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Progressive Christology


FredP

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Aletheia:

I don't know what I'm trying to say.  I really appreciate Matt Fox's Cosmic Christ and the idea that we too can become Christs but I don't know that that is what the early Christians meant by "Christ".

des: As for Matt Fox's comments about Cosmic Christ:

Does he really say this? (that we can become Christs) I think potential (we all have the innermost potential to be) vs what we actually are is pretty different. So I don't actually think we can.

cunninglily: To me, the whole Christian message breaks down if we CANNOT become Christs, or Anointed Ones. There would be no movement, no development, no evolution of the Christian *experience* without it. "Christ in you the hope of glory" would be meaningless. Jesus would go from "the firstborn among many brethren" to "the only begotten Son of God" and I could go back to the Baptist Church on Sundays, "once saved, always saved" and await heaven when I die and do my best to be "good" in the meantime.

Good thread!

 

I likewise really like Fox's treatment of the Cosmic Christ idea. What I get out of Fox is that the Truth is more, not less, than the literalizations of it. Knowing that Fox is well acquainted with mysticism East and West (Eckhart in particular), the idea that we are to become Christs is not at all foreign to where he's coming from. (This teaching is explicit in Eastern theology, if only implicit in the West.) Lily also points to many of the Pauline texts that can certainly be read this way, though it never occured to me to do so when I myself was a Baptist. Now, I find it hard to read them any other way.

 

What I am trying to stress in what I say is the absolute crucial role HUMANITY plays in the revelations of God. It is primarily THROUGH human beings that God is revealed, exemplified through the humanity of Jesus in the Christian tradition. This is not to suggest that God does not reveal Himself through ALL of creation, but that humanity plays a unique role in the unfolding of the plans and purposes of God, and that God may indeed be hindered, for lack of a better word, from expressing His Will to the extent that we remain unaware of Who and What we are.

 

This accords with an understanding that our purpose is NOT to leave this "fallen", "sinful" world, but that we are exactly where AND what we are to mediate the purposes of God, and that we did not *come into* this world so much as we *came out of* this world; we are One with it, and to the extent that we are changed (transformed) so too the entire world is changed. And I believe that this change or transformation comes through the *vehicle* of the *Christ* , which I also believe is universally accessible and not solely dependent upon the Christian tradition, although, granted, it may not be called or named the "Christ" in other traditions. In other words, there is a Truth that is not boxed in by what we may or may not *name* it, and that it was this Truth that Jesus shows the way to.

 

It is difficult for Christians to imagine that they hold such a powerful place in the unfolding of Gods Will. The emphasis on *sinful*, *fallen* humanity, completely dependent upon the sacrifice of one man, the man Jesus, to carry the whole burden of Gods plan, is too much with us. At the very least we should realize that Jesus Christ paid the burden of sin in full, which frees us to act in intimate relationship with God without condemnation, which is an incredible realization right there, and still brings us to the point I am trying to make: we too are called sons of God. This leads to an understanding that *Christ* is the Anointing of the fully realized Sons and not the title given to one man alone.

 

lily

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Fred - Good stuff on Jesus being the way.  So where you diverge from the Jesus Seminar is in believing that Jesus became God when he died on the cross?  Is that what you mean by "laying aside his human nature"?  And are you saying that experience is/was unique to Jesus?

I mean the JS seems to be on a mission to refocus Christianity on the human life of Jesus, and relegate theological statements about the risen Christ to the realm of antiquated philosophizing. (Borg at least entertains the post-Easter Jesus, but read Funk's Honest To Jesus to get a sense of what I mean.) I want to say with historic catholic (small C) Christianity that Jesus on the cross is the definitive (for Christians) divine self-disclosure. That laying aside isn't logically unique to Jesus -- and (with Lily) I would also emphasize that this destiny awaits us all in Eternity -- but he certainly stands as one of a really small group of forerunners. But again, I'm suggesting that his importance shouldn't be seen so much in his personality, but in his laying aside of it.

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  I want to say with historic catholic (small C) Christianity that Jesus on the cross is the definitive (for Christians) divine self-disclosure.  That laying aside isn't logically unique to Jesus -- and (with Lily) I would also emphasize that this destiny awaits us all in Eternity -- but he certainly stands as one of a really small group of forerunners.  But again, I'm suggesting that his importance shouldn't be seen so much in his personality, but in his laying aside of it.

 

 

I agree. But to say that this destiny awaits us all "in Eternity" is NOT to say, to my mind, that this destiny awaits us in some other place or time. Eternal life is NOW. As soon as you can say with Paul that "it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me" you enter Eternal life.

 

This is the doctrine of "dying before you die", of "laying down your life", of "whoever attempts to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it."

 

We know that we all die. Our bodies rot and our personalities fade away. So what life do we find in laying down our lives or in dying before we die if not Eternal life? In other words we begin to live not as mere flesh and blood, which returns to dust, but as eternal spirits, incarnated in flesh and blood...which is arguably what we already are.

 

lily

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I agree. But to say that this destiny awaits us all "in Eternity" is NOT to say, to my mind, that this destiny awaits us in some other place or time. Eternal life is NOW. As soon as you can say with Paul that "it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me" you enter Eternal life.

I continue to use the notion of Eternal Life and Eternity, to emphasize that we're not talking about any conventional notion of time -- that is, neither the fantasy of some future far-off never-ending time, nor the simple, mundane present. Eternal Life IS now, just as it has always been, and always will be; and yet in a deeper sense Eternal Life radically negates all time, and isn't captured by any of them. It's much like -- in fact, it is precisely -- the distinction between pantheism and panentheism (which is being quite adequately covered on two other boards, so I don't have to add to it here!).

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Eternal Life is the timelessness from which time derives its meaning. :)

I feel a "Meister Eckhart spell" coming on:

 

"...there are more days than one. There is the soul's day and God's day. A day whether six or seven years ago, or more than six thousand years ago is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in the present Now-moment. Time comes of the revolution of the heavens and day began with the first revolution. The soul's day falls within this time and consists of the natural light in which things are seen. God's day however is the complete day, comprising both the day and night. It is the real Now-moment, which for the soul is eternity's day."

 

"The soul's day and God's day are different. In her natural day the soul knows all things above time and place; nothing is far or near. And that is why I say, this day all things are of equal rank. To talk about the world as being made by God tomorow, yesterday, would be talking nonsense. God makes the world and all things in the present now. Time gone a thousand years ago is now as present and near to God as this very instant. The soul who is in this present now, in her Father bears his once-begotten Son and in that same birth the soul is born back into God. It is one birth; as fast as she is reborn into God the Father is begetting his only Son in her."

 

Interesting thoughts not only on Kairos vs. Kronos but as re terms such as the Son, etc. Have a good one, Earl

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Ok, Lily I'm with you there. I just think that the term "to be Christs" is rather grandeous or something. To follow Christ, now that is more doable (though still difficult). And yes, I believe we are called on to have the same relationship. We may miss it, we prob. will miss it. But if we don't act it is a meaningless sort of belief, imo.

 

It certainly is a challenge to put these things into words!

 

--des

 

Yes. It is a tremendous challenge to put these things in words, but its not necessary to talk in specialized language to do it. Much can be said for speaking from the heart.

 

If you are coming from the position that Jesus, the man, is God Incarnate; that Jesus is God Himself and that God become Man is a once in all eternity event, then yes, it does seem grandiose to think in terms of mere man being filled or anointed (or Christ-ed) with the power and glory of God. But, if you can assume the position that Jesus was in all ways human, whatever else he may have been, then, it is possible to imagine that God demonstrated through the humanity of Jesus what He wishes to accomplish in and through ALL humanity, and through humanity, ALL creation.

 

It wasn't God that went to the cross. It was Jesus, the man, and all of humanity with him. Can you not imagine that Jesus KNEW that in going to the cross He would lose NOTHING that as a man he would not lose anyway? All flesh rots. All personality fades away and personal memory gets added to the Book of Life, and you, des, as you know yourself in your particulars, will cease to be. Your spirit, however, will live forever. True freedom in God comes from dying before you die; laying down *your* life that does not endure, for Life that endures forever. This is what Jesus the man knew beyond a shadow of doubt, and only Love gives this assurance...and that is this: That who and what you truly are never dies.

 

The Anointing, or Christ in you, will not make you more than human but more fully human; we were made to be filled with the Love and Power of God, to be transparent vessels of Gods Good Pleasure, to mediate the One Will to all creation, to be Christs, or Anointed sons of God.

 

The burden is light. What wears us out is grasping and clinging and holding on to *our* lives under the illusion of separation; ruled by the fear of death, more afraid of "what the neighbors think" than any of us care to admit, bewildered by lack of purpose and meaning, blinded by despair, craving what never satisfies and so on....when the Truth is not far from any of us.

 

It is my belief that in "laying down our lives" we make room for an in-filling or in-dwelling or incarnating of God, and that this is what is meant by "Christ in you". It is not glamorous or out of reach or reserved for only the few...it is a Reality that we are already in the midst of. We need only to be Aware of it.

 

lily

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I agree. But to say that this destiny awaits us all "in Eternity" is NOT to say, to my mind, that this destiny awaits us in some other place or time. Eternal life is NOW. As soon as you can say with Paul that "it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me" you enter Eternal life.

I continue to use the notion of Eternal Life and Eternity, to emphasize that we're not talking about any conventional notion of time -- that is, neither the fantasy of some future far-off never-ending time, nor the simple, mundane present. Eternal Life IS now, just as it has always been, and always will be; and yet in a deeper sense Eternal Life radically negates all time, and isn't captured by any of them. It's much like -- in fact, it is precisely -- the distinction between pantheism and panentheism (which is being quite adequately covered on two other boards, so I don't have to add to it here!).

 

Yes you DO have to cover it here!! :D 'Cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean (the difference between pantheism and panentheism), and... I'd like to. Please? :)

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Yes you DO have to cover it here!!  :D  'Cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean (the difference between pantheism and panentheism), and... I'd like to.  Please? :)

:)

 

Ok, in a word. Pantheism says that God and the Universe are materially equivalent: God is precisely, no more or less than, the Universe. Panentheism (according too all my popular sources, mainly Matthew Fox, Borg, Spong) says the Universe is in God, BUT that God infinitely transcends the Universe: God and the Universe are assymetric and non-equivalent. The Universe begins and ends (ontologically) in God.

 

I'm claiming the same about Time and Eternity. Time is IN Eternity (everywhere -- everywhen? -- you go, you're thoroughly engulfed in Eternity. But Eternity infinitely transcends Time: without Time, Eternity still exists. Time begins and ends in eternal timelesness.

 

It's hard to be precise about this, I mean, we're really approaching the boundary of language and concepts! But it's worthwhile, and fun to meditate upon.

 

That's my $.02.

 

Hope this helps!

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I won't comment on your panentheism "definition" other than to say that I like it, can grasp it and appreciate it.

 

I'm claiming the same about Time and Eternity. Time is IN Eternity (everywhere -- everywhen? -- you go, you're thoroughly engulfed in Eternity. But Eternity infinitely transcends Time: without Time, Eternity still exists. Time begins and ends in eternal timelesness.

 

That's awesome! In various places on the board I've mentioned that there's "no such thing as time". I've never adequately been able to put into words what I mean by that, but what you've said comes pretty damn close. :D

 

You're right, language doesn't do it justice, but from time to time I can grasp it intuitively quite well.

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Yes you DO have to cover it here!!  :D  'Cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean (the difference between pantheism and panentheism), and... I'd like to.  Please? :)

:)

 

Ok, in a word. Pantheism says that God and the Universe are materially equivalent: God is precisely, no more or less than, the Universe. Panentheism (according too all my popular sources, mainly Matthew Fox, Borg, Spong) says the Universe is in God, BUT that God infinitely transcends the Universe: God and the Universe are assymetric and non-equivalent. The Universe begins and ends (ontologically) in God.

 

I'm claiming the same about Time and Eternity. Time is IN Eternity (everywhere -- everywhen? -- you go, you're thoroughly engulfed in Eternity. But Eternity infinitely transcends Time: without Time, Eternity still exists. Time begins and ends in eternal timelesness.

 

It's hard to be precise about this, I mean, we're really approaching the boundary of language and concepts! But it's worthwhile, and fun to meditate upon.

 

That's my $.02.

 

Hope this helps!

 

<_< thinking....

 

I understand time as created. Every act, every event is a creation of time. I understand that time is included in eternity as I do that contingent existence is included in necessary existence. That is panentheism.

 

Pantheism, on the other hand, can only be necessary Being. It has no place for creativity and cannot include time.

 

So yeah. I think I understand. :D

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Yes you DO have to cover it here!!  :D  'Cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean (the difference between pantheism and panentheism), and... I'd like to.  Please? :)

:)

 

Ok, in a word. Pantheism says that God and the Universe are materially equivalent: God is precisely, no more or less than, the Universe. Panentheism (according too all my popular sources, mainly Matthew Fox, Borg, Spong) says the Universe is in God, BUT that God infinitely transcends the Universe: God and the Universe are assymetric and non-equivalent. The Universe begins and ends (ontologically) in God.

 

I'm claiming the same about Time and Eternity. Time is IN Eternity (everywhere -- everywhen? -- you go, you're thoroughly engulfed in Eternity. But Eternity infinitely transcends Time: without Time, Eternity still exists. Time begins and ends in eternal timelesness.

 

It's hard to be precise about this, I mean, we're really approaching the boundary of language and concepts! But it's worthwhile, and fun to meditate upon.

 

That's my $.02.

 

Hope this helps!

 

<_< thinking....

 

I understand time as created. Every act, every event is a creation of time. I understand that time is included in eternity as I do that contingent existence is included in necessary existence. That is panentheism.

 

Pantheism, on the other hand, can only be necessary Being. It has no place for creativity and cannot include time.

 

So yeah. I think I understand. :D

Dogen, the famous 13th century founder of Soto Zen in Japan, wrote of Time & Being being so interrelated he termed it "Being-Time." In a contemporary commentary re this by a Canadian zen teacher, Anzan Hoshin, he puts it this way:

 

"And so being-time is Being unfolding itself as beings. Time is the unfolding of Being as beings. Time is activity: the radiance of Knowing expressing itself as spaces which are active as forms, as beings, as knowns...Enter completely into this moment and you will enter not only That which contains all time and expresses itself as all times, all moments, but you will fall into That which has no time, no space, no dimension because it is That in which all dimensions, all space, all times arise."

 

Eckhart & Zen are in agreement re so many things including Time & Being it seems. Take care, Earl

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Pantheism, on the other hand, can only be necessary Being.  It has no place for creativity and cannot include time. 

This is a great point. The pantheistic view has got a really hard time making sense of the inifinte creative freedom of God: something I imagine most of us here want to continue to emphasize.

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Pantheism, on the other hand, can only be necessary Being.  It has no place for creativity and cannot include time. 

This is a great point. The pantheistic view has got a really hard time making sense of the inifinte creative freedom of God: something I imagine most of us here want to continue to emphasize.

 

It's not just pantheism but the Perennial Philosophy as well. The problem is well presented in Richard Nolan's article from which I include a section here (btw, the Perennial Philosophy does not have a monopoly on mystical religion. Mysticism fits perfectly well within panentheism which avoids the problem of the ONE in the Perennial Philosophy):

 

THE STATUS OF THE EVERYDAY WORLD

Creation is the Fall

 

That the natural world exists at all is an acute issue for mysticism; it has supplied a definition for what is “really real” and has given that reality certain characteristics: ultimate reality must be unlimited, unified, and transcendent. A central issue for perennial systems comes into focus when one compares these three qualities to the world of nature; in each case it is obvious that none of the qualities are present. Indeed, the natural world is the antithesis of real reality. But if this is true, why does the universe exist at all? What explanation does perennial philosophy offer to justify a second realm? It is fair to state that mysticism has no final solution to this problem. There is no necessity for a finite world based on the assumptions already made about the One; it appears contradictory to have a perfect unity existing simultaneously with an imperfect, multiple world. Perennial philosophy can only accept the human experience of the natural world and attempt to deal with its nature.

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Is it just me, or does the quote from "The Status of the World" seem to be interchangeing the words "mysticism" and "perennial" as if they are one and the same thing? Everytime the article uses the word "mysticism" it should have used the word "perennial".

 

As you rightly pointed out, Panta, one could be a classic perennialist AND be a mystic, but just because someone is a mystic doesn't mean they are a classic perennialist. Matthew Fox, for example, defines mysticism as necessarily panentheistic which would be a 180 from classic perennialism.

 

When I first came on this board I used the term perennial without having a complete definition of the word. To me it meant the "common truths" found in all religions, but I had no idea that it also represented an ontology (let alone a hiearchical ontology).

 

I appreciate that Ken Wilber, in his "Neo-Perennialism" keeps the meaning of the word (that I originally thought was the definition), but does away with the static hiearchical view that classic perennialism espoused. In fact, I think it might have been Ken Wilber's definition that I was first introduced to, which is part of what caused the confusion, because I didn't know there was any other one.

KW: That's true. Or more precisely, I try to look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of the perennial philosophy, whereas most postmodernists (including postmodern transpersonalists) merely trash it. The strengths of the great wisdom traditions are many, and include the fact that these were some of the great pioneers of higher states and stages of consciousness development, and as such they deserve an enormous amount of honor and respect. Also, to the extent that Spirit is timeless, or has a dimension that is timeless, these pioneers were the first to awaken to that eternal state, and this is an awesome accomplishment, to which the only correct response, it seems to me, is a deep and humble bow, something the strong postmodern ego would never contemplate.

The downsides are also many, however: the perennial philosophy was usually stated in forms that were static and fixed instead of dynamical processes; the psychological and cosmological hierarchies were often too rigid; evolution over geological and phylogenetic time was not understood; the archetypes were therefore stated as unchangeable forms rather than kosmic habits; the quadrants were not sufficiently understood; and so on. Criticisms of the perennial philosophy can be found in almost all my books (see, e.g., Integral Psychology , One Taste , the Introductions to CW volumes 1, 2, 4, 7, and 8, posted on this site). But what I have basically tried to do is take the timeless wisdom of the great premodern traditions and add the complementary truths of the modern and postmodern mind, to give us something resembling a more integral view embracing the truths of all of those great epochs, premodern and modern and postmodern.

 

Here is the Ken Wilber interview.

Edited by AletheiaRivers
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AlethiaRiver... you're like... awesome.

 

Of course I have to think that anyone who thinks like me is awesome, don't I? :D

 

I didn't know or didn't remember that you read Ken Wilber (and have read his views on Perennial Philosophy). I've been alone in my thinking so long that I've built up all these defenses and walls in my mind... and now I discover so many others that are moving in the same direction!! It's getting sort'a weird in the universe, I think!

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I know when I first came online here, I threw you by stating that I was a "Panentheistic Perennialist". Of course, I meant perennialist the way I defined it below, so I didn't know there was a conflict. LOL! :lol:

 

I haven't read much of Ken Wilber except online. I don't know what book to start with.

 

I know he has a view towards "Natural Mysticism" that has me a bit confused. He considers it to be down low on his, umm, what does he call it? It's a spirally thingy. :huh: I don't know if he and I define Natural (Nature) Mysticism the same way though.

 

For me, when I say Nature Mysticism, I mean that nothing connects me to the Divine more than nature: Not meditation, not liturgy, not prayer, not church.

 

I also mean nature mysticism in that when I look at, say, a dragonfly, I can see the Transcendant within it. I know that the Infinite is contained within that little tiny finite life form. As Thomas Merton said, God is all around us, but people just don't see it. I do see it and see it best through nature.

 

Does Ken Wilber consider Natural Mysticism too Kataphatic I wonder?

 

It's getting sort'a weird in the universe, I think!

 

Getting weird? :blink::P

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I haven't read much of Ken Wilber except online. I don't know what book to start with.

Wilber is great stuff. I always recommend starting with A Brief History of Everything, and then tell me what you liked about it, and I'll tell you where to go next. :)

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I haven't read much of Ken Wilber except online. I don't know what book to start with.

Wilber is great stuff. I always recommend starting with A Brief History of Everything, and then tell me what you liked about it, and I'll tell you where to go next. :)

 

I love "A Brief History of Everything" and admire Ken Wilbur a great deal.

Its so cool to be on a message board where the other members read what I read. I'm really enjoying the company here.

 

thanks, you guys

 

lily

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