Alexandermen (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} alexandermen) wrote,@ 2007-11-24 08:27:00 |
|
II-21 Chaos and Logos
This is an excerpt from "On Christ and the Church"
the book of conversations in homes translated by
Fr Alexis Vinogradov. pp 89-96
The universe is formed and develops along two principles: the
universe evolves on the one hand according to the vision of God
and on the other hand it is constantly penetrated by the elements
which oppose this principle. I will formulate the notion with the
following short statement:Blind is the one who does not see the
harmony of the world,but equally blind is he who fails to see
the disharmony of the very same world. If the harmony of the
world proceeds from the highest vision of the Creator, if God
sees it in the creation of the world from a point outside of
time when he says that the world is extremely good(the Hebrew
expression "tov meyod" which is hard to translate)then there is
God's vision; but in the historical process there is still the
clash of the polarized forces,polarized within creation itself.
The fact that there are forces which contradict God's own idea
is a self-evident fact. These forces are always described in
the Bible symbolically through images, a pictorial language:
the raging sea as an image of chaos, the dragon who becomes
a personification of this sea, the snake which tempts Adam,
and so forth.
On the level of the physical world, let us refer to this
[force resisting creation] as chaos, as a current carrying
the world towards death, to a state of entropy. Thus the history
of creation, the genesis of the cosmos, becomes the history of
conflict,the conflict between Chaos and Logos, God's wisdom which
codifies his ideas of the world. Why do the dialectics of Heraclitus
the dialectics of Hegel, reveal opposition in the world? How did the
Zoroastrian religion already intuit the conflict of light and
darkness in the world? Because the world is bi-pl;ar: one pole
proceeds from the creative God while the other proceeds from the
degenerative force in creation. Here we may ask, what is the root of
the movement away from God, of this flight into nothingness?
To describe this in rational terms means to make sense of it but to
make sense of what is meaningless is impossible. It can only be
described conditionally. Only poetry, only the fruits of artistic
creativity, can provide for us a picture of this irrational drive
towards nothingness; for example , the portraits of evil painted
by Dostoevsky and Baudelaire show us that there is a tendency
towards eveil but that it is impossible to demonstrate this
logically.
The flight into darkness. A more interesting attempt to explain
this came from Berdiaev, who based his approach on the teaching
of Schelling and Jacob Boehme.
This viewpoint proposed the following:freedom as an absolute
potential,as an absolute possibility to go in any direction including
into the abyss of nonbeing, does not depend on God because it
exists as a reality not established by God. This is why, when God
establishes the world, this polarity remains and in some way
constantly poisons creation. But Berdiaev expresses himself through
mythology as does Schelling , he is clearly using a mythological
language. Jacob Boehme says that this "ungrund, this primitive
inexplicable indescribable abyss in which the divinity exists and from
which God comes forth as a personality,contains a certain mixture
of evil and good. This is an intuition, a vision, a poetic interpretation,
mythology, not something which can be rationally described.
The fact remains that in God's creation there are conflicting primordial
powers as creative as the rest,but opposed to God and for some reason
permitted by God. We can of course guess why, Creation is one entire
whole, and in order to repel this anti-divine vector,this impulse
towards darkness, creation itself must remain free. But essentially
creation per se does not contain freedom. Only the one who personalizes
creation is free,and this one is man. But man appears after the conflict
between chaos and the logos,after the birth of organizing structures,
of the basic laws of elementary particles, at the formation of life
which disintegrates but which relays its baton along to its
descendants. At the creation of man, life already transmits its
information further without a genetic code, simply transmits it.
I very much like the words of the German poet Novalis: "Man is the
Messiah of nature." Man is introduced into nature, man's spirit is
joined with flesh in order to carry within each of his cells the
sea of all living things and plants. We are after all a microcosm;
we carry everything inside us; all creatures live within us and
we are called to participate in the battle between Chaos and the Logos,
into illumination. But man failed to accomplish this mission; and here
God begins to act himself,through man. Not only the Divine "Information",
not only the creative Logos, but the Logos who becomes incarnate in man,
begins to act in the world.
"In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the
Logos became flesh"--this is what we read in John's Gospel. "Became Flesh"--
what does this mean? Became a man. In Biblical language the word "flesh"
means man. In a way the evoluttion of the world, if we can put it this
way, is stimulated constantly by God; and in a particular way he
stimulates it to the creatio of the spiritual creature, man. And finally,
when He himself enters the process of the world, assumes the evil of
the world as his Cross,he pushes the world further along towards the
Kingdom of God. Christ takes upon himself the suffering of the world. For
the first time God involves himself in this battle, but he does so according
to a divine principle. This divine principle is:constant humiliation, a kind
of diminution of the divine power before the face of creation, to give it
the freedom of manifesting itself, the freedom to become what it is.
And man enters a world in wich he is forced to do battle, to fight with
temptations and with the surrounding nature in which evil rules.
...
He was not a priest (take note,as one writer pointed out, that the only
true priest was never actually a priest)He was not someone in authority,
He belonged to no specific category and his royal lineage was strictly
symbolic. He didn't study in any special academies, he lived as any
average person, he sank to the very pit of life, he was spat upon by
the crowd, he was judged by a civil religious court and finally, he was
judged by a civil religious court and finally, he was condemned as a
blasphemer and a rebel--He took upon himslef all the sufferings of the
world. He made himself a participant in these sufferings.
In this way two worlds became united, the divine world and the world
of suffering humanity and creation. God reclaimed the world; and carrying
the cross, Christ in a certain sense continues to bear in himslef all the
ensuing development of mankind. He ascended, and this means that he
permeated all aspects of the universe. We repeat these very important
words in the Creed, "and sits at the right hand of the Father. This clause
means that Christ is there where God is,and God is everywhere.
In this way the God-man becomes the flesh of the world; and the flesh
of the world, the universe,becomes the flesh of the God-man. He sanctifies
all things. You see, the man Jesus who walks in the desert is not an
isolated phantom in the cosmos but a being who is part of the biosphere,
of the noosphere,part of nature, Connected with it, he eats, he drinks. At
the same time,inasmuch as he is united with the oneness of the universe,
through him the Divine becomes involved in its creation. For this reason
the redemption becomes an act, a mystery which furthers the act of
creation. There is nothing here of the notion of medieval satisfaction,
of a juridical trade,substitution,game or process. There is no legal
process, but there is a process of the healing of mankind which is
linked with the larger vision of creation.
If God heals matter, placing within ti the forces of progression, if he
heals that which is dead giving it the impulse towards life,if he heals the
dying life,placing within it man who carries such spiritual and immortal
information--finally he redeems the history of the world and of man by
entering into it Himself. This indeed is the mystery of redemption of
the human race and of the whole world for the Apostle Paul gives these
wonderful words: that the whole creation groans until now and suffers,
waiting for the revelation of the sons of God, that is all of nature
finds itself in such a sickly state of imperfection and incompleteness,
groaning and anticipating this day. Although Christ appeared for mankind,
since he was incarnate in this world, sooner or later His redemption will
permeate the whole universe. This is confirmed by the words of Holy
Scripture: John the visionary saw not only the new man reborn and
resurrected,reclaimed according to God's plan--but he saw a new Heaven
and a new Earth, for the old had passed away. Here is the whole meaning;
here in a few words, is the meaning of the Redemption, but again these
are all words and symbols so inadaquate to convey the reality with
clarity.
This is an excerpt from "On Christ and the Church"
the book of conversations in homes translated by
Fr Alexis Vinogradov. pp 89-96
The universe is formed and develops along two principles: the
universe evolves on the one hand according to the vision of God
and on the other hand it is constantly penetrated by the elements
which oppose this principle. I will formulate the notion with the
following short statement:Blind is the one who does not see the
harmony of the world,but equally blind is he who fails to see
the disharmony of the very same world. If the harmony of the
world proceeds from the highest vision of the Creator, if God
sees it in the creation of the world from a point outside of
time when he says that the world is extremely good(the Hebrew
expression "tov meyod" which is hard to translate)then there is
God's vision; but in the historical process there is still the
clash of the polarized forces,polarized within creation itself.
The fact that there are forces which contradict God's own idea
is a self-evident fact. These forces are always described in
the Bible symbolically through images, a pictorial language:
the raging sea as an image of chaos, the dragon who becomes
a personification of this sea, the snake which tempts Adam,
and so forth.
On the level of the physical world, let us refer to this
[force resisting creation] as chaos, as a current carrying
the world towards death, to a state of entropy. Thus the history
of creation, the genesis of the cosmos, becomes the history of
conflict,the conflict between Chaos and Logos, God's wisdom which
codifies his ideas of the world. Why do the dialectics of Heraclitus
the dialectics of Hegel, reveal opposition in the world? How did the
Zoroastrian religion already intuit the conflict of light and
darkness in the world? Because the world is bi-pl;ar: one pole
proceeds from the creative God while the other proceeds from the
degenerative force in creation. Here we may ask, what is the root of
the movement away from God, of this flight into nothingness?
To describe this in rational terms means to make sense of it but to
make sense of what is meaningless is impossible. It can only be
described conditionally. Only poetry, only the fruits of artistic
creativity, can provide for us a picture of this irrational drive
towards nothingness; for example , the portraits of evil painted
by Dostoevsky and Baudelaire show us that there is a tendency
towards eveil but that it is impossible to demonstrate this
logically.
The flight into darkness. A more interesting attempt to explain
this came from Berdiaev, who based his approach on the teaching
of Schelling and Jacob Boehme.
This viewpoint proposed the following:freedom as an absolute
potential,as an absolute possibility to go in any direction including
into the abyss of nonbeing, does not depend on God because it
exists as a reality not established by God. This is why, when God
establishes the world, this polarity remains and in some way
constantly poisons creation. But Berdiaev expresses himself through
mythology as does Schelling , he is clearly using a mythological
language. Jacob Boehme says that this "ungrund, this primitive
inexplicable indescribable abyss in which the divinity exists and from
which God comes forth as a personality,contains a certain mixture
of evil and good. This is an intuition, a vision, a poetic interpretation,
mythology, not something which can be rationally described.
The fact remains that in God's creation there are conflicting primordial
powers as creative as the rest,but opposed to God and for some reason
permitted by God. We can of course guess why, Creation is one entire
whole, and in order to repel this anti-divine vector,this impulse
towards darkness, creation itself must remain free. But essentially
creation per se does not contain freedom. Only the one who personalizes
creation is free,and this one is man. But man appears after the conflict
between chaos and the logos,after the birth of organizing structures,
of the basic laws of elementary particles, at the formation of life
which disintegrates but which relays its baton along to its
descendants. At the creation of man, life already transmits its
information further without a genetic code, simply transmits it.
I very much like the words of the German poet Novalis: "Man is the
Messiah of nature." Man is introduced into nature, man's spirit is
joined with flesh in order to carry within each of his cells the
sea of all living things and plants. We are after all a microcosm;
we carry everything inside us; all creatures live within us and
we are called to participate in the battle between Chaos and the Logos,
into illumination. But man failed to accomplish this mission; and here
God begins to act himself,through man. Not only the Divine "Information",
not only the creative Logos, but the Logos who becomes incarnate in man,
begins to act in the world.
"In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the
Logos became flesh"--this is what we read in John's Gospel. "Became Flesh"--
what does this mean? Became a man. In Biblical language the word "flesh"
means man. In a way the evoluttion of the world, if we can put it this
way, is stimulated constantly by God; and in a particular way he
stimulates it to the creatio of the spiritual creature, man. And finally,
when He himself enters the process of the world, assumes the evil of
the world as his Cross,he pushes the world further along towards the
Kingdom of God. Christ takes upon himself the suffering of the world. For
the first time God involves himself in this battle, but he does so according
to a divine principle. This divine principle is:constant humiliation, a kind
of diminution of the divine power before the face of creation, to give it
the freedom of manifesting itself, the freedom to become what it is.
And man enters a world in wich he is forced to do battle, to fight with
temptations and with the surrounding nature in which evil rules.
...
He was not a priest (take note,as one writer pointed out, that the only
true priest was never actually a priest)He was not someone in authority,
He belonged to no specific category and his royal lineage was strictly
symbolic. He didn't study in any special academies, he lived as any
average person, he sank to the very pit of life, he was spat upon by
the crowd, he was judged by a civil religious court and finally, he was
judged by a civil religious court and finally, he was condemned as a
blasphemer and a rebel--He took upon himslef all the sufferings of the
world. He made himself a participant in these sufferings.
In this way two worlds became united, the divine world and the world
of suffering humanity and creation. God reclaimed the world; and carrying
the cross, Christ in a certain sense continues to bear in himslef all the
ensuing development of mankind. He ascended, and this means that he
permeated all aspects of the universe. We repeat these very important
words in the Creed, "and sits at the right hand of the Father. This clause
means that Christ is there where God is,and God is everywhere.
In this way the God-man becomes the flesh of the world; and the flesh
of the world, the universe,becomes the flesh of the God-man. He sanctifies
all things. You see, the man Jesus who walks in the desert is not an
isolated phantom in the cosmos but a being who is part of the biosphere,
of the noosphere,part of nature, Connected with it, he eats, he drinks. At
the same time,inasmuch as he is united with the oneness of the universe,
through him the Divine becomes involved in its creation. For this reason
the redemption becomes an act, a mystery which furthers the act of
creation. There is nothing here of the notion of medieval satisfaction,
of a juridical trade,substitution,game or process. There is no legal
process, but there is a process of the healing of mankind which is
linked with the larger vision of creation.
If God heals matter, placing within ti the forces of progression, if he
heals that which is dead giving it the impulse towards life,if he heals the
dying life,placing within it man who carries such spiritual and immortal
information--finally he redeems the history of the world and of man by
entering into it Himself. This indeed is the mystery of redemption of
the human race and of the whole world for the Apostle Paul gives these
wonderful words: that the whole creation groans until now and suffers,
waiting for the revelation of the sons of God, that is all of nature
finds itself in such a sickly state of imperfection and incompleteness,
groaning and anticipating this day. Although Christ appeared for mankind,
since he was incarnate in this world, sooner or later His redemption will
permeate the whole universe. This is confirmed by the words of Holy
Scripture: John the visionary saw not only the new man reborn and
resurrected,reclaimed according to God's plan--but he saw a new Heaven
and a new Earth, for the old had passed away. Here is the whole meaning;
here in a few words, is the meaning of the Redemption, but again these
are all words and symbols so inadaquate to convey the reality with
clarity.
