The Divine Universe

It is time to explain the title of this collection of articles. Why do I, a Christian, think of the universe as divine? Isn’t that pantheism? Christianity is not alone in believing that matter has a spiritual origin. The Jews believe it has its origin in God (Eloim). Many ancient traditions of indigenous peoples have a spiritual relationship with their land. But it is probably Christianity which affirms the most intimate relationship between matter and God. Archbishop Michael Ramsey described Christianity as the most materialistic of all religions.

To explain this we will have to take a quick jog round the Christian theological estate, noting briefly its beautifully designed and tended gardens, it’s weird fauna (we call them theologians), and areas were new work is in progress. Theology as a systematic academic discipline is a Christian invention, originating at the very beginning of the Christian era, and establishing its basic framework at an historical meeting of the leading Christian thinkers of the time in Nicea in the year 325 CE.

Sponsored by the newly converted Roman Emperor, Constantine, the focus of this conference was the hotly debated issue of the relationship between Jesus and God. The outcome was radical and uncompromising. It was declared that Jesus was “God of God, true God of true God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father”.

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 it was also established that Jesus had two natures, human and divine. This was not an entirely new concept. Though the idea of a God-man is foreign to Jewish thinking, it was familiar to gentiles of the Greco-Roman tradition. Roman emperors were treated as divine, and most of the Olympian gods had some earthly or human connection. Zeus, for example, was said to have been hidden by his mother, Rhea, in a cave in Crete when he was an infant.

But the Nicene fathers of Christian theology not only defined Jesus’ status, they presented a complete theoretical analysis of God. God was declared to be not just personal, but tri-personal, a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While the format of this analysis was arrived at through classical philosophical debate, its roots are in Jewish tradition as well. Although the God of Israel, YHWH, was active and powerful in human affairs, and often spoken of in anthropomorphic terms, he was worshipped as spirit, not as a physical being. Although most of the Trinity is defined in anthropomorphic terms, Father and Son, these are understood to be metaphorical. God is declared in the Catholic catechism to be “pure spirit, without parts or passions”. Christians do not really believe the Father is literally an old man somewhere in outer space, nor, as I shall now explain, do they regard the Son simply as a young man.

God incarnate, humanly manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, is the focus of Christian faith and the ideal of the faithful. But God is not fully incarnate simply in one human individual. The earliest of all Christian writings, the letters of Paul, provide a startling but fundamental basis for what is to be meant by the word Christ. Paul saw Christ, not just as an individual man, but also as the embodiment and medium of all physical existence. In a letter to the Colossians he wrote, “In him all things in heaven and on earth were created. . . He himself is before all things and in him all things hold together.” Later, in the prologue to his gospel, John called Christ the “logos” (translated “Word”) of God – God’s utterance. “In the beginning was the Word, and 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.”

Modern theologians now speak of the Cosmic Christ, God incarnate, embodied in the whole universe. Where John and Paul speak of “all things”, we would say the universe, or universes if there are many. By universe I mean the totality of physical existence – the cosmic Christ – “God of God”, conceived in the womb of God before time began and born as pure light (John, Genesis and Big Bang theory). In other words, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. But this in no way compromises the good news of God’s human self-manifestation in Jesus.

The Second Person of the Holy Trinity includes every thing, every energy field, every wave-particle, every molecule, every living creature, every star, every galaxy. But Christians affirm that God is not only that. There are three Persons. We can say, with Meister Eckhart, that “God is everything, but everything is not God.” – a clear rejection of pantheism.

Jesus said that no one has seen the Father at any time. All we can see is God the Son, yet we perceive, somehow, that there is a more ultimate Source and a deeper wisdom than the intelligence of design evident in nature as revealed by science. And there is a guiding and creative energy that is not directly detectable by scientific means. You can’t see it; you can’t measure it; you just feel it’s there. Somehow you know that what you can see or even know about is not all there is.

If you are not too mentally out of breath after all this, possibly unaccustomed, exercise, it may be clear to you why I believe I can, as a Christian, speak of the divine universe (or multiverse). In saying that, I am not saying that the universe is all I mean by the word God. And I’m not saying that the universe is an object inside God, as though God were a bigger space. It’s a moot point with scientists, but I don’t think the universe is finite anyway, though our knowledge of it will always be. The word God has to mean infinitely more than I can possibly know; and, in fact, so does the word universe.

To sum up, I see the universe as what Christians call a sacrament – the ultimate sacrament. It is an outward and visible sign of the divine reality. It also embodies that reality – as did Jesus, as do lesser sacramental objects such as the bread and wine of the Eucharist. I believe in the real presence of God in the universe, a presence more totally manifest than in any finite part of it. The universe revealed by science evokes more than curiosity and wonder; it evokes worship.