The Divine Universe

The reason I have called this blog The Divine Universe is that I believe that matter, the physical world, is sacred. This is clearly implied in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, invented in the 3rd century by Tertullian and adopted as a universal dogma by the Council of Nicea in 325. Tertullian referred to three ‘persona’ of God: God in his essential and primordial being – the “Father”, God incarnate, embodied in the physical world – the “Son”, and God as the ubiquitous field of psychic energy, giving life and mind to the universe, the persuasive voice of God, leading everything towards ultimate perfection – the “Holy Spirit”.

Jesus is often spoken of as God incarnate but the incarnation of God is infinitely more than that. St Paul, in his Letter to the Colossians, declares that, in Christ, “All things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible . . . . All things have been created in him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” St John, in the prologue to his Gospel, refers to Jesus as the Word (Logos) of God. He wrote: “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.” In his address to the crowd in the Aereopagus Paul said that the “unknown God” (his God) was the One “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Today we would call Paul a panentheist, one who believes that everything is in God.

The Nicene Creed refers to the Son as being “begotten by the Father before all worlds.” God did not manufacture the world that is his incarnate body; he gave birth to it. And creation (we should say procreation) did not end after six days’ labour several thousand years ago; it goes on still. God gives birth to everything, continuously until the end of time.

St Augustine taught that God created the world from nothing, ‘ex nihilo’. We cannot conceive of nothingness as a region in which even God is excluded. Nothing means nothing-except-God. This means that, in giving birth to the world, God had no raw material except himself. The world is not only in God; as Paul said, it is also of God.

All this contributes to my belief in the sacredness of the physical world of matter and energy, time and space. And I see this belief as being very powerfully expressed in the Eucharist. In declaring the basic elements of food and drink as being his body and blood, Jesus makes a powerful theological statement.

I don’t think his intention was to create a tightly focussed local presence through a kind of magical spell cast by authenticated magicians. I hope there is no such caricature in anyone’s mind. Though I may be wrong, I suggest that Jesus saw the food and drink at the last supper as a typical example and a universal symbol of all matter, especially that with which we have the most intimate relationship possible. Paul and John affirmed that Christ or the Word is in everything but this has a particularly powerful impact when we think of it as referring to what we eat and drink.

In the earliest account of the last supper (in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians), when Jesus gives the disciples the wine he says, “Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.” Rather than an instruction for a religious ritual, it sounds more like a general reference to drinking. If the words “as often as” apply to the bread as well, it implies that we should think of God incarnate in everything we eat and drink.

There are many occasions in the New Testament, including Jesus’ own quoted words, that suggest that Christ is present everywhere and in everything. This does not only apply to the world after Jesus’ birth. In John’s prologue, already quoted, he states that God was incarnate in the Word “in the beginning”. Paul goes further, saying Christ was “before all things”.

However, we must not underestimate the central significance of Christ’s incarnation in Jesus. Our relationship to the rest of creation is epitomised in the relationship of the people of his own time to Jesus. There were some who treated him with great reverence, a few who even recognised him as the Christ, the Son of God. But they were in a minority. The bulk of society were apathetic except insofar as he could be of benefit to themselves. The religious and political leaders even saw him as an enemy to be conquered.

These three responses reflect today’s attitude to the people and things around us – our environment. A few, regarded often as tiresome eccentrics, have a real reverence for humankind and nature. The majority are interested in people and things principally for their usefulness. A few see other people and nature as enemies to be conquered and controlled. Much scientific endeavour is channelled towards the conquest and exploitation of nature and natural resources. Much of business and politics is directed to the same aim with regard to people. It is not too much to say that, at times, huge numbers of people are, metaphorically speaking, crucified in the interests of expedience or ideological fervour. The same can be said of nature. The ideology of growth and consumption is killing our natural environment.

Why do I talk about the sacredness of matter, whether living or inanimate when so many people don’t recognise the sacredness of anything? Even where the need for discretion is recognised in order to maximise the benefit, there is nothing that could be called a sense of reverence. Yet, everything has an inner reality, a quality and value simply by being, regardless of its usefulness. Many people recognise this innate worth in regard to human beings, but very few go beyond that. Worship means the recognition of worth. It doesn’t mean fearful and superstitious grovelling. That is not worship; it is idolatry. We need to worship the divine universe, to recognise its inherent worth, the glory of its simply being. Perhaps astronomers know best what I mean. Except for the Sun, the bodies in outer space have no conceivable usefulness. Yet, to the astronomer and cosmologist, they are a constant source of delight, wonder and inspiration. We must learn to worship, to recognise intrinsic worth, whether or not it includes anything