms of change: ontogenesis and phylogenesis. The first is a preprogrammed or encoded type of change, such as an embryo developing and growing in the womb. Phylogenesis on the other hand is evolution, “the self-creative advance of nature into novelty.”95 It is “self-transformation.”96 In The Origin of Species, Darwin documented many new forms that arose over time due to a need to adapt to different surroundings. In social systems, such as a university, offering new classes may revive the old system. Such new classes are born out of research, new information coming into the system. A sagging economy may revitalize itself through creative new inventions, which in turn prompt the rise of new businesses. It was cited above how “chaos” temporarily leads to emergence. However, in the overall history of emergence there is an ongoing reduction of chaos as higher order increases. Whereas the second law of thermodynamics, relevant only for closed systems, calls for an increase in chaos, for open systems there is an increase in complexity.97 A drive is witnessed in the natural world toward an increase in complex forms. The rise in complexity is not a smooth forward process. “Processes build up until they reach critical thresholds; then sudden change is triggered.”98 Bifurcation of an old system can occur, creating two systems where only one existed previously. This can be seen for species and institutions. Systems have feedback loops that compensate for or neutralize abnormal conditions in the environment, thus maintaining stability. For example, the homeostatic mechanisms in the body regulate temperature. For institutions, punishments are devised to keep things running smoothly. When feedback loops carrying information from outside the system reach a crisis level or critical threshold internally, the pressure may push the system into a new emergent form. In physics, excessive pressure and heat lead to new atomic forms arising. In biology, there is the emergence of a new species brought about by environmental changes. In social-cultural 95. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 39. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid., 41. 98. Ibid.

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systems environmental pressures may prompt “crisis management” resulting in a new cultural system,99 such as the early colonies in America becoming a new nation, or Protestant Reformers starting new denominations. When systems become critically destabilized they either evolve or die, with one type of evolution being bifurcation and a portion of the old system breaking off and evolving to a higher form. In the critical period, elements move outwards from their previous organizational regularity.100 For higher emergence to occur, a new attractor acts as a new center for organization and there is a flow of elements within the system toward this center.101 A new regime emerges that has been fueled by the feedback loops carrying information from the outside.102 This new emergent order has adapted to the environment by taking in novel elements of energy, information, and matter, and formulating them into a new regime.103 A steady state occurs until the next critical phase is reached, at which time the system may experience bifurcation, and movement away from the former center of attraction. And the cycle repeats, creating new emergent forms.104 When systems evolve, their external as well as internal structures change. When neighboring systems interact, a superstructure may form that incorporates both systems. The superstructure now exhibits a whole-to-parts influence on the interior of the formerly separate system. Each internal system may retain its former function, though now more evolved due to the influences from the wider system. There is increasing individuation, as specialization in function increases in relation to the wider network of systems. The world tends toward de-isolation and complexity, while maintaining individuation. This pattern of emergence described above is witnessed in all levels, the suborganic, organic, and supraorganic. The fourth principle of complex systems is that individual systems 99. Ibid., 42. 100. Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, 166–70. 101. Ibid. 102. Ibid., 166. 103. Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, 166; Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 34. 104. Prigogine and Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, 169.

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form “liaisons” between the lower-level components within the system and between the components of the higher-level system.105 In complex systems theory, holism is a crucial factor necessary for describing any system in our world, in contrast to the mechanistic model which tended to focus on parts. Because the patterns of development in all realms of nature are analogous, evolution appears to drive toward the superposition of system upon system in a continuous multilevel structure traversing the regions of the suborganic, the organic, and the supraorganic. 106

All natural systems must maintain communication by integrating internal parts to the whole and whole to parts. The language of “bottom-up causation” has been used for the communication of internal parts affecting the whole and “top-down causation” for wholes communicating to parts.107 At the suborganic level, the atom integrates its internal particles and similarly interfaces with other atoms and with the molecule of which it is a part.108 On the organic level, cells integrate their subcellular elements such as the nucleus and cytoplasm interfacing with them and with the organ of which they are a part. Higher-order vertebrates interface in social communities and community leaders implement and regulate the behavior of its members. Laszlo points out that interfacing, communication among human beings, has taken on a qualitative difference from that of other species. The invention of language is an important development in our interfacing capabilities. The symbol allows humans to not only talk about the here and now, but about the past and future, remote, abstract, and the imaginary.109 All along the evolutionary rise of new forms there has been an increase in the degree of sensitivity and awareness in the structures that are forming. Recent experiments 105. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 53. 106. Ibid. 107. D. T. Campbell, “‘Downward Causation’ in Hierarchically Organized Systems,” in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems, ed. Francisco J. Ayala and Theodosius Dobzhansky (London: Macmillan, 1974), 179–86. 108. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 54. 109. Ibid., 56.

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show unsuspected sensitivities in the most basic constituents of life from atoms, to plants, to cells, to human beings.110 However, according to Laszlo, nervous systems seem to be necessary for an individual to achieve self-awareness, that is, consciousness.111 The ability of monitoring sensations and not merely responding to the actual sensations themselves is reflective consciousness. The monitor of the human being is the cerebral cortex, “the seat of reflective consciousness.”112 This came about naturally as the need for monitoring arose in a complex environment. Our ancestors learned to learn from their experience. Widening the horizon, Laszlo provides a description of the origins of the cosmos in terms of a flow of energy. From the one energy center of the Big Bang there is an outward flow of energy, which over time starts to form “knots” due to the contorting presence of electromagnetic forces.113 These small centers of energy become the particles of matter communicating with each other through the mode of attraction and repulsion. The knots move closer together through the force of attraction forming a cohesive mass, while balancing their internal energy flows. The process repeats, with nodules forming and interacting. “New waves of formative energy course over stabilized structures.”114 The established structures serve as “templates for the production of new systems of flow.”115 Patterns of formation arise based on previous formations. Quarks and leptons integrate and their energies condense to form electrons and nucleons, eventually forming into stable atoms. Uncompleted shells allow the atom to bond with neighboring atoms. Chemical molecules are formed, then polymer molecules and crystals, proteins and nucleic acids, cells and organisms. Organisms form as patterns in a free flow of energies, substances, and information. As the 110. Ibid., 66. Atoms show sensitivity to their environment, for instance when being bombarded by a particle. This is sensitivity on an atomic scale, whereas a cat shows sensitivity commensurate with its development of complexity. 111. Ibid., 69. 112. Ibid. 113. Laszlo, The Systems View of the World, 61. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid.

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energy flow continues, supraorganic structures of ecological and social communities form. The elegance of this science of complex systems is that it allows the processes to be studied under one defining concept, the flow of energy. There is a drive witnessed in nature to achieve form, followed by a continual transcendence of form to achieve more highly evolved forms. As complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman states, “it is not we the accidental, but we the expected.”116 What complex systems theory offers is a holistic account of emergence as a natural phenomenon throughout nature, from the suborganic to the supraorganic. Emergence is transcendence. This transcendence is not unique to the spiritual human being, but an aspect of all of nature. All God’s creatures transcend in order to survive. We do this, over the grand sweep of time, by re-creating ourselves and our environments. This creativity is inspired through the influx of energy, information, and matter from the environment. The environment includes photon emissions from the quantum field, the food we eat, information learned (as Plato and Philo emphasized), our interaction with the Divine and one another; the list is endless. The direction of our transcending depends upon what becomes the center of organization for our new form of emergence. Transcendence has been identified in the past as a function of the Spirit of God upon the world of matter.117 Transcendence as emergence is a natural part of the world of matter, and is brought about by an intake of energy, information (coded patterns of energy), and matter (rigid patterns of energy). Again, the question is addressed: How is Spirit/Light and Dark/ matter connected? The answer from a contemporary science perspective is that the Light of the Big Bang becomes matter. Light as photons, the carriers of the electromagnetic force, is a constitutive part of all matter and the force that binds matter together. This light carries coded patterns of energy and merges with other light carriers of coded patterns of energy to form higher-order complex structures of 116. Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, 118. 117. Hans Schwarz, “Transcendence,” in A New Handbook of Christian Theology, ed. Donald Musser and Joseph Price (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992), 494–549.

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matter that continually transcend previous states. Spirit was described in chapter 1 as that which transcends matter. Matter from a contemporary perspective is described as continually transcending itself with creativity, taking in intelligence and light as electromagnetic energy from its surroundings. The Greeks regarded the Logos in matter as the Divine rational principle, and movement to be a defining characteristic of soul. As all matter contains information, light, and energy and with the passage of time, transcends itself, stemming from a single energetic light source, then the connection between the world of matter and the world of Light is that the world of matter is an extension of the one Divine Source. Neuroscience: Light Energy Leading to Emergent Consciousness This section addresses the connection between Spirit/Light/Logos and dark matter, specifically in terms of the processes in brain matter. Part one provides a brief history of neuroscience, beginning with early Greek conceptions of spirit associated with mind, to mechanistic conceptions of brain function in the early modern era, to contemporary descriptions of brain matter as pliable and organic. Part two examines how sensory learning impacts changes in brain structure and addresses the mind-body problem. Part three offers a complex systems theory analysis of how the brain functions and how learning and higher states of consciousness occur. An emphasis throughout will be to show how energy is an essential element in brain functioning. This is provided to specifically address contemporary explanations of Divine-Human interaction that dismiss energetic processes. The study of neuroscience began in the Greek period, and one question of inquiry was whether the mind was located in the heart or the brain.118 Aristotle postulated that the mind was located in the heart, while the physician Galen, using experimentation, located the mind in the brain.119 From his experiments, Galen concluded that “the brain is the organic seat of consciousness.”120 He equated the soul with 118. J. Allan Hobson, The Dreaming Brain (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), 86. 119. Ibid.

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“psychic cells,” which he said reside in the ventricles of the brain.121 His theory of the four humors became the dominant theory of medicine in the Middle Ages. The four humors were phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood. “Spirit,” historically regarded by the Greeks as the source of life and animation, was conceived as dwelling within the body’s bloodbone material and guiding the bodily processes.122 Galen’s scheme of the localization of the mind in the brain was strengthened by experimental procedures in the Renaissance and early modern era. Leonardo da Vinci first provided a basic detailed structure of the brain, and Andreas Vesalius, a sixteenth-century Flemish anatomist, was one of the first to dissect the brain, adding to the understanding of its structure. In the early seventeenth century, the British anatomist Thomas Willis located consciousness in brain tissue as well as in the brain ventricles. The latter were discovered to have a wing-like shape, which added to the likelihood of the brain ventricles being the seat of the soul for early modern scientists. 123 “The most famous historical statement of the relationship of brain to mind is that of René Descartes . . . who became the father of modern mind-body dualism.”124 He located the soul in the small nexus of tissue above the brain stem, the pineal gland.125 The pineal gland was shown to be sensitive to light like the retina, while its function was to monitor external light changes so as to regulate internal heat generation. The pineal, a “light doorway,” was said to allow in the divine light of the soul.126 Following Descartes, Leibniz and Locke debated the nature of consciousness and whether it depended upon sensation. Leibniz spoke of consciousness in terms of innate ideas, while Locke regarded sensation as necessary for consciousness.127 Newton’s view was that sensation was mediated by the “vibration of a very subtle spirit” through the nerves. 120. Ibid. 121. Ibid. 122. Ibid. 123. Ibid. 124. Ibid., 87. 125. Ibid. 126. Ibid. 127. Ibid., 90.

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In the eighteenth century, Franz Joseph Gall, famous for his phrenology, assessed personality through the surface of the scalp. More importantly, he theorized that the gray matter in the brain was composed of neurons (brain cells), while the white matter was comprised of fibers.128 His work was followed by Charles Bell’s New Idea of Anatomy of the Brain in 1811 and later The Nervous System of the Human Body in 1830. Bell outlined the structural basis of reflex, stating that reflexes stem from the spinal cord in terms of nerve impulses. In 1822, François Magendie demonstrated the essential sensitivity of nerves. Both Bell and Magendie explicated movement in terms of electrical properties in the body. Energy from the environment impinges upon the body’s sense organs and skin, while electrical impulses are conducted through nerves comprised of wire-like structures into the central nervous system to the muscles producing movement.129 According to neuroscientist J. Allan Hobson, “following Bell and Magendie, the spirit could be identified as electricity and later further analyzed as the flux of ions across the nerve membrane.” 130 The neuron theory of Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934) on individual nerve cells and their dynamic interactions brought the discipline of neuroscience from “relatively static” descriptions to “dynamic” descriptions, for which he won the 1906 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine.131 Prior to Ramon y Cajal’s neuron doctrine, Sigmund Freud viewed the nervous system as a “syncytium of cells connected to each other by protoplasmic bridges with the flow of information unimpeded.”132 For Ramon y Cajal, whose work was founded on “detailed observation” rather than “interpretive speculation,” the nervous system was described as “a collection of independent but interdependent neurons, each of which is functionally discrete. Each had its own energy source and its own capacity for handling information.”133 Operating within the dualistic framework of 128. Ibid., 87. 129. Ibid., 89. 130. Ibid., 90. 131. Ibid., 92. 132. Ibid., 97. 133. Ibid.

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the era, Ramon y Cajal’s own words express the difficulty of regarding matter as not only energetic but also informational: Can it be that within our organic edifice there dwell innumerable inhabitants which palpitate feverishly with impulses of spontaneous activity without our taking any notice of them? And our much talked of psychological unity? What has become of thought and consciousness in this audacious transformation of man into a colony of polyps? It is certain that millions of autonomous organisms populate our bodies, the eternal and faithful companions of glories and of toils, of which the joys and sorrows are our own; and certain also that the existence of entities so close to us passes unperceived by the ego.134

For the first time, cells were regarded as individuals with their own spontaneity, capacity for intelligence, form, and energy and regarded as integral living individuals and not just passive matter. The structural unit of the brain was discovered to be the individual nerve cell, the neuron, as the atom was the basic structural unit to the physical sciences. Each neuron is a single cell that functions as a conductor, transducer, and transmitter of electric impulses.135 Fibers, made up of many dendrites and usually one axon, stem out of each cell. Dendrites receive information and axons transmit information to the next cell. At the end of an axon there is a branching out with synaptic knobs forming on each end. Information travels across a synapse, which is the gap between the axon knob and a dendrite from another cell.136 In the middle of this conveyance process, the cell itself converts electrical information into chemical messages. Inside each cell is a pump that extrudes sodium ions, previously received from blood, across the semipermeable cell membrane. A concentration of sodium is built up outside the membrane, leaving a concentration of potassium inside the cell. A concentration ionic gradient is formed between the inside and the outside of the cell. Because ions are charged particles, the 134. Ibid., 98. Quoted by Hobson from Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Recollections of My Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1937), 296. 135. Hobson, The Dreaming Brain, 100. 136. Mark Buchanan, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 64.

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concentration gradient constitutes an electrical potential. In this way energy is not only received, but generated in each brain cell.137 The membrane potential is approximately one tenth of a volt.138 The inside of the cell has a net negative charge, while the outside is positively charged. When an electrical signal is passed along from another cell and the signal is received by the cell’s dendrite this increases the inner negative charge of the cell, creating the ionic gradient. Sodium ions outside the cell rush in, while potassium ions rush out. The rapid change of ionic balance creates an electrical pulse that is sent on through the axon across the synaptic gap to the next cell’s dendrites. Information processing in the brain is communicated by energy, both electrical and chemical. Billions of neurons make up the cerebral cortex, which is the central processing unit of the brain. The cerebral cortex is connected to the brain stem, which in turn is connected to the spinal cord, sending information throughout the body. The only brain many primitive animals had was the brain stem.139 The cerebral cortex has intricate folded layers, affording a multilayer scaffolding that allows for consciousness.140 There are upwards of twenty billion neurons in the human brain. Each neuron has approximately ten thousand synapses. That is ten thousand means of communication per neuron. Multiplying the twenty billion neurons with the number of synapses each, yields 200,000,000,000,000 (2 × 1014) communication contacts in the brain.141 Each synapse can be open or closed, or some intermediate state, which makes the system as a whole infinitely rich in communication processing. In regard to the question of consciousness, Hobson, a former Harvard medical professor and director of the neurophysiology lab, states, “[T]he question should not be how does consciousness occur, but rather how can there not be consciousness with so much communication going on?”142 137. Hobson, The Dreaming Brain, 103. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid., 110. 140. Ibid. 141. Ibid., 121. 142. Ibid.

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Returning to the original question of what is the connection of light to dark matter, the answer proceeds from early Greek conceptions to contemporary descriptions of neural processes. The matter of the brain contains the energetic processes of the mind, with the mind associated with one aspect of the divine for early interpreters. Photons of light from the outside environment literally inform the brain. All matter radiates electromagnetic information that is received by the senses of the body. The internal processes of the brain involve converting information in the form of external light and other electromagnetic information from the environment into usable electrical and chemical energy necessary for brain functioning. External light becomes the internal light of consciousness. How Sensory Learning Transforms the Brain In neurological studies in the last few decades, the surprising finding is the dynamic plasticity of the brain itself.143 The neural pathways in the brain are much more malleable than was originally thought.144 In Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Discoveries of How the Mind Works, Ronald Kotulak emphasizes that environmental factors, such as learning acquired through the senses of hearing, vision, touch, taste, and smell, alter the brain microstructure.145 Information from the environment is converted into electronic pulses that travel to the brain. With increased experience, with each new task or lesson learned, the “hardwiring” in the brain actually changes.146 “Dendrites sprout from brain cells like tree branches” as we are introduced to learning stimuli.147 The number of synaptic connections also increases.148 While learning in the first three years of life rapidly transforms the hardwiring in the brain, learning continues throughout life and continues to alter brain microstructure.149 As discussed above, the 143. Ronald Kotulak, Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Discoveries of How the Mind Works (Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, 1996), 3, 18–19. The majority of Kotulak’s studies are from the 1990s. 144. Kotulak, Inside the Brain, 7–8, 22. 145. Ibid., 5, 11, 17, 21–25, 54. 146. Ibid., 17. 147. Ibid., 14. The number of axons, however, remains the same. 148. Ibid., 18.

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neuron is an electrical receiver, conductor, and generator. With a sensory input of electromagnetic information received from the environment, there is an increase in neural pathways and synapses such that matter within the brain is reorganized and electrical activity increases. These new findings in neurological research on the critical importance of sensory input from the environment for organizing the microstructure of the brain would tend to collapse the former mindbrain and mind-body distinction, so much a part of western philosophy.150 The connection of light to dark matter is that the photon carriers of information from the environment—which includes sensory information received from matter naturally emitting its electrical photonic pulses and formal education, whether from reading or the spoken word—transform the internal structure of the brain, creating smarter, literally more evolved, and literally more enlightened beings. In The Biology of Belief, medical doctor Bruce Lipton explains how our thoughts impact our bodies. The placebo effect has long been documented in medical research.151 Lipton includes an interesting study in which patients came in for knee surgery, were put under anesthesia, but did not actually have the surgery, though they thought they had. Physical therapy was prescribed for the patients, as with the patients who actually had the surgery. In time, both groups, those who had surgery and those who did not, reported the same positive results with no significant statistical differences between the groups. The belief that the knee patients had actually had surgery was as effective as the surgery itself.152 Lipton’s research also looks at the reverse, the nocebo effect, how negative thoughts affect the body.153 Negative thoughts produce stress on the body in the form of an adrenaline response. Adrenaline is communicated via the brain to the central nervous system, which in turn can override the body’s normal functioning.154 Under normal circumstances, all the cells in the human 149. Ibid. 150. Ibid., 8. 151. Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles (Santa Rosa, CA: Mountain of Love/Elite Books, 2005), 140. 152. Ibid., 137–41. 153. Ibid., 142f.

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body are replaced by new cells over a seven-year period.155 Each cell has a protective function and a growth function.156 Adrenaline chemically inhibits on a cellular basis the energy needed for cell growth by diverting needed energy to the protection mode of cellular activity.157 Necessary chemical nutrients are not taken into the cell because the cell is shut down in its protection mode.158 The body stops replenishing itself due to negative thoughts. Lipton carries forward his discussion of how thoughts affect our lives. Perceptions influence our actions, and actions repeated become habits. Over time our life course is changed for good or for bad.159 Positive perceptions put into action produce positive effects. Perceptions are learned. Parents are “not simply spectators in their children’s lives” states Lipton.160 Research over the last decades shows that “parents have overwhelming influence on the mental and physical attributes of the children they raise.”161 What we say, year after year, to our children greatly affects who they are. Words have an actual effect upon the health and well-being of an individual. They impact us emotionally, mentally, and physically at the cellular level. Words as sound waves enter the body and are converted to electrochemical signals. Photons race across synaptic pathways and impact our cells. These cells are altered; they are malleable rather than hard and inert, and the cells are physically changed due to words spoken and ideas conveyed.162 The human being—body, emotions/soul, mind/spirit—is affected by the words in our environment. Neurological Processes and Complex Systems Theory In Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks, Mark Buchanan describes the neural network of the human brain in terms of 154. Ibid., 150. 155. Ibid., 151. 156. Ibid. 157. Ibid., 152. 158. Ibid., 144. 159. Ibid., 132. 160. Ibid., 156. 161. Ibid. 162. Ibid., 156.

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the science of organized complexity. The brain is a complex dynamical system displaying emergent properties at higher levels that depend on lower-level phenomena.163 Most of the brain’s neurons are in the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain.164 The multilayer scaffolding of cerebral cortex is comprised of billions of neurons, each with dendrites and axons that relay information to neighboring cells. When the axons from a neuron link up with another neuron’s dendrites, there is communication. The local connections sew the brain together into one connected whole. The brain also has long-distance axons linking regions from across the brain.165 The human brain is a parallel processing unit, rather than just a serial processing unit as found in the brain stem. Metaphorically, it is like lined-up file cabinets that each store a certain kind of data, with the file cabinets piled one on top of the other in shelves upon shelves, but there are also access points between the cabinets where files can be shared. The human brain is a vast storage repository, with a complex network of interconnecting lines of communications, with more and more lines being added all the time. Our visual senses receive waves of information from photons emitted from matter. In early life, basic spatial patterns are learned.166 These patterns become encoded in memory.167 Intricate patterns are learned and recorded in the various regions of the brain. These patterns are later linked to meaning. Neurological studies reveal that consciousness occurs when there is activation of neurons from many regions in the brain at the same time, which have stored memory.168 Teilhard de Chardin states this succinctly when he says that “from the piled up facts, consciousness emerges.”169 Information in one type of memory bank sparks seemingly unrelated information from another memory bank, and a greater consciousness emerges where no 163. Lewin, Complexity, 164. 164. Buchanan, Nexus, 63. 165. Ibid. 166. Rodney Cotterill, Enchanted Looms: Conscious Networks in Brains and Computers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 190–98. 167. Ibid. 168. Buchanan, Nexus, 67. 169. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 78.

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consciousness had existed before. Just one more bit of information may be the spark needed to cause a blaze of insight sweeping through the brain. When disparate images, ideas, and memory come together, the brain binds them into a single mental scene.170 We know this from our experience. When learning a new concept we must learn several facts first before they can be formed together into a holistic concept, and then, but not always, a moment of recognition arises in which the overall concept is understood. Metaphorically, we say a light bulb has been turned on. Consciousness is facts coming together synchronically.171 Synchronicity occurs in well-organized networks, from the human brain to pendulum clocks lined up on a wall, to the flight patterns of birds.172 Consciousness is an emergent state; it is neural synchronization.173 If there was not synchronicity in the brain, there would be no perception, no consciousness.174 Consciousness is not merely top-down causation in the sense that the brain sends an electronic signal down the brain stem to the spinal cord so that the arm can be raised; it is awareness arising due to the synchronic parallel processing in the brain. We “get it” because many areas of the brain have been working in unison. Emergence occurs as in any complex system from the overload of input, but in this case emergence is emergence of a higher consciousness; it is transcendence of a former state of being. Species evolve and human beings evolve. The animal brain is smaller; it has fewer cells and is not as intricately organized as the human brain. The memory center, the hippocampus, in an animal brain is much smaller and less complex. The hippocampus sends electronically encoded messages to synaptic connections, which are fewer in animals than in human brains. Memory is stored on the neurons’ synapses, the more synapses the more memory, while the 170. Ibid., 67. 171. Ibid. 172. Itzhak Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1988). 173. Ibid. 174. Ibid., 49.

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more one learns the more the synapses become intricately shaped.175 Learning is a prerequisite to higher consciousness. The more one learns, the more dendrite material is grown, the more conscious one becomes.176 Repetition or training is required to maintain new growth and to strengthen neural pathways.177 Experience itself tells us that we learn from experience. The infant cannot just raise her arm to reach a ball. She must learn what the ball is, learn to reach, and learn to coordinate muscles required for reaching, only to learn later in life that she may not want the ball at all. Consciousness, and this includes consciousness of matters of a spiritual nature, is not automatic, it is not divinely implanted; it increases through evolution and within the individual through learning and sensory input. The brain is awash in waves of electrical activity that can be recorded by an electroencephalogram, an EEG, with many states of consciousness, from waking to sleeping. Each state of consciousness has a different signature, a different frequency of brain waves.178 Brain waves recorded on an EEG show on average that the frequency of the waves in an alert, awake state is twelve to eighteen cycles per second, called beta waves.179 With eyes closed, a day-dreaming state records eight to twelve cycles per second, the alpha state. In a drowsy state to almost falling asleep, an EEG will record four to eight cycles per second, the theta state. In sleep, brain-wave frequency is at one to four cycles per second, called delta, while in REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) the brain is very actively dreaming and the EEG will record spiked spindles of fifteen to eighteen cycles per second.180 States of consciousness are inexorably linked to energetic cycles. The brain not only processes energy from the outside, but also produces energy in the individual neurons. Electric pulses travel as waves in the brain, revealing consciousness and its various states. To say that Divine action on the world is as the mind on the body cannot 175. Kotulak, Inside the Brain, 145. 176. Ibid., 23. 177. Ibid., 27. 178. Ibid. 179. Hobson, The Dreaming Brain, 135. 180. Ibid.

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only be in terms of information, but essentially at its very foundation this action is about energy and matter as well. Learning leads to more elaborate dendrite scaffolding in the brain, which allows for more actual connections, from which consciousness emerges. Consciousness is an emergent process stemming from increased matter, information, and energy. In addressing the connection of Spirit/Light to dark/matter, it is matter itself that contains light and brings the light of consciousness. The more learning we experience from the environment of matter—from words, from books, from visual images—the more conscious we become. Our neural pathways increase with more and more dendrite branches sprouting. More synapses are formed. As learning increases, and information is stored in the brain as patterns, we make connections, literally, which become the figurative, abstract connections of consciousness. The connection of light to dark matter is that as light from the environment is brought into the dark matter of the brain, consciousness emerges. Contemporary Science and Mysticism This section offers the connection of Spirit/Light/Logos and matter from the perspective of mystical experience and brings forward research from what is being called contemplative neuroscience. A discussion of mediated versus unmediated experience will be provided. Research from the field of neuroscience is then brought in, specifically as it pertains to mystical experience. The nine levels of consciousness for meditative states are reviewed, while the mystic is said to experience increased wisdom, enlightenment, transcendence, and transformation at the highest states. While repeated tasks are shown to change the microstructure of the brain, in this section the repeated practice of meditation is brought to bear on the discussion of the connection between Spirit and matter. In chapter 2, a variety of mystical experiences were offered that focused on light as the connective element between the world of nature and the mystic, leading to enlightenment. This section provides findings from 171

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neuroscience in terms of what is actually occurring in the brain of the mystic. At the beginning of the twentieth century stands the pioneering work of William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. Its empirical nature classifies it as a scientific study of religious experience.181 With this work he democratizes the Spirit, showing the prevalence of the Spirit in connection with the average person in an age of church hierarchy.182 It also “helps explain and legitimize the role of the silent mystic.”183 For James, “God is in one person quite as much as another.”184 Martin E. Marty comments, that what James is describing in his work is that “humans were all potentially equidistant from the divine and hence, equally near.”185 James portrays throughout The Varieties that God is “part of the world processes, tangled and tied to natural and human ventures.”186 This aspect of the Spirit of God “tangled and tied to natural and human ventures” is brought out time and again in his work. A distinction is often made between sensory and non-sensory mystical experience (so Ellwood, Swinburne, Brown, and James himself);187 however, the individual has acquired a history of experiences in this world to bring him or her to the moment of experiencing the Divine. The person is a cumulative history of increasing brain scaffolding in terms of increased dendrites due to her life experiences as described above in Kotulak’s work. The section above illustrated how the microstructure of the individual’s brain changes with the environmental influences of life. Whether in the silence of a room or on a starry night on the hilltop, the individual has a history and an attendant consciousness that is a product of that life journey. Everything that has occurred in the life of the individual has brought 181. Martin E. Marty, Introduction in Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James, Penguin Classics (New York: Penguin, 1985). 182. Ibid., xi. 183. Ibid., vii. 184. Ibid. 185. Ibid., xi. 186. Ibid., xxv. 187. Robert Ellwood, Mysticism and Religion, 2nd ed. (New York: Seven Bridges, 1999). Swinburne and Brown’s perspective is covered by Peacocke in Theology for a Scientific Age, 202–10.

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her to that particular moment of experience. The following is one of the religious experiences that James relates in The Varieties of Religious Experience: I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hilltop, where my soul opened out, as it were, to the Infinite, and there was a rushing together of the two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep calling unto deep.188

The experience of this individual was so profound that it was lifechanging.189 James’s assessment is that this is an example of the human spirit experiencing transcendence, and as such “the human spirit rises to connect with the divine spirit.”190 Regarding the connection of the Spirit to the world of matter, James states “the unseen region in question is not merely ideal” (meaning the heavenly realm is not just abstract forms) “for it produces effects in this world.”191 He provides several examples throughout his book of how connecting with the Divine Spirit changed the behavior of the individual. When we commune with the Divine, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new creations and experience real consequences in terms of changed behavior toward the good. 192 A study was conducted by Andrew Greeley titled “How Often Does Enlightenment Occur?”193 In a survey of approximately 1500 Americans, 18 percent said they had had a mystical experience, while 12 percent said such an occurrence had happened several times.194 According to neurological findings, in order for a religious experience to occur the active part of the brain needs to be quieted.195 Quietization can occur in different ways, ranging from focus on an object, such as 188. James, Varieties, 66. 189. Ibid. 190. Ibid. 191. Ibid., 516. 192. Ibid. 193. Andrew Greeley, The Sociology of the Paranormal. A Renaissance Sage Research paper, vol. 3, series 90-023 (Beverly Hills, CA). The study was conducted in 1973. Cited in James Austin, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 535. 194. Austin, Zen and the Brain, 535. 195. Andrew Newberg, Eugene d’Aquili, and Vince Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief (New York: Ballantine, 2001), 103, 117, 120.

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the image of Christ or listening for the voice of God, to simply shutting out all internal and external auditory and visual stimuli.196 Shutting down senses to reach a meditative state is undertaken by an individual who has lived a life of experience. The brain is in a body and this body comes with years of past sensory input that has shaped the brain. Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause provide research for what actually occurs in the brain circuitry as one is having a religious experience.197 The hippocampus, the attention center of the brain, first experiences a dampening of the flow of neural input as the individual silences the mind.198 This results in the orientation area of the brain experiencing deprivation of neuronal activity.199 This emptying then causes increased activity in the ancient neural structure of the hypothalamus.200 A relaxing, pulsing circuitry begins to flow between the two centers as the quieting, calming messages are relayed back and forth, between the attention center and the primordial center. A neuronal overload of calming pulses occurs, shutting down the spatial orientation center, and the ego center. It is then that the mystic experiences a sense of oneness with the Divine all about her. When an individual intentionally focuses on an object, for example, the image of Christ, rather than intentionally quieting the mind, a different experience occurs. The right attention area of the hippocampus is aroused with neuronal flow. An increase of neuronal stimuli is now sent to the hypothalamus, and a circuit develops between the two, this time with pulses of active focus, rather than calming, quieting repetitive messages. Activity in the attention area is pushed to maximal levels. This overload of activity deprives the right orientation area of everything but what is being focused on. The right orientation area strives to create a spatial matrix, but it is forced to focus on the image. This image then becomes the entire spatial matrix. It enlarges, becoming “the entire depth and breadth of reality.”201 The 196. Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away, 103, 117, 120. 197. Ibid., 117. 198. Ibid. 199. Ibid., 118. 200. Ibid. 201. Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause, 122.

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loss of orientation is experienced as a uniting with the object of focus, a mystical absorption.202 As Newberg states, “[T]he brain has evolved to allow for transcendence, as wings have evolved for birds.”203 As new dendrites are created with the disciplined practice of meditation, transcendence becomes easier. James Austin identifies and describes nine levels of consciousness of meditative states, or silent prayer state when the mind is quieted.204 The first level of consciousness, level one, is the ordinary waking state.205 Sensate perceptions are high, in terms of having a strong sense of time and place.206 A normal awareness state is described by Austin as a flow of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and images, which may be interrupted by daydreams.207 Level two is identified as “slow-wave sleep” with no awareness at all, no sensate perceptions, no sense of time or place, and there is a sense of replenishment upon waking.208 Level three is desynchronized sleep, which Austin describes as the subject experiencing internalized awareness wherein one may have vivid, imaginative dreams during REM episodes. Level four is identified by “shallow to deep concentration and receptive meditative modes.” This stage is marked by few to no thoughts experienced, with loss of awareness of intensity, a loss of the sense of the bounded self in space and time, with very little sensate perception. The subject may experience a transient sensation of “one-pointedness” or focus. Afterwards there is a feeling of clarity and refreshment.209 The level five meditative state is identified as a “heightened emotionalized awareness without sensate loss.”210 This awareness is a sensory awareness of impressions, accompanied by the feelings of peace and joy.211 The normal experience of the bounded self in place and time

202. Ibid. 203. Ibid., 123. 204. Austin, Zen and the Brain, 300–303. 205. Ibid., 300. 206. Ibid. 207. Ibid. 208. Ibid. 209. Ibid. 210. Ibid., 301. 211. Ibid.

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is lower than that in the normal waking state. Psychologist Abraham Maslow identifies this stage as a heightened plateau or epiphany state.212 The experience is usually “memorable” but “not transforming.”213 Austin identifies level six as “absorption, with degrees of sensate loss ranging from external to internal absorption.214 External absorption is described as focus on an external source, an object or nature itself. Awareness is heightened from the previous state and is of ongoing events or awareness of awareness itself, permeated with black, silent space. There is little to no sense at all of the bounded self, with a loss of a sense of time and place. Sensate perception is higher in external absorption and there is no sensate perception with internal absorption.215 Internal absorption is marked with intense awareness. After the experience, there is a feeling of enchantment, bliss, and ecstasy with a “sacramental quality.”216 The experience is temporarily transforming.217 At the top three levels of the nine levels of a meditative state, one experiences “a loss of the bounded self.”218 There is a permanent transformation of attitude and behavior after such an experience, similar to the many experiences that William James describes.219 Level seven is identified as the stage of reaching “insight-wisdom.” Here, there is the highest intensity of external sensate awareness. This awareness is of Oneness and the perfection in all things just as they are, referred to as “suchness.”220 This awareness is identified by Austin as enlightenment. The experience is memorable and transformative.221 Level eight is “ultimate being beyond expression.”222 There is awareness of the Ultimate Source, a groundless void beyond oneness, and primordial emptiness.223 Opposite from the 212. Ibid. 213. Ibid. 214. Ibid., 302. 215. Ibid. 216. Ibid. 217. Ibid. 218. Ibid., 303. 219. Austin, Zen and the Brain, 301; James, Varieties, 358–69. 220. Austin, Zen and the Brain, 303. 221. Ibid. 222. Ibid. 223. Ibid.

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previous level, there is no sensate perception, as well as no sense of the bounded self, and no sense of time and place. It is memorable, but “ultimately nothing special,” yet markedly transforming. It is an experience beyond seeing and knowing, described as nirvana.224 Level nine, the highest level, is the “stage of ongoing enlightened traits.”225 Intensity of awareness is in the midrange, halfway between extremely intense and no awareness at all, while sense perception is high. The feeling is marked by a sense of the unbounded, both externally and internally. There is an awareness of the suchness of all things. The normal sense of the bounded self is experienced as “free access without bound” and the sense of time and place is “free access without limitations.”226 There is a detachment from cravings and aversion that is lasting, and a sense of selfless compassion. Such enlightenment traits are not superficial, but genuinely enduring in one’s character. There is also a sense that in the flow of events positive things happen with a light touch.227 This stage is described by Austin as that of “selffulfilling” activity.228 Throughout Austin’s descriptions, two things stand out. The first is the high degree of sensory perceptions involved in the journey through the stages. To describe a meditative-mystical experience as non-sensory would be to pull a level such as level four or eight out of context, and to ignore several other stages such as levels five, seven, or nine, where there is high sensory perception. Second, these states of meditation are stages reached through years of practice.229 The experience of meditation, or silent prayer itself and practice of meditation alters the brain microstructure, as all experiences do.230 The practice continually alters the neural pathways, increasing the ability to experience a flow state with ease. To achieve a connection from the world of matter to the world of 224. Ibid. 225. Ibid. 226. Ibid. 227. Ibid. 228. Austin, Zen and the Brain, note, 303. 229. Ibid., 535–36. 230. See discussion from Kotulak above.

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Spirit and Light requires practice and prayer, or meditation. Quieting the mind or meditating on a sacred image produces real effects in the brain in terms of energetic flow. It frees up some areas and bombards other areas with electronic pulses of light. Over time, the brain structure changes such that a new creation emerges, an individual who may easily experience the oneness of all creation. This oneness is also affirmed by contemporary science, from astrophysics to chemistry and biology, in terms of the interconnecting levels—from the quantum field up through the evolutionary rise of increasingly complex forms. Joy, ecstasy, oneness, light are experienced through the levels of states of consciousness. Beyond this is the primordial experience of darkness. This was also attested by the ancient philosophers who envisioned a primordial darkness preceding a world of light and intelligent forms. Beyond level eight’s primordial darkness is level nine, which is the free-access level. It is freedom from the bonds to time, place, and matter, where senses are brighter and things flow, such that there is self-fulfilling activity, and one is genuinely more compassionate. This level can best be described as lightness of being and “divinity,” which theologians and mystics had described centuries earlier as deification, as described in chapter 3.231 Research in mysticism reveals that enlightenment and transformation of character may be experienced by an individual through practicing meditation or silent prayer. The mystic experiences the Divine as One and is transformed. The individual becomes what has been experienced: a person of peace, joy, compassion, and wisdom, and may bring about transformations in the material realm with the slightest of effort. Conclusion As conveyed in chapter 1, the early Greek physicists described the beginning, the Arche, as One Source. The Source was considered Divine, becoming the many things of matter, while matter itself was divine, 231. Austin, Zen and the Brain, 536.

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animated, generative, full of life and life-giving, containing the Logos, or ideal forms. Quantum electrodynamics and complex systems theory concur that all comes from one source. This one Source is Light, and as it bursts forth into the darkness it becomes the world of matter. There is a build-up of forms as informative, energetic particles coalesce together. In the flow of creation, there is an ongoing emergence of new forms, a transcendence of former systems. While complexity arises all along the historical route, “matter” occurs when stability of form can be achieved in an open system, a flowing stream of energetic processes. We are part of this continuous Source of energy, information, and matter. If the divine soul is identified as that which is animated, intelligent, generative of new creations, comprised of light, and immortal, then this matter that contemporary science describes looks more like the Greek concept of ensouled matter than the inert matter of mechanistic science. The body, brain, and mind are fueled by taking in the light energy, information, and matter in the environment. The brain in the body is an evolutionary product stemming from the information developed in less complex creatures. One of the most fundamental means of fueling the brain in the body is the intake of food from plants, which contains photons from the sun converted to chemical energy, as well as the information within the plant structure. This high-grade energy keeps the body and brain functioning. Sensory experiences also fuel the development of the brain as electromagnetic energy is literally taken in through the sense receptors of the body. Sensory experiences alter the microstructure of the brain, creating a new, more evolved person over time. Particularly, learning and meditative practices alter the brain structure as new dendrite material is grown, caused by the energetic emanation of sensory material in dialogue with internal thoughts. Complex systems theory and neurological studies describe the mind as an emergent property of the experiencing individual who has taken in energy, information, and matter from the environment. The view offered by contemporary science contrasts sharply with the mechanistic view of nature, for which matter was considered inert

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and sense perception was unreliable at best. In contemporary science, matter is dynamic and fundamentally relational, containing information and energy, while sense perception is crucial for creatures to evolve. The mystical experience of enlightenment is the product of sense perception and disciplined practice, which together alter the scaffolding of the brain, in turn producing richer mystical experiences. Enlightenment need not be described as God reaching out to humanity. Rather, humanity reaches out to God in prayer and study, practices that transform the brain over time, allowing for experiences of emergent consciousness that increasingly transcend former states. The patristic writings emphasized Jesus as the Logos, the Catholic Church promoted the view of the sacraments as the access point to the Divine, and the Protestants emphasized the scriptures inspired by the Holy Spirit as the primary means of connection. According to science, the information-rich world of matter itself promotes growth and transcendence. The mechanistic worldview set within a supernatural theistic framework was founded on a view of matter as inert, uninformed, and passive, to be acted upon by God who resides outside of the world system and achieves connection through the Holy Spirit. Contemporary science defines matter as vibrantly alive with light and continually emerging into higher transcendent states, and specifically the matter of the human brain as possessing the same ability to transcend former states as that witnessed throughout nature. Transcendence of the former self emerges due to the evolved scaffolding in the brain, brought about by continual input from the environment, whether this input is the beauty of the environment itself or information of a religious nature. Transcendence and connection to the God of Light is natural and available to all in a world in which matter is light-filled, with light functioning as a connective, relational, communicative element. The electromagnetic worldview, combined with neurological findings and research concerning the nine meditative states, coincides with earlier epistemological views of philosophers covered in previous chapters. For Philo, apprehension of the Divine came through Mind,

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particularly intuition. An intuitive understanding is an awareness coming to consciousness, while consciousness has been described according to systems theory as a product of learning and communication of neural pathways across different regions of the brain. For Heraclitus and Plato, higher levels of divine consciousness were achieved through meditation on the Logos, the Divine Intelligence in nature, while access through the levels of consciousness can be achieved through contemplating nature as described by meditative neurology. Consciousness is increased by going through the senses and quieting the mind to feel an absorption into nature, a Oneness with all that is. A communion with the Oneness of the universe could not be achieved if the world of matter did not exude the same processes of living energy and intelligence found within the brain and body of the individual: as a microcosm of the macrocosm, the individual experiences the same flow of energy as the structures of the universe. This creative flow is expanding from all points in all directions. The connection of the Divine to the world of matter occurs when the individual comes to the consciousness that we are all a part of this universal flow of Divine, expanding, creative energy. When one reflects and meditates on the divine in nature, one becomes a new creation, more peaceful, joyful, wise, compassionate, and enlightened.

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Spirit and Matter in Contemporary Science and Theology

From the field of Science and Theology, selective writings which include contemporary science and its relevance for understanding the connection between Spirit and matter will be reviewed. Insights from theologians and scientists Alfred North Whitehead, John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, Willem Drees, physicist Lawrence Fagg, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jürgen Moltmann, Nancey Murphy, and Warren Brown will be included. Each incorporates a nonmechanistic view of nature, while some specifically incorporate complex systems theory as a holistic systems approach to explicating the interconnection between the Divine and the world. Alfred North Whitehead: Nature Alive, the World in God, the Initial Aim Philosopher and theologian Alfred North Whitehead writing in 1938, in his work Modes of Thought, entitled two complimentary chapters “Nature Lifeless” and “Nature Alive,” showing how the second is more 183

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accurate against mechanistic descriptions.1 In general terms, he provides a metaphysical model of nature describing the advance of more complex forms of life which exhibit increasing levels of intellect. With subtlety, he states, the description of nature as “vacuous bits of matter with no internal value” should be viewed with “suspicion.”2 He points out that by examining the scale of complexity—from atoms to plant life to animal life to humanity—and then, to draw the line between organic and inorganic at any one place is arbitrary and defies logic, considering that degrees of life and intelligence are witnessed throughout nature. “Matter has been identified with energy, and energy is sheer activity.”3 In Science and the Modern World, he defines matter as “an organized system of vibratory streaming energy.”4 Regarding the Cartesian-Newtonian concept of matter as inert and lifeless, he asserts that this view is an “abstraction” and “inconsistent.”5 Foundational for his metaphysics and theological philosophy is the view that nature is alive and organic. 6 Physical experience is conveyed through sensory experience in terms of wavelengths and vibrations from the world of matter.7 He states that “our present epoch is dominated by a society of electromagnetic occasions,” that is, we receive information from the world of matter through electromagnetic emissions.8 This information received at its most basic level is emotional, stating that even before we consciously realize a green stone, we “feel greenness.”9 Each color has its own wavelength and vibration. Energy is the means of interaction between us and the world, but he qualifies this. This energy is not that of the mechanistic physicists which he regards as an “abstraction,” this energy which we feel at the most basic level is emotionally laden. 10 1. Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought (New York: Free Press, 1968), 148, 158. 2. Ibid., 158. 3. Ibid., 137. 4. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, Lowell Lectures 1925 (New York: Free Press, 1967), 35. 5. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 145–47. 6. Ibid. 7. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Free Press, 1978), 162–63. 8. Ibid., 98. 9. Ibid., 162–63.

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Whitehead’s model of God is panentheistic; the world is in God and God is more than the world. The interconnection is achieved through what he calls “the initial aim.” With the initial aim, the Divine Mind intimately interacts at all occasions, offering at every moment, an opportunity to respond to the upward pull. This upward pull calls for ever-increasing richness and complexity of form. All of life displays creativity and it is the initial aim which presents the creative moment. The laws of nature of Newtonian mechanics, Whitehead regards as “the habits of nature”—again, abstractions. For Whitehead, it is the creative upward advance of life forms in nature itself which reveal the continuous interactive presence of God. In a presentation of Whitehead’s position, David Griffin states that “each experiential event in the world receives from God its ideal aim as an urge toward the best possibility open to it.”11 This is a “uniform divine intervention” according to Griffin.12 The divine causation never replaces the normal causes but is always part of the normal causal pattern of the world.13 Religious beliefs are primarily from non-sensory experience, whereas scientific beliefs [are generally held] to be based in sensory experience. Unlike advocates of the independence thesis, however, Whitehead did not believe that the different roots of scientific and religious beliefs meant that they could remain un-reconciled.14

Griffin explains that Whitehead believed that truths in philosophy and science are disclosed by non-sensory as well as sensory experience.15 The position put forth in the chapters above is that truths, whether philosophic, scientific, or religious, stem from education and experience and that such avenues of communication are sensory. With mysticism as well, the mystic “sees” a light and “hears” a voice and experiences visions within the mind, a mind associated with a brain 10. Ibid. 11. David Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 97. 12. Ibid., 94. 13. Ibid., 95. 14. Ibid., 9. 15. Ibid.

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which has received sensory stimuli through life, both from the general environment and through education. These sensory experiences then shape the brain, allowing for more complex thoughts and experiences. John Polkinghorne: Complex Systems Theory and God’s Action in the World Anglican priest, theologian, and physicist John Polkinghorne, whose research led to the discovery of the quark, relates that his methodological approach is to “start with what we know,” both in terms of science and religious experience.16 Polkinghorne asserts that from experience, there is a recognition of four basic attributes for the Divine nature. This recognition is that: 1. There is a Mind of a divine Creator behind the pattern and structure of the universe. 2. There is a will of a divine Creator behind the unfolding history of the universe. 3. There is One who is worthy of worship and obedience. 4. There is One who is to be trusted as the ground of hope. 17

He offers experiential evidence and rationale for each observation. The first observation, that there is a Mind behind the universe is indicated by “the orderliness, continuance, and fruitfulness” of the world. He cites the “rational beauty” of mathematical equations that describe the “structures of reality.”18 It is a technique of proven fruitfulness in fundamental physics to seek those theories whose expression is in terms of beautiful equations ..... equations associated with such qualities as economy, elegance, and something the mathematicians call being ‘deep,’ the discovery of profound consequences inherent in the structure under consideration....... Mathematical beauty is . . . a guide to successful theory choice. Dirac and Einstein’s success stemmed from a search for beautiful equations. 19

16. John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 1998), 67. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 72. 19. Ibid.

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The rational beauty behind the structures of reality indicates to Polkinghorne the Mind of the Creator as Source of such beauty and intelligence. A similar understanding was expressed by the ancient philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Philo. From complex systems theory, Polkinghorne finds beauty in that the transcendence of forms witnessed throughout all of nature can be described by mathematical equations, specifically non-linear differential equations. For Polkinghorne, while this mathematical beauty may not speak to the atheist, for the theologian, it indicates a Divine Mind behind Creation. From the field of Biology, “it is the processes that are of interest.”20 He cites Stuart Kauffman’s work in complex systems theory, which for Polkinghorne, offers the first steps in the direction of understanding the astonishing drive toward increasingly elaborate forms of life present in evolutionary history, and they encourage the view that this fruitful tendency was inherent in the self-organizing chemical properties of matter, in the same way that these properties themselves were inherent in the quark soup following the big bang.21

The findings from complex systems theory as expressed by Kauffman are cited by Polkinghorne as evidence of “the divine will of the Creator behind the unfolding history of the universe,” the second attribute listed above. Therefore, another way that the Divine is experienced is perceiving the will of God in the processes of nature which give rise to complex forms. Polkinghorne uses the language of “will” because traditionally in Western theology, this is the expression used by theologians to indicate God’s purposes being realized in the human realm. He applies this idea to the entire natural realm. He states that this mode of Divine action is witnessed not only in nature, but in the lives of individuals in societies. This is God’s mode of acting, the gradual buildup of increasingly complex forms, which bring increasing richness and depth. 20. Ibid., 77. 21. Ibid., 78.

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For Polkinghorne, the rational scheme offered by complex systems theory even in contrast to that of “traditional evolutionary biology operating on chance and random mutation offers a view more compatible with the creative purposes of God.”22 “Creation is allowed to make itself, to discover and realize its potentiality through the shuffling explorations of possibility and contingency.”23 Polkinghorne states that the natural creative processes described by complex systems theory indicate, for the theologian, God’s continuous guidance in creation, God’s immanence, which brings about the transcendence of forms. Regarding his third principle that there is One worthy of worship and obedience, he maintains that there is no reason to place any less value on the “objective” world of nature. “The world we live in is value-laden.” Our aesthetic experiences attest to beauty in the world of nature and in the creation of culture. The second is an extension of the first. Concerning our ethical intuitions, he notes that no society is ethic-free, all societies live by moral codes, albeit with many variations. He points to Thomas Aquinas, who asserts that human ethics must have their derivation “in a cause of being, goodness, and perfection, and this we call God.”24 The relationship, for Polkinghorne, of God to matter in terms of values such as beauty, aesthetic appreciation, and ethics is that God is Cause throughout all creation, nature, and culture. Through senses and the mind, the connection to the Divine is achieved when one perceives that the Cause of the beauty of nature and the existence of ethics in all cultures is God. The fourth attribute of the Divine is that “there is One who is to be trusted as the ground of hope.” The continuing rise of forms in nature indicates that the world keeps growing in richness, and will continue to do so. As an example of this abiding hope, Polkinghorne offers the following:

22. Ibid., 77. 23. Ibid., 79. 24. Ibid., 82.

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Despite the pain and suffering of the world, there is a deep human intuition that, in the end, all will be well, that ultimately history makes sense. Peter Berger, in his analysis of ‘signals of transcendence’ present in everyday life, draws our attention to the phenomenon of a parent comforting a frightened child who has woken up from a nightmare. The mother or father conveys to that child the reassurance necessary for its humane development by saying, ‘It’s all right.’ Berger asks the question whether this is a loving lie or a deep insight into the nature of reality. He suggests that it is the latter, a sign of the hope that lies at the heart of humanity, notwithstanding the bitterness present in human experience.25

From the world of matter and experience, there is found a “deep human intuition” that all will be well, and this intuitive understanding indicates that there is “One who is to be trusted.”26 God’s guidance is described as continuous, and for Polkinghorne, this is God’s immanence, however, this is not ontological immanence. There is no divine world soul in Polkinghorne’s cosmological model. He maintains God’s distance and distinction from Creation. To describe the mode of connection from the Divine to human realm, he employs insights from complex systems theory, locating a “gap” in causality wherein divine causal agency possibly could be at work.27 In “The Metaphysics of Divine Action,” he states that for a system which is experiencing chaos, it is the arrival of the “strange attractor” which “represents the envelope of possibility within which its future motion will be contained.”28 “Through sensitive responses to infinitesimal disturbances,” different “patterns of possibility” are brought out.29 He states, it is at this point where openness and novelty are possible.30 God as Agent inputs “active information” which acts as a “top-down influence” on the system in question, whether mind, body, or creation.31 Polkinghorne maintains that this active information is “not in terms 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. John Polkinghorne, “The Metaphysics of Divine Action” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. Robert Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur Peacocke, 2nd ed. (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 2000), 153–54. 28. Ibid., 153. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 152–53. 31. Ibid., 154.

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of a transaction of energy.”32 He cites two reasons for energy not being necessary: the first is that the emergent feature of a system comes about through a “monoenergetic strange attractor” and the second is that in communications theory, when there is a transfer of units of information, this occurs with “minimal transfers of energy.”33 This raises objections. The rise of a strange attractor is only brought upon a system through the intake of energy. Systems in nature are open to varying degrees and it is precisely this openness that leads to higher more complex forms, while closed systems tend to dissipate. In Ilya Prigogine’s early work in complex systems theory, he observed that a closed fluid system became more organized around a central attractor when heat was added to the system.34 While the fluid system itself was enclosed, heat was in fact entering the system, making the experimental system overall an open system. In nature, systems are triggered by environmental input, and then, feedback loops within the system occur, giving rise to a strange attractor. Regarding the analogy to information theory, that there is an input of information without (or with minimal) energy, according to Willem Drees, “there seems to be no basis in physics for the claim that there is a transfer of information without transfer of energy.”35 In any information transfer, energy is necessary, while information itself was described by systems theorist Ervin Laszlo as encoded patterns of energy. Chaotic systems, to quote Polkinghorne, are extremely “sensitive” systems.36 This is commonly known as the butterfly effect.37 The tiniest bit of energy cannot be discounted, and may, according to chaos theory, cause dramatic effects. In human communication, sound waves carry information, not to mention the energy required to keep the human body and brain functioning, as described above. In all communication, there is an 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 153–55. 34. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam, 1984). 35. Willem Drees, “Gaps for God?” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspective on Divine Action, eds. Robert Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur Peacocke, 2nd ed. (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 2000), 227. 36. Ibid., 153. 37. Ibid.

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energy transfer. Though it only takes a minimal amount of energy for the transfer of 0s and 1s across a millimeter for computer processing, energy is required for the processing, storage, and retrieval of the information. Polkinghorne’s position that God interacts with humanity and creation through open processes is appreciated, but the position that this occurs without energy input is untenable. Regarding special providence, in Science and Religion, Polkinghorne asks, “How does God do particular things in particular circumstances?” “Miracles are unique events and not recurring phenomena.”38 Science is concerned with repeatability, and a view of God as a “celestial conjurer” is an “unacceptable” view of divine Action even in its more specific form of special providence.39 “Whatever the explanation may be it must come out of a view of the world as a whole and be consistent with the way God works in nature.”40 From a complex systems theory perspective, Polkinghorne brings attention to natural events which produce a phase transition bringing about a new order. Take the example of the boiling of water. “The transition at 100 degrees Celsius from the liquid regime to the gaseous regime would astonish us if we had not seen it happen a hundred times a day.”41 Another example offered is the transition in metals from a conducting state to a superconducting state. “It is a familiar fact that a change in regime can produce dramatic changes in behavior . . . the laws of nature do not change at these transition points but their consequences do so dramatically.”42 There is “underlying continuity” with “superficial discontinuity.”43 While he does not offer a scientific explanation of miracles, he does offer the following suggestion that “the theological attempt to understand miracles must seek to pursue a similar strategy.”44 What he is saying is that in an attempt to explicate miracles, a fruitful avenue of approach may be to analyze the concept 38. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology, 92. 39. Ibid., 92. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 93. 44. Ibid.

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from the framework of complex systems theory, particularly from the notion of “phase transitions which produce new orders.” In complex systems theory, it is the amplification of energy from frequencies in alignment which produce heightened effects on a system, such as synchronicity. Arthur Peacocke: Religious Experience Mediated through Matter In Theology for a Scientific Age, theologian and biochemist Arthur Peacocke addresses the difference between mediated and unmediated communication from God.45 Such a distinction is found in William James’ categories in The Varieties of Religious Experience and Brown and Swinburne’s assessment.46 Peacocke rightly concludes that all communication is mediated. The human being is within the world and a part of the world, the person has become who she is through lifelong experience, through sense data and knowledge. The various brain states which allow for experience with the Divine, from the unconscious to the conscious, involve the storage of symbolic forms of meaning, including Jungian archetypes, which have at one point been mediated through the constituents of the world. He concludes there is no unmediated communication with the Divine.47 In “God’s Interaction with the World: The Implication of Deterministic ‘Chaos’ and of Interconnected and Interdependent Complexity,” Peacocke employs the insights from complex systems theory to aid in describing the connection between God and the world.48 From the modern fields of scientific inquiry such as “statistical properties of assemblies,” and “quantum dynamics,” Peacocke considers “chaotic and dissipative systems” as the most fruitful for 45. Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human, enl. ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 46. Ibid., 202–9. 47. Ibid., 209–10. 48. He states that this article is a summary, clarification, and development of Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural and Divine. Arthur Peacocke, “God’s Interaction with the World: The Implication of Deterministic ‘Chaos’ and of Interconnected and Interdependent Complexity,” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action., eds. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur Peacocke, 2nd ed. (Vatican City State, Vatican Observatory Publications, 2000). 282, 263n1.

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conveying the nature of Divine Action, the relationship from Spirit to matter.49 (A dissipative system is defined as an open system operating far from equilibrium in an environment with which it exchanges energy, information, and matter.) In systems whose outcomes can only be offered in terms of probability and in quantum indeterminacy, there is an openness which exists to place the “causal joint” which might be postulated as an opportunity for divine “intervention.”50 Peacocke rightly rejects this as “interventionist” Divine Action in the “gaps.”51 He prefers the insights offered by complex systems theory of “whole to parts” influence and “top-down causation” as a model to explicate the Spirit-to-matter connection.52 Peacocke expresses a panentheistic view, that the world is “in God,” yet “ontologically distinct from God.”53 He states, in regard to the findings from the science of complexity, that these new perceptions of the way in which levels within this worldsystem interact with each other (from higher to lower and vice versa) might provide a new resource for thinking about how God interacts with the world-as-a-whole.54

God would be “uniquely present” to all the world “all its individual component entities, in and at all spaces and all times, in [all] relativistic frames of reference”55 The whole-to-parts model from complex systems theory allows for this model of Divine influence without “abrogating the laws and regularities” and without interventionism.56 The italicized “vice versa” above is in reference to our interaction with God, through “prayer, worship and the sacraments, decisions, and actions.”57 He states that this model eliminates need for any such “causal joint” between God and the world “for defining the problem

49. Peacocke, God’s Interaction with the World, 266, 279, 282. 50. Ibid., 281–82. 51. Ibid., 278. 52. Ibid., 282. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 282–83. 56. Ibid., 283. 57. Ibid., 287.

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in such terms” as the causal joint is “inappropriate” for “it does not do justice to the many levels in which causality operates in a world of complex systems interlocking in many ways at many levels.”58 The understanding of the brain as a complex system provides, for Peacocke, a model for Divine Action to be combined with the model above, of God acting in a “top-down” manner. “The brain in the body is a dissipative system.”59 There is a top-down relation between conscious mental events which trigger physical-chemical changes at neurons.60 The total brain state acts as a “constraint” on the micro-level of the individual neurons.61 As God interacts with the world as a higher system acts upon lower systems, God’s intentions may be described in the language of personal agency. God as Agent influences the world as the human brain acts upon the micro-level of individual neurons within the body.62 According to Peacocke, God’s agency is described as “analogous to an input, a flow of information, rather than energy.”63 In this sense, God influences “particular events, or patterns of events, as expressive of the purposes of God.”64 Also, as the brain acts as a “unifying” and “centered influence” on the body, by analogy, God can be viewed as a “unifying” and “centered influence” on the world as a whole.65 To summarize Peacocke’s view, God as Spirit is described in terms of Person and Mind, while maintaining ontological distinction. The Spirit’s relationship to the world is as top-down influence, as brain upon body yet, while maintaining ontological distinction. God acts as centralizing, and unifying Agent, as in complex systems, yet again, while maintaining ontological distinction. Matter is defined in terms of interlocking levels, as described by complex systems theory. How we relate to God is through the typical person to Person model of “prayer, worship, the sacraments, decisions, and actions.” 58. Ibid., 282. 59. Ibid., 261. 60. Ibid., 275. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., 283. 63. Ibid., 285. 64. Ibid., 283. 65. Ibid., 285.

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There are many valuable insights in Peacocke’s theological cosmology, particularly the mediated nature of religious experience and the whole-to-parts concept of interaction, but there is some disagreement as well. First, he states that both models—how the brain influences the body and top-down causation offered by complex systems theory—are understood to be analogy and metaphors for him, which he himself admits is “limiting.”66 Second, he states that the “I” experienced in the body does not transcend the body as God transcends the world and as “God is ontologically other.” Third, this model offered for Divine influence is envisaged as “analogous to an input of information, rather than of energy.”67 And fourth, there is found in both Polkinghorne and Peacocke’s thought an overemphasis on God’s interaction as purely Intellectual, stated in terms of a flow of information, at the cost of other divine attributes such as emotion. Addressing the idea that God’s agency is “analogous to an input of information, rather than energy,”68 unlike Polkinghorne, Peacocke states “we know of no transfers of information without some exchange of matter and/or energy however minimal.”69 And further states that the causal effectiveness of the whole brain state on the actual states of its component nerves and neurons is probably better conceived of in terms of the transfer of information rather than of energy, in the way a program representing a certain equation, say, controls the chips in a computer. 70

This example however, of a computer is an abstraction of how a computer functions. Energy is required for the storage, retrieval, and processing of data, as stated in the discussion above. Unplug the computer from its electrical supply, let the stored energy drain, and there is no information processing. Also, in his metaphor, the computer program is actually in the computer, and the computer is linked to a power supply, so the metaphor breaks down. And once again, quoting Laszlo, information itself is encoded energy. Regarding 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid., 285. 69. Ibid., 286–87. 70. Ibid., 276.

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the brain as an analogy for God, the “whole brain state” is dependent upon nerves and neurons which are energetic in nature, while the brain state as a whole is also dependent upon energy. Cut off the energy supply, such as food, and the brain, nerves, and neurons eventually die. Neurons themselves communicate through energy impulses. Perhaps anticipating such a response, he states that there is an “ontological gap” between God and the world and the task is to find this gap, “between the nature of God’s own being and that of the created world,” and then, we will understand better this “flow of information.”71 He had said in Theology for a Scientific Age that God’s action is through God’s spirit and this action is mediated through the constituents of nature. By disallowing energy in the process, he abstracts from the normal flow of interactive processes in nature. In order to employ the science of complexity with his analogy that God operates in the world as the brain operates in the body would require that the world be a subsystem within God, and subsystems within larger systems, by definition, experience energy exchanges. Willem Drees: The World as God’s Activity In “God of the gaps?” Willem Drees, editor-in-chief of Zygon: a Journal of Religion and Science, responds to Polkinghorne and Peacocke. He has two main points. The first has been mentioned above, “that there can be no transfer of information without a transfer of energy.”72 His second point is in response to looking for gaps to place divine/human interaction: A promising alternative which avoids such interference is the reflection upon the natural account itself, and especially the themes of the existence, order and intelligibility of the world. Rather than seeking an understanding of divine action in the world, the world itself is understood as God’s action.73

This holistic perspective addresses problems encountered above. 71. Ibid., 287. 72. Drees, 227. 73. Ibid.

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Explanations of Divine Action need not be metaphorical when that action is the world. When referring to “themes of existence, order and intelligibility in the world,” Drees is commenting on the processes as described by complex systems theory, and in this science, taking into account relational environmental influences is as important as the notion of “top-down causation.”74 Perceiving of the world itself as God’s action is an inclusive view which does not emphasize the intellectual at the expense of Creation in all its aspects. It also addresses the issue that Peacocke raised concerning the limiting aspect of metaphorical language. In the Hermetic Corpus, a similar view had been expressed. Drees’s view, of course, will bring to mind the problem of theodicy. If the world is God’s action, and the world is full of sin and suffering, then is God’s own being corrupted by the sin and affected by the suffering? In a panentheistic cosmology, the world is in God, but God is more than the world. An answer provided by Process theology is that God in God’s abstract qualities, such as Goodness, wisdom, justice, and compassion, remains firm, while God as Living and engaged in the world processes indeed encounters the sin and suffering of the world. This God is engaged in the world’s struggles and feels our pains and sorrows, as well as our joys and achievements. In chapter 1, in the three-story universe, the world was considered divine and home of the gods and goddesses, and the people understood that when the environment became polluted with their crimes, a cleansing was called for. For personal sin, such religions stressed the need to seek forgiveness and to make restitution and atonement. In a holistic cosmology, where the world itself is considered to be filled with Divine energies, it would be sacrilegious to dump toxic pollutants into the environment—the waterways, the sky, and the earth itself—all with their living populations of species. Social relationships likewise can become infected with toxins and require cleansing. Whitehead had brought out the idea that there is a pull toward the transcendent Divine at each moment. If the world is God’s action, there are choices to be made on a continuing basis and the individual can choose the 74. Ibid., 236.

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higher Good, or make lesser choices which knowingly or unknowingly lead to suffering. If the world is God made visible, as the Hermetics would say, then in order to enhance connection to God more fully, education about the world itself should be promoted. If the world is God’s action, then working to heal the suffering world and promoting healthy environments throughout the levels of creation should be the business of the enlightened. To honor and care for the environment in the physical and social realms is to be mindful of God’s sacred space. Lawrence Fagg: The Spirit and Electromagnetism Professor of nuclear physics at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Lawrence Fagg in his work Electromagnetism and the Sacred: At the Frontier of Spirit and Matter presents another response to Peacocke.75 He offers “electromagnetic interaction as a conceptual link between spirit and matter.”76 Addressing the importance of energy, which we saw above had been discounted in the works of some, he brings out the pervasive nature of energy. Fagg states that “electromagnetic interaction underlies not only the dynamism of the living world but also the vibrant stasis of solid objects in the material world.”77 It is the “glue” that holds together atoms in a molecule, it is the light of photosynthesis.78 Speaking in the language of complex systems, he states that all biological organisms are “open, far-fromequilibrium systems that exchange matter and energy with their environment for growth and sustenance.”79 In response to the concepts expressed above that the brain operates on the body as information transfer, he states that “no where is the electromagnetic interaction more completely exhibited than in the brain.”80 Electromagnetic interaction signals to one’s mind, both conscious and unconscious,

75. Lawrence Fagg, Electromagnetism and the Sacred: At the Frontier of Spirit and Matter (New York: Continuum, 1999). 76. Ibid., 63. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid., 59. 79. Ibid. 80. Ibid., 61.

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information from the outside world, and is how communications within the body occurs.81 Fagg draws on the work of William James and the mystics, that nature itself relates the spirit of God to the world. The sacredness of nature has been attested by the mystics, from Job to St. Francis to William Blake.82 Nature itself, the very “vibrancy of matter” is the medium for the mystics’ communion with God.83 As he expresses it, “electromagnetic interaction is at the frontier of matter with its tendrils probing toward spirit and mind, informing them and responding to them.”84 With this, the relationship of matter to Spirit is, for Fagg, not merely through mind, but very expressly through energy, specifically electromagnetism. Light is electromagnetism as light expresses the vibrancy associated with God’s immanence in nature. Throughout history, light has always been an integral feature of spiritual experience.85 For Fagg, the “light” of the mystics is not metaphorical; it is, in its most foundational sense, real light. In Electromagnetism and the Sacred, Fagg has brought into focus the necessary and essential nature of energy for informing the mind. While using the language of complex systems theory, theological views which dismiss energy have missed an essential element from this science that an exchange of energy is required for systems to emerge and maintain themselves. Although such conceptions may use the term “top-down causation” to describe the influence of God on matter, the term is abstracted from a systems view which, in its very essence, requires an exchange of energy, information, and matter for the emergence and maintenance of any system, including the human being. In the last chapter of Electromagnetic and the Sacred, however, Fagg states that God’s action in the world is only analogous to electromagnetic action, that his view presents a way to make more specific generalizations in the Science and Religion dialogue.86 When a sharp distinction is 81. Ibid., 88. 82. Ibid., 90. 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid., 88, 98. 85. Ibid., 80. 86. Ibid., 111–31.

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maintained for God and the world, which is found in the historical trajectory of thought from Aristotle through dominant Western theology, one continually encounters this major roadblock when applying insights from complex systems theory. However, when an alternative path is taken, where the world is an aspect of the Divine, as was seen in the thought of Plato, the Hermetics, some Eastern Christian theologians, and the mystics, the contemporary sciences do aid in envisioning fruitful avenues of connection. In the language of complex systems, the world is an open subsystem within the larger “system” of the Divine. Wolfhart Pannenberg: The Spirit as Force Field Two theologians who take the concept of energy seriously in regard to God’s relation to the world are Wolfhart Pannenberg and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. For Wolfhart Pannenberg, God is distinct from the world, the Son is Logos, and the Spirit is God’s immanence with creation.87 The Spirit is a dynamic force field, both in terms of the effects of Jesus as incarnation throughout history, and as creative power throughout nature.88 Borrowing from the findings from Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein, and systems theory, he conceives of the field as giving rise to new emergent forms with new qualities, with mass being defined as concentrations of force.89 The source of this novelty is the Spirit as “unifying ground of the whole universe.”90 From historical antecedents and the wider context, novelty emerges.91 What the field concept offers for Pannenberg is a way of making the Spirit’s presence in every single phenomenon intelligible.92 For Pannenberg, this avoids the God of the gaps theology.93 Pannenberg relates how the Spirit as Field can be found among 87. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 12–14, 25–26, 34, 47–48, 65. 88. Ibid., 12–14. 89. Ibid., 7, 38, 47–48, 76, 82–83. 100, 103. 90. Ibid., 8, 13. 91. Ibid., 47–48, 81–87, 149. 92. Ibid., 39. 93. Ibid., 78.

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ancient Greek philosophy: For Anaximenes air was the origin of all things; the things of matter were described as concentrations of the air.94 “In the Greek language, air was also named pneuma” and “in at least one fragment from Anaximenes, aer is expressed as pneuma.”95 He also states that from Stoic philosophy, Spirit was identified as “most subtle matter that penetrates everything and holds the cosmos together by the powerful tension between the parts.”96 The concept was expressed above by Fagg in scientific terms stating that the electromagnetic force holds together the constituents of nature. The Stoic view of spirit as subtle matter presented a problem however for the early Christian theologians because divine substance could not be considered matter, however it was described. Pannenberg observes that difficulties of this sort no longer pose a problem for identifying the field with Spirit because for modern field theorists matter can be conceived of as either particles or waves.97 From Einstein’s concept of the field, space, time, and energy/matter are interconnected.98 Time is a function of expanding energy/matter in space. At the Big Bang, T = 0. Pannenberg places God before Time, which for him is Eternity.99 God exists in Eternity separate from yet co-eternal with creation.100 This eternity constitutes all time (all dimensions of time) and “could be conceived as the production of Time.”101 However, in any mathematical model, time is an aspect of anything which has duration. If God endures, God is in time. While speaking of different dimensions of Time may be a way to proceed when conceiving of God, placing God in Time Eternal would include the world as a lower dimension within Infinity, and therefore, connected. Pannenberg states that the Spirit is power, it is not just mind.102 His 94. Ibid., 124. Pannenberg cites Max Jammer, in Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, ed. Joachim Ritter, 6 vols. (Basil: J. Ritter, 1971–84), 2:923. 95. Ibid., 78. 96. Ibid., 125. 97. Ibid., 40. 98. Ibid., 48, 100. Faraday had described matter as a concentration of forces, while force is energy. For Einstein, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, with the understanding from Faraday that mass derives from energy and contains energy. 99. Ibid., 100. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid.

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observation is that “in the history of Western philosophy, the notion of spirit has been often restricted more or less to the concept of mind.”103 He notes that this is not the view presented throughout the bible.104 In the Hebrew Bible, the spirit of God was associated with the principle of life (Gen 1:2; Gen 2:7; Ezek 37:9f; Ps 104). It is the divine spirit (ruach) which is given by God as the breath of life, and upon death, this spirit is returned to God (Gen 2:7; Eccles 12:7). This view is also found in the New Testament: the last words of Jesus in the gospel of Luke reflect this returning of the divine spirit back to God (Luke 23:46). For Paul, the living being originates from the divine soul (1 Cor 15:45), while the mind is the highest ability of the human soul.105 “The reflective nature of the human mind represents a particular form and degree of participation in the spiritual power, and one that is closely connected with the particular mode of human self-transcendence.”106 The spirit is the soul transcended.107 According to Pannenberg, the biblical view of spirit is, first and foremost, the principle and power of life. “The lifegiving activity of the divine spirit determines the horizon for all other functions” such as mind, wisdom, artistic abilities, intensified life, and an exceptional share of the spirit.108 That the spirit is associated with power and the force field, for Pannenberg, is in alignment with biblical concepts and ancient Greek philosophy. However, in Pannenberg’s concept of the field, he states that he maintains the distinction between God and the world, in the tradition of Aristotle, Philo, and the theologians covered in chapter 3.109 While Pannenberg’s concept of the field reflects Einstein’s concept of the interconnectedness of space, time, and matter, it does not seem to reflect the field concept of the connectivity of matter itself through the exchange of electron valence, as in Fagg’s assessment. The field is infinite in its reach. Pannenberg states that the distinction between 102. Ibid., 136. 103. He specifically cites the philosophies of Augustine, Locke, Hegel, and post-Hegelians. Ibid., 151. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., 124. 106. Ibid., 136. 107. Ibid., 124. 108. Ibid. 109. Ibid., 12.

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God and the world must be maintained because the sin and evil in the world cannot be associated with God.110 So, again there is an abstraction from the original scientific concept in order for it to coincide with the dominant western theological view of a sharp divide between God and the world. Unfortunately, there is an inconsistency in his position, for he does not retain the distinction between God and the world which he claims is necessary. Pannenberg had already shown how the divine ruach was the source of life for human beings (Gen 2:7), and that this spirit returns to God upon death (Gen 6:3). This is not maintaining a distinction; the divine soul is intimately a part of each human being, according to Genesis 2:7. In Genesis 6:3, the Divine grieves for this spirit to be returned precisely because the human line has been compromised by “the sons of God,” the result of which is “wickedness” and “thoughts of evil” (Gen 6). This corruption is the cause of the limit to the life span, according to the biblical account, and not merely because, as Pannenberg states, “human beings are only flesh.”111 Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, particularly in the writings of the Deuteronomistic historian, there are cited various biblical examples wherein the human spirit becomes quite defiled and can no longer communicate clearly with the Divine. Also, the need for cleansing and re-generation of the defiled spirit is found particularly in the prophetic writings. In the bible, there is the view that the human spirit is from God, and that this spirit can indeed become defiled, associated with sin and evil. That the Divine Spirit is constitutive of human beings and is the force field of creation, yet that there is a sharp delineation between God’s own being which is Spirit and the world seems artificial, rendering his field concept as an abstraction of the field concept expressed by contemporary science. If the Spirit of God is to be identified with the force field that gives rise to new forms in nature,

110. Ibid. 111. Ibid., 125. The Divine limits the life span immediately after the intermixing and not before. According to 6:1–4, the lifespan is limited not because of anything the humans did but because an outside species, the sons of God, had corrupted the human line. The “wickedness” and “evil” thoughts are only indicated after this encounter (Gen 6:1–8).

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and the Holy Spirit emanates from God, then God and the world are in connection. The Field is intimately connected with the world of matter.112 Modern quantum theory acknowledges a ground state field of energy, called the Zero Point Field, which constantly interacts with all subatomic particles, forming the universe.113 “The basic substructure of the universe is a sea of quantum fields . . . with subatomic particles fleetingly popping in and out of existence.”114 Energy exchange occurs between subatomic particles which appear out of nowhere.115 If God’s Spirit is the Field, then there are constant exchanges of energy with this Field; it is a two-way exchange. This exchange causes fluctuations which leads to, as Laszlo described above, knots of energy which become the things of the universe.116 The energy of this Field is more than is contained in all the matter in the world.117 It is extremely energetic and in constant interchange with Creation. When the Spirit is viewed as the Field, then the Spirit is intimately connected to everything in creation through energy exchange as well as to God as creator. Pierre Teihard de Chardin: Spirit and Matter Defined in Terms of Energy In Activation of Energy, based on early research on complex systems, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin regards spirit and matter as being “synonyms” as “two sides of one and the same object.”118 In fact, he can say, “there is nothing in the universe except spirit.”119 So, in one respect, the relationship of spirit to matter is a non-issue for Teilhard, because matter is spirit. Regarding the afterlife, his view is again taken

112. Lynne McTaggert, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 2002). 113. Ibid., 19. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid., 23. 117. Ibid., 19. 118. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1979), 124–25. 119. Ibid., 125.

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from complex systems theory, that a new emergent order will emerge from the old, a transhuman into a higher state of organization and consciousness.120 What then is the relationship of Spirit to spirit/ matter? Taking into account the extreme evolutionary process, as described by Laszlo above, each individual center (whether an atom or a human being) extends back in time to the origin of things and into the future to the other extreme, as a part of the unity of the whole.121 “All possess the property of being infinitesimally co-extensive with the totality of time and space.”122 Of the relationship of Spirit to spirit, he states “we must retain the primordial transcendence of God.”123 One relationship of Spirit to spirit, for Teilhard, is the incarnation of Christ in the world, another is love, and yet another is the mind rising in consciousness, as Philo had said earlier, through understanding the nature of the universe. For Teilhard, “from the piled up facts, consciousness emerges.”124 The nature of the universe as explained by Teilhard is the increasing organization of forms leading to emergence of new forms, and this emergence includes consciousness. Spirit is, at its very essence, an ascending movement, a drive and call toward the Above, toward transcendence.125 This reaching up, sparks an energy which ignites the emergence of a higher order of being.126 This is the connection to the Transcendent Spirit for Teilhard, once again defined in terms of complex systems. Jürgen Moltmann: Mystical Experience of Divine Energy and Emergence In The Spirit of Life, Jürgen Moltmann takes a holistic approach in his analysis of the Spirit, using biblical sources, evidence from the mystics, and complex systems theory to inform his theology. In the bible, the Spirit is described in terms of flowing, outpouring, and a shining, 120. Ibid., 268, 371. 121. Ibid., 260. 122. Ibid., 261. 123. Ibid., 262. 124. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), 78. 125. Ibid., 278. 126. Ibid., 280.

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expressions which indicate “emanationism” (from the Latin emanare, to flow outward).127 Moltmann states that contrary to Augustine’s pneumatology in which body and God are in opposition, there exists throughout the centuries the mystics’ embodied approach of experiencing the Spirit.128 According to Kant, in Critique of Pure Reason, we cannot know God as the Ding an sich (thing in itself) but, says Moltmann in response, we can “experience God.”129 From the desert fathers to Hildegard of Bingen, the mystics “have repeatedly described the closeness of God as “illuminating and flowing waves of energy.” 130 This divine energy interpenetrates all of life. Moltmann states that the Chinese call it chi, in Hebrew, it is called ruach, while he identifies it as the Spirit of God.131 Widening his scope to science and the findings from complex systems theory, in nature, there is “an exchange of energies and a forward movement of more complex order.”132 The Spirit is the creative, dynamic energy of the universe creating higher order systems. The rise of complexity is evident in nature from the buildup of elementary particles, to atoms, molecules, macro-molecular cells, multi-cellular organisms, living organisms, organism populations, living things, animals, human beings, human population, to the community of humanity. The energy that creates and sustains these systems is “divine energy.”133 It is in this sense that “God is in all things, and all things in God.”134 While the connection to the Spirit of God is all around sustaining life, for the Christian, an enhanced connection can be achieved through the Spirit of Christ. As such, Paul’s use of “in Spirit” Moltmann equates to a “divine field of force.”135 Charisma as well is described by Moltmann in terms of power and energy, “dynamis and energeia.”136 In reference to

127. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 195. 128. Ibid., 84. 129. Ibid., 31. 130. Ibid., 275. 131. Ibid., 9, 11, 227. 132. Ibid., 10, 225–27. 133. Ibid., 225–27. 134. Ibid., 35. 135. Ibid. 136. Ibid.

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the miracles and healings of the bible, he states that these “energies” of the Divine Spirit are most definitely “not supernatural gifts,” but “powers of the new age.”137 While the Spirit is all around, one can cultivate a closer connection (for the Christian, this would be through Christ) and experience and acquire enhanced abilities. Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown: Emergent Systems and Higher Consciousness Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown also employ complex systems theory to examine the connection between mind and matter in Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? They take a holistic approach, incorporating the importance of the environment for the functioning of any living system.138 “The old way of studying mind in opposition to matter excluded not only the rest of the body, but more importantly the environment.”139 Murphy and Brown state that “the apparent insolubility of the problem of mental causation is due to a residual Cartesian view of mind as interior and effectively disembodied.”140 Citing the work of neurophysiologists such as Juarrero, Clark, Edelman and Tononi, they discuss the mind as embodied and embedded in a contextualized environment of “action-feedback-evaluation-action loops,” the language of complex systems theory. What happens around us affects us internally. “Higher-order consciousness is a developmental achievement dependent on social interaction and internal scaffolding.”141 Internal scaffolding is defined as a high degree of interconnectedness of neural groupings in the brain linked to high frequency brain waves. They quote Edelman and Tononi’s thesis of consciousness in terms of transcending previous neural states through a rapid integration of a high volume of signals both internal and external.142 External scaffolding is what the environment presents in 137. Ibid., 74. 138. Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 37, 80, 84. 139. Ibid., 37, 113. 140. Ibid., 209. 141. Ibid., 143. 142. Ibid., 142.

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terms of symbolic language. Increasing the level of systems of learning leads to a “process of self-transcendence.”143 The emphasis of Murphy and Brown’s book is a non-reductionist approach to moral action, meaning morality is not reduced to atomistic features, but rather, an internal integration of education in terms of symbol systems from the environment.144 We are what we learn. Summary and Analysis Based on contemporary science, Whitehead’s metaphysics offers a critique of Newtonian mechanics and states that matter is creative and energetic, which indicates God’s presence in nature itself. He offers a panentheistic model. Polkinghorne also cites God’s immanence in nature based on the rise of complex forms, but this immanence is only in terms of the open period of the critical threshold. As with Plato and Philo, the forms in nature, particularly the mathematical beauty, allow for a closer connection with the Divine. Yet, for humans and the Divine, interconnection is described in terms of Mind-to-mind, while denying the requisite energy required for mental processes. While Peacocke states that Divine interaction is always mediated through the constituents of nature, he too dismisses energy as part of this process. According to contemporary science, the constituents of nature are through and through energetic. His concept of Divine interaction as top-down influence, as in interlocking complex systems, is an abstraction of actual top-down influence as described by complex systems theory. Interlocking complex systems experience an exchange of energy, information, and matter. Drees points out the inadequacy of any explanation of Divine interaction which dismisses energy and proposes, instead, the cosmological model that the world itself is God’s Action. Fagg, Pannenberg, Teilhard, and Moltmann define God’s interaction, the spirit of God, in terms of energy. Lawrence Fagg, citing the mystics’ experience of nature as sacred, regards electromagnetic activity in 143. Ibid., 305. 144. Ibid., 48.

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nature and electromagnetism as the conveyor of sensory information as the link between Divine Spirit and the individual. Peacocke had said the Divine experience is mediated, while Fagg is being more specific, saying it is mediated through electromagnetism, but that this is only metaphorical. For Pannenberg, citing Greek philosophical precedents, the Spirit is the electrodynamic field uniting all that exists. Employing the science of complex systems, the Field continually gives rise to new emergent forms. Even though he cites biblical examples of Divine presence and relates this presence to his field theory, he seeks to maintain a sharp divide between God and the world which contradicts the definition of the energetic field. Moltmann, citing the experience of the mystics, states that divine presence and wisdom is conveyed through nature itself as divine energy. Teilhard de Chardin maintains God’s transcendence, but also, allows God’s very Spirit to not only be in matter, he defines matter as spirit. It is the essence of Spirit to ascend, and in the movement upward, energy is ignited creating the emergence of a higher order of being. This higher order of being is described by Murphy and Brown as achieved through the external and internal signals received by the body from the environment. The brain receives the signals experienced by the body and higher scaffolding in the brain occurs, the neural pathways as described above. The more complex the value symbols, the more transcendence is achieved, creating a more highly advanced ethical individual. Nature reveals formal structure, an intelligence within. In Greek philosophy, this intelligent aspect was called the Logos. For Philo, contemplating the Logos, Form, or Intelligence in nature draws one closer to the Divine, while spiritual education also enhances the connection. What Fagg brings out is that all of Nature is filled with electromagnetic activity, which is connective in its essence. This electromagnetic energy emanating from nature conveys the encoded information from the Logos in nature. We, as a part of nature, are constituted of electromagnetic energy at the cellular level. Electromagnetism is also how we learn and grow emotionally,

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mentally, physically and spiritually. As electromagnetic signals emanate from nature, they enter the brain through the senses and change neural pathways. In time, new dendrite scaffolding in the brain appears and we potentially become more evolved, depending upon the content of what is received through the senses, depending upon what is learned. Education is also conveyed through our senses, whether as light emissions or as sound waves, which are converted to photonic activity and travel to the brain, where the information as electrical signals is mapped and stored. Light is the medium of the message and we become literally enlightened. In the Hermetic corpus and Manichaeism, light was an essential part of nature and religious sentiment. In Platonic thought, the world was described as en-souled, having a living power of its own and intelligent, reflecting the eternal Forms. The above chapters provide, in scientific language, the view of light, intelligence, and energy in nature leading to natural transcendence. That these vibrant elements are constitutive of our world means there is not a sharp distinction between the Divine Spirit and the world. It can be expressed that our world is within the Divine, an open subsystem within the larger system of what historically has been described as God. The interconnection of Light/Spirit/Logos to matter is experienced as an energy which brings transcendence, and more specifically, the connection is experienced as light in nature itself which carries information and leads to emergence of forms, the emergence of higher consciousness.

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Science and religion have always been inexorably linked, even if this connection is at times hidden beneath the surface. Embedded within the various Christian worldviews of today are older cosmological scientific models still exerting their influence. By bringing out into the open these traditional cosmologies and the historical trajectory of ideas which have been built upon these models, this investigation has attempted to shed light on how to re-conceptualize the connection between God and the world. In retracing the history of theological cosmologies in western culture, two broad cosmological models emerge—the division model, which posits a great divide between God and the world, and the holistic model, which views God and the world as intimately connected. While there are variations within and among these models, the first model, broadly speaking, limits and restricts divine aspects within the world, whereas the second model identifies divine energy, light, and intelligence within nature itself. While the first has been the dominant view throughout the centuries, the second

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has existed all along as well, often being persecuted by proponents of the division model, and yet, it is the holistic model which appears to coincide best with the science of today. It was the shining lights in the night sky which prompted Babylonian astronomers almost three millennia ago to track the movement of the stars, leading them to discover the mathematical periodic patterns of these movements. Stoked by their findings, the Greek philosopherphysicists in the sixth century BCE reconfigured the former model of the three-story universe to incorporate Divine Intelligence as foundational to the world. This older cosmological model, prevalent throughout Western culture, pictured a world divine, where nature was imbued with divinities, honored and respected for their nurturance and guidance, with the tolerant understanding that each culture had their own local deities. The new cosmologies of the sixth and fifth centuries carried forward this holy and generative aspect of matter, but incorporated the new findings from science which regarded nature as an intelligent and harmonious extension of the One Divine Source. The smaller gods and goddesses were simply placed within the larger Source, or in some cultures, the primary deity at the time was identified with the One Divine Source. Physicists debated what constituted the One Divine Source, offering theories of first water, then air, and finally fire. This fire was envisioned as an intelligent energy which molded matter, producing the stable forms of nature. Another theory combined the elements of earth, air, water, and fire, and included the basic emotions such as love and strife. The Boundless Indefinite was offered as another possibility of the Source of all, while a further theory conceived of atoms as the foundational building blocks. This overall progression of theories moved the physicists to more refined concepts, as ideas were considered and debated. Whatever the Source was, it must be intelligent because the periodic movements of the celestial bodies discovered by the astronomers displayed mathematical precision and the world itself displayed mathematical congruity. Pythagoras described this Divine Source and

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the world of matter, including the soul, as mathematical in essence. Anaxagoras defined the Divine Source as Mind, distinct from creation, yet within some things as well, and ever present, guiding matter continually into existence. It was Heraclitus of Ephesus who identified this divine, intelligent Source of the Cosmos as the Logos. The fiery Logos was said to be within creation itself, a Divine Intelligent energy of light which became the world of matter. Combining conceptions from the Homeric worldview and the new cosmological models of the pre-Socratic physicist-philosophers, Plato envisioned a transcendent, eternal, intelligent realm of Forms, which the creator god—one of many deities—used as a model to create the world, a world divine, with the Forms used as patterns to make the things of nature. The earth itself was divine with a soul and generated a world of soul-filled life. Soul was defined by various proponents as that which provided motion, intelligence, life, and immortality, and was comprised of fire, light, or finely-particled matter. The eternal soul could return to its divine Source after death. The Stoics, building off of the view of Heraclitus, said that the world was a procession from the Infinite Source, a divine fire which becomes the things of matter. In these cosmologies, which regard the world as comprised of divine power, light and intelligence, to draw near to the divine, draw near to nature, and the soul will be strengthened. In the fourth century BCE, based on the astronomical data of the Babylonians, a new cosmology emerged, the geocentric model of the cosmos, with the earth in the middle and the planets, including the sun and moon, circling the earth on concentric invisible spheres. Aristotle adopted the geocentric model and placed the Divine Mind as the source of order in the world beyond the outermost planet and the realm of the fixed stars. His idea of the divine was known as the Unmoved Mover, with immutability as a primary characteristic to be taken up centuries later by Christian theologians. The planets, once regarded as gods, no longer moved on their own, but instead, were attached to spheres and moved only by mechanical motion in mathematical patterns. As the outermost planet was moved intellectually by the Beauty of the

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Divine, this triggered mechanical motion to the succeeding planets in the lower concentric spheres, culminating in movement on earth. In this sense, the far removed Divine was the cause of movement on earth, and not the divine soul within nature. With this, the motive power within nature has been severely limited. For Aristotle, matter on earth was arranged along hierarchical lines based on the Forms of organization. Because there was no movement observed, inorganic matter was considered not to have a soul. With Aristotle, nature was restricted by degrees. Species with more complex form were said to have more soul, while those with less complex form had less soul, and the soul itself was no longer considered to be immortal. From the time of the construction of the geocentric model, the distance between the two realms of the Divine above and matter below increased. Additional layers of spiritual realms were placed between the two by Middle Platonists. The Gnostics located what they described as the Unknown God, who was beyond all description, outside the furthest realm in a spiritual world of Light, in contrast to the world of matter, which was considered a prison of darkness. The world was viewed as a counterfeit copy of the spiritual realm and ruled by the archons of fate. The rulers of fate were the planetary bodies whose controlling influences could be felt on earth, a development from Babylonian astronomy-astrology and Aristotle’s cosmology. The world of dark matter clouded knowledge of self and knowledge of the Divine. The Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, employed the concept of the Logos as a bridge between God and the world, and in so doing, anthropomorphizes the logos, regarding it as primeval man. This concept and the geocentric cosmological model were adopted by Christian theologians beginning in the late first century CE. Similar to Aristotle’s model, the Divine was placed far beyond the world, while the world was generally not considered divine. There could be no direct contact between the impassable God and the world of change, in order to safeguard the holiness of God. An intermediary was necessary and this intermediary was Christ. By the end of the first century, in the gospel of John, Christ was identified as the Logos. Soon other Christian

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theologians built upon logos Christology, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, and Augustine. Divine aspects in matter, such as the intelligence, light, and power were said to be Christ’s logoi. With the Cappadocians in the fourth century, Christ’s Holy Spirit was regarded as an additional connective link between humanity, Christ, and God. Meanwhile, the human soul was no longer regarded as eternal, but limited further and said to be created through one’s parents. In the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas employed Aristotle’s cosmology envisioning a hierarchy of realms with pure intelligence above and matter below, with a mix of intelligence and matter defining humanity, a view that was increasingly taught in universities throughout Europe as the Greek classics had been preserved by Muslims and brought into Spain. God was said to be present to everything, but did not come in contact with anything, reflecting the Aristotelian divide. The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition would be the dominant theological worldview until the sixteenth century, when the heliocentric model was promoted. It was this tangent of historical thought from Anaxagoras to Aristotle to Augustine to Aquinas, originally linked with the geocentric mechanical model, which would result in the great divide between God and the world—a view that is still prevalent today. As the Greek language gave way to the rising dominance of Latin, the terminology of Logos disappeared in favor of Son of God terminology; however, the concept of the Logos remained in theology. Mechanistic Science in the early modern era arose within a cultural worldview of Supernatural theism. For early modern interpreters, matter was defined as inert and impenetrable. For the chemist Robert Boyle, any movement in matter was attributed to God. With Descartes, there was a dichotomy between body and spirit, with nature considered to be devoid of mentality and operating via efficient, mechanistic causes. With Newton, a dichotomy was set up between passive matter and active forces, with forces being composed of “ethereal spirits.” Kant, employing Newton’s “ethereal spirits,” a concept based on the Greek aither, put forth the concept of the “ether”

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to explain the motive principle in nature. Within this mechanistic worldview, miracles are explained as the transcendent God above interrupting the laws of nature and operating upon the world below, a view still reflected today in biblical commentaries. However, alongside the dominant theological mechanistic cosmology adopted by Christian theologians, which describes a divide between God and the world, there has always been an organic, holistic view that nature is filled with divine energy, intelligence, and light available to all. Hermeticism and Manichaeism subscribed to this view. With Hermeticism, the world is considered an extension of the Divine Light, containing the “energies” of God. The world of matter is simply a downward extension of the Divine Light and contains divine energies. Hermetic cosmology describes an enveloping structure of the individual in the world and the world in God. As God’s energies produce a cosmos, and the cosmos produces human beings, humans produce the arts and sciences. Taking the epistemological concept of the Logos even further than predecessors, in Hermeticism, in order to obtain knowledge of God, one learns the science of nature. The senses inform the mind in order to achieve connection to God, for God is all around manifest in nature. To investigate these powers, or even to contemplate the shining beauty in nature, transforms the soul. Divine power is considered not only in nature, but in the individual, and with this concept, the Hermetics practiced the belief that speaking over matter can change matter. This view has historically been regarded as antithetical to the church, yet it was Jesus who said that we have the power to move mountains with only a word. The Manicheans regard nature as composed of both light and darkness, while their religion guides individuals to focus on the light. The starry night of the heavens acts as a beacon calling us to the transcendent realm of light above, just as the Babylonian astronomers centuries earlier created a transcendence in consciousness in both theology and science by observing the lights in the night sky. The Manicheans also noted that the light in plants provided soul nutrition, empowering body and mind. The words of wise individuals provide

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followers with spiritual light. An important practice for the Manicheans is hymn singing, which is believed to also nourish the soul. All this light and logos in nature aids the Manicheans in achieving a return trip for the immortal soul to the pure spiritual realm of Light and Divine Intelligence. Another religious cosmology which holds that the divine is in nature, while also being dualistic like the Manichean cosmology, is that of the Neoplatonists. The Divine One emanates Intelligence, and Intelligence emanates the Cosmic Soul. The individual soul is considered a fragment of the Cosmic Soul. Prime matter becomes matter which is soul-infused, containing the logoi spermatikoi from Intelligence, the generative seeds of life. The soul, comprising a higher and lower part, is directed to think on the logoi in nature, which then puts one in contact with the Divine One. In so doing, one can become “filled with light.” Neoplatonism promotes the mystical approach in order to experience connection with the Divine. In contrast to Kantian philosophy that asserts that God cannot be experienced, a product of the division model, mystics throughout the centuries and across cultures, have described time and time again, that it is through the senses, and going beyond the senses that the divine may be experienced. The mystics have experienced the divine as an illumination which fills the mind, bringing wisdom and insight and even causes the body to radiate. It is a real light. Philo had said that the light around us is merely a dim version of the divine light. This light experienced by mystics is depicted as a pulsating, radiating energy. Matter, described from the perspective of mystical experiences, contains a pulsating power, a greening power, with the ability to transform, heal, and convey wisdom. Since the pre-Socratics, an enduring tradition has existed among many Western religious sources which describes matter as divine and an extension of the One. As such, matter contains a living, generative power, and an intelligent principle, termed by early philosophers as the Logos. To connect with the Divine, one purifies the thoughts to contemplate the intelligent divine Mind witnessed in the world of

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nature. For philosophers such as Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Plato, Philo, and the Hermetics, the Order of the Divine Mind can be seen in the generative forms in nature, its vibrant power, its mathematical beauty, and especially in the light, order, and beauty of the starry heavens, all of which provide a connection to the Divine through the senses. This light is experienced as transforming not only for the mind, but soul and body. It is the radiant beauty, order, and pulsating light-filled power of matter itself which provides the connection to the Divine. As alternative religious cosmologies existed alongside the dominant one, so too did alternative scientific expressions. With Leibniz and Bernoulli, matter was not inert and impenetrable, but rather a monism of force explicated nature. In the field of biology and neuroscience in the nineteenth century, Bell and Megendrie used the term “spirits” to refer to electrical properties in the brain. It was in the nineteenth century, when Thomson promoted the term “energy” to apply to these same active forces in nature. A clear transition in terminology is witnessed from the ancient Greek usage of soul and spirit to account for the active principles in nature to that of the terms force and energy in the nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, the science of electrodynamics began to redefine matter in terms of motive power, away from earlier descriptions provided by mechanistic science of matter as inert. Whereas mechanist philosophers regarded the smallest bits of matter, the atom, as hard, impenetrable, inert, moving only when acted upon—in essence, lifeless—the science of electrodynamics discovered that matter is alive with energetic activity. It was discovered that the electron circles around the nucleus of the atom at a high rate of speed, while the neutrons and protons at the center of the nucleus travel at even greater velocity. Electrons at the edge of an atom also emit light particles, photons, to link with other atoms, forming bonds which provide the basis of molecular structure. It is the photons of light in matter and the exchange of light which allows Forms to arise in nature. Matter at its core is energetic and fundamentally relational. In quantum physics and biochemistry, it was found that all matter

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contains information and emotion. The smallest quarks have functions to perform and while following behavioral patterns within their capabilities, they display degrees of freedom, acting spontaneously, anticipating the future, avoiding collisions, and creating bonds to form the larger structures of matter. The ancient Greeks referred to the intelligent aspect of nature as the fiery Logos, while. Empedocles had identified love and strife as part of the basic constituents of nature. Socrates identified the earth itself as personal being, citing the same aspect in humans as arising from this source. From the contemporary sciences, all living organisms contain DNA, encoded information to be used in their development and functioning. Matter relays information through the exchange of electrodynamic and chemical processes, which at its core is described as communication through energetic light. Cells have been shown to take measures to protect themselves, anticipating the future and adapting, changing form gradually as the need arises. From the field of biochemistry, molecules reveal the ability to receive and convey emotion. Research on neuropeptides shows that organisms experience emotion even before the brain can register a reaction. Plants, animals, and humans receive and respond to emotional content. Mystics in silent contemplation surrounded by the natural environment experience an emotional evocation from their surroundings. Throughout the levels of nature, from the tiniest quarks to human beings, and upwards to a Deity who responds to the suffering of the people, intelligent communication and emotion are a part of the constituents of matter. The universe is composed of emotion and intelligent communication and produces emotional, personal beings who can communicate intelligently. The Divine Source of creation is not only a radiant intelligent energy, but also, a Being who communicates, responds, and is not impassible. Whereas, for Greek philosophers, the Divine Logos in nature provided form to matter, from complex systems theory form arises due to an intake of information and energy from the environment. Throughout nature, there has always existed the emergence of new phenomena arising out of formerly stable material systems. Water

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boils becoming the emergent form of vapor, plant life transcends to the emergent form of flowers, conductors become superconductors, and new species arise continuously. Emergence is fueled in natural open systems by the intake of other information-rich matter filled with energy. The science of complex systems identifies a pattern to this emergence which can be described with the mathematics of non-linear differential equations. As matter, energy, and information are taken in, a critical point may be reached which forces the formerly stable system temporarily into a chaotic state. At this “edge of chaos,” the system spontaneously reorganizes itself to accommodate the incoming energy, creating a phase transition. A new center of organization emerges and a new pattern of energetic movement forms around this center. The pattern stabilizes and a new Form has emerged in nature. While the theory of evolution has unfortunately witnessed hostile attacks from religious conservatives embedded in the division model, for panentheistic spiritual advocates, such natural processes can evoke an appreciation for a Divine Mind behind and within the processes. Since the philosophical conception of the One Divine Source was put forward, philosophers have identified the means of approach to draw nearer to this Source. The tradition has existed since Pythagoras, through Heraclitus, Plato, the Stoics, Philo, and the Hermetics that to study the evidence of the Divine Mind within nature purifies and enhances the soul and leads the mind ever higher to transcendent wisdom. Such a view is not in contrast to the bible, for in Genesis 1, nature is rendered as “good” and the psalmist stated almost 2500 years ago that “the heavens are telling the glory of God,” with the heavens meaning the shining night sky. The shining light and mathematical order of the heavens, the mathematical beauty of the forms and processes of nature, the amazing adaptability of the forms of nature, can call forth an awe-inspiring reverence for the believer. As Calvin states, “let the world become our school if we rightly desire to know God.”1 Contemplating the intelligent, mathematical, transcendent, 1. Randall Zachman, “Contemplating the Living Image of God in Creation,” in Calvin Today: Reformed Theology and the Future of the Church, eds. Michael Welker, Michael Weinrich, and Ulrich Moller (New York: T and T Claek, 2011), 36.

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dynamic, light-filled nature of creation conveys information about the nature of the Divine Mind, enhances the spirit, and draws one closer to this Source. In doing so, one increases in knowledge and transcends former states of being. To study the processes and mathematics of evolution is to understand better how the Divine Mind works. The Logos in nature is a connection to the Divine, while transcendence is achieved through contemplating and studying the natural sciences. Appreciation for and study of the cultural arts and sciences can also draw one closer to the Divine. The transcendent power of music had always been a topic for religious philosophers. Pythagoras described and developed music in terms of mathematical harmonies, reflective of the mathematical orbits of the revolving planets. Music was said to be composed of divine forms, and so, likewise had the power to bring one closer to the Divine. After Pythagoras, Plato also discussed music and art in general, as conveying the Ideal Forms, and therefore, divinely inspired. In Ion, Plato states that because art is divinely inspired, it is capable of inspiring others, and thereby, enhancing the connection to the Eternal realm. One was instructed to imitate the forms in nature, with the forms of music being its mathematical harmony. To relate this to contemporary science, music as sound wave energy conveys information in the form of synchronizing mathematical harmonies and rhythmic pulses of energy which are taken in through sense receptors. A photonic flow state is created throughout the dendrites, leading to a higher consciousness of the appreciation of the intricate forms and harmonies within nature in general, and the cultural arts in particular. For the contemporary panentheistic Christian who regards nature as a product of the Divine Mind and an extension of the Divine Source, this trajectory of thought from Pythagoras and Plato to the electrodynamics worldview provides an explanation as to why studying and appreciating the arts and sciences, and classical music in particular, with its intricate and mathematical harmonies, can be so inspiring, evoking a sacramental feeling. Studying the natural sciences, and then, to see the same processes at work in the processes of the

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social realm and the cultural arts indicates that the holistic model of the cosmos, the world in God, is a far better fit than the division model. The science of complex systems has been applied in recent years to multiple fields of study, such as education, economics, politics, history, psychology, theology, and sociology. The same processes that describe the advent of new forms emerging in the physical sciences also applies to the social sciences. When new energy, information, and matter are taken into a social system from the surrounding environment, this energy may bring the system to the edge of chaos. Old regimes begin to feel the onslaught of these new ideas. If the old system cannot appropriate the information, it will break apart. Throughout history, this process has been witnessed, time and time again. One has only to think of the break of early Christianity from its Jewish roots, the Protestant Reformers dividing from their Catholic roots, the American and French Revolutionaries breaking from their parent governments, and more recently, the Arab Spring, to name a few. From the field of education, it is a goal of a liberal arts education that introducing the student to a wide range of academic disciplines yields a more highly evolved individual. The more information acquired from the environment, the more one is lead to higher forms of consciousness. To succeed in one’s field, one is advised to learn something new outside one’s field. This will spark an innovative way of thinking about traditional concepts. In research from neuroscience, it was shown how the brain is a material system, and as such, undergoes growth and transformation of its internal networks through receiving information in the form of energy from the environment. Energy is taken in through the senses, whether through photonic emissions from nature itself, or through reading and hearing, and then, the electromagnetic emissions become converted into electrical and chemical signals which pulse through the brain. With repeated signals, new dendrites sprout, increasing the synaptic connections, which in turn, strengthens the processing ability of the brain. Just as in all open systems, emergence of new phenomena may occur when a critical threshold is reached due to the intake of

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energy, information, and matter. Consciousness has been described as an emergent phenomena occurring when regions across the brain communicate with one other. Enlightenment is literal; there is actual light which travels through the brain as one thinks and experiences a moment of higher consciousness. Over time, learning creates, ontologically and epistemologically, a new being. The nature of what is learned determines what kind of being will emerge. It was Bishop Ambrose who said over sixteen centuries ago concerning revelatory insights that though it may feel like the Holy Spirit comes down to us, in fact, it is we who ascend to the Spirit, achieving insights as we work our way through the layers of mystery. The brain has developed over time through experience and disciplined learning. The meditating brain is a product of each individual’s unique history. Particular tasks repeated build up dendrite configurations and establish flows of photonic light pulses such that the task becomes easier. Just as one who studies math or practices an instrument becomes more proficient, one who studies scriptures and meditates is building up particular hardwiring in the brain, such that scriptural understanding and meditation become easier. In meditation or silent prayer, as certain regions in the brain become quieted and others overloaded with energy, consciousness is sparked, a new emergent thought comes to light. Austin has described the levels of consciousness one can attain to, with the results being a detachment from cravings, insight, wisdom, ongoing traits of enlightenment, a sense of the oneness of all that exists, the experience of the self as not bounded by time and place, and the sense that there is a flow of events and positive things happen with a light touch, that is, miracles can occur. Overtime, through spiritual practices, the individual literally becomes a new person, one who receives ongoing enlightenment and understands the world as intimately connected at every level. Mystics across the ages speak of experiencing the Oneness of the Divine and world, and while proponents of the division model may regard this view as somehow sacrilegious, for the individual who experiences it,

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it is nothing less than sacramental, a feeling of being afloat in a sea of divine light. New creations arise in nature organically when high-grade energy is able to be taken in and pushes the system to re-create itself. Polkinghorne had suggested that phase transitions may be behind the manifestation of miracles. Waves of energy which come together may adjust their frequencies, as in the phenomenon of synchronicity, and experience amplification, a combined stronger wave with the same frequency. This wave of energy, according to complex systems theory would, if ably appropriated into the old system, create a new order of creation. The mind and entire body generate and emit energy and theoretically could, when focused, influence another body, rendering a scientific explanation of what the Hermetics taught. Miracles are not unique to the Christian tradition as the Church had claimed in its support of Mechanism, and as any study of phenomenology of world religions reveals. Nature itself is constantly producing miracles, new phenomena brought about by the influx of information, matter, and energy incorporated creatively into material systems. The Hermetic philosophers believed that nature was divine and in God. To learn more about God, learn about nature. They conducted experiments to understand the transformative powers in matter, which to them seemed magical. The research presented above reveals that matter is much more relational and interconnected than Mechanistic science allowed, and that we, as a part of nature, have connections to matter and abilities which we are profoundly unaware. We can impact matter “with the lightest touch,” with a word even. Prophets and saints described in the bible and throughout the centuries have been able to do wondrous things. Contemporary science is beginning to discover that all of us potentially have abilities that we simply are not aware of. Matter defined as relational, information-rich, electrodynamic in essence, and continuously transcending its prior forms, indicates that we too are much more interconnected, information-rich, electrodynamic, and capable of transcending our former selves than Mechanistic Science has led us to believe. We do not

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have to wait for the transcendent God to supervene to effect miracles in the world; we have transcendent powers to effect transformation now. Connecting to the realm of Spirit/Light/Logos from the world of matter is awakening to the knowledge that matter is filled with divine energies of light and power which have the potential to enlighten us and transform us into enlightened beings who are capable of doing the miraculous. In a world of divine light, with an eternal soul comprising light, we do not have to insulate ourselves from the world, but rather, as beings of light, we are called to engage in the world around us, learn more, and strive to make this world a more just and brighter place for all.

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243

Index

above, vii–x, 3, 5–7, 13, 25, 31, 35,

akh, 12

37–40, 44, 51, 52, 58, 60, 63, 64,

Albinese, Katherine, 243

71, 74, 82, 87, 96, 97, 102, 110,

alchemy, 57, 61, 72

141, 142, 154–56, 161, 172, 177,

Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, 87

185, 187, 190, 193–96, 198, 201,

Alexander the Great, 1, 56

204, 205, 209, 214–16

Alexandria, Egypt, 40, 56, 66, 75, 81,

abstraction, 184, 185, 195, 203, 208

83, 84, 87, 214

Academus, 26

alienation, 82, 98

activating principle, 129–31, 138

alignment, 192, 202

actuality, 33, 54, 106, 140

alive, 3, 45, 140, 148, 180, 183, 184,

Adam and Eve, 46, 62, 98 adenosine, 162 adrenaline, 166, 167

218 Ambrose of Milan, 75, 94, 95, 223, 243

aeons, 44

amino acids, 144

aetius, 2, 19

Ammonius Saccas, 64, 65

afterlife, 12–16, 26, 27, 67, 204

amplification, 152, 192, 224

Agamemnon, 11

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, xiv,

agency, 75, 130, 189, 194, 195

21–23, 27, 51, 213, 215, 231

aggregate, 22, 28, 152, 153

Anaximander, 18, 19, 50, 54

Ahura Mazda, 10

androgynous, 48, 57, 58

air, 3, 5–7, 10, 12, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26,

angels, 109

28, 29, 31, 32, 42, 44, 50, 57, 62,

anima, 110

109, 124, 201, 212

animal spirits, 128, 132

aither, 3–6, 8, 32, 34, 40, 124, 216

anthropology, 29, 47, 48, 243

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anthropomorphic, 3, 7, 8, 17, 20, 27, 29, 50 Antiochus of Ascalon, 40, 41, 51, 53, 64

Astronomy, viii, 17, 18, 44, 49, 52, 61, 72, 214, 229 Athansasius of Alexandria, 38, 75, 83–87, 89, 91, 215, 227, 236

apeiron, 19

Athena, 9

Apocryphon of John, 43–45, 243

Athens, 11, 23, 26, 36, 66

Apollos, 10

Atherton, Margaret, 127n21, 228

Apostle of Light, 61

atoms, 23n112, 24–26, 138–44, 152,

apostles, 94, 108

153, 157, 158, 163, 205, 218

Apuleius, 66, 67, 227

atomic theory, 135, 140

Aquinas, Thomas, xiv, 68n53, 75,

attractor, 153, 156, 189, 190

103–14 arche, 17, 18, 20, 25, 50, 178

Atum, 7 Augustin of Hippo, ix, x, 66, 75, 86,

Archelaus, 23

94–101, 110, 116, 202n103, 206,

archetype, 192

215, 229, 230, 233

Aristotle, viii, ix, xiv, 2, 4, 5n88, 17–26, 31–41, 48, 51–53, 59, 75, 83, 84, 104–6, 108, 109, 124, 126, 132, 143, 160, 200, 202, 213–15, 227, 240

Austin, James, 67, 68n49, 173n194, 175–78, 223, 228 awareness, 69, 157, 158, 169, 175–77, 181 Axis Age, 14

Arians, 84–87, 94, 96

axon, 163, 165, 168

Arius, 84–88

Ayres, Lewis, 88

Armstrong, Brian, 116n92 art, 28, 30, 31, 51, 60, 92, 102, 117, 221 Artemis, 9

ba, 12 baptism, 15, 88, 90, 92, 94, 100, 111, 118, 119

artistic fire, 36

Barrow, John, 138n11, 146n51, 228

ascend, xvi, 3, 57, 77, 88, 95, 104,

Basil of Caesarea, 89–92

205, 209, 223

Bauer, Walter, 55n1, 228

ascetic, 49, 66, 69, 86, 91, 94, 99, 119

beam, 91, 100

Asclepius, 9

beauty, 2, 32, 38, 60, 66, 99, 101, 180,

Astrology, viii, 17, 44, 57, 61, 72, 123, 125, 214, 229, 236

246

186–88, 208, 214, 216–18, 220 Bell, Charles, 162, 218

INDEX

below, vii, ix, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 31, 32, 38, 40, 51–53, 60, 63, 85, 97, 102, 110 Bentley, Richard, 128 Bentov, Itzhak, 169n172, 228 Berchman, Robert, 81n39, 83n49, 228 Berman, Morris, 61n29, 228

brain waves, 170, 207 breath, 4, 13, 14, 21, 52, 60, 70, 80, 90, 202, 227 bright, 3–5, 12, 14, 16, 22, 69, 70, 85, 91, 100, 115, 117, 178, 225 Brosend, William, xiin17, 229 Brown, David, xiiin6, 17n65, 16, 18, 229

Bernoulli, Johann, 130, 131, 133, 218

Brown, Peter, 99

big bang theory, 141, 144, 148, 158,

Brown, Warren, 74

159, 187n21, 201 birth, 4, 15, 44, 57, 60, 62, 67, 71, 79, 80, 100 bishop, 77, 83, 84, 87, 89, 94, 95, 99, 102, 223

Brueggeman, Walter, xvi, 183, 207, 237 Bruno, Giordano, 124 Buchanan, Mark, 163n136, 167, 168, 229

blessing, 9, 15

Buddhism, 62

blind, 5, 98, 100, 116

Burgess, Stanley, 68n50, 89, 90n86,

blocked, 71, 98

92n95, 93, 101, 229

body, x, 7, 12–14, 20, 22, 27–31, 34, 35, 37, 45, 48, 51–53, 58, 59, 71,

Calvin, John, xiv, 80, 113, 115–19,

83, 91, 98, 99, 101, 109, 110, 113,

124, 220, 231, 240, 242, 243

114, 126–28, 131, 132, 153–55,

Campbell, D. T., 157, 230

160–62, 164–67, 170, 174, 179,

Campbell, Joseph, 48, 56, 230

181, 189, 190, 194–96, 198, 199,

Canaan, 8, 231

206, 207, 209, 215, 217, 218, 222,

Cappadocians, 75, 83, 89, 91, 215

223, 228, 231, 233, 235, 237

Capra, Fritjof, 139, 230

Bohr, Niels, 142

Cartesian, 130, 131, 184

boson, 140, 141, 147

causal joint, xii, 193, 194, 207

Boyle, Robert, 125, 127, 129, 130,

cause, 22, 25, 32, 33, 35, 71, 106, 122,

215 brain, xv, 22, 29, 31, 68, 135, 147,

137, 151, 169, 188, 190, 203, 214 celibacy, 63

152, 153, 160–81, 185, 186, 190,

cell, 144, 153, 163, 164, 167

192, 194–98, 207, 209, 210, 218,

center, 12, 19, 24, 64, 83, 123, 124,

222, 223, 228, 231, 233, 235, 237

247

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

136, 142, 153, 156, 158, 159, 169,

15–17, 23, 24, 28–31, 35, 37, 38,

174, 194, 205, 218, 220

45, 49, 52–56, 58, 59, 61–63, 65,

cerebral cortex, 158, 164, 168

66, 69, 71–73, 81, 86, 87, 95, 99,

Chadwick, Henry, 76, 78, 81, 82,

102, 113, 114, 117–20, 133, 135,

98–100, 230 chaos, xv, 4, 5, 13, 16, 19, 26, 44, 135,

148, 160, 165, 168, 169, 171–73, 176, 180, 181, 183, 185, 188, 189,

143, 148, 149, 150n67, 151, 152,

192, 193, 198, 200, 204–9, 213,

155, 156, 189, 190, 192, 220, 222,

215–25

231, 232, 234–36, 238, 239, 241

consciousness, 66–70, 158, 160–81,

chasm, 5

205, 207, 210, 216, 221–23, 228,

chemical processes, 129, 219

243

chemistry, 57, 147, 148, 178, 219

Constantine, 87, 95, 232

child, 4, 7, 11, 12, 16, 29, 44, 45, 47,

Constantinople, 69, 87, 89, 91, 92

59, 80, 89, 111, 167, 189

constellation, 2, 18, 63, 64

children of God, 111

consubstantial, 85, 87, 89, 108

Christ, 46, 75–79, 81–83, 85–87,

contemporary science, v, vii,

90–92, 94, 97–102, 107, 108, 110,

xii–xvi, 66, 72, 121, 133, 135–83,

111, 113

200, 203, 208, 219, 221, 224, 230

Chthonic, 3

contingency, 151, 188

circular motion, 28, 32, 57

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 19, 36, 123,

cleansing, 12, 67, 100, 197, 203

124

Cleanthes, 37

copy, 25, 30, 44, 56, 57, 60, 74, 214

Clement of Alexandria, 56

corporeal, xi, 22, 25, 27, 81, 82, 83,

closed, 150, 155, 164, 190

90, 96–98, 109, 113, 125

Coats, George, xi

Corpus Hermeticum, 56, 57

Cole, K. C., 146, 147, 230, 239

correspondence, 60, 127–29, 141

communication, xi, 10, 46, 49, 57,

cosmos, ix, xiii, 2, 4, 17, 18, 23, 24,

152, 153, 156, 157, 164, 168, 181,

26, 27, 30–32, 35–40, 50–53, 55,

185, 190, 192, 199, 219

57–59, 62–66, 76, 95, 118, 127,

complex systems theory, xv, 135,

158, 201, 213, 216, 222, 234

148–51, 157, 159, 160, 167, 179,

cosmogony, 4, 7, 43, 44, 57

183, 186, 187, 195, 197, 199, 200,

cosmology, iii, iv, vii–ix, xv, xvi,

205–8, 219, 224 connection, v, vii, ix, xi, xvi, 9, 10,

248

2–4, 7, 14, 16, 21, 24, 26, 27, 30–32, 34, 36–40, 42, 43, 45, 51,

INDEX

52, 57–65, 69, 70, 73, 75, 82, 84, 95, 109, 124, 141, 142, 148, 184, 195, 197, 213–17, 236, 242 Cotterill, Rodney, 168, 231

deification, 68, 69, 91, 93, 119, 178, 230 deity, x, xiii, 3, 4, 15, 23, 36, 51, 81, 88, 103, 121, 212, 219

council of Chalcedon, 74

Demeter, 14, 15

Council of Nicaea, 84–89

demi–god, 6

creation, viii–xv, 3, 7, 17, 20, 40–42

demiurge, 26, 27, 29, 39, 40, 41, 51,

creature, 16, 27, 29, 34, 45, 57, 58, 76, 89, 92, 93, 97, 98, 107, 110, 112, 159, 179, 180 creed, 41, 55, 83, 87–89. 91, 92, 102, 235 critical threshold, 151, 155, 208, 223 Cronos, 4, 6, 11, 29

53 Democritus, 17, 25, 26, 34–36, 50, 52, 54 dendrites, 163–65, 168, 172, 175, 221, 222 Descartes, Rene, x, 114, 126–32, 161, 215

cultural arts, 8, 221, 222

Desert Fathers, 66, 206

cyclical, 21

destruction, 13, 33 dialectical, 65, 72

D’Aquill, Eugene, 173, 174

diamond, 143, 144

daimones, 6, 7

dichotomy, 129, 131, 215

dark, viii, ix, xiv, 3–7, 13, 15, 22, 43,

Diogenes Laertius, 2n1, 23n109,

53, 57, 58, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 75 dark matter, vii, viii, 6, 43, 57, 58,

24n121, 249 Dionysus, 14, 68 Dirac, Paul, 139, 140, 142, 186

62, 63, 65, 142, 159, 160, 165, 166,

disease, 8, 10

171, 214

dissipative systems, 192–94

Darwin, Charles, xi, 144, 145, 155, 231 daughter of god, 7, 15, 63

divide, viii–xiv, 4, 8, 32 36, 51, 52, 56, 75, 102, 113, 114, 119, 129, 135, 140, 203, 209, 211, 215, 216

Davis, Brian, 104–11, 113, 114, 231

divination, 10

De Anima, 18n72, 33, 34

divine action, 149, 170, 187, 189–97,

death, 6–8, 12, 13, 16, 24, 26, 58, 60,

231, 238, 239

83, 98, 100, 101, 202, 203, 213,

divine assembly, 8

239

divine in Nature, 19, 58, 181

defiled, 11, 35, 53, 85, 203

divine intelligence, 19, 58, 181

249

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

divine monarchy, 82 divine presence, 16, 69, 209 divine Source, xii, xvi, 2, 4, 8, 19, 23, 26, 43, 44, 50, 54, 64, 74, 160, 212, 213, 219, 220, 221

Egypt, 1, 7, 8, 12–18, 40, 43, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, 81, 83, 86 Einstein, Albert, 137, 138, 141, 151, 186, 200–202 elect, 63, 116, 118

divinity of the Son, 97, 111

electricity, 129, 132, 136, 137, 162

DNA, 146, 219

electroencephalogram, 170

dome, 3, 40

electromagnetism, 128, 136–40, 198,

Donatism, 95 Dossey, Larry, 147, 231 dragon, 4, 6, 47 dream, xii, 9, 21, 35, 52, 160, 163, 164n137, 170, 175, 233, 238, 240 Dress, Willem, xvi, 183, 190, 196, 197, 208, 231

199, 209, 232 electron, 135, 137–44, 152, 158, 165, 169, 178, 202, 218 elementary particles, 140, 206 elements, x, xv, 7, 8, 14, 16, 19, 21–23, 25, 28, 31–33, 36, 40, 42, 50, 57, 67, 75, 92, 99, 101, 109,

drought, 9, 18, 33, 233, 241

110, 124, 128, 141, 145, 150, 152,

dualism, xiv, 14, 27, 43, 113, 114,

153, 156, 157, 210, 212

127, 161 dyad, 23, 39, 50 dynamis, 9, 198, 206

Ellwood, Robert, 172, 231 emanation, 25, 35, 64, 65, 80, 88, 93, 97, 179, 206 Emerald Tablet, 56, 60

earth, viii, 3–9, 12–14, 16, 19, 21–24,

emerge, 4, 19, 28, 55, 67, 74, 83, 122,

27–29, 31–35, 39–44, 49–51,

144, 145, 151, 152, 199, 205, 211,

57–59, 63, 88, 109, 123–25, 138,

223

197, 212–14, 219

emergence, 43, 101, 146, 148, 151,

Eastern orthodox, 102, 117

152, 155, 156, 159, 169, 179, 199,

Ecumenical council, 74, 84–89, 92,

205, 210, 219, 220, 222, 234, 237

103

emergence theory, 148

edge of chaos, 148–51, 220, 222, 235

emergent properties, 148, 168

education, 66, 69, 83, 95, 104, 115,

Emery, Giles 106–9, 111, 113, 231

139n16, 149, 152, 166, 185, 186,

emotion, 19, 36, 48, 49, 147, 148,

198, 208–10, 222, 237 effluences, 21 egg, 3, 51, 141

250

167, 175, 184, 195, 209, 212, 219, 238

INDEX

Empedocles of Acragas, 21, 26, 50, 54, 64, 82, 219

105, 107–9, 163, 201, 210, 213, 215, 221, 225

empty, 5, 174

ether, 131, 132, 216

energy, xiv, 47, 50, 55, 59, 66, 69, 74,

ethereal spirits, 129, 131, 132, 137,

92, 93, 122, 123, 132, 133, 136–38,

215

141–67, 170, 171, 179–81, 184,

ethics, 6, 12, 14, 16, 24, 78, 94, 188

190–96, 198–201, 204–24, 233,

eucharist, 110

240, 241

Europe, 5, 56, 114, 123, 124, 125,

enlightenment, xv, 10, 31, 49, 63,

126, 215

64, 70, 72, 76, 81, 85, 89, 92, 93,

Eusebius of Caesarea, 87, 88, 89

100, 101, 113, 171, 176, 177, 180,

Eusebius of Nicomedia, 87n68, 88

223

evolution, 21, 147, 155, 156, 157,

entropy, 143, 150

170, 178, 179, 187, 188, 205, 220,

environment, xv, 6, 16, 99, 141

221

eons 143, 144, 145, 149, 150, 151,

Ex nihilio, 77, 83

153–56, 159, 162, 165, 166, 167,

expanse, 4, 5, 6, 50

171, 172, 179, 180, 186, 190, 193,

expansion, 44, 141, 142

197, 198, 207–9, 219, 222

experimentation, 61, 72, 160

Ephesus, ix, 20, 74, 75, 213

eyes, 5, 22, 115, 170

episteme, 59

Ezekiel, 232

epistemology, 40, 113 equation, 136–39, 143, 186, 187, 195, 220 Eros, 4 Erebus, 4 essence, 2, 9, 15, 16, 19, 23, 24–26,

Fagg, Lawrence, xvi, 138–40n27, 183, 198–202, 208, 209, 232 faith, 75, 77, 84, 85, 86, 94, 102, 104, 109, 110, 112, 114, 116 fall, 21, 46, 78, 82, 115, 116, 119

34n185, 42, 45, 58, 62, 66, 68, 69,

Faraday, Michael, 136, 137, 200

79, 81, 85, 88–91, 96, 102, 112,

feedback loops, 155, 156, 190

122, 136, 143, 199, 205, 209, 213,

feeling, 71, 175, 176, 177, 221, 224

218, 224, 236

fermions, 140

eternal, vii, viii, 14, 19, 21, 24–34, 35n190, 39, 51, 52, 65, 72, 82, 84, 88, 91–93, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102,

fertility, viii, 8, 9 Feynman, Richard, 139, 147, 154, 232 field theory, 136, 138, 209

251

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

fiery particles, 52

31, 65, 80, 81, 82, 88, 90, 91, 102,

fire, 3, 5, 11, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 28, 29,

109, 110, 164, 213, 224

31, 32, 36, 40, 42, 50, 51, 54, 57,

generative, xiii, 6, 7, 18, 26, 30, 39,

70, 92, 93, 94, 109, 111, 113, 124,

50, 51, 65, 179, 212, 217, 218

212, 213 flame, 5, 70 flow, 20, 51, 59, 92, 143, 153, 156, 158, 159, 162, 174, 175, 177–79, 181, 194–96, 206, 221, 223 flower, 106, 146, 220 flux, 28, 162 forces, 13, 42, 50, 129–32, 137, 140,

Genesis, xi, 3, 13, 18, 40, 78n19, 113, 203, 220 geocentric, xiii, 2, 17, 19, 21, 26, 31, 25, 123, 213–15 ghost, 13, 79 gift, 9, 10, 15, 41, 90, 110, 111, 113, 207 glory, 111, 113, 115, 117, 220

141, 143, 158, 201n98, 215, 218,

gnosis, 45, 49, 58

220

Gnosticism, 2, 17, 38–40, 43, 48, 52,

form, 19–24, 27, 28, 30, 32–42, 50–52, 56, 65, 68, 72, 74, 77–79,

57, 75, 81 God viii, ix, x–xiv, xvi, 3, 36, 40–44,

82, 85–87, 91, 98, 101, 105, 106,

48, 49, 52, 53, 55–64, 66, 68–72,

109, 110, 112–15, 122, 124, 128,

74–101, 104–20, 122, 124–29, 149,

131, 133, 139–48, 150–53, 155–59,

159, 172, 174, 180, 183, 185–89,

163, 165, 166, 173, 178, 179, 184,

191–206, 208–11, 214–17, 220,

185, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 200,

222, 224, 225

202, 203, 205, 208–10, 212–14,

God particle, 147

218–22, 224

goddess, viii, 3, 4, 7–9, 14, 15, 19, 28,

frequency, 138, 142, 170, 207, 224

29, 37, 39, 48n247, 53, 62, 66, 67,

Freud, Sigmund, 162

92, 102, 197, 212

Fundamental Epistle, ixn, 62

gods, viii, xiii, 3, 4, 6–12, 14–16, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 37, 39, 40, 42, 50,

Galen, 160, 161

51, 57, 67, 89, 99, 197, 212, 213

Galileo Galilei, x, 124, 125, 127

Golden race, 6

Gall, Franz Joseph, 162

good, xii, 7, 14, 27, 28, 37, 39, 42, 64,

gap, 5, 25n125, 26, 32, 109, 118, 163, 164, 189, 193, 196, 200 generate, x, 7, 8, 16, 19, 23, 26, 29,

252

68, 77, 83, 96, 98, 101, 105–7, 111, 112, 167, 173, 198, 220 good and evil, 64

INDEX

Gospel of John, 74, 75, 80, 89, 97, 119, 215

Harrison, Carol, 97n127, 98n, 101n162, 233

grace, 44, 82, 110–12,

Hawking, Stephen, 142, 233

gradient change, 141

healing, xii, 8–10, 16, 57, 59, 70, 111,

gravity, 128, 129, 137, 140, 141, 144

154, 207

Greeley, Andrew, 173, 232

heart, 12, 47, 70, 111, 160, 189

Greene, Brian, 142n33, 232

heaven, viii, 4–7, 14n57, 18, 19, 28,

Greer, Rowan, 82n47, 83n48, 232

31–33, 39, 44–47, 49, 51, 53, 64,

Gregory of Nazianzus, 89, 92, 93, 94,

70, 78, 86, 88, 95, 110, 115, 125,

119, 122 Gregory of Nyssa, 89, 91, 92–94, 119, 122 Greece, 1, 7–9, 15, 16, 26, 49, 69, 101, 123

173, 216, 218, 220 Hebrew Scriptures, 203 heliocentric model, 36, 123, 124, 215 Heliopolis, 7 Helios, 3, 9

Greek language, 1, 201, 215

henotheism, 3

Greek philosophy, viii, 40, 41, 57,

Henry, A. M., 233

62, 74, 75, 81, 83, 104, 119, 121, 201, 202, 209 greening power, 70, 217 Griffin, David, xn11, xvn20, 61n31, 72n73, 73n1, 103n1, 121n1, 122n2, 125, 127n16, 128n27, 133n44, 185, 232 growth, 23, 33, 56, 60, 126, 145, 146, 167, 170, 180, 198, 222 guide, 22, 28, 46, 47, 50, 85, 117, 186, 216

Heraclitus, ix, xiii, 20, 21, 26, 27, 36, 38, 41, 50, 52, 54, 58, 64, 74–76, 97, 119, 181, 213, 218, 220 Hermes, 56, 57, 60 Hermetics, xiv, 38, 55, 59, 198, 200, 216, 218, 220, 224 Hermeticism, 56–58, 60–62, 66, 68, 72, 73, 129, 216 hero, 6, 7, 15, 16, 26, 77, 78, 90, 101 Hesiod, 1, 3–6, 11, 19, 27, 29, 50 hierarchy, 81, 110, 172, 215 Hippolytus of Rome, 75

Hades, 3, 8, 9, 13 Hammurabi, 15 Harmon, Peter, vii, 122, 127, 128n25, 129, 136, 137n6 harmony, 6, 21, 24, 52, 86, 102, 221

Hobson, J. Allan, 160n118, 162, 163n135, 164, 170n179, 233 Holland, John, xvn21, 152, 153n87, 234 holistic, 30, 50, 149, 150, 159, 169,

253

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

183, 196, 197, 205, 207, 211, 212, 216, 222 Holy Spirit, xiv, 78, 80–83, 87–97, 101, 102, 108, 109, 111, 113, 116–20, 124, 180, 204, 215, 223 home, viii, 11, 16, 43, 46–50, 63, 104n4, 110, 115, 197

imitation, 15, 78, 85n59, 90, 94, 101, 177 immanence, 71, 76, 188, 189, 199, 200, 208 immortality, 58, 86, 213 Inanna, 8 incarnation, 79, 80, 85, 93, 200, 205

Homer, viii, 1, 3, 11, 13

incorporeal, xi, 81, 83, 90, 96

Homeric, 28, 53, 213

indefinite, 19, 50, 212

honor, 1, 6, 7, 10, 15, 50, 77, 86, 198,

Index of Forbidden Books, 123, 124

212 hope, 112, 186, 188, 189

Indo–European, 5 inert, vii, x, xiii, xiv, 121–23, 129–31,

Hopson, Janet, 146n50, 239

133, 139, 140, 143, 148, 153, 154,

Hubble, Edwin, 142

167, 179, 180, 184, 215, 218

human, viii–xi, xvi, 3, 4, 6–9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26–30, 35,

infinite, 19, 36, 106, 115, 154, 164, 173, 202, 213

38–45, 50–54, 57–59, 62–64, 68,

information, xiii, xv, xvi, 4, 21, 37,

76–78, 80–83, 85–87, 89, 90, 95,

52, 58, 146–48, 151, 153–56,

96, 98–102, 104, 109–11, 113, 115,

158–60, 162–66, 168, 169, 171,

116, 118, 119, 124, 126, 127, 132,

179, 180, 184, 189–91, 193–96,

146, 149, 153, 154, 157–60, 162,

198, 199, 208–10, 219–24

164, 166–69, 172, 173, 180, 184,

initial aim, 183, 185

187–92, 194, 196, 199, 202, 203,

Inquisition, 124

205, 206, 208, 215, 216, 219

insight, xiii, xv, xvi, 2, 4, 9, 46, 49,

hypostases, 81, 89, 96

52, 53, 55, 56, 109, 118, 136, 149, 169, 176, 183, 189, 192, 193, 195,

Iamblichus, 56

200, 217, 223

iconoclastic, 117

inspiration, 9, 30, 37, 86, 92, 10

Ideal Forms, 27, 30, 36, 37, 51, 68,

intelligence, x, xi, 26, 27, 29, 30, 36,

112, 114, 179, 221

42, 50, 58, 65, 72, 74, 79, 93, 109,

Iliad, viii, 3, 11

119, 122, 126, 131, 133, 142, 143,

illuminate, 12, 91, 118

146, 147, 153, 160, 163, 181, 184,

image of God, 77, 78n19, 82, 85, 86, 90, 98, 115–18

254

187, 209, 210, 209–13, 215–17 intelligent, ix, x, xiii, xiv, xvi, 2, 17,

INDEX

20, 23, 26, 32, 36–38, 40, 42, 50,

ka, 121

51, 53–55, 64, 73, 82, 84, 92, 114,

Kabbalism, 70

117–19, 124, 133, 148, 152, 178,

Kane, Gordan, 138n14, 139n21,

179, 209, 210, 212, 213, 217–20 intermediary, ix, 48, 84, 87n68, 214 intuition, 41, 66, 181, 188, 189 invisible, 25, 27n137, 44, 58, 69, 75, 83, 98, 107, 213 ion, 30, 221 ionic bond, 143

141n29, 234 Kant, Immanuel, x, 130, 131, 206, 215 Kauffman, Stuart, xvn21, 148n60, 159, 187, 235 Kelly, J. N. D., 78n1, 81n40, 82n47, 85n59, 87n66, 91n92, 235

Irenaeus of Lyons, 75

king, 9, 11, 13, 18, 62, 80

Isis, 7, 14, 66, 67

Kirk, G. S., 2n1, 3n4, 5n15, 14n55,

Island of the Blessed, 6, 14

17n64, 18n71, 19n73, 20n82,

Israel, 15, 40, 41, 80n30

21n89, 22n95, 23n108, 24n117, 25n125, 235

James, William, 172, 173, 176, 192, 199, 234

knowledge, x, 2, 16, 39, 45, 49, 53, 57–59, 62, 78, 83, 85, 86, 93, 95,

Jantzen, Grace, 234

99, 107, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119,

Jaoudi, Maria, 69, 70, 234

146, 192, 204, 214, 216, 221, 225,

Jesus, xiv, 1, 18, 40, 41, 62, 73–81, 84,

229, 241

85, 89, 98, 101, 119, 180, 200, 202, 216 Jewish philosophy, 2, 17

Kotulak, Ronald, 165, 170n175, 172, 177n230, 235 Kybalion, 56

Jonas, Hans, 43, 49n252, 234 Josephus, 18

language, 1, 41, 44, 48, 75, 90, 96,

Joule, J. P., 132

122, 123, 151, 157, 187, 194,

joy, 12, 101, 163, 175, 178, 181, 197

198–201, 207, 208, 210, 215, 240

judgment, 13, 14 Judaism, 43, 74 Julian, bishop of Eclanum, 99 Jungian archetypes, 192 justice, 11, 14–16, 77, 111, 194, 197 Justin Martyr, xiv, 75, 77, 215

Laszlo, Ervin, xv, 150–58, 190, 195, 204, 205, 228, 235 Latin, 9, 60, 78, 79, 96, 102, 110, 112, 115, 206, 215, 233, 240 law, 28, 76, 85, 102, 110, 115, 123, 150, 155 Layton, Bentley, 43, 54, 128, 235

255

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

Leibniz, Gottfried, 129–33, 161, 218

66, 80, 95, 227, 228, 230, 234, 236,

Leithart, Peter, xii, 235

238, 240–43

Leonardo da Vinci, 161

logoi spermatikoi, 36, 38, 65, 76, 217

Leonardo de Pistolia, 60

logos, vii, ix, xiii–vxi, 20, 21n87, 25,

Leucippus, 24, 25, 50

26, 36, 38–42, 45, 46, 48, 50–55,

Lewin, Roger, 148–54, 168, 235

57, 59–61, 64, 65, 73–88, 92, 93,

life, xiii, 5, 10, 12–15, 31, 33–35, 48,

97–99, 101–3, 116, 118, 119, 121,

49, 53, 54, 57, 65, 66n46, 67, 68,

133, 142, 160, 171, 179–81, 200,

77, 78, 80, 83, 86, 91, 94, 95, 105,

209, 210, 213–17, 219, 221, 225

108, 110, 112, 115, 119, 122, 124,

logos theology, xiv, 73, 102, 103

126, 141, 144, 145, 146, 148n58,

Lorentz, H. A., 136

149, 150, 158, 161, 163, 165, 167,

love, 4, 6, 8, 21, 50, 53, 54, 96–98,

168, 170, 171, 174, 179, 184–87,

100, 101, 109, 112, 113, 119, 166,

189, 202, 203, 205, 206, 213, 217,

205, 212, 219, 232

220, 228, 235, 237–40 light, i–xvi, 2–10, 12, 13, 14–16, 18–20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30–36,

Lucius, 66, 67 Luther, Martin, 115 Lyman, Rebecca, 38, 75, 77, 78, 236

38–40, 42–45, 47–50, 52–72, 74, 76, 78–80, 82–84, 86, 88–94,

machine, 126, 128, 129

96–102, 104, 106, 108, 110,

Magendie, Francois, 162

112–14, 116–22, 124, 126, 128–30,

magic, 57, 125, 128, 224

132, 133, 135–40, 142, 144,

Magliocco, Sabina, 125n11

148–52, 154, 156, 158–62, 164–66,

magnets, 18, 61, 136

168–72, 174, 176–80, 184–86, 188,

magnetism, 129, 132

190, 192, 194, 196, 198–202, 204,

Malebranche, Nicholas, 127, 129

206, 208, 210–25, 228, 230, 232,

Mani, 61–63

234–36, 238, 240, 242, 243

Manicheans, ix, x, xiv, 55, 62–64,

lightening, 5

216, 217

linguistics, 148

Marty, Martin E., 172, 234

Lipton, Bruce, 166, 167

mass, 22, 80, 129, 137, 138, 140, 142,

liturgy, 228

147, 151, 158, 200, 201n48

living force, 1

material substratum, 65, 82

literature, xi, xii, 1, 10, 13, 17, 58,

materialism, 25, 34, 36

256

INDEX

mathematics, 17, 24, 30, 54, 59, 61, 72, 123, 148, 220, 221 matter, vii–xvi, 3, 6, 11, 12, 17,

101, 102, 104, 109, 113, 114, 117–19, 126–28, 132, 135, 160, 161, 165–67, 170, 174, 175,

18–28, 32–46, 48–52, 55–57,

178–81, 185–89, 194, 197–99,

59–63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76,

201, 202, 205, 207, 208, 213,

78, 82, 83, 96, 97, 105, 106, 109, 113, 114, 120–33, 135–44, 146–48,

216–18, 220, 221, 224 miracle, 9, 10, 15, 42, 60, 79, 86, 105,

151, 153, 154, 156, 158–60, 162,

107, 111, 125, 133, 191, 207, 216,

163, 165, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173,

223–25

177–81, 183, 184, 187–89, 192–95, 198, 199, 201, 202, 204, 205, 207–10, 212, 222–25 Maxwell, James, 136, 137, 139

molecules, 139, 141, 143, 146, 147, 158, 206, 219 Moltmann, Jurgen, xvi, 66, 183, 205, 206, 208, 209

McGrath, Allister, 236

monad, ix, 20, 23, 24, 39, 42, 44n228,

McTaggert, Lynne, 236

45, 46, 50, 52–54, 75n5, 85, 102

mechanical, 32, 35, 37, 53, 121, 125, 126, 132, 136, 213–15 meditation, 41, 53, 171, 175, 177, 178, 181, 223

monogenes, 85 Moo, Douglas, 237 Moody, Dale, 237 moon, 2, 3, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 31, 32,

medium of Endor, 13

44, 125, 213

Meister Eckhart, 71

morality, 6, 94, 208

memory, 47, 168, 169

Morowitz, Harold, 146, 237

Mersenne, Marin, 125, 127

Moses, 15

messiah, 74

mother, 7, 14, 27, 39, 45, 52, 99,

metaphysics, 33, 35, 122, 184, 189, 208 microcosm, 60, 118, 181 Middle Platonism, xiv, 2, 17, 38–40, 51, 109 Milky Way, 63 mind, vii, viii, x, xi, xiii, 2, 13, 20, 22,

104n4, 113, 189 Muhammad, 63n37 Murphy, Nancey, xvi, 149, 183, 207–9, 237 muse, 4, 30 music, xii, 1, 8, 10, 24, 28, 30, 37, 64, 143, 221

23, 25, 26, 28–31, 35, 37–42, 46,

Muslims, 104, 123, 215

48, 51–53, 58–60, 68–70, 72, 74,

Mystery Religions, 10, 14–16, 26

76, 77, 79, 82, 90, 91, 93–95, 97,

257

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

mysticism, 64, 66, 68, 71, 171, 178, 185

136–38, 149, 150, 161, 184, 185, 208, 215

Myth of Zagreus, 14

Nicholis, George, 237

mythology, 4, 6, 13n51, 46, 56, 62

night, 4, 5, 12, 20, 35, 67, 172, 173, 189, 212, 216, 220

Naditu, 10

nobel prize, 137, 138, 162

Nag Hammadi Library, 43

non–mechanistic, xiii

nature, viii–xi, xiii–xvi, 2–4, 7–10,

non–orthodox, xiii, xvi

16, 17, 19–21, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31,

non–sensory, 172, 177, 185

33, 35–38, 42, 47, 48, 50–55,

nous, 22, 29, 46

57–61, 63, 64, 66, 70, 72, 74, 77,

nucleus, 138, 139, 142, 144, 153, 157,

81, 83, 90, 93–96, 98–101, 104–6,

218

110–14, 116, 118, 119, 121–33,

numbers, 23, 30

135–38, 140, 143, 144, 147, 150,

Nun, 7

152, 155, 157, 159, 161, 170–72, 176, 179–81, 183–91, 193, 195,

Oceanus, 4, 29

196, 198–203, 205, 206, 208–24,

Odyssey, viiin8, 3, 11, 13

Neoplatonism, 38, 64–66, 71, 73, 217

Odysseus, 9, 11, 13

nervous system, 158, 162, 166

offerings, 9

Nestle Aland, 74

offspring, 4, 6, 8, 16, 44, 82

networks, xv, 167, 169, 222

On Thought and Sense, 58

neural pathways, 165, 166, 170, 171,

ontology, 96, 130

177, 181, 209, 210 neurology, 135, 181 neurons, 152, 162, 164, 168–70, 194–96, 207

open system, 150, 151, 155, 179, 190, 193, 220, 222 orbits, 24, 57, 142, 143, 221 order, viii, xiii, 1–3, 12, 18, 20,

neuropeptides, 147, 219

22–25, 27, 28, 30, 33, 38, 42, 44,

neutron, 139, 141, 142, 152, 218

48, 49, 50–53, 60–62, 64, 74–76,

new birth, 15, 67, 71

78, 84–87, 95, 98, 102, 104, 124,

Newburg, Andrew, 237

127, 143, 148, 151, 152, 155–57,

New Testament, 1, 70, 74, 86, 112,

159, 173, 186, 191, 192, 196–98,

202 Newton, Isaac, x, xiv, 122, 127–33,

203, 205–7, 209, 213, 214, 216–18, 220, 224 organs, 21, 22, 25, 145, 146, 162

258

INDEX

organism, 21, 33, 35, 147, 152, 154, 158, 163, 198, 206, 219 orientation center, 174 Origen, xiv, 66, 81–83, 88, 89, 92, 119, 215

Peacocke, Arthur, xvi, 149, 183, 192–98, 208, 209 perception, x, 15, 20–22, 25, 27–31, 37, 97, 167, 169, 175–77, 180, 193 periodic, 2, 23, 63, 64, 153n86, 212

original sin, 95n107, 98, 99

persecution, 61, 80n34, 95

originating principle, 4, 22, 26

Persephone, 14

Orpheus, 14, 26

Pert, Candace, 147, 238

Orphism, 14

Philo of Alexandria, 40, 214

orthodoxy, 55, 73, 83, 94, 102, 103,

philosophy, viii, 2, 17, 18, 30, 38–41,

133 ousia, 81, 82n41, 88, 89, 96

43, 57, 60–62, 64, 65n41, 74, 75, 81, 83, 93, 104, 106, 115, 119, 121–23, 125, 127, 133, 166, 184,

Palestine, 39, 43, 75 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, 183, 200–203, 208, 209, 238

185, 201, 202, 209, 217 photon, 138–41, 146–48, 154, 159, 165–68, 179, 210, 218, 221–23

Paraclete, 80, 81

photosynthesis, 146, 198

paradigm shift, 18

physicist, 17, 19, 26, 50, 130, 133,

parallelism, 79, 128, 149, 150

141, 142, 178, 183, 184, 186, 212,

Parmenides, 24n116

213

particles, x, xv, 25, 50, 52, 62–64,

physics, 17, 31, 32, 51, 131, 136, 137,

128, 136, 137, 139–42, 146–48,

138, 140, 146, 148, 155, 186, 190,

154, 157, 158, 163, 179, 201, 204,

198, 219

206, 218

Pindar, 14, 26

particles of light, x, 140, 148

pineal gland, 127, 161

patristic, 74, 75, 90, 106–8, 119, 180

placebo effect, 166

pattern, 17, 28–30, 37, 41, 42, 50,

plague, 11

52–54, 77, 90, 91, 95, 101, 114,

Planck, Max, 138, 139

119, 149, 151, 154, 156 – 59, 168,

planets, xiii, 2, 3, 14n57, 17–19, 23,

169, 171, 185, 186, 189, 190, 194,

24, 29, 31, 32, 44, 53, 54, 57, 59,

212, 213, 219, 220

213, 214, 221

Paul, 1, 63, 74, 77, 78, 88, 98, 112, 139, 140, 142, 202, 206 Pauli exclusion principle, 143

plants, 34, 35n190, 38, 52, 57, 59, 64, 109, 126, 145–47, 158, 179, 216, 219

259

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

Plato, viii, xiv, 2, 17, 26–28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36–42, 48, 49, 51–54, 58,

Prigogine, Ilya, xv, 143, 148, 156, 190, 237, 239

64, 75, 76, 90, 92, 105, 106, 122,

primeval man, 62, 214

131, 159, 181, 187, 200, 208, 213,

primordial, 6, 19, 22, 29, 41, 50, 62,

218, 220, 221

174, 176, 178, 205

pleroma, 43, 44

Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, 127

Plotinus, 64, 65, 68, 72

proceed, 62, 80, 82, 83, 85n59, 91,

Plutarch, 18

92, 96n114, 97, 108, 109, 165, 201

pneuma, 201

process, 19, 22, 62, 63, 65, 68, 70, 72,

pneumata, 36

81–83, 90–94, 100, 103, 119, 121,

Poimandres, 57, 58

126, 129, 132, 137, 141, 144, 146,

Polkinghorne, John, xvi, 149, 183,

147, 149, 155, 158–61, 163–65,

186–91, 195, 196, 208, 224

167–72, 179, 181, 187, 188, 191,

pollution, 11, 16

195, 196, 197, 205, 208, 219–22

Polycarp, 77

process theology, 197

polytheism, ix, xiii

progression, 3, 16, 212

potential, 33, 34, 38, 54, 65, 83, 93,

prophecy, xii, 10

105, 106, 110, 112, 132, 164, 172, 188, 210, 224, 225 power, x, xiii, xvi, 10, 12, 13, 16, 20,

prophet, xii, 61, 76, 80n33, 85, 94, 108, 111, 203, 224 protein, 144, 146, 152, 158

28, 30, 34, 35, 42, 44–46, 49, 50,

proton, 139, 141, 142, 144, 152, 218

56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 65, 70, 72, 77,

Pseudo–Dionysus, 68

92, 94, 95n107, 96, 102, 107, 109,

Ptolemy, 35

114, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124–26,

Puddefoot, John, 146

129, 131–33, 137, 195, 200–202,

purgatory, 115

206, 207, 210, 213–18, 221, 224,

purify, 11, 24, 82, 85, 102

225

pyramid, 28, 42

prayer, xii, 9, 10, 15, 63, 67, 69, 86, 175, 177, 178, 180, 193, 194, 223 pre–existent, 110

Pythagoras, 2, 4, 23, 24, 26–28, 38, 39, 42, 50, 52, 54, 64, 75, 143, 187, 212, 218, 220, 221

pre–Socratics, 17, 18, 26, 27, 36, 122, 217 priests, 10, 11, 81, 92, 104

quanta, 138, 139 quantum electrodynamics, xv, 136, 139, 140, 179

260

INDEX

quarks, 140, 141, 154, 158, 219

resurrection, 13, 60, 100, 101, 110 revelation, 81, 83, 106, 107, 113, 114,

rabbi, 71

116

Rabbi Shim’on, 71

reverence, 6, 10, 15, 220

Rad, Gerhard von, 239

Riley, Gregory, 239

radiance, 71, 100

ritual, 11, 12, 15, 67, 90

radiation, 138, 141

river, 1, 3, 4, 8, 11, 17, 80n36,

rain, 3, 9, 16, 33

role model, 15

Ramon y Cajal, Santiago, 162, 163

Rome, 64, 66, 75, 77, 104

Rankine, W. J. Macquorn, 132

Rosicrucians, 61

Rause, Vince, 174

ruach, 202, 203, 206

Raven, J. E., 2n1, 3n4, 5n15, 14n55,

Rudolph, Kurt, 45, 46, 48

17n64, 18n71, 19n73, 20n82,

Russell, Jeffrey, 126

21n87, 22n95, 23n108, 24n117,

Russell, Robert, 149

25n125, 235

Rutherford, Ernest, 138, 142

ray of light, 65, 79, 80, 92 realm of light, viii, 43, 47, 48n245, 49, 64, 93, 102, 113, 216, 217 reason, x, xiii, 20, 24, 25, 27, 38, 42,

sacraments, 92, 94, 102, 110, 118, 120, 180, 193, 194 sacred, 9, 57, 63, 178, 198, 199, 208

45, 46, 52, 59, 64, 68, 76, 79, 81,

Saint Symeon, 69

82, 97, 98, 101, 102, 106, 114, 115,

salvation, 12, 14, 15, 30 ,45, 48, 62,

126, 131, 133, 188, 190, 206 receptacle, 27, 28, 39, 51

67, 81, 82, 85, 88, 92, 98, 101, 106, 107, 111, 112, 116, 118

red shift, 142

Samuel, 13

redeemer, 45, 46, 49, 116

sanctification, 94, 108, 111

Reformation, xiv, 75, 103, 115, 116

Saul, 13

regeneration, 70, 93, 100, 119, 120,

saved, 63, 67

154 reincarnation, 24, 26 relationship, vii, 9, 10, 15, 16, 24, 74,

scaffolding, 164, 168, 171, 172, 180, 207, 209, 210 Schwarz, Hans, 159n117, 240

76, 82–85, 87, 91, 92, 124, 152,

Schweizer, Eduard, xii, 240

153, 161, 188, 193, 194, 197, 199,

science, vii, xi–xvi, 1, 18, 49, 52, 56,

204, 205 Rephidim, 13

57, 59–61, 72, 73, 114, 118, 121–23, 125, 132, 133, 135, 136,

261

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

148–50, 152, 159, 163, 168, 171,

society, 6, 10, 24, 61, 184, 188

178, 179, 180, 183–86, 191, 193,

Socrates, 2, 23, 26, 28, 30, 219

196, 197, 199, 200, 203, 206, 208,

son of God, 74, 85, 101, 215

209, 211, 212, 215, 216, 218–22,

Sophia, 44, 46, 79, 107

224

soteriology, 87

scientific naturalism, 122, 125

soul, x, 6, 7, 12–14, 15n60, 17, 18, 20,

Scotus, John, 114

21, 24–31, 33–41, 43, 45, 48, 49,

second law of thermodynamics,

51–54, 58–60, 62–65, 68–72, 82,

150, 155 seed, 22, 29, 30, 36, 38, 43, 46, 48, 49,

83, 86, 90, 91, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 102, 109–11, 113–15, 119, 122–24,

51–53, 65, 76, 82, 101, 102, 106,

127–32, 160, 161, 167, 173, 179,

109, 110, 119, 131, 217

189, 202, 203, 213–18, 220, 225

self–organizing systems, 148

space, 4, 7, 25, 27, 42, 50, 67, 96, 127,

sense perception, x, 21, 22, 27–31, 37, 177, 180 senses, xi, 16, 26, 35, 37, 38, 52, 58,

131, 136, 138, 141, 142, 149, 175, 176, 193, 198, 201, 202, 205 Spain, 104, 123, 215

59, 61, 66, 68–70, 72, 99, 113, 114,

special theory of relativity, 137, 138

116, 154, 165, 168, 174, 178, 181,

species, xi, 33, 109, 144, 145, 155,

188, 210, 216–18, 222 separate, 4, 7, 19, 22, 41, 43, 58, 113, 114, 149, 156, 201 seven, viii, 57, 58, 63, 70, 124, 167, 176, 177

157, 169, 197, 203n111, 214, 220 speed, 31, 32n174, 138, 139, 151, 154, 201, 218 Speiser, E. A., xi, 240 sphere, viii, 14n57, 23, 24, 31, 32, 35,

Sheol, 13

38, 39, 44, 45, 51, 109, 137, 213,

shine, 32n174, 45, 59, 63, 69, 118

214

Shoemaker, W. R., xiin16, 240

Spidlik, Thomas, 240

signs, 10, 18, 147

spirit, vii, ix–xvi, 6, 11, 12, 16, 29,

Simplicius, 18, 19n73, 20n83

30, 36, 37, 42, 43, 44–46, 48, 49,

sin, 12, 78, 95n107, 96, 98, 99, 116,

51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61–63, 65,

197, 203

66, 69, 72, 76, 78, 80–83, 85n59,

singing, 63, 64, 217

86–97, 100–102, 108–13, 116–20,

sky, viii, 3, 7–9, 18, 197, 212, 216,

122–24, 126–29, 131–33, 135, 137,

220 sleep, 9, 13, 45–47, 170, 175

262

149, 159–62, 167, 170, 171–73,

INDEX

180, 183, 193, 194, 196, 198–210, 214–18, 220, 221, 223, 225

symbol, 4, 9, 46, 56, 58, 70, 93, 94, 100, 157, 192, 208, 209

spirit realm, 76

synapse, 163, 164, 166, 169–71

spiritual realm, vii, x, xi, 6, 43, 44,

synchronicity, 169, 192, 224

46, 48, 49, 53, 54, 63, 72, 97, 110,

Syria, 39, 43, 68

113, 122, 214, 217

system, xiv, xv, 3, 21, 23, 33, 37,

steady state, 153, 154, 156

43n223, 78, 94, 123, 128, 129,

Stengers, Isabelle, xvn21, 143n36,

135, 143, 148–60, 162, 164,

156n100, 190n34, 239 Stoics, xiii, 2, 17, 26, 36–38, 52, 54, 64, 76, 97, 122, 133, 213, 220

166–69, 179–81, 183, 184, 186–200, 204–10, 219, 220, 222, 224

String theory, 135 Stumpf, Samuel, 126n14

Tartarus, 3–5

substance, 4, 6–8, 16, 18–20, 22, 24,

Tasker, R. V. G., xii, 241

26, 31n170, 32n174, 33, 34, 40, 80–83, 85, 87–89, 96, 98, 105, 107,

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, xvi, 168, 183, 200, 204, 205, 208, 209

109, 119, 126, 129–31, 138, 149,

teleology, 35

153, 158, 201

temple, 7n27, 9, 10, 18

subsystem, 153, 196, 200, 210 suchness, 176, 177 suffering, 14, 15, 47, 67, 104, 188, 197, 198, 219

Tertullian, 75, 78–81, 91, 99n149, 215 Thales, 17, 18, 50, 61 Thomson, William, 132, 137, 218

Summa Contra Gentiles, 104, 109

Thoth, 57

Summa Theologiae, 104, 106, 107,

three–story universe, viii, xiii, 2, 3,

111, 113 sun, 2, 3, 7, 12, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23,

8, 12, 16, 17, 27, 40, 51, 52, 64, 197, 212

31–33, 35, 44, 67, 69–71, 76, 80,

Timaeus, 27, 28, 30, 39, 40, 48

85, 91, 124, 146, 153, 179, 213

time, vii, x, xi, 2, 4–7, 9, 11, 12,

supernatural, x, xi, xiv–xiv, 48, 103,

14–17, 20n83, 23, 27, 29, 37, 38,

110, 115, 116, 119, 121, 125, 126,

39, 41, 42, 44, 47, 49, 51, 52, 56,

131, 133, 180, 207, 215

58, 62, 63, 67, 80n33, 83, 85, 86,

supernatural theism, 103, 115, 121, 133, 215

95, 96, 104, 108, 115, 119, 123, 129, 131, 138, 140, 142, 144–46, 149–51, 155, 156, 158–60, 163,

263

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

166–68, 172–80, 191, 193, 201,

undefined, 19, 23, 50

202, 205, 210–12, 214, 217, 222,

underworld, viii, 3, 7–9, 12–14, 67

223

union, 4, 58, 66, 69, 71, 76, 85, 91, 93,

Titans, 5, 14 top–down causation, 157, 169, 193, 195, 197, 199 transcend, vii–ix, xiii–xvi, 6, 27, 31,

94, 99, 100, 112, 116, 124, 127 unity, 23, 66, 68, 81n40, 87, 90, 108, 110, 113, 163, 205 universe, viii, xiii, 2, 3, 8, 12, 16, 17,

37, 39, 40, 49, 64–66, 72, 75–77,

19, 23, 25–30, 32, 34, 40, 43, 44,

96–98, 105, 110, 113, 115, 133,

50, 51, 52, 64, 69, 93, 115, 117,

148, 151, 152, 159, 160, 169, 171,

123, 141, 142, 144, 148, 181, 186,

173, 175, 179, 180, 187, 188, 189,

187, 197, 200, 204, 205, 206, 212,

195, 197, 202, 205, 207–11, 213,

219

216, 220, 221, 224, 225 transcendence, xv, xvi, 31, 75, 77, 159, 169, 171, 173, 175, 179, 180, 187–89, 202, 205, 208–11, 216,

unmovable God, 75 unmoved Mover, ix, 32, 35, 38, 40, 48, 51, 83, 213 unstable period, 6, 151

221 transcendent, viii, ix, xiv, 6, 27, 37,

vacuum, 140

39, 40, 49, 64, 75, 76, 96, 97, 105,

values, 15, 53, 110, 188

110, 115, 180, 197, 205, 213, 216,

vegetarianism, 63

220, 221, 225

velocity, 129, 137, 151, 218

transformation, 12, 33, 60, 66, 69,

Vesalius, Andreas, 161

91–94, 108, 137, 146, 155, 163,

vibration, 30, 35, 137, 161, 184

171, 176, 178, 222, 225

virgin, 77, 79, 80n33, 85, 98, 100

triangle, 28, 42 trinity, 75, 78, 80, 87, 89, 91–96, 100, 102, 106–9 truth, 10, 46, 48, 53, 56, 60, 82, 95,

virtue, 10, 78, 86, 94, 95, 99, 110–13, 119 vision, 4, 27, 41, 42, 59, 67, 70, 117, 150, 165, 185

97, 98, 104, 105, 110, 114, 124,

void, 25, 42, 140, 148, 176, 196

185

voluntarism, 114

Turnbull, H. W., 128n28, 129n29, 241

Ward, Keith, 72, 241 water, 3, 7, 8, 11, 16, 18, 21, 23, 28,

unconscious, 192, 198

264

29, 31, 32, 42, 50, 51, 57, 80, 92,

INDEX

94, 108, 109, 124, 152, 191, 197,

world egg, 51

212, 220, 231

worship, 3, 10, 66, 67, 91, 193, 194,

wave, xv, 6, 66, 136–39, 141, 148,

196, 198

152, 158, 167, 168, 170, 175, 184, 190, 201, 206, 207, 210, 221, 224

Xenophanes, 19, 20, 32, 51, 227

Weinrich, Michael, 116, 221, 243 Weisheipl, James, 104, 110, 111, 242

Yahweh, xii, 13, 15

Welker, Michael, 116, 148, 149, 221,

Yaldabaoth, 44, 45

242, 243 Wendel, Francois, 116, 242

Zachman, Randle, 116, 117, 220, 243

Westermann, Claus, xi, 242

Zeller, Eduard, 19, 22, 24, 36, 39, 65,

Whitehead, Alfred North, xvi, 183–85, 197, 242

66, 243 Zeno of Citium, 4, 36

William of Ockham, 114

zero point field, 141, 204

Willis, Thomas, 161

Zeus, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 29, 39, 50,

wind, xi, 8 wisdom, 4, 10, 15, 16, 21, 39, 44, 46,

77 Zimmerman, John, 60

48, 49, 54, 57, 58, 70, 78, 79, 86,

zodiac, 18

91–93, 97, 100, 107, 112, 113, 118,

Zohar, 70, 71, 236, 243

119, 126, 171, 176, 178, 197, 202,

Zoroastrianism, 10, 42, 43, 62, 64,

209, 217, 220, 223, 243

126

witch, 125, 126

Zurvan, 62

women, 10, 11, 24, 124, 127, 228, 237

Zwingli, Ulrich, 115

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Light of the World— Corey

Cosmology and theology share a long-held relationship with one another, explaining as they do the constitution of the world and the interaction of forces. In this work, author Judith L. Corey explores the history of this relationship, from ancient prescientific and theological explanations through contemporary science and philosophy. A particular problem is highlighted in this history: the prevalence of dualism— from Aristotelian philosophy to modern mechanistic conceptions. Many of these accounts presume a sharp, absolute dichotomy between matter and spirit, the material world and the divine. Increasingly, dualistic conceptions are called into question by contemporary science, theology, and philosophy. Corey argues that a particular trajectory stemming from Greek Heraclitean and Platonic philosophy to nonorthodox and early Christian theologies provides a fruitful resource for contemporary discussions. This is the Logos theology and its attendant language of light. The author brings this tradition into dialogue with contemporary science and theology to construct an integrative account. 

“Judith L. Corey’s Light from Light makes a substantial, even revolutionary, contribution to our understanding of the relationship between natural philosophy and theology from antiquity to the present. The real story, per Corey, is not the opposition of religious and scientific world views but the contrast between mechanistic and dynamic understandings of matter in both scientific and religious traditions. In their treatment of matter, Corey argues, the strengths and limitations of competing cosmologies are revealed. As mechanistic and dualistic worldviews reveal their shortcomings, Corey provides an expert overview of an alternative tradition that finds the potential for creation and transcendence in the very matter of which we and the world are made.”

Cosmology and the Theology of the Logos

Light from Light

Praise for Light from Light

Light from Light

Scott Wells | California State University, Los Angeles

Judith L. Corey earned a PhD from Claremont School of Theology. She teaches in the history department at California State University, Los Angeles. This volume is based on a dissertation completed at Claremont under the supervision of Gregory J. Riley.

Judith L. Corey

Religion / Constructive Theology

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