Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, December 9, 2018

What Came Before the Big Bang?


Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin has convincing evidence that we are surrounded by expanding, bubble-like universes. | Roen Kelly (Illustration); Mark Ostow (Photo)


What Came Before the Big Bang?

by Steve Nadis|Thursday, October 10, 2013

Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin believes the Big Bang wasn't a one-off event, but merely one of a series of big bangs creating an endless number of bubble universes.

It is cosmology’s most fundamental question: How did the universe begin?

The question presupposes that the universe had an actual starting point, but one might just as well assume the universe always was and always will be. In that case, there would be no beginning whatsoever — just an ever-evolving story of which we’re catching a mere glimpse.

“We have very good evidence that there was a Big Bang, so the universe as we know it almost certainly started some 14 billion years ago. But was that the absolute beginning, or was there something before it?” asks Alexander Vilenkin, a cosmologist at Tufts University near Boston. It seems like the kind of question that can never be truly answered because every time someone proposes a solution, someone else can keep asking the annoying question: What happened before that?

But now Vilenkin says he has convincing evidence in hand: The universe had a distinct beginning — though he can’t pinpoint the time. After 35 years of looking backward, he says, he’s found that before our universe there was nothing, nothing at all, not even time itself.

Throughout his career, including the 20-plus years he has directed the Tufts Institute of Cosmology, Vilenkin has issued a series of wild, dazzling ideas, though from the outside he looks neither wild nor dazzling. The 64-year-old professor is soft-spoken, trim and of modest build. He dresses neatly, in neutral, understated tones that don’t draw attention to him.

Despite a low-key manner bordering on subdued, Vilenkin is a creative force who has continually found ways of piercing the fog surrounding some of the densest quandaries imaginable — triumphs that have earned him the respect of scholars worldwide. “Alex is a very original and deep thinker who has made important and profound contributions to our notions about the creation of the universe,” says Stanford cosmologist Andrei Linde.

Yet this brilliant career might never have happened. Born in the Soviet Union in 1949 and raised in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Vilenkin got hooked on cosmology in high school, after reading about the Big Bang in a book by Sir Arthur Eddington. That “obsession” over the universe’s origins, Vilenkin says, “has never left me. I felt that if you could work on this question, which may be the most intriguing one of all, why would you choose to work on anything else?”

As an undergraduate at Kharkiv National University, Vilenkin says he was advised to “do some real physics” rather than pursue his first love, cosmology. Although he was an excellent student, he could not get into any graduate programs in physics because, he suspects, the KGB blacklisted him for refusing to become a government informant. Instead, Vilenkin was forced to take a series of mundane jobs. For a while he taught night school for adults but left that position because his responsibilities included going to the homes of absentees, many of whom were alcoholics, to try and drag them to school — an unenviable task. 

He was a night watchman for about a year and a half, including a stint at the Kharkiv Zoo. To protect the animals (which were sometimes hunted for food), he was given a rifle that he didn’t know how to use and fortunately never had to fire. When he had time during those long nights, Vilenkin studied physics, an avocation that included reading the four-volume collected works of Albert Einstein. He got fired from this plum assignment when someone decided — perhaps based on his choice of reading material — that he was overqualified for the task at hand. 

With his employment prospects looking bleak, he decided to emigrate to the United States; he figured he’d start out washing dishes while trying to break into academia. But getting out of the Soviet Union required an elaborate plan: Jews like him were allowed to go to Israel in small numbers, determined by a quota, but one had to secure an invitation from Israeli relatives first. Vilenkin had no actual relatives there, so he contacted a friend who knew people in Israel and eventually found someone — a stranger to him — kind enough to write a letter on his behalf. 

After the letter arrived, he waited a year for a visa, but it came at great cost. Before Vilenkin and his wife could leave, their parents had to consent to the move. For giving their permission, his wife’s parents lost their laboratory jobs. His father, a university professor, later lost his job, too. The traditional stop en route to Israel was Vienna, but from there Vilenkin, his wife and 1-year-old daughter went to Rome instead, arriving in 1976. They met with the U.S. Consulate in Rome and, after a three-month wait, were finally granted a visa to the U.S.



Back to the Big Bang

In fall 1977, Vilenkin took a postdoctoral position at Case Western Reserve, where he was supposed to study the electrical properties of heated metals. Still, he found time on the side to theorize about spinning black holes and their mysterious magnetic fields. A year later, he got his lucky break when Tufts offered him a one-year visiting position. He took a gamble by poring himself into cosmology, an area considered fringe at the time. 

That would soon change. In late 1979, a Stanford physics postdoc named Alan Guth offered an explanation for the explosive force behind the Big Bang. Guth’s intellectual leap stemmed from theories in particle physics, which held that at extremely high energies — far higher than could ever be reached in a laboratory — a special state of matter would turn gravity upside down, rendering it a repulsiverather than an attractive force. 

A patch of space containing a tiny bit of this unusual matter could repel itself so violently as to literally blow up. Guth suggested that a tremendous burst of this sort triggered the Big Bang, swiftly enlarging the universe so much it doubled in size at least 100 times. This exponential growth spurt — called cosmic inflation — was short-lived, however, lasting just a tiny fraction of a second because the repulsive material quickly decayed, leaving behind the more familiar forms of matter and energy that fill the universe today.

The idea simultaneously solved a number of puzzles in cosmology. It explained where the “bang” behind the Big Bang came from and how the cosmos got so big. Rapid inflation in every direction also explained why the universe we now observe is so homogeneous, and why the temperature of the background radiation left over from that primordial blast is uniform, in every patch of the sky, to one part in 100,000. Inflation also revitalized cosmology, giving theorists like Vilenkin plenty to think about — and a bit more respectability to boot.

The Never-Ending Story

By 1982, a couple of years after Guth’s breakthrough, Vilenkin had a realization of his own: The process of inflation had to be eternal, meaning that once it started, it never fully stopped. Inflation might end abruptly in one region of space, such as the one we inhabit, but it would continue elsewhere, setting off a never-ending series of big bangs. Each bang would correspond to the birth of a separate “pocket” universe, which might be pictured as an expanding bubble — one of countless bubbles floating around within the “multiverse,” as it’s sometimes called.

As Vilenkin saw it, inflation’s eternal nature stemmed from two competing properties of the cosmic fuel, the gravity-repulsive material that caused the universe to rapidly expand. On the one hand, the material was unstable, much like radioactive substances, and was thus doomed to decay. On the other hand, the material expanded far faster than it decayed, so even though decay might stop inflation in certain regions, runaway growth would continue in others.


As an analogy, Vilenkin suggests a blob of bacteria that wants to keep reproducing and growing, while bacteria-killing antibodies try to curtail that growth. If the bacteria reproduce much faster than they’re destroyed, they will swiftly multiply and spread even though their reproduction may be thwarted in some quarters. Either way you look at it, the net result is that inflation (or bacterial growth) never ends everywhere at once and is always going on in some portion of the multiverse — even as you read this magazine.

To gain a better sense of the phenomenon, Vilenkin teamed up in 1986 with a Tufts graduate student, Mukunda Aryal, on a computer simulation that showed what an eternally inflating universe might look like. In their simulation, inflating regions, or bubbles, started small and steadily grew, while the space between bubbles stretched out as well. Each bubble — representing a mini-universe like ours — was surrounded by smaller bubbles, which were themselves surrounded by even smaller bubble universes, in turn.



Road to Eternity

In Vilenkin’s bubbling universe, inflation was, by definition, eternal into the future. Once initiated, it would not stop. But was it also eternal into the past? Was there ever a time when the universe was not inflating? And if the universe were always inflating, and always expanding, would that imply that the universe itself was eternal and had no beginning?

To address this question, Vilenkin joined forces with Guth and Long Island University mathematician Arvind Borde. Using a mathematical proof, they argued that any expanding universe like ours had to have a beginning. The thought experiment they posed went like this: Imagine a universe filled with particles. As it steadily expands, the distance between particles grows. It follows that observers sprinkled throughout this expanding universe would be moving away from each other until, eventually, they occupied widely scattered regions of space. If you happened to be one of those observers, the farther an object was from you, the faster it would be moving away. 

Now throw into the mix a space traveler moving through space at a fixed speed: He zooms past Earth at 100,000 kilometers per second. But when he reaches the next galaxy, which is moving away from us at, say, 20,000 kilometers per second, he will appear to be moving only 80,000 kilometers per second to observers there. As he continues on his outward journey, the space traveler’s speed will appear smaller and smaller to the observers he passes. Now we’ll run the movie backward. This time, the space traveler’s velocity will appear faster and faster at each successive galaxy.

If we assume inflation is eternal into the past — that it had no beginning — the space traveler will eventually reach and overtake the speed of light. A calculation by Borde, Guth and Vilenkin showed that this would happen in a finite amount of time. But according to the laws of relativity, it is impossible for any massive object to reach the speed of light, let alone exceed it. “This cannot happen,” says Vilenkin. “So when you follow this space traveler’s history back in time, you find that his history must come to an end.” 

The fact that the traveler’s journey backward in time hits an impasse means that there’s a problem, from a logical standpoint, with the assumption of an ever-expanding universe upon which this whole scenario is based. The universe, in other words, could not always have been expanding. Its expansion must have had a beginning, and inflation — a particularly explosive form of cosmic expansion — must have had a beginning, too. By this logic, our universe also had a beginning since it was spawned by an inflationary process that is eternal into the future but not the past. 



Something From Nothing

A universe with a beginning begs the vexing question: Just how did it begin? Vilenkin’s answer is by no means confirmed, and perhaps never can be, but it’s still the best solution he’s heard so far: Maybe our fantastic, glorious universe spontaneously arose from nothing at all. This heretical statement clashes with common sense, which admittedly fails us when talking about the birth of the universe, an event thought to occur at unfathomably high energies. It also flies in the face of the Roman philosopher Lucretius, who argued more than 2,000 years ago that “nothing can be created from nothing.” 

Of course, Lucretius had never heard of quantum mechanics and inflationary cosmology, 20th-century fields that contest his bold claim. “We usually say that nothing can be created out of nothing because we think it would violate the law of conservation of energy,” a hallowed principle in physics holding that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, Vilenkin explains. So how could you create a universe with matter in it, where there had been nothing before?

“The way the universe gets around that problem is that gravitational energy is negative,” Vilenkin says. That’s a consequence of the fact, mathematically proven, that the energy of a closed universe is zero: The energy of matter is positive, the energy of gravitation is negative, and they always add up to zero. “Therefore, creating a closed universe out of nothing does not violate any conservation laws.” 

Vilenkin’s calculations show that a universe created from nothing is likely to be tiny, indeed — far, far smaller than, say, a proton. Should this minute realm contain just a smattering of repulsive-gravity material, that’s enough to ensure it will ignite the unstoppable process of eternal inflation, leading to the universe we inhabit today. If the theory holds, we owe our existence to the humblest of origins: nothing itself.

One virtue of this picture, if correct, is that the spontaneous creation of our universe gives a definite starting point to things. Time begins at the moment of creation, putting to rest the potentially endless questions about “what happened before that.” 

Yet the explanation still leaves a huge mystery unaddressed. Although a universe, in Vilenkin’s scheme, can come from nothing in the sense of there being no space, time or matter, something is in place beforehand — namely the laws of physics. Those laws govern the something-from-nothing moment of creation that gives rise to our universe, and they also govern eternal inflation, which takes over in the first nanosecond of time.

That raises some uncomfortable questions: Where did the laws of physics reside before there was a universe to which they could be applied? Do they exist independently of space or time? “It’s a great mystery as to where the laws of physics came from. We don’t even know how to approach it,” Vilenkin admits. “But before inflation came along, we didn’t even know how to approach the questions that inflation later solved. So who knows, maybe we’ll pass this barrier as well.”

In the Clint Eastwood movie Magnum Force, Harry Callahan says, “A man’s got to know his limitations,” but Vilenkin’s work is a testament to pushing past traditional limits. If we persevere in the face of skepticism and doubt, as Vilenkin is often inclined to do, interesting and unexpected ideas may well emerge — just like a universe popping out of nowhere.

Eliminating the Loopholes

Loophole #1

To bolster his hypothesis, Vilenkin has studied other model universes, eliminating loopholes that contradict the idea of a clear-cut cosmic debut. In a 2012 paper with Tufts graduate student Audrey Mithani, Vilenkin examined the “cyclic” universe investigated by physicists Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and Neil Turok, now at the Perimeter Institute.

In this model, there is neither a single Big Bang nor a single beginning. Instead, the universe continually goes through oscillating cycles of expansion, contraction, collapse and expansion anew. The catch is that the cyclic universe runs into the second law of thermodynamics, which says the entropy, or disorder, of a closed system will inevitably increase over time. 

For example, an ornate brick mansion is highly ordered, whereas a pile of bricks strewn across the ground — the result of the ravages of nature and decades or centuries of neglect — is more disordered. And brick dust, scattered by wind and water after the bricks themselves have deteriorated, is even more disordered. Left on its own, a system — even a bubble universe — will naturally go this way. We don’t often see a brick mansion spontaneously reassembling itself from dispersed dust. 

If our universe has been here forever and maintained a stable size, it, too, would have succumbed to the second law. Disorder would have inexorably increased to the point that the universe would now be a smoothed-out, featureless blur. But that’s not what we see at all. Instead, we see a universe filled with grand cosmic structures — galaxies, clusters of galaxies, clusters of clusters called superclusters, and clusters of superclusters called galaxy filaments — some of the latter stretching a billion or more light-years across.

For that reason, Vilenkin rules out the cyclic universe picture unless one makes the added assumption that after each cycle of expansion and contraction, the universe ends up somewhat bigger than when it started. The stipulation would leave us with another expanding universe, meaning that the original Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem would still apply: An ever-expanding universe must have a single beginning.


Loophole #2

Another possible loophole is the “cosmic egg” scenario, a model universe advanced by South African cosmologist George Ellis, among others. According to this view, the universe can sit forever in a stable configuration, with a fixed size and radius, until it suddenly starts to expand — like an egg hatching after an exceptionally long incubation phase. 

The trouble with this proposition, according to Vilenkin and Mithani, is that the small “stable” universe is not so stable after all. Sometime during the long waiting phase it would collapse to nothingness, before it ever reached the expansionist period — that is, if the laws of quantum mechanics are to be believed. 

Quantum mechanics, the prevailing branch of physics for describing how things work on atomic scales, is exquisitely well-tested, and exquisitely weird. Quantum mechanics holds that if there is even the tiniest chance of something happening, however absurd it may sound, that thing is sure to happen if you wait long enough. 

As it turns out, quantum mechanical formulas predict a slim (but nonzero) chance of the cosmic egg universe collapsing to zero size, at which point the erstwhile universe would completely disappear. Given an infinite time span, which is what the cosmic egg scenario calls for, such a collapse would be unavoidable — even though the odds of it occurring at any one time are small — implying that the universe could not have existed forever.

Indeed, says Vilenkin, among all the ideas we’ve thought of so far for a universe without a beginning, none of them seem to work. “So the answer to the question of whether the universe had a beginning is yes, it probably did.”

[This article originally appeared in print as "Starting Point."] 



Saturday, December 8, 2018

How Panentheism Differs from Other Theistic Systems of God + Creation






How Panentheism Differs from Other
Theistic Systems of God + Creation
December 8, 2018


Panentheism (not pantheism, look it up) states God and creation are deeply and essentially related. I usually think of creation as the fourth member of the trinity sans the God-part. This speaks to the sublime idea of intrinsic fellowship where each finds identity in the other, defines the other, gives purpose and meaning to the other.

Asked in another way, does God and His creation depend on each other? Yes. Do each need each other? Yes. Can either exist without the other? No. Now this is not how traditional theism would answer each question. In fact, quite the reverse in its severe separation between God and creation where there is a deep uncrossable divide between the Creator and the created thing.

However, from a panentheistic viewpoint the ontic relationship is honored - not lessened - as any theistic system would do. What is different is how panentheism wishes to heighten the idea of "relationship" between the Creator to His creation. Not remove it into the cold abyss of divine transcendency.

Divine Aloneness Might Be Correct, But It is Meaningless

As such, if we were to follow traditional theistic teachings to their conclusion then the Creator God of the cosmos becomes wholly unknown to creation, wholly removed from it, wholly Other to Himself alone. Divinely alone except to Himself - without relationship, connectedness, or meaning except to Himself alone. As a panentheist I am fine with such a statement. But I also find it empties God of His meaning to us. If He wished to be God alone then fine. But He didn't and created the cosmos and all that is in it. And when He did everything changed. He "expanded" Himself, shared Himself, revealed Himself. Why? Out of Love. This is the "relational theology" piece of relational-panentheism.


 


As corollary, theism then teaches the Godhead to be a meaningless, empty, absent, un-presence to His universe. Meaning, God becomes sufficiently unrelatable. Which isn't what the Bible teaches when it states the Divine Encounterer has Divinely Encountered His creation. That is, God revealed Himself. And when He did, He did so from the basis of Love, not secondary Decree. Why? Because God revealed His personage, His essence, His being, which is love. He could not do otherwise.

Thus, the Godhead's relationship to a created cosmos is based wholly on love. He did not will Himself to relate to us but came to us in the fullness of His divine Being as relationship, one built from love. Not displeasure, not control, not judgment, not selfishness. But of Love.

Which then explains the basic substance of the cosmos... that in all its parts and entities it is highly, complexly related to itself as it is relatable. This is the observation panentheism would make over the self-excluding, self-hiding, nuanced statements of traditional theism built upon Hellenistic thoughts of gods and godliness. It might be right, but it is not biblical in the sense that God has come and revealed Himself. And for this Christmas season... in Christ.

God as the Definition of All Things

But how can it be otherwise!? Because if creation isn't, then we aren't. It is by, and through, and from, God's love that we are, that we might become, that we find wholeness to one another and to our Creator. Essentially, God's "is-ness" gives to us our "are-ness". As significantly - and this is where panentheism comes back into play - "even... as... we give to God His "is-ness" and "are-ness". Not in ontic dependence as theism rightly describes, but in relational dependence, which makes all the difference to us, God's creation. Thus, both creation and Creator need each other, depend upon each other, find meaning and identity in each other. It takes away the cold idea that God doesn't need us and only deigns to be present with us when He arbitrarily chooses. I'd rather have a God that is near because He is near, and present, and working with creation in all its aspects.

To argue idealized Greek philosophies of divine transcendence, of wholly Otherness, of divine purpose without object or subject to love, only teaches a God whom we can never know as Father-God, Redeemer, Lord, or Savior. These are specious church arguments which would separate us from our God - not bring to us a God who needs His creation deeply or is part of His creation essentially.

Now this should blow your mind up, if not dissettle your very soul. Bam! Say again!? Bam! It's like seeing color for the first time in a black-and-white world of theology! Restated another way, "Creation is not an unimportant thing to God." It is not a mere insect or meaningless grammatical insert or conditional side-effect of grace. Creation is of God as God is integrally "related to" it. 

Panentheism is therefore different from cold classic theism too focused on separating creation from God in clever syllogisms of wit or theological bombasity. God should never be thought so easily removed from us, so easily separated from His creation, or made so unlike who He is. This is the meaning of "I AM" when God declares "who He is". He is - not simply all-sufficient within Himself (though not denied) - but in "necessary cosmic RELATIONSHIP" to creation.


 


God is the God of Relationships

This latter idea then gives to God His definitive "am-ness" to creation - otherwise He is without meaning to us. It's easy to say we aren't in classical theism while God is - but it is not correct. If we aren't then God isn't - not in His ontic Being but in His essential role as Creator-God. 

For us, there is no God unless we are. But why would we be wrong to think otherwise? Because in traditional theology (if not logic itself) it sounds more profound to make God so great as to unlink Him from a creation He is forever tied to. The real profundity is that God is great because He is forever interlocked with creation. Forever bound to creation. Forever become a deep, deep part of creation. Not so with the Greek gods of mythology who treated men with scorn and disdain. Who, for purposes of defeating other competing gods, titans, or forces, ruthlessly used mankind.

The God of the Bible is never this. Never.

The God of the Bible is always present essentially, fully, and substantially bound to all that is. This is what stands behind the idea of "relational" panentheism. It is the fourth and last model drawn in the diagram below and distinctly different from all previous versions of panentheism which has preceded it. More so, relational panentheism is based upon "open and relation process theology." Which is why I've taken such pains over the years to describe what ORT is and means to us today.

The importance, or import, of this position is that it always tells us God is there for us. That He is in every moment recreating a broken creation in every possible way back to Himself as we allow Him. Thus Jesus, and thus the import of God's "Christmas" Advent to creation, which He entered into with Creation so purposefully, so personally. We call this moment of cosmic entrance God's divine incarnation who, born as man, paradoxically, was fully God even as He was fully man.

God's Advent into Creation

It was therefore at this first advent of the Spirit-God in a fleshly, physical, earthy presence in which we beheld God as Love beyond the words, statements, descriptions, visions, or actions of biblical narratives. This is who Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah is. Not a mere babe, nor mere man, but the God man - fully relatable, fully loving, fully suffering, fully tormented - in a world He must come to in the entirety of His Being. The Wholly Other is Here. And this makes all the difference in a world which would deny God's "Here-ness" not only spiritually, but physically in holy presence. I submit then that if it were not so then life isn't life, gives no hope, and loses its veracity in the absence of God.

Lastly, I leave the section in John below to finish my thoughts. Thank you.

R.E. Slater
December 7, 2018



1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.


Describing Relational, Process-based, Panentheism



For myself and other process theologians creation is all about its relational existence, inter- and intra-mutuality, harmony, purposeful missiology, and any other -ology you can find as divinely driven stripped of all non-relational, isolating, excluding, others-denying versions of cosmology, anthro-pology, or creational aspects advocating the importance of individuality over group-awareness, connectedness, holistic teleology, or intrinsic wholeness to the other.

What follows is an explanation of the process-idea of panentheism emphasizing the "relationality" of creation to itself as a complexly networked "organic body" co-creating life together; empowering its future through allied mutualities; learning to listen to one another in transformational curiosity and imagination; and, exciting diverse and multiple possibilities for enrichment in supportive, mutual arrangements of sharedness of self to the other and the other to very life itself in empowering constructs and relationships. This is what we think might explain the universe we live in, depend upon, and must more fully appreciate in its majestic beauty and severe struggle of daily evolution continually creating new possibilities.

R.E. Slater
December 8, 2018




Panentheism: The Universe as God's Body
by Jay McDaniel
December 7, 2018

​Panentheism is the idea that everything in the universe is part of God but that God is more than everything added together. This way of thinking can be especially important to people with ecological sensibilities, because they can combine faith in God with a love of people, animals, and the earth. They can say that living with respect and care for the community of life is one way of contributing to God's own life and also that God is in some way in the community of life itself: on the earth, in the soil, in plants and other animals, and in us. Here God is not so far away, as if on a throne in the sky.

Two forms of panentheism

There are many forms of panentheism across the world's traditions. In the West one can be found in the philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). He sees the universe as a direct emanation of God's activity, such that everything that happens around us and within us is the outcome of a single divine activity. The hills and rivers, the trees and stars, our innermost feelings and decisions, are all God godding. We can call this emanationist panentheism.

​The other can be found in the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. He sees the universe and God as within each other and thus parts of each other, but also more than each other. The hills and rivers, trees and stars, and our feelings and decisions have their independence and integrity, even as God is also present in us and we in God. We can call this relational panentheism. Whereas emanationist panentheism has one creative power, relational panentheism has multiple creative powers.


A Multi-Religious Option

Both forms of panentheism have their wisdom. Both can help people live with respect and care for the community of life, finding wholeness within themselves and helping to build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, with no one left behind. And both can be internalized and enriched by insights and practices from the many world religions. You can be a Jewish panentheist, a Christian panentheist, a Muslim panentheism, a Hindu panentheist, and so on. Panentheism is a multi-religious option.

In what follows, then, I want to say a word about Whitehead's relational panentheism, often called "process philosophy" or "process theology." It has been developed by Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist thinkers in rich ways, some of whom are featured on this website. See, for example, Rabbi Bradley Artson's God Almighty? No Way!, or Bruce Epperly's Where is God in Alzheimer's Disease?, or John Cobb's Where is God in Earthquakes?, or Monica Coleman's Making a Way of No Way, or Patricia Adams Farmer'sThe Quaking and Breaking of Everything Many people find Whitehead's perspective particularly plausible because it is influenced by insights from science (early quantum theory, in particular) even as it is shaped by ethics, art, and religion, and because it helps us deal honestly with the question of how belief in God can be reconciled with the realities of tragedy and suffering.


 

Co-creativity without an absolute beginning

In explicating relational panentheism, I would say that we should start at the beginning, but from a process perspective there is no beginning. Process theologians believe that the universe unfolds in a beginningless and endless series of cosmic epochs, each lasting billions of years; and they see God as the encompassing life in whom the universe unfolds. Everything affects God all the time, and God is continuously present in the universe as an active influence; and yet the influence is that of compassion not coercion, of love not one-sided power. Process theologians speak of God as creator, but by that they mean that God creates the universe through love, and they recognize that the universe creates itself, too, as it responds and does not respond to God. Thus process theologians affirm the co-creativity of God and the universe.


The universe is the body of God

One way to further understand panentheism in process theology is to say the universe is the body of God. For process theologians the universe is not the body of God in the sense that everything that happens in the universe is a result of divine agency, but rather in the sense that God feels the happenings of the universe much like we feel the happenings in our own bodies: that is, as inside us yet more than us.

How can this be understood? We can compare the universe to an embryo within a womb of a mother, with God as the mother and the universe as the developing embryo. With this in mind the analogy of embryo within a womb is apt in three ways.

God does not and cannot exercise one-sided power

​First, the embryo has its own life, which means that things can happen in its unfolding that cannot be controlled by the mother. Similarly, say process theologians, things can and do happen in the universe, by virtue of the creativity of the universe itself, which cannot be controlled by God. This is how process theologians explain the tragedies of our world, both natural and humanly made. Cancer and murder, tsunamis and rapes, are not the product of divine agency, but the result of the power and creativity of the world itself. This creativity, already introduced in the core of this essay, is neither good nor evil in itself, but can unfold in many different ways, some tragic and some beautiful. God is an instance of this creativity, but not the only instance. All creatures in the world – including cancer cells and murderers – embody it, too.


God is the deep listening of the universe

Nevertheless, and second, what happens in the embryo is felt by the mother and is part of her. Similarly, say process theologians what happens to each entity in the universe – to every human being – is felt by God and affects God. This is how process theology begins to talk about prayers in which a person addresses God as a Thou and not an It. When humans address God, they often sense that their prayers are being received into a deeper listening as the prayer occurs, and that the listener who listens is affected by the prayer. Process theologians agree. God is the deep listening of the universe.

For many people, of course, the question is how God answers prayers. For process theologians God does not and cannot answer prayers by manipulating situations in a unilateral way; but the very act of praying can alter the situation of the one praying and also the ones prayed for, such that God is better able to act in their lives. It is important to emphasize, though, that petitionary prayer is but one kind of prayer, and also that prayer as understood in this way is one instance of the more general idea that all the experiences of all living beings – whether happy or sad, constructive or destructive – affect God and become part of God as they occur. No one suffers alone.


God is the spirit of creative transformation at work in the world

Third, the analogy of the universe within the womb of a Mother rightly suggests that God is active in the world in a non-coercive but perpetually influential way. In the case of a mother in pregnancy, this activity takes the form of amniotic fluid which nourishes the developing embryo and perhaps also the attitude of the mother. In the case of God, this activity takes the form of creative and energizing possibilities, which represent the way in which God is immanent in the universe, even as the universe is also immanent within God.

Needless to say, this image of God as mother and the universe as a womb can be controversial to at least two sets of people: very traditional Christians for whom male imagery of God is the only relevant imagery and feminist Christians who want to avoid stereotyping women as finding their fulfillment in, and only in, pregnancy. The good news among process-oriented Christians is that there are many feminist Christians who help critique these stereotypes and who offer alternative images.

Needless to say this image of God as mother and the universe as a womb can be controversial to at least two sets of people:people for whom male imagery of God is the only relevant imagery and those who want to avoid stereotyping women as finding their fulfillment in, and only in, pregnancy. The good news among process-oriented theologians is that there are many feminists who help critique these stereotypes and who offer alternative images. But the image of God as mother is indeed challenging to more traditional Christians, and this challenge, on the part of process theologians, is in some ways very intentional.

 


 

God is not a policeman in the sky

Process theologians employ such images in order to provide a constructive alternative to an image of God which too often dominates the monotheistic imagination. We might call it the externalist perspective, because it imagines God as completely external to the world; or the unilateralist perspective, because it sees God’s power as one-sided or unilateral and thus capable of molding the world according to divine will; or simply the patriarchal perspective, because it imagines God on the analogy of a powerful male ruler who wields power but is not empathic. On this view the relation of God to the world is analogous to that of a Potter and pot that he is molding. The Potter is external to the pot and the pot’s destiny is largely determined by the will and power of the Potter.

Process theologians in the Christian tradition reject this image of God the Potter. They think God is more loving and that the ministry of Jesus is one place where this love can be seen. For many Christians the image of a parent and child is much more relevant than that of a potter and pot. This is the beauty of envisioning God as Father or Mother. Process theologians understand and appreciate this preference for parental imagery but then add that, in an authentic Christian life, there is no need for Christians to always understand themselves as children in God’s presence. It is all right to be an adult in God’s presence, too, and thus to add one’s own voice to the ongoing life of God. This is the wisdom of the Psalms, where so often the Psalmist laments or protests, sometimes against God. For process theologians there is something right about this approach to God. It allows human beings to share with God the whole of their lives and to own their own feelings.

God is love

Still, it remains the case that, for process theologians, the ultimate nature of God is love. From a process perspective love has two sides: (1) an empathic side which listens to others and is affected and changed by what is heard and felt and (2) an active side which responds to what is listened to by providing possibilities for well-being. Jesus showed these two sides of love in countless ways: by listening to others and sharing in their suffering; by taking delight in the faith of others and the innocence of children; by comforting the afflicted, especially those who were despised by others; and by afflicting the comfortable, especially those who thought they were better than others. At the end of his life he also revealed a non-violent side of love by dying on a cross rather than responding to violence with violence. In these various activities he showed that a life of love is flexible and improvisational. It does not follow a perfectly scripted blueprint, because it realizes that each new situation requires a slightly different response. In seeking to walk in love, Jesus seems to have realized that each moment has its calling.


God acts through fresh possibilities

In process theology the callings of the moment are called the “initial aims.” These initial aims are the callings of the moment to which Jesus was responsive in his way. They differ from moment to moment, but always they are for the well-being of life relative to the situation at hand. The phrase “initial aims” is not especially melodious, but it does use a word that is very important to process theologians. The word “initial” is meant to suggest that God’s callings are present in the beginning of each moment of experience at an unconscious but powerful level. They consist of possibilities which people can actualize and they also contain within them the felt hope that they will be actualized.

For process theologians this felt hope belongs both to God and to the person. Thus the aims of God within human life are God’s hopes for the person but also the person’s hope for himself or herself. These aims are for the well-being of life, but the nature of well-being can change from one moment to the next. There is a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to work and a time to play, a time to be awake and a time to sleep. In our waking moments, though, these aims are always for wisdom, compassion, harmony, and creativity. If we seek a single word to describe values such as these, some process theologians use the word “beauty.” Thus we can say that God’s lure within human life is a lure toward richness of experience, toward beauty.


The multiplicity and diversity of the universe enriches God's life

Even as God is at work in human life luring each person toward richness of experience, God is also present in the rest of the universe doing the same. On our small planet, the presence of God is found in plants and animals as they seek to survive with satisfaction relative to the situation at hand. To say that they seek to survive with "satisfaction" is to suggest that there is something like experience, and like an aim to be satisfied, in non-human life as in human life.

Process theologians believe this. Whitehead believed that there is something like "feeling" or "experience" all the way down into the depths of matter, and that other forms of life seek their own well-being, their own enjoyment. The lure toward richness of experience is in them as in us, and we rightly live honoring that lure, doing our best to live lightly on the planet and gently with other animals, for their sake and for God's sake. This very way of living adds beauty to the ongoing life of God, who likewise seeks richness of experience.

God's own experience is depleted by a diminution of diversity on our planet, as is our own. And God's experience is enriched by its enhancement. To struggle against global climate change, to protect animals from abuse, to safeguard wilderness areas, to develop green cities and strong rural communities -- all of this is oriented, not only toward the well-being of life on earth, but also the well-being of the Life in whom the world unfolds. Diversity and multiplicity, love and justice, are God's glory. This glory does not belong to a vain ruler who resides on a throne in the sky. It belongs to the whole of it, the universe itself, as unfolding within One in whom the world "lives and moves and has its being." (Acts 17:28). A One who is also a Many.




Monday, December 3, 2018

The Annunciation & Magnificat of Mary



\Gabriel's Announcement to Mary
(The Annunciation)
Luke 1.26-38

"In the sixth month,
the angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin's name was Mary.

And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."

But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end."

But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"

And the angel said to her in reply,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.

...And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God."

Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."

Then the angel departed from her.






The Magnificat of Mary
Luke 1:46-55 King James Version (KJV)

46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,

47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

54 He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.


Michelangelo's Pietà

Michelangelo's Pietà

Michelangelo's Pietà

Michelangelo's Pietà

* * * * * * * * * *



THE MAGNIFICAT

The Magnificat, taken from Luke’s Gospel (1:46-55), is the Blessed Virgin Mary’s hymn of praise to the Lord. It is also known as the Canticle of Mary in the Liturgy of the Hours, a special collection of scripture readings, psalms, and hymns that constitute what is known as the prayer of the church. (Priests and other religious are required to pray sections from the Liturgy of the Hours each day.)

Although the Magnificat has had numerous musical settings from such composers as Palestrina, Bach and Mozart, it can be recited as well as sung. Its name comes from the first line of its text in Latin (“Magnificat anima mea Dominum”) translated in the first line below. Mary proclaims the Lord’s greatness with characteristic humility and grace here.
My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name;
And His mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear Him.
He has shown might with His arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of His mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.
The Magnificat provides great material for meditation on the Visitation, the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, pictured above. When the angel Gabriel informs Mary that she is to be the Mother of God, he also tells her of her relative Elizabeth’s pregnancy with John the Baptist.

After Mary gives her famous consent to becoming the Mother of God, -- “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38) -- she goes “with haste” (1:39) to help Elizabeth, who is delighted to see her. Our Lady then expresses her joy in the Magnificat.

Clearly Mary, in hastening to help her cousin, is focused on service to others. In this way she glorifies the Lord in reflecting (and “magnifying”) His goodness and love. And, of course by becoming the Mother of God she will help Him redeem us for our salvation in His Passion!

Speaking of magnifying, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once referred to our Blessed Mother as being like “a magnifying glass that intensifies our love of her Son.”

Note that Mary’s joyful claim that “all generations shall call me blessed” in no way takes away from her humility. If she seems to boast here, it is much as St. Paul does later on in scripture when he says “whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord” (2 Cor 10:17), that is to say, in God’s work being done through us.

In this regard, the Magnificat is more than a prayer of praise. It also reminds us about the essential link between humility and holiness. Just as God has “regarded the lowliness of his handmaid” and “has done great things” for Mary in making her the Mother of his Son, so too “he has put down the mighty from their thrones (with his own might!) and has exalted the lowly.”

(Note also our Blessed Mother’s humility in referring to herself in this prayer, as she does in giving her consent to Gabriel mentioned earlier, as the Lord’s handmaid, his servant!)

As her Divine Son later stressed “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matt 23:12, also in slightly different words in Luke 18:14 and Luke 14:11).

Jesus wasn’t saying anything new here, either! We read similar thoughts throughout the Old Testament such as in the Psalms and in this example from the book of Sirach “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.” (Sirach 3:19)

The line about God filling “the hungry with good things” resonates later in the Gospels as well, when our Lord says “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled” (Matt 5:7). This serves as a good reminder for us to “stay hungry” for God’s graces in praying and in reading His word in scripture.

And as for the rich being sent away empty? This line refers to those who live for wealth and power and feel they have everything figured out. These people in, effect wish to be Gods rather than God’s. How can our Lord fill those who are already full--of themselves?

How about you? Does your soul magnify the Lord? We may never be able to approach Him from Mary’s level of sanctity as the Mother of God. Still, we are all called to be saints nonetheless.

Your good example, like our Blessed Mother’s, can help others in their spiritual growth. Do people see Christ’s love and goodness in you? Are you letting God work within you to accomplish His will? Let Mary help give you the graces you need to follow her Son and His Church in praying the Magnificat.

As St. Ambrose once said in referring to this wonderful prayer, "Let Mary's soul be in us to glorify the Lord; let her spirit be in us that we may rejoice in God our Saviour."

* * * * * * * * * *




Magnificat


The Magnificat (Latin for "[My soul] magnifies [the Lord]") is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (Greek: Ἡ ᾨδὴ τῆς Θεοτόκου). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical services of the Catholic Church (at vespers) and of the Eastern Orthodox churches (at the morning services).[1] It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn.[2][3] Its name comes from the incipit of the Latin version of the canticle's text.

The text of the canticle is taken directly from the Gospel of Luke (1:46–55) where it is spoken by Mary upon the occasion of her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth.[2] In the narrative, after Mary greets Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist, the latter moves within Elizabeth's womb. Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith (using words partially reflected in the Hail Mary), and Mary responds with what is now known as the Magnificat.

Within the whole of Christianity, the Magnificat is most frequently recited within the Liturgy of the Hours. In Western Christianity, the Magnificat is most often sung or recited during the main evening prayer service: Vespers in the Catholic and Lutheran churches, and Evening Prayer (or Evensong) in Anglicanism. In Eastern Christianity, the Magnificat is usually sung at Sunday Matins. Among Protestant groups, the Magnificat may also be sung during worship services, especially in the Advent season during which these verses are traditionally read.

Context

Mary's Magnificat, recorded only in Luke's Gospel, is one of four hymns, distilled from a collection of early Jewish-Christian canticles, which complement the promise-fulfillment theme of Luke's infancy narrative. These songs are Mary's Magnificat; Zechariah's Benedictus (1:67–79); the angels' Gloria in Excelsis Deo(2:13–14); and Simeon's Nunc dimittis (2:28–32). In form and content, these four canticles are patterned on the "hymns of praise" in Israel's Psalter. In structure, these songs reflect the compositions of pre-Christian contemporary Jewish hymnology. The first stanza displays graphically a characteristic feature of Hebrew poetry—synonymous parallelism—in ascribing praise to God: "my soul" mirrors "my spirit"; "proclaims the greatness" with "has found gladness"; "of the Lord" with "in God my Savior." The balance of the opening two lines bursts out into a dual Magnificat of declaring the greatness of and finding delight in God. The third stanza again demonstrates parallelism, but in this instance, three contrasting parallels: the proud are reversed by the low estate, the mighty by those of low degree, and the rich by the hungry.

Although there is some scholarly discussion of whether the historical Mary herself actually proclaimed this canticle, Luke portrays her as the singer of this song of reversals and the interpreter of the contemporary events taking place. Mary symbolizes both ancient Israel and the Lucan faith-community as the author/singer of the Magnificat.

The canticle echoes several biblical passages, but the most pronounced allusions are to the Song of Hannah, from the Books of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1–10). Scriptural echoes from the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings complement the main allusions to Hannah's "magnificat of rejoicing".[4] Along with the Benedictus, as well as several Old Testament canticles, the Magnificat is included in the Book of Odes, an ancient liturgical collection found in some manuscripts of the Septuagint.

Structure

In a style reminiscent of Old Testament poetry and song, Mary praises the Lord in alignment with this structure:

  • Mary rejoices that she has the privilege of giving birth to the promised Messiah (Luke 1:46–48).
  • She glorifies God for His power, holiness, and mercy (Luke 1:49–50).
  • Mary looks forward to God transforming the world through the Messiah. The proud will be brought low, and the humble will be lifted up; the hungry will be fed, and the rich will go without (Luke 1:51–53).
  • Mary exalts God because He has been faithful to His promise to Abraham (Luke 1:54–55; see God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1-3).


* * * * * * * * * *




Behold, the Handmaid of the Lord
- The Annunciation


Today (and on the Fourth Sunday of Advent) the Church reads, as the Gospel of the Mass, St. Luke's description of the point at which time divides.  From this moment, there is time before and time after, whether you call the periods on either side Before Christ (BC) or Before the Common Era (BCE) or Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE), the point is the same -- Christ has come into the world.  With Mary's statement of acceptance "May it be done to me according to your word" we enter a new place, with new possibilities.

There are countless images of the Annunciation throughout history.  Too many, in fact, to write a history of the subject in the brief confines of this blog.  Such a note would go on forever!  So, I have decided to write about only one image, the panel painting by Fra Angelico now in the Prado.  It was painted sometime between 1424 and 1426, possibly for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, possibly for the Dominican church in Fiesole, where it was historically placed.1



The 1420s were a time when Guido di Pietro (his Baptismal name), known as Fra Giovanni (the name Angelico was given to him posthumously on account of his paintings and life) was still a fairly young painter with a developing style.  At this point he stands on the cusp, as it were, of finding his final style.  This painting represents a point at which his earlier, delicately Gothic style was being influenced by the work of another Florentine painter, Masaccio, toward a slightly more monumental direction.  This painting is an almost perfect example of the early fusion of these two influences.  It is also a beautiful exposition of the implications of the Annunciation.

In this painting we see Mary, seated on a bench draped in fabric which also drapes the wall behind her, forming a kind of cloth of state.  She sits in an open, groin-vaulted loggia, an open prayer book on her knee, and responds gently to the approach of Gabriel, her gesture mirroring his.

Gabriel appears to have just landed, his wings still half open, his knees just beginning to bend.
From the upper left corner of the picture, the hands of God send streams of golden light toward her and, on those beams, the Holy Spirit is seen as a dove descending (just above Gabriel's head).2










Above the column that divides Gabriel and Mary is an image of Jesus, presented as a bust in relief.  So all Persons of the Trinity appear in some way within the picture.

On Mary's side of the space, seated on the iron cross bar between the pillars, is a swallow, symbolic of the Incarnation.
The entire left side of the painting is occupied by a garden filled with highly detailed representations of plant life.  And, in this garden appears the scene from Genesis of Adam and Eve being driven out of the Garden of Eden by an angel.  We see here the tipping point of salvation history.  Mary is being invited to participate in righting the wrong done by Adam and Eve.   Her obedient fiat (Be it done to me) will cancel their disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit. 

The painting represents the moment just before the world begins anew.  Mary's yes will begin it again, with Jesus as the new Adam and Mary herself as the new Eve in a new Garden of Eden of the spirit.

© M. Duffy, 2011

_____________________________________

1. Kanter, Laurence. "Fra Angelico: A Decade of Transition (1422-32)" in Fra Angelico, New York, New Haven and London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 80-83. This is the catalogue of an exhibition of the work of Fra Angelico held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, October 26, 2005 - January 29, 2006. 

2. Ferguson, George. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, New York, Oxford University Press, 1966, pp. 25-26.

Posted by Margaret Duffy