The Divine Universe

 

In 325CE the leading thinkers of the church met at Nicea to settle a dispute about the nature of Jesus, whether he was divine or purely human. The majority finally decided he was divine. This is theology: an alien language in this secular, scientific age. In some respects, however, contemporary physics, with its new discoveries about the mysterious nature of matter – that matter is simply organised energy – makes links between science, metaphysics and theology easier to find today than a century ago.

From the Council of Nicea came The Nicene Creed, in which is implied the doctrine of the Trinity: God in three persons. But it is not an objective description of God; that would be an absurd undertaking. It is an abstract formula based upon three levels of our human experience of the divine and the dualistic idealism of Plato and Aristotle.

The emperor Constantine, newly converted to Christianity, was the convenor of the Council of Nicea. I imagine he was fairly heavily on the side of the party affirming Jesus’ divinity, led by the powerful bishop, Athanasius. The idea of a god-man would have rested comfortably in Constantine’s thinking. As Emperor he was officially divine himself. There is a rumour that he even exerted some pressure on the meeting, employing the army to ensure that no one left till the matter was settled as he wished, though that may be false. In the end, however, I think one has to admit that the statement that Jesus was God has its origin in political as well as theological processes.

 

New theology was emerging in the fourth century, based on Hellenistic philosophy and religious tradition. We must not dismiss Hellenistic culture as merely archaic superstition. In its own way it recognised the spiritual dimension of reality and of humankind. In its own way, it acknowledged the Divine, as Hinduism does, with a galaxy of divinities, and also in humankind. Paul attempted to present the strictly monotheistic Jewish God, YHWH, in Hellenistic terms with some degree of success.

So the Athanasian declaration was an offshoot of Jewish monotheism but one that owed much to Classical philosophy and religion. It represents a very different Jesus from that of the uniquely gifted but entirely human individual of the synoptic gospels.

The notion of divinity begins to emerge in John’s Gospel (1:1-18), in Colossians (1:15-17) and elsewhere in Paul’s letters. Paul’s and John’s Christ is co-existent with God and, in and through him, all things come to be – a cosmic, divine being. The influence of Helenistic thinking has long been recognised by scholars. Since Roman occupation, ancient Hellenistic culture has been a seminal influence in European culture and is still deeply rooted in it. We European Gentiles are well conditioned to accept the idea of a god-man and the divinity of Christ. For Jews, of course, however much Europeanised they are, it is still impossible. The idea of a god-man is entirely alien to Jewish tradition, and the concept of the Trinity is inconsistent with their strict monotheism

There is also a basic logic behind the cosmic Christ. Jewish and Christian tradition asserts that God created the universe out of nothing, the “void” (Gen. 1,2). Out of nothing except himself, of course. In other words. The universe is God’s own embodiment. This is, in effect, what John says of the Word (Jn. 1:1-3) and Paul of the cosmic Christ in Colossians

Of this cosmic Christ we can say quite a lot because we are not just talking about an individual, Jesus, hidden in the mists of ancient history; we are talking about the world: our own environment. We encounter the cosmic Christ daily in the world around us.

Theology of the cosmic Christ has inspired a number of contemporary scientists (Paul Davies is probably the best known) to say they believe that science is one way of studying God. Even Darwin expressed a hint of that, and some who are both physicists and theologians, like John Polkinghorne of Cambridge and Robert Russel of Berkley, have made significant contributions to contemporary theology.

Beyond our own little personal world of people and places, there is the wider universe. Astronomical observation is limited, and will always be, and we have no idea how far the universe extends beyond any possibility of seeing. Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and Neil Turok of Cambridge, looking beyond Big Bang theory, propose that the universe is eternally cyclic, without beginning or end. If, as Paul and John imply, the universe is the incarnation, the embodiment of God, we would not expect it to be a finite thing

Philosophers of science have become more monistic these days, challenging Decartes’ dualism of body-mind.  I personally believe that any dualistic separation of matter and spirit is mistaken. Mathematical physicist, Brian Swimme, has said that, to understand nature properly, we should see the universe, not so much as a material object, but rather as a spiritual event. That means that you and I are not so much animated hunks of meat but spiritual events. Swimme takes science over the border into metaphysics.

New reflections on the Second Person  of the Trinity also have implications for our understanding of the Third Person (so quickly dismissed in the Nicene Creed): the energy of creation, life and mind. It has generally been thought that life was a local phenomenon, confined to rare planets possessing liquid water. Biologists identify life with four properties: reproduction, growth, evolution and metabolism. Cosmologists point out that all these phenomena occur with stars and galaxies and argue that life is an inherent property of the whole universe as well as plants and animals. If the Holy Spirit, a cosmic energy, is the source of life, this is what we would expect.

Philosopher and scientist, Alfred North Whitehead, and others have also argued that mind is not a local phenomenon in humans and the higher animals, but an innate element of the whole universe. Mind is the native territory of the Holy Spirit, so Whitehead’s argument has theological overtones as well as scientific ones.

 So let’s say three cheers for the Trinity!  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity forms the ultimate background to modern theological developments of the cosmic Christ. Deeper reflection on the Second Person has yielded much fresh thinking, both theological and scientific. Within the framework of the Trinity formula the relationship between scientists and theologians has, in recent times, become closer, and dialogue more frequent and fruitful. Church people recite the Nicene Creed routinely Sunday by Sunday, without much reflection. That’s a pity.