| Ok. Biblically, we are individually (and corporately) a temples of God's Triune Presence as "living stones being built into a spiritual house", right? And this is because we have God's Holy Spirit within us. The believing "heart" is the temple of God because of the presence of God's Spirit within the human's "Holy of Holies" in the deepest element of said "heart". But this just makes sense. If there is no divine presence perceived in a place, how can it be considered "holy" and a true temple? You can see this concept in 1 Samuel 4 and Ezekiel 10 with the concept of God's glory "departing" one place and going to another, not only emotionally but spatially. Post Resurrection, we see that there is no such thing as God ACTUALLY departing anything in Creation. Jesus, via the Spirit, is the Lord of all that exists, and his lordship is not separate from his Presence.
So...here's my thing.
We believe that God's objective presence is literally everywhere that Creation has existed, is existing, or will ever exist BECAUSE God is at all points creating all created relationships. With this belief, the idea that any place is more or less filled with God's literal Presence is absolutely fallacious and all in our heads. In short, all of Creation is "God's Temple" because his presence is the sustaining presence of all created relationship. [And all reality, whether created or uncreated, IS relationship, right, Tom? ;) ] There is no place actually "holier" than another in the straight objective sense. Basically what I'm saying with all this is that, strictly speaking, it's nothing special that human beings are temples of God's Spirit. We are that ANYWAY...but just didn't know it, until Jesus directly showed us that God could perfectly indwell Creation.
So, what's really different between humans and the rest of Creation as far as "temple" status? As I see it, we are the "microcosms" and "mediators" who are the points of lived self-reference for Creation. We humans are the hypostatic "voice" of Creation that SELF-REFLECTIVELY relates itself to itself, and in doing so, relates to Another, Creation's Creator...and SELF-EXPRESS our understanding of that relationship. We, meaning the self-transcendent agency of the human/mind brain relationship, are the point at which the Creation becomes AWARE of itself as a "theophany" of God, constantly created by God's Spirit: a universal "burning bush" with the glory of God permeating throughout.
Now, where do the problems come in? The self-transcendent agency of the human/mind brain relationship is ALSO be the point at which individual self-referencing (the point of individuation and the sense of"I choose, therefore I am" ) can take place such that the individual human sees itself TRULY SEPERATE FROM (not simply uniquely distinct within) it's created context. A "It's me against the whole world" type of thinking that is grounded in a vortex of self-reflection and delusion of separation, isolation, and loneliness in world where that is ontologically impossible. It's a despairing failure of the relation to relate itself to itself in, through, and with it's Source. I'll give a perfect example. A friend a while back gave me a cool devotional type workbook called "The Universe and Me" and it had this picture of this drawn human reaching towards the sky or something. It was really a great read and all...but I thought about the title ."the Universe and me" like the "me" is somehow REALLY SEPARATE or SEPARABLE from the Universe! It's a non-deparaging form of "me over/against the world"!" It would be like a human cell self-referentially separating itself from its lived context saying "this human body and me." But maybe this is kinda what cancer does, no? Hmmmm...
Anyways...
The risk of creating created consciousness, as I see it, is that because of the possibility of "self-reference" at different levels, particularly at the brain/mind level, a self-transcendent agency of the mind/body relationship can "get trapped" in it's self-referentially created worlds from their embodied experiences. It's like an actor that's played a role so long that they don't know how to "get out of it." The true silent presence that exists as my self-trancendent agency...my "chooser"... can have it's self-referential powers without falling into the illusion of self-sufficiency, independence, and "aloneness"; I can be an authentic human being without having to believe "I am Dwayne Polk". I now USE my name and my history for transcendent purposes, I no longer directly ASSOCIATE my very core self with my name or family history.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/21/2009 8:46:46 AM (GMT-5) |